#i am now getting to irrationally angry about not being in labour

[mademoisellesarcasme]

envy of another's glory in battle while you and your regiment idly drill in anticipation / envy of another's successful birth while you yet wait and prepare and suffer inconsistent pains

[isayeed-blog]

Homo Non Sapiens and the Rational

The desacralization of the world and the rise of the rational individual more or less went hand in hand in western civilisation. "More than the 'human dignity' exalted by the humanists, it is the individual liberty to reject every authority outside of God that has made possible – by a slow process of desacralization – the 'modern world' such as it emerges in the period of the Enlightenment, and defines itself with the French Revolution and the triumph of science and technology [Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, Volume three, p. 248 ]."

The rational individual openly appears as homo economicus in the pages of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The wealth of a nation depends on the division of labour made possible by the consensual exchange of products in a market untrammeled by government or monopoly. "He [Adam Smith] seems to have taken care to note that his remarks do not apply to all, but only to the generality of men. He continually recalls the fact that he is speaking of men of common understanding, or of those gifted with common prudence. He knew well enough that the principles of common prudence do not always govern the conduct of every individual, but he was of opinion that they always influenced that of the majority of every class and order. His reasoning is applicable to men en masse, and not to individuals in particular. Moreover, he does not deny that man may be unacquainted with or may even entirely ignore his own interest....These reservations notwithstanding, and full account being taken of all the exceptions to the principals as laid down by Smith, it is still true to say that as a general thesis he considers 'the natural effort of every individual to better his own condition' – that is, personal interest – as the fundamental psychological motive in political economy (italics original) [Charles Gide and Charles Rist, A History of Economic Doctrines, trans. B.A.Richards, London: George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd., 1959, p. 103 ]" That is to say, the rational producer-consumer would try to better his lot, and in doing so, unwittingly, better the lot of the community he finds himself in. This was the product of the Scottish Enlightenment, and it has come to stay.

 Indeed, the rational economical agent has pervaded every sphere of human activity – he or she is also the rational voter, the rational ruler, the rational citizen....Rationality is everywhere evident, except, as observed by Anthony Pagden and others, in the nonwestern world. These lesser people must either be ignored (which is not possible in today's cheek-by-jowl world) or elevated to the first rank, or as near to it as their feeble intellects will allow. The great neo-conservative experiment in disseminating the seeds of democracy far and wide, with violence if necessary since we don't know our own good yet and are apt to resist the 'moderniser’, is part of this grand project.

 It is remarkable that Adam Smith felt that the well-spring of human activity is to better oneself. A casual reading of Hesiod's Works and Days would have disabused him of this notion."...a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with his neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel [Hesiod, Works and Days, 11-24, Project Gutenberg's Etext of Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, Etext #348]" For Hesiod, the psychological inducement to work is not the urge to improve one's lot, but to make one's lot better than that of one's neighbours'. More on this soon.

 To posit a rational motivation for human endeavour is to misread humans altogether: the irrational aspect of man's character has been the subject of study in western civilisation since at least the time when Plato divided the soul into its three divisions, only one of which is rational. In our age, Sigmund Freud made irrationality the hallmark of humanity, again dividing the psyche into three warring parts.

 Freud wrote the following words in a letter to Dr. Chaim Koffler in 1930:

Dear Sir: I cannot do as you wish [i.e., become a Zionist] ... Whoever wants to influence the masses must give them something rousing and inflammatory and my sober judgment of Zionism does not permit this. I certainly sympathize with its goals, am proud of our University in Jerusalem and am delighted with our settlement’s prosperity. But, on the other hand, I do not think that Palestine could ever become a Jewish state, nor that the Christian and Islamic worlds would ever be prepared to have their holy places under Jewish care. It would have seemed more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less historically-burdened land. But I know that such a rational viewpoint would never have gained the enthusiasm of the masses and the financial support of the wealthy. I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall [i.e., the Wailing Wall] into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives. Now judge for yourself whether I, with such a critical point of view, am the right person to come forward as the solace of a people deluded by unjustified hope. Your obedient servant, Freud 

[http://www.thehypertexts.com/Nakba%20Holocaust%20Palestinians%20Sigmund%20Freud%20on%20Zionism.htm]

Zionists, indeed, were offered a slice of Africa, but they refused [https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-uganda-proposal-1903]. Freud was well aware that a rational project would never have got off the ground – the appeal had to be made to the irrational side of the people.

 In philosophy, even David Hume pointed out that we cannot live as rational beings – it is impossible: "...all our reasonings concerning causes and effects, are derived from nothing but custom; and that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures  [ The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Treatise of Human Nature, by David Hume, Part IV, Section 1, Etext #4705 ]". In the previous paragraph Hume says that total scepticism is incompatible with nature: we have to believe, willy-nilly. "Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable necessity has determined us to judge as well as to breathe and feel...." If we are to survive at all – breathe and feel – we have to form judgments and beliefs, even when reason tells us that we can never have enough evidence for our judgment or belief.

David Hume was a contemporary and friend of Adam Smith, to whom we now return. It is a pity that the latter did not share the skeptical predilections of the former, for then we might not have had the caricature known today as homo economicus. It is remarkable that progress in psychology and psychiatry has had absolutely no effect on the belief in the Rational Individual – and this is nowhere more evident than in the discipline of economics.

In 2002, a remarkable event occurred: The Nobel Prize for economics went to Daniel Kahneman for his attempts to debunk neo-classical economic theory (never mind that he had to share it with someone who believed that people can be trained to be rational in controlled circumstances). Mr. Kahneman is not even an economist – unsurprisingly, he is a psychologist. His insights (achieved with the late Amos Tversky) have been labeled 'behavioural economics'. Psychological studies have shown that people value the comfort of the herd (yes, even rational Anglo-Saxons); and that they are far more frightened of losses than inspired by potential gains. This explains why millions of seemingly rational people – egged on by analysts and the media – jumped headlong into the 'irrational exuberance' (the title of a bestselling book) of the dot-com mania. These people were willing to pay more for shares than rationality would dictate – and then get out suddenly in a fit of collective panic.

 Studies have revealed that people would rather be better off relative to other people than to their own present situation. So, if you work harder and increase your income, you will not be happier if the Jones's income goes up by the same proportion. Only by making sure that the Jones's are worse off than you can you ensure your well-being. This was the insight of Hesiod, and where Adam Smith went completely wrong.

(Which would you rather have: an income of $100,000 while others earned $150,000; or an income of $50,000 while others earned $25,000? Contrary to economic theory, most Harvard students who were asked the question chose the second option.

Malice, as a human motive, long known to the average person, was articulated by Arthur Schopenhauer. The post-Enlightenment thinkers understood humans better than the rationalists.)

To state the obvious, people are irrational. That is what it means to be human. Writers and artists have known this for millennia, but thinkers tend to lose sight of a simple fact. Anthony Pagden claims that the west has progressively given up its irrational baggage, and the rest of us have not. It will come as a shock to Mr. Pagden to be told that nobody can give up their irrational bequest. To do so would be to cease to be human - to cease to breathe and feel.

But the claim itself is telling – for no other civilisation bar Mr. Pagden's claims to have an edge over other civilizations in this, or any other, department. Is it rational to feel superior to other people? Doesn't that deny our essential humanity? Of course, it follows logically that if you pride yourself on your rationality, you will look for somebody to boast about it to – somebody to look down upon. So long as western civilisation continues to believe that somewhere, always there's someone who is less than human, so long will western civilisation continue to perpetrate the atrocities for which it has become dreaded.