The Good Life in the Age of Technology, Communication, and Epidemic – Ahmed Badghish

Artwork by Humanistic Psychologist Nisha Gupta, PhD, titled, Social Distancing Blues.

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”

– Sartre

In this article, I will attempt to explain the importance of the concept of philosophy and its relation to mankind’s constant search for wisdom and easier life conditions through awareness and knowledge, which is reflected in the human response to natural disasters. The article starts by showing the importance of knowledge and evolution in response to the pandemic as a natural disaster and explaining the idea of knowledge accumulation in the human experience, and the role of philosophy in building this knowledge. By analogy with the human experience as a whole, individual life can be approached with the same premises, building the individual’s own competence to deal with life’s circumstances and realizing his small yet significant role in his surroundings and circle of influence; to reach a state of well-being and enjoyment of the good life. Reaching this state requires a number of tools that differ from one person to another, but the rules of the psychological state of the individual or society are the starting point.

Introduction:

All human civilizations have contributed in one way or another to shaping human consciousness and the knowledge that we pass on from one generation to another; just as all living beings pass on their habits and ways of coping with living conditions. Thus, throughout history, humans have been able to create an environment that suits the requirements of life, sometimes even inventing customs and systems to improve their own living conditions. Knowledge, linguistically, is the mental process of understanding information about something through experience or study. While awareness is the knowledge of the existence of something, or the understanding of a particular situation or topic based on information or experience.

A simple comparison between today’s smartphones and the phone that was patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 shows how this development has led to the disappearance of many other tools around us: alarm clocks, diaries, and even arguably the reduction of professions and jobs, such as: secretary. It has always fascinated me to look at the human experience in general, or at least the written record of it, to view and explore humanity’s desperate attempt to improve living conditions, the successive discoveries, research and inventions with the same goal but different methods, the transition from wilderness to shared civilization and from barbarism to civilization and urbanization.

The recent pandemic affecting the human groups could be one of the obvious examples of this, especially when compared to other pandemics that were once more severe, such as the plague. Although the recent widespread epidemic was a negative consequence of our development and the ease of travelling around the world, com/pared to the plague, which could have been contained by completely isolating cities. This is the method that countries are organizing today in the global landscape in collaboration with various organizations.

However, a simple reading of the conditions of cities in times of the plague, or Albert Camus’ novel, for example, which bore the name of the epidemic, can show that all these developments were also the reason for easing the impact of the epidemic on the modern man as well, such as the existence of a fabricated digital system that carries a large amount of data and information, which facilitates access to various services, not to mention entertainment, arts and sciences. The observer now understands the general role of the unfinished experiments of Abbas ibn Firnas or Leonardo da Vinci’s attempts to fly if he witnesses modern aircraft and their capabilities, which evolve from year to year, and their effects as well. Meanwhile, the human consciousness of those times met the idea of flight with surprise and ridicule. After all, human experience is cumulative, and the wisdom of yesterday’s trials and errors may be today’s axioms and fundamentals.

Amid the flurry of discoveries, research, and inventions, a lingering question remains for the fields of the humanities and natural sciences, including philosophy. Even as we are surrounded by what can be physically measured and perceived, the humanities, including philosophy, can feel distant and disconnected from the basic sensory experiences of modern man, unless proper heed is given to these disciplines – humanities and philosophy. So what, then, is the role of philosophy in the face of all this tangible technological progress we see today?

The Influence of Philosophy in Contemporary Times:

Wisdom, linguistically, is defined as the ability to bring your knowledge and experiences to make, good, decisions. This is not limited to immediate results, as civilized man would be distinguished from the barbarian by farsightedness and the ability to see what will happen before it happens, as Bertrand Russel wrote in his book “He is willing to endure present pains for the sake of future pleasures, even if the future pleasures are rather distant”. In his viewpoint, the importance of this can be seen in the beginning of the mentality of agriculture, as a human activity; unlike hunting, the nature of agriculture requires working in some season and saving food in other seasons. Civilization would also discipline and restrain innate impulses, at times in anticipation of the future and others in order to harmonize human beings as individuals and communities.

The answer to the question of philosophy’s role varies from person to another. In Russell’s view, philosophy is hypotheses about things that cannot be definitively resolved epistemologically, that is, they cannot be tested and proven in the laboratory or even using the laws of mathematics and statistics. He summarized it saying “science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know,” in a television interview. As the ancients say, man is the enemy of what he does not know.

In other words, Russell differentiates between applied science and philosophy in that science is what we know, while philosophy is what we don’t know, making philosophical questioning the engine of science and its future in a way. What laboratory experiments prove of scientific principles was once a theory that no one was able to prove, and before that it was philosophy, a question of research and a way to reach wisdom and to improve living conditions as well, because philosophy depends on observation, deduction and logical analysis first and foremost, and cannot be separated from reality so as not to lose its meaning.

Further, it may be a logical answer if we perceive human history in general, and the sciences that have branched out from philosophy over time, but what is notable in the branches of philosophy is that its concerns centered on man as an individual, a society and an institutions, it even included his interaction with the earth, nature and other beings. Afterwards, those theories branched out and developed through generations of scientific experience that relied on recorded human legacies and tangible tools from arts, monuments and writings, until they became independent as applied sciences or social and political orientations. Philosophy is the search for wisdom, and the continuous and accumulated journey to reach the good life on the individual and societal levels as well.

Therefore, Philosophy is the result of curiosity, a state of identification to search for solutions to the issues that face the human journey as a group, and a renewed, alertness state to observe the issues resulting from previous intellectual orientations. The fire that guides a caravan in the desert to a land where it can spend the night, until the traveler reaches the realization of his personal understanding of the concept of well-being. I believe that this is generally the foundation of the good life, to be aware of our individual place in the human experience as a whole and to be part of the surrounding societal cohort as well, to be yourself to the fullest and protect civilization in all its simple manifestations in our various individual roles in social, economic and other life.

I believe one of the most relevant expressions in this regard was by the poet Mahmoud Darwish, where he expresses about those who preceded us with their life experiences, saying:

“I am for the road . . . There are those whose footsteps preceded mine

Those whose vision dictated mine. There are those

Who scattered speech on their accord to enter the story

Or to illuminate to others who will follow them

A lyrical trace . . . and a speculation”.

In the same poem, he goes on to express who will follow him on the road:

“I am for the road . . . There are those whose footsteps 

Walk upon mine, those who will follow me to my vision.”

The Principle of Human Competence and the Search for Meaning:

The German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche may have been the first to draw a model of the strong man, or superman, as a necessity in facing life, or as another formulation of the principle of human ability. Regardless of Nietzsche’s pessimism about human destiny or his nihilism in the meaning of life, his role in shaping human consciousness cannot be overlooked, a person cannot be understood outside his context. One of the philosophical questions was the search for the meaning and essence of human existence. Further, ancient philosophers considered that every human being is created for a specific purpose, and his life is not worth living without knowing and adhering to this purpose. It is called Essentialism, which is evident in the writings of the Stoics for example, including the letters of Seneca.

This view is understandable in an environment based on war, plunder, and the enslavement of poorer or less prepared societies, however, it did not fit with human nature after the European Enlightenment in the 18^th century, one that questioned the validity of the entire cultural and intellectual inheritance. The human experience continued to seek self-fulfillment and search for the purpose of its existence, until Nietzsche hammered a nail in the coffin of the old thought, as he imagined, when he contributed to the formation of nihilism as a way of life; the disappearance of meaning from human experience, which is nothing but strength and hard and continuous work for knowledge and art production.

The model of the wounded Russian soldier, which Nietzsche had always admired, could be one of the products of this nihilistic philosophy, and it can also be said that Nietzsche did not outline nihilism as much as he described his time and condition. “To be ill is a sort of resentment in itself. Against this resentment the invalid has only one great remedy—I call it Russian fatalism, that fatalism which is free from revolt, and with which the Russian soldier, to whom a campaign proves unbearable, ultimately lays himself down in the snow. To accept nothing more, to undertake nothing more, to absorb nothing more—to cease entirely from reacting.” As Nietzsche wrote, “Owing to the fact that one would be used up too quickly if one reacted, one no longer reacts at all: this is the principle”.

Fortunately for humanity, this nihilistic view did not dominate human thought for a prolonged period. In the middle of the 20^th century, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre explained, after being influenced by German philosophy and as a result of the state of despair that plagued the French after their defeat in World War II, that the essence of man is his existence. This means that one no longer needs to search for his essence, but that each person has to write his own essence, his existence. Or as Charlie Chaplin expressed it his movie Limelight, when those around him complained about the lack of meaning in life, he said: “Life is a desire, not a meaning, desire is the theme of all life! It makes a rose want to be a rose| and want to grow like that, and a rock want to contain itself| and remain like that.”

In Competence and Positive Psychology:

The truth is that Nietzsche was not the only key person whose productions shook the structure of ancient Western thought in one of its main branches, rather he can be placed next to the Austrian doctor Sigmund Freud in the beginning of the 18^th Century. The former was a turning point in creative writing and the creation and understanding of fictional characters, with his long exposition of the impact of values and daily events on the human psyche. While the latter was the true founder of psychoanalysis, regardless of the validity of his theories and conclusions according to modern psychology.

One of the modern variations of this science is positive psychology, which offers a new perspective on human psychological and existential issues by focusing on the study of development, competence, and virtues that enable individuals and societies to achieve their potential, and as a counter-movement to the focus on psychological and behavioral disorders of clinical psychology. The historical roots of positive psychology go back to both the humanistic current in 20^th century psychology, and further back in Greek philosophy, which links human happiness to the pursuit of virtue, and to the contributions of various psychologists, such as Jung and Adler. “Building the holistic competence of our human being has become an urgent issue, if we aspire to take a position and create a destiny, in a current world governed by the law of 5 power at all political, economic, financial, military, and technical levels,” says Dr. Mustafa Hijazi, a Lebanese psychologist, who adds: “above all cognitive power, which constitutes the source and anchor of all other powers.”

Dr. Hijazi says that human competence in its various components leads to the achievement of existential satisfaction, which is what positive psychologists call well-being, however, the good state, which is the culmination of winning the battle of existence, is far from luck and favors that one easily picks without effort, it is an existential state that is built within appropriate environmental contexts. It is no longer about searching and investigating the essence, but about working and existing continuously in one’s essence and dreams derived from one’s own personal wisdom. The technological developments that followed the intellectual debates on new concepts of the individual and individualism, drew the attention of societies, businesses and technological developments to the individual value of each human being, and the reverence of life as a new opportunity with each new day.

It is interesting to note that the individual forms his own wisdom based on his experiences and interactions with his surroundings, his era, and the environment in which he lives, or so refers to the scientific method that Freud is known for establishing and is famous for. Despite the openness of communication between all civilizations and different people in the far corners of the globe, wisdom cannot be formed without personal experience and a degree of empathy for others and their differences, notwithstanding the prevalence of an identity crisis among the various age groups of contemporary man, as Todorov’s intellectual project warned. Of course, knowledge and theories can be learnt, but wisdom is the product of life experiences and is never taught, but it can be discussed, transmitted in art or lived in literature. 

Human Well-being as a Modern Concept

As Dr. Mustafa Hijazi states, Human well-being, the core of human development, is the process of broadening people’s choices in all fields of human endeavor by enabling all people to actively participate in the process of building their lives and shaping their destiny. This could be done by eliminating all forms of oppression and waste on the one hand, and building human capability on the other, which is a moral imperative. The idea of human well-being is, of course, one of the new human concepts, as one of the goals of human group as a whole, and often as the goal of modern man, as we observe today. In 1943, Abraham Maslow presented a psychological theory in a paper entitled A Theory of Human Motivation, and a model of the needs of the human psyche, known as “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”, which then formed developmental psychology which studies human development and growth during the various stages of life. At the base of the pyramid are the physiological and safety needs, which prevent physical harm to humans or prevent them from being fully present in their environment. Followed by social needs, whereas self-actualization and transcendence are at the top of the pyramid as one of the results of human well-being states. Furthermore, philosophical research and structural and historical analyses of a number of contemporary philosophers have oriented to capture the human process and the stages of the formation of its consciousness. For instance, the Frenchman Michel Foucault in his history of the concepts of madness and sexuality, the Italian Umberto Eco in his history of the concepts of beauty, ugliness and imaginary worlds, or the Moroccan Abdallah Laroui in his history of the concepts of state, reason, history, freedom, and ideology. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” says the Australian-American Peter Drucker.

There is a close and reciprocal relationship between emotion, as a physical process, and perception and thinking, as a mental processes, or as the famous wisdom attributed to the Chinese philosopher Laozi says “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” Emotional arousal is the invisible sentimental of thinking, thinking can control emotions and employ them for a good response, or what is known as the concept of emotional intelligence. This concept is similar to what we referred to earlier in the affairs of civilization that refines human motives in Russell’s quote.

On this basis, positive psychology, as one of the chapters of knowledge, has gained its scientific status today. Positive emotional arousal is the basis for openness to the environment and its novelties in an age where various life affairs are rapidly changing, and arousing the desire and curiosity to discover, venture and adventure. It is also responsible for interaction and the establishment of relationships and ties, whether emotional ones or relations of alliance, cooperation, jealousy and giving, as expressed by Dr. Hijazi.

The Happy Man in the Modern Age:

The human search for happiness has always been understandable, as the end result of all the wisdom that philosophers throughout history have aspired to, and much has been written and said about it; but if you wonder whether you are happy or not, you are definitely not happy, as a friend once said. Or as Camus says: “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

In general, theories and models about the mechanisms of achieving happiness are changing with every coming era. In the 20^th century, for example, Will Durant wrote a letter to a number of scientists, philosophers and artists, saying in its introduction “I am attempting to face a question which our generation, perhaps more than any, seems always ready to ask and never able to answer – What is the meaning or worth of human life?” Since science has confined countless myths and opted to be forgotten, it appears that the unrevealing the truth has robbed the meaning of life from our days. Certainly, Durant was not convinced by this argument, but the aim of his research was to capture the answers of influential people, before publishing his opinion in a book. Of all the responses that reached Durant, the most interesting to me was Russell’s, who declined to answer due to lack of time; but we can promise that Russell’s response was in the form of another simplified book to be accessible to all, setting a number of rules for the happiness of modern man, which he called The Conquest of Happiness. 

In 1998, Barbara Fredrickson developed the broaden-and-build theory, which concludes that positive emotions contribute to the expansion of thinking and the scope of immediate action. Four years later, Carol Ryff and Burton Singer developed a model of the components of a positive psychological state. The fundamentals of good well-being for the modern man are due to six factors:

1. Self-Acceptance, as a result of deep awareness of our positives and negatives, far from narcissism and superficial self-appreciation of the vehicle or clothing, for example. Rather, as Hijazi expresses, it is built on a foundation of an honest evaluation of self-reality; awareness of shortcomings and deficiencies; and love, appreciation, and valuing of its positives.
2. Purpose in life, or the ability to create meaning and give value and direction to our lives and experiences, or the development of short personal goals that reflect the meanings we wish for our lives, regardless of the three previous philosophical shifts we mentioned earlier. “To live is the rarest condition in the world,” says Oscar Wilde “Most people exist, that is all.”
3. Personal Growth, or the ability to realize one’s abilities and talents and continuous efforts to develop and improve, in addition to develop untapped resources and competencies that form a dam against the adversities of life. Let us not forget that it is up to the individual responsibilities of each person, as Malik Ben Nabi stresses in his project for the study of civilizations.
4. Mastery of the environment, and as a result of personal growth, competence within the environment in which a person lives and interacts, is an important value. It varies across the stages of modern man’s life, as each stage shows different responsibilities from the previous one, within the huge economic system in which we live today.
5. Autonomy, or the ability to follow our personal principles and beliefs in various life affairs, even when we disagree with others. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” says Voltaire.
6. Positive relationships with others, or the state of “prosperity and openness in human relations” as Dr. Hijazi describes it. Here, the importance of the circles surrounding the human being, including family and friends, and their psychological composition. Friendship is always a choice, and it is, as Camus expressed, “A treasured gift, and every time I talk with you, I feel as if I’m getting richer and richer”.

The Reflection of Happiness at the Community Level:

In 2002, Keyes also developed the previous model to put it in a social context, concluding that there are five basic factors of social well-being, stated as follows:

1. Social Acceptance, or the positive attitude towards others, recognizing them and accepting their differences, as well as the diversity and contradiction of their perspectives and identities.
2. Social Actualization, caring about others and their beliefs, believing in them and their developmental potentials. Believing in the possibility of sharing and working together to create a state of shared well-being.
3. Social Contribution, believing in our place within the societal experience, and that we can contribute to the creation of this state of well-being. Regardless of the different spheres of influence each of us has in this society.
4. Social Coherence, which means understanding the premises, structures and foundations of society, and that its movement is governed by natural laws that can be controlled and utilized.
5. Social integration, the feeling of belonging to the community and thinking as part of it, and receiving its support in common issues and destiny. The effectiveness of the individual is primarily an integral part of societal growth.

Sources and References:

1. Cambridge Dictionary 2020.
2. Bertrand Russell (2018), The History of Western Philosophy, (Translated to Arabic by Zaki Najib Mahmoud), Lebanese Republic, Dar Al-Tanweer for Printing and Publishing.
3. Bertrand Russell (2019), A Free Man Worship (Translated to Arabic by Mohammed Darwish), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Page 7 Publishing and Distribution House.
4. Mahmoud Darwish (2014), Full Poetry Works, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Al Ahlia for Publishing & Distribution.
5. Frederick Nietzsche (2006), Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is (Translated to Arabic by Ali Misbah), Kingdom of Morocco, Al-Jamal Publications.
6. Sarah Bakewell (2019), At the Existentialist Café, (Translated to Arabic by Husam Nile), Republic of Lebanon, Dar Al Tanweer Printing and Publishing House.
7. René Gérard (2013), Romantic Lie and Romanesque Truth (Translated to Arabic by Radwan Zaza), Lebanese Republic, Centre for Arab Unity Studies.
8. Mustafa Hijazi (2011), ‘Itlaq Taqat Alhayaa (Releasing the energies of life), Lebanese Republic, Dar Al Tanweer Printing and Publishing House.
9. Albert Camus (2013), Notebooks 1942-1951 (Translated to Arabic by Najwa Barakat), United Arab Emirates, Kalima initiative.
10. Will Durant (2020), On the Meaning of Life (Translated to Arabic by Knan Al-Qarrahali), Kuwait, Kalemat Publishing and Distribution House.
11. Bertrand Russell (2009), The Conquest of Happiness (Translated to Arabic by Mohamed Amara), the Arab Republic of Egypt, National Centre for Translation.

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