The Act of Creation (38 page)

 

 

These hints all seem to point in the same direction, but in fairness
to the general reader I ought to point out that, while there is ample
experimental proof that the hunger-rage-fear emotions are mediated by
the sympathico-adrenal division, there is no direct evidence for the
symmetrical correlation proposed here. Such proof can be forthcoming
only when emotions outside the hunger-rage-fear class will be recognized
as a worthwhile object of study by experimental psychology -- which at
present is not the case.

 

 

To
p. 282
. A psychoanalyst friend of mine,
after reading the manuscript of the preceding section, objected that
his patients frequently weep during the analytical hour 'in anger and
frustration'. But he agreed that anger alone would not have produced
the tears, and that the frustration was due, metaphorically speaking, to
the analyst's refusal 'to give the patient the breast and sing a lullaby'.

 

 

 

 

 

XIII
PARTNESS AND WHOLENESS
Stepchildren of Psychology
The self-transcending emotions* are the stepchildren of contemporary
psychology. One of the reasons is perhaps that they do not tend towards
observable muscular activity but towards quietude; grief, longing,
worship, raptness, aesthetic pleasure are emotions consummated not in
overt but in
internalized
, visceral behaviour, with weeping as
its extreme manifestation. But even the shedding of tears is not so much
an activity but rather a 'passivity'.
The word 'emotion' is derived from 'motion'; and an emotion which tends to
calm down motion seems to be a contradiction in terms. Yet the aesthetic
or religious experiences which we call 'moving' are precisely those which
induce passive contemplation, silent enjoyment. When the experimental
psychologist talks of 'emotive behaviour', however, he nearly always
refers to rage, fear, sex, and hunger, whereas emotions which do not
beget overt activity are slurred over as 'moods' or sentiments -- with the
implication that they are a suspect category of pseudo-emotions unworthy
of the scientist's attention. This is probably a hangover of the great
ideological currents of the nineteenth. century stressing the biological
struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest, the acquisitive and
competitive aspects of social behaviour. The ambiance of this 'Darwinistic
psychology' is reflected in passages like the following, from Crile's
The Origin and Nature of the Emotions
, published in 1915:

When the business man is conducting a struggle for existence against
his rivals, and when the contest is at its height, he may clench his
fists, pound the table, perhaps show his teeth, and exhibit every
expression of physical combat. Fixing the jaw and showing the teeth
in anger merely emphasize the remarkable tenacity of philogeny . . .

It must be admitted, though, that the social climate of the nineteenth
century did not favour the contemplative life, nor the arousal of
genuine self-transcending emotions. The Victorian versions of religion,
patriotism, and love were so thoroughly impregnated with prudery and
hypocrisy that the experimental psychologist, devoted to measuring sensory
threshholds and muscle twitches could hardly be expected to take such
attitudes seriously, and to put them on a par with the sex and hunger
drives. Around the turn of the century, the so-called James-Lange theory
of emotions emphasized the importance of visceral processes, but it was
nevertheless taken for granted that the 'true' or 'major' emotions were
characterized by impulses to muscular action -- mainly to hit, run, or
rape. When Cannon showed that hunger, pain, rage, and fear were, so to
speak, variations on a single theme, it was tacitly taken for granted that
all
emotions worthy of that name were of the active, adreno-toxic,
hit-run-mate-devour kind. Laughter and tears, awe and wonder, religious
and aesthetic feeling, the whole 'violet' side of the rainbow of emotions
was left to the poets to worry about; the so-called behavioural sciences
had no room for them. Hence the paucity of the literature on weeping for
instance -- although it is certainly an observable behavioural phenomenon.
The emotions of the neglected half of the spectrum are as real as rage and
fear; that much we know for certain from everyday experience. The theory
which I have proposed assumes that they form a class, characterized by
certain shared basic features. These are partly negative: the absence
of adreno-sympathetic excitation alone puts them in a category apart
from the emergency responses. On the positive side, emotional states as
different as mourning and aesthetic enchantment share the logic of the
moist eye: they are passive, cathartic, dominated by parasympathetic
reactions. From the psychological point of view, the self-asserting
emotions, derived from emergency reactions, involve a
narrowing
of consciousness; the participatory emotions an
expansion
of
consciousness by identificatory processes of various kinds.
There exist, however, considerations of a more precise and at the
same time, more general nature on which this theory of the emotions is
based. These are discussed in Book Two, but I must briefly allude to
them. In that wider context, the polarity between the self-asserting and
participatory tendencies turns out to be merely a particular instance
of a general phenomenon: namely, that every member of a living organism
or social body has the dual attributes of 'wholeness' and 'partness'. It
acts as an autonomous, self-governing whole on its own subordinate parts
on lower levels of the organic or social hierarchy; but it is subservient
to the co-ordinating centre on the next higher level. In other words it
displays both self-assertive and participatory tendencies.
The Concept of Hierarchy
The word 'hierarchy' is used here in a special sense. It does not
mean simply 'order of rank' (as in the 'pecking hierarchy' of the
farmyard); it means a special type of organization (such as a military
hierarchy) in which the overall control is centralized at the apex
of a kind of genealogical tree, which branches out downward. At the
first branching-out, the commanders of the land-, sea-, and air-forces
would correspond to the coordinating centres of, say, the digestive,
respiratory, and reproductive organ-systems; each of these is subdivided
into units or organs on lower levels of the hierarchy with their
own coordinating centres, C.O.s and N.C.O.s; the organs in turn are
subdivided into organ-parts; and so the branching-process goes on down
to the cellular level and beyond.
But each sub-organization, regardless on what level, retains a certain
amount of
autonomy
or self-government. Without this delegation of
powers, the organization could not function effectively: the supreme
commander cannot deal with individual privates; he must transmit
strategical orders through 'regulation channels', which at each level
are translated into tactical and sub-tactical moves. In the same way,
information on what is happening in the various fields of operation
(the sensory input) is selectively filtered on each level before being
transmitted to the higher echelons. A living organism or social body
is not an aggregation of elementary parts or elementary processes; it
is an integrated hierarchy of semi-autonomous sub-wholes, consisting
of sub-sub-wholes, and so on. Thus the functional units on every level
of the hierarchy are double-faced as it were: they act as wholes when
facing downwards, as parts when facing upwards.
On the upper limit of the organic hierarchy, we find the same
double-aspect: the individual animal or man is a whole relative to the
parts of his body, but a part relative to the social organization to
which he belongs. All advanced forms of social organization are again
hierarchic: the individual is part of the family, which is part of the
clan, which is part of the tribe, etc.; but instead of 'part' we ought
in each case to say 'sub-whole' to convey the semi-autonomous character
and self-assertive tendency of each functional unit.
In the living organism, too, each part must assert its individuality,
for otherwise the organism would lose its articulation and efficiency --
but at the same time the part must remain subordinate to the demands of
the whole. Let me give a few examples. The heart as an organ enjoys, of
course, an advanced form of self-government: it has its own 'pacemakers'
which regulate its rhythm; if one is knocked out a second automatically
takes over. But the kidneys, intestines, and stomach also have their
autonomous, self-regulating devices. Muscles, even single muscle cells,
isolated from the body, will contract in response to appropriate
stimulation. Any strip of tissue from an animal's heart will go on
beating in vitro in its own, intrinsic rhythm. Each of these organs
and organ-parts has a degree of self-sufficiency, a specific rhythm or
pattern of activity, governed by a built-in, organic 'code'. Even a single
cell has its 'organelles' which independently look after its growth,
motion, reproduction, communication, energy-supply, etc.; each according
to its own sub-code of more or less fixed 'rules of the game'. On the
other hand, of course, these autonomous action-patterns of the part are
activated, inhibited or modified by controls on higher levels of the
hierarchy. The pacemaker-system of the heart, for instance, is controlled
by the autonomous nervous system and by hormones; these in turn depend on
orders from centres in the brain. Generally speaking, each organ-matrix
(e.g. a cell-organelle) has its intrinsic code which determines the fixed,
invariant pattern of its functioning; but it is at the same time a member
of a matrix on a higher level (e.g. the cell), which in turn is a member
of an organ or tissue, and so forth. Thus the two complementary pairs:
matrix and code, self-asserting and participatory tendencies, are both
derived from the hierarchic structure of organic life.
Complex skills, too, have a hierarchic structure. However much you
try to disguise your handwriting, the expert will find you out by some
characteristic way of forming or connecting certain groups of letters --
the pattern has become an automatized and autonomous functional sub-whole
which asserts itself against attempts of conscious interference. People
whose right hand has been injured and who learn to write with the left
soon develop a signature which is indistinguishable from the previous
right-handed one -- 'the signature is in the brain', as a neurologist
has said. [1] Again, touch-typing is a hierarchically ordered skill,
where the 'letter habits' (finding the right key without looking)
enter as members into 'word-habits' (antomatized movement-sequences,
each with a 'feel' of its own, which are triggered off as wholes,
cf. Book Two, XII). Ask a skilled typist to misspell the word 'the'
as 'hte' each time it occurs -- and watch how the code of the correct
sequence asserts its autonomy. Functional habits must have some kind of
structural representation in the neuron-matrices of the brain; and these
patterned circuits must be hierarchicaUy organized -- as organ-systems
are -- to account for such complex and flexible skills as, for instance,
transposing a tune from one key into another.
Under normal conditions, the various parts of an organism -- nerves,
viscera, limbs -- perform their semi-autonomous functions as sub-wholes,
while at the same time submitting to the regulative control of the higher
centres. But under conditions of stress the part called on to cope with
the disturbance may become over-excited and get 'out of control'. The
same may happen if the organism's powers of control are impaired --
by senescence, for instance, or by a physiological blockage. In both
cases the self-assertive tendencies of the part, isolated and released
from the restraining influence of the whole, will express themselves
in deleterious ways; these range from the remorseless proliferation of
cancer cells to the obsessions and delusions, beyond rational control,
in mental disorder (cf. Book Two,
III
,
IV
).

 

 

The single individual represents the top-level of the organismic hierarchy
and at the same time the lowest unit of the social hierarchy. It is on
this boundary line between physiological and social organization that the
two antagonistic tendencies, which are at work on every level, even in a
single cell, manifest themselves in the form of 'emotive behaviour'. Under
normal conditions the self-asserting tendencies of the individual are
dynamically balanced by his dependence on and participation in the life
of the community to which he belongs. In the body social physiological
controls are of course superseded by institutional controls, which
restrain, stimulate, or modify the autonomous patterns of activity
of its social sub-wholes on all levels, down to the individual. When
tensions arise, or control is impaired, a social 'organ' (the barons,
or the military, or the miners) may get over-excited and out of control;
the individual, for the same reasons, may give unrestrained expression
to rage, panic, or lust, and cease to obey the rules of the game imposed
by the social whole of which he is part.

 

 

The participatory tendencies are as firmly anchored in the organic
hierarchy as are their opponents. From the genetic point of view, the
duality is reflected in the complementary processes of differentiation of
structure and integration of function. We may extend the scope of the
inquiry even further downward, from animal to vegetable and mineral,
and discover analogous pairs of self-asserting and participatory
forces in inanimate nature. From the particles in an atom to the planets
circling the sun, we find relatively stable dynamic systems, in which the
disruptive, centrifugal forces are balanced by binding forces which hold
the system together as a whole. The metaphors we commonly use reflect
an intuitive awareness that the pairs of opposites on various levels
form a continuous series: when in rage, 'we fly off at a tangent' as if
carried away by a centrifugal force; and contrariwise, we speak of social
'cohesion', personal 'affinities', and the 'attraction' exerted by an
idea. These are no more than analogies; the 'attraction' between two
people of opposite sex does not obey the inverse square law and is by no
means proportionate to their mass; yet it remains nevertheless true that
on every level of the evolutionary hierarchy, stability is maintained by
the equilibration of forces pulling in opposite directions: centrifugal
and centripetal, the former asserting the part's independence, autonomy,
individuality, the second keeping it in its place as a dependent part in
the whole. Kepler kept affirming that his comparison between the moving
force that emanates from the sun and the Holy Ghost was more than an
analogy; the cohesion between the free-floating bodies in the solar
system must have a divine cause. Newton himself toyed with similar ideas.*
I must apologize for the seemingly sweeping generalizations in the
preceding section; the reader will find them substantiated in some detail
in the biological chapters of Book Two. For the time being, I only meant
to give some indication of the broader theoretical considerations on
which the proposed classification of emotions is based -- namely, that
'part-behaviour' and 'whole-behaviour' are opposite tendencies in dynamic
equilibrium on every level of a living organism, and can be extrapolated
by way of analogy, both upwards into the hierarchies of the body social,
and downward into stable anorganic systems.
Such an approach does not imply any philosophical dualism; it is in
fact no more dualistic than Newton's law of action and reaction, or the
conventional method of 'thinking in opposites'. The choice of 'ultimate'
and 'irreducible' principles (such as Freud's Eros and Tanatos) is
always largely a matter of taste; 'partness' and 'wholeness' recommend
themselves as a serviceable pair of complementary concepts because they
are derived from the ubiquitously hierarchic organization of all living
matter. They also enable us to discuss the basic features of biological,
social, and mental evolution in uniform terms as the emergence of more
differentiated and specialized structures, balanced by more complex and
delicate integrations of function.
Lastly, increased complexity means increased risks of breakdowns,
which can only be repaired by processes of the regenerative,
reculer-pour-mieux-sauter type that I have mentioned before and which
will occupy us again. I shall try to show that seen in the light of the
relation of part to whole, these processes assume a new significance as
aids to the understanding of the creative mind.
NOTES
To