Original Sin

I think it can safely be postulated that the “natural” state of human awareness is relaxed engagement and happiness. This is to say, that physiological arousal exists within a range, and on the low side there is pleasure and contentment. This is physiologically possible and thus “natural”.

Common, of course, it is not.

While granting this is a large, enormously abstract question, I would stipulate that most societies I know of use shame as a method of social conditioning and compliance. You are shamed into behavior g a certain way. Put another way, breaking from an established pattern creates fear, and thus feels like aggression. And who wants to commit acts of aggression against those who are in our group, who are “our” people?

Original Sin refers mythically to the development of shame—of fear and pain—as a method of control. On this account, a “return to Eden” would consist in lowering the levels of arousal of the amygdala in response to social stimuli.

Here is s testable hypotheses: I would argue that a psychologically normal person, of nearly any nation or group-/will show amygdala activation in response to the idea of them breaking rules they hold dear, or seeing anyone else do it. You could hook someone up in a lab, and show them pictures, or ask them to imagine situations, or even as an experimenter deliberately transgress their expectations.

Now, I have a couple books on my shelf about neuroanatomy and neuropsychology, but I have not read them. In limiting myself to the amygdala I am nearly certainly oversimplifying. I do think it is a good place to start, though, and the essential point remains, of certain types of neural activation being used for control, and that this system, in turn, is not neurologically optimal.

In some respects I am reiterating, say, the core argument of “ Culture and its Discontents”, but as I say often, Freud was pretty much always wrong, but nearly right.

A better society, a happier healthier society, will come—can ONLY come—from a generalized return to what might be termed—egregiously but recognizably—our neurological presets. Wealth will not do it.  “Equality” will not do it.

Feeling good is something we are wired to be able to do.  It is symptomatic of the madness of our time that so much focus is placed on knowing more and thinking more clearly, and so little on the process of enriching feeling and following experience.