Beyond the Dragons of Eden: How Art Makes Us Human
Art can open our minds to our global community in both space and time. It allows us to act as fully functioning humans, not reptiles that want to kill each other.
We are all hard-wired for both selfishness and compassion, for ruthless fighting and enduring love. We all have that ancient reptilian brain embedded in the hypothalamus designed to implement what scientists call the 4 Fs: feeding, fighting, fleeing, and… sex. When your testosterone and adrenaline are pumping during an argument, you can thank your distant cousin the T-Rex. Ditto for when you have every inclination to flee the scene or stuff yourself with a bag of Doritos.
As we moved up the evolutionary ladder, some reptiles evolved into mammals, and the limbic or mammalian brain that developed enabled them to nurture. This wasn’t out of love, per se, but preservation of the species. Unlike reptiles that laid eggs and split, mammals gave birth to their young and had to care for them until their bigger brains matured. They had to feed, protect, and shelter their babies. For humans, it is through the mammalian brain that we learn to put another individual first, that we can exercise our compassionate tendencies.
There’s evidence of these compassionate tendencies in nearly every culture via religion and a version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The problem is our reptilian brains keep getting in the way. What helps us reinforce the Golden Rule? It doesn’t have to be religion. It can be art.
Art establishes understanding and empathy, and it does this with finesse and originality. It employs beauty and sophistication. I think I can speak for most of us when I say I would much rather read a novel that showcases the full range of human emotion than delve into the tenets, theories, and accounts in a psychology textbook.
Here are some examples of art that dispelled ignorance (and therefore suffering) by promoting large-scale understanding and empathy:
· Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass. This elegantly written autobiography proved to nineteenth century Americans that blacks were not inferior to whites intellectually; they too had fully functioning neo-cortexes.
· The plays A Doll House, by Henrik Ibsen, Trifles by Susan Glaspell and the paintings of Frida Kahlo. These works prove that women are not “dolls” nor do they have trivial inner and outer lives.
· Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. These works portray the imperialistic attitudes and emotional complexity inherent in colonialism. They aim to show that what some deem an “inferior society” is just a different take on being human, and often a more spiritual one.
· The poetry of Rumi. Poet and translator Coleman Barks says that the “love” in Rumi’s poems is “nakedly exposed and restless like a mountain creek, like sunlight moving around a winter room.” Rumi’s poetry is a portal to mysticism through which Non-Muslims can freely enter and learn that true Islam is not fanatical and hostile, but compassionate, ecstatic and reverent.
When our belief systems are altered through experiencing artistic works, it translates to our behavior and enables us to not only feel empathy, but act compassionately.
At North Shore Community College where I teach, a female faculty member claims the poetry of Bruce Weigl helps her relate to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. She writes, “Every time I encountered a veteran, I thought of this Weigl poem, ‘The Snowy Egret.’ It made me approach these students with a respect and gentleness that I didn't think I had in me…it clearly made me treat veterans differently than I expected I would and which my political beliefs on paper would dictate.”
Tam Martin Fowles, founder of Hope in the Heart, an organization that guides individuals to triumph over adversity and understand their place in the global community, cites the novel Notes from an Exhibition and specifically the character Anthony, a Quaker who “lives his life by a set of values that aroused great empathy and inspiration” in Martin Fowles. After reading the book, Martin Fowles began to attend Quaker meetings herself and ultimately discovered a faith that suited her. Moreover, she connected with a community of people that embodied “ an ethos of peace and social action,” the impetus that allowed her to found Hope in the Heart.
We tend to see art/literature as a means for empathy only, but empathy is only the starting point. Readers can empathize with the plight of characters they love; people can be captivated by works of art for very personal reasons. Yet, when we say art matters, we say it because we have been moved beyond personal illumination to act more compassionately in the world.
We at The Compassion Anthology seek to do just that. The fundraiser we are sponsoring this spring will benefit the children of ChildHelp Sierra Leone, a child rights organization that bore the brunt of the Ebola virus—not only physically, but emotionally and financially—this past fall. I have been in contact with director Kaprie Thoronka since August and his heart-wrenching letters of devastation in Sierra Leone have moved me to do what I can to help.
Please read our home page to learn how you can contribute and help foster our community of compassion through creativity.
Regards and happy spring,
Laurette Folk, Editor of The Compassion Anthology
Art can open our minds to our global community in both space and time. It allows us to act as fully functioning humans, not reptiles that want to kill each other.
We are all hard-wired for both selfishness and compassion, for ruthless fighting and enduring love. We all have that ancient reptilian brain embedded in the hypothalamus designed to implement what scientists call the 4 Fs: feeding, fighting, fleeing, and… sex. When your testosterone and adrenaline are pumping during an argument, you can thank your distant cousin the T-Rex. Ditto for when you have every inclination to flee the scene or stuff yourself with a bag of Doritos.
As we moved up the evolutionary ladder, some reptiles evolved into mammals, and the limbic or mammalian brain that developed enabled them to nurture. This wasn’t out of love, per se, but preservation of the species. Unlike reptiles that laid eggs and split, mammals gave birth to their young and had to care for them until their bigger brains matured. They had to feed, protect, and shelter their babies. For humans, it is through the mammalian brain that we learn to put another individual first, that we can exercise our compassionate tendencies.
There’s evidence of these compassionate tendencies in nearly every culture via religion and a version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The problem is our reptilian brains keep getting in the way. What helps us reinforce the Golden Rule? It doesn’t have to be religion. It can be art.
Art establishes understanding and empathy, and it does this with finesse and originality. It employs beauty and sophistication. I think I can speak for most of us when I say I would much rather read a novel that showcases the full range of human emotion than delve into the tenets, theories, and accounts in a psychology textbook.
Here are some examples of art that dispelled ignorance (and therefore suffering) by promoting large-scale understanding and empathy:
· Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass. This elegantly written autobiography proved to nineteenth century Americans that blacks were not inferior to whites intellectually; they too had fully functioning neo-cortexes.
· The plays A Doll House, by Henrik Ibsen, Trifles by Susan Glaspell and the paintings of Frida Kahlo. These works prove that women are not “dolls” nor do they have trivial inner and outer lives.
· Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. These works portray the imperialistic attitudes and emotional complexity inherent in colonialism. They aim to show that what some deem an “inferior society” is just a different take on being human, and often a more spiritual one.
· The poetry of Rumi. Poet and translator Coleman Barks says that the “love” in Rumi’s poems is “nakedly exposed and restless like a mountain creek, like sunlight moving around a winter room.” Rumi’s poetry is a portal to mysticism through which Non-Muslims can freely enter and learn that true Islam is not fanatical and hostile, but compassionate, ecstatic and reverent.
When our belief systems are altered through experiencing artistic works, it translates to our behavior and enables us to not only feel empathy, but act compassionately.
At North Shore Community College where I teach, a female faculty member claims the poetry of Bruce Weigl helps her relate to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. She writes, “Every time I encountered a veteran, I thought of this Weigl poem, ‘The Snowy Egret.’ It made me approach these students with a respect and gentleness that I didn't think I had in me…it clearly made me treat veterans differently than I expected I would and which my political beliefs on paper would dictate.”
Tam Martin Fowles, founder of Hope in the Heart, an organization that guides individuals to triumph over adversity and understand their place in the global community, cites the novel Notes from an Exhibition and specifically the character Anthony, a Quaker who “lives his life by a set of values that aroused great empathy and inspiration” in Martin Fowles. After reading the book, Martin Fowles began to attend Quaker meetings herself and ultimately discovered a faith that suited her. Moreover, she connected with a community of people that embodied “ an ethos of peace and social action,” the impetus that allowed her to found Hope in the Heart.
We tend to see art/literature as a means for empathy only, but empathy is only the starting point. Readers can empathize with the plight of characters they love; people can be captivated by works of art for very personal reasons. Yet, when we say art matters, we say it because we have been moved beyond personal illumination to act more compassionately in the world.
We at The Compassion Anthology seek to do just that. The fundraiser we are sponsoring this spring will benefit the children of ChildHelp Sierra Leone, a child rights organization that bore the brunt of the Ebola virus—not only physically, but emotionally and financially—this past fall. I have been in contact with director Kaprie Thoronka since August and his heart-wrenching letters of devastation in Sierra Leone have moved me to do what I can to help.
Please read our home page to learn how you can contribute and help foster our community of compassion through creativity.
Regards and happy spring,
Laurette Folk, Editor of The Compassion Anthology
