#6
A course I designed, Studies in Cognitive Anthropology: Evolution of the Mind, was well suited for introducing the whys. The course covered the development of human consciousness through four theoretical stages—direct/fabulous/mythic/abstract—in which the question why enters in the last. I worked the whys into assignments for the credit students; non-credit students were naturally curious and experimented on their own. I was learning about the beliefs of the many types of people who attended the school. I also carried on a professional practice independently of the school in which a client’s “worldview” or personal philosophy was produced and discussed.
What began to transpire was individuals reporting personal revelations, some of which were said by the individuals themselves to be important, and in some instances, the word “breakthrough” was used. (I myself had derived benefits from my experience by resolving some contradictions in my beliefs, but it did not occur to me that there might be a more general principle in play. In fact, the phenomenon is explainable in terms of cognitive dissonance, a principle universally known among psychotherapists that says a person suffers in a most general way from a personal belief system that is internally inconsistent according to that individual’s own logic.) In effect what the whys was facilitating could be explained in terms of a principle of cognitive consonance, meaning that a person benefits in a most general way when his beliefs are internally consistent, a quality the process develops “naturally.”
I started being called the “whys doctor,” which, in the homonymic connectio between whys and wise, was a little too weighty for me. And while it is impossible to say how much this contributed to the number of students who enrolled in my courses, it certainly added to the depth of some students’ involvement with me. (It should be understood here, as I counseled students, that the whys can track through beliefs that are sensitive for whatever reason, so I held my private sessions in confidence, and clients were never pressured much less compelled to answer, as was made clear.)
The therapeutic or creative value of the process (at least one artist did it not in order to clarify his beliefs but to find inspiration in the process) soon supplanted the theoretical concerns of anthropology. I found myself plying the whys in vastly different venues, including prisons, churches, corporations, and clubs, such as Mensa, as well as with individuals outside my courses, among them an Amazonian shaman and a Korean Zen monk.
There were also venues within the “New Age” movement of spiritual exploration. In one instance at Omega Institute (which had been pressured by one of my students to let me teach there since I was more academic than their usual fare) I found myself teaching two courses, one in the whys and the other about cults—in which I referred to what was going on at the same time in adjacent buildings as examples of cultic activity. Those students who were taking both of my courses, and embracing the message in the whys of thinking for oneself, were moved to describe themselves as belonging to an anti-cult cult. (To be clear, I do not preach against cults; rather, the principle of independence of mind that is implicit in the whys is simply the logical converse of cultism.)
In any event, the whys process in and of itself can be powerful, and I suspect a major reason for the power is that it comes out of anthropology, not psychology, so there is no implication at any time that the person answering the whys has a “problem” in any way, nor is there any value judgment placed on any belief or logic, as is consistent with the principles of anthropology: As in Star Trek, the most grievous sin in anthropology is to judge or interfere in the lives of those who are studied, and I suspect this is a great relief from the burden not only of psychology’s judgments but those of our religions too.
I composed a practical guide to the whys, strictly from the personal-development perspective, in part to limit dependence on me, but it did not seem to have that effect. I began to attract business interests from different directions. One student was a speaking coach and offered to groom me as a presenter. Another was a retired carpet dealer who wanted to invest in training people to be professional questioners. Yet another was a real-estate developer who began to explore video production on my behalf.
Now, I understand that there are two sides to everything, and I know that there is no shortage of people who would view these opportunities as irresistible, and I maintain that is because they are seeing only one side. The emergence of those opportunities corresponds to changes in one’s relations not just with students but with others as well. The more one is looked to, in a sense, the more he will be looked at, and the more conscious he becomes of himself (self-consciousness not to be confused with self-awareness). To the degree one assumes the role, that person must constrain his behavior, mainly speech, more than usually, not merely with his following but with friends and family as well, assuming they are aware of how he is being viewed by others. There is no place for cynicism, even in jest. Crassness is out. A lot of humor is sacrificed, depending on one’s sense of it, and this hurts the role of someone who wants “merely” to teach. (A guru shouldn’t, for instance, “act out,” as the psychologists call it—be demonstrative of one’s thoughts or feelings— because it opens the guru to judgment that is as deep as the follower’s regard for him.) The emotion most seen as contrary to guruhood, I think, is anger, which is accepted in most professions, including teaching, but not among gurus. (An angry guru is a demagogue.)
And, although it might be necessary that the more a persona elevates another in his own mind the lower he sees himself, I don’t see much awareness of how this affects the follower’s self-perceptions in other ways. The question, of course, is how deep or devoted the follower is to the other, which is to say, how far he has elevated the other, or Other. There is some indication that it is beneficial to the follower at a certain level of dedication in that, as the responsibility for making decisions and reaching conclusions is transferred to the other or his teachings, there is some relief of personal stress on the follower. One can be confident that there are detrimental influences too, such as being vulnerable to the volitions of the other, whatever they may be).
The whys attracted some media attention, including a full page in the “Mind” section of OMNI magazine (January, 1993), in response to which I received an inquiry from Jeremy Tarcher, an eminent editor of books in the New Age (with his own imprint at a major publisher) asking if I had a book on the whys. So I sent him the guide I had written for students, which he rejected as too simplistic. He asked whether the whys was as simple as I was presenting it, saying in effect that my guide was not quite a book—which I quite understood, but which presented me with a dilemma.
On the one hand, there is an abiding principle favoring simplicity in science (as in “Occam’s Razor”) and the whys is exquisitely simple in principle. In this regard, I had actually felt that the guide was a bit overblown: it could have been reduced much more. On the other hand, given the infinite variety of beliefs in humanity, the actuality of the whys is infinitely complex. In this regard, a proper presentation of the whys is practically impossible.
There was, of course, my dissertation, which contained the basics of the technique plus its use in the rather vivid context of the Rastafarians, which could amount to a book. However, it also contained my personal belief system, which struck me immediately as an undesirable disclosure. Technically, the dissertation was lodged in the archives at McGill and just about any reasonable person could obtain access to it, but few if anyone would think to do so. Publishing it was clearly different, and I saw it as a threat to my role as a teacher. When students know the views of the teacher, bias can be perceived even when there is none. In every course I have taught at every level, I announce at the start, and I remind students, that I do not discuss my personal beliefs, and I strive to undermine any inferences that may be drawn from students’ knowledge of any aspect of my life outside the classroom. This scrupulousness might be related to the teaching of anthropology in particular, dealing as it does with descriptions of religion and politics and social relations, but it should apply in every academic subject. So I dropped the matter of publishing, for the time being. (In my position at The New School, without the potential for tenure, there was no pressure on me to publish.)
Quite apart from this direct threat to teaching, I thought that if my beliefs were enshrined somewhat in a book, in conjunction with a process that purports to probe their deepest beliefs, there was no doubt in my mind that I, or my beliefs, would implicitly become the model, which would in effect elevate me in just the way I did not want. So I did not respond to Mr. Tarcher (which I came to regret not for wishing I had published but simply for being rude). My dilemma vis-à-vis the publishing industry would persist.
The argument that I had an ethical obligation to publicize the process for the sake of other people, which follows from the presumption that it does people good, did not win out since I made no attempt to withhold the whys, which I might have done for profit. It was publicized in various media outside the school and would eventually be described in books, including Would the Buddha Wear a Walkman? by Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi (Simon & Schuster, 1990) and Socrates’ Way by Ronald Gross (Penguin Putnam, 2002). And it has been utilized in cognitive research and therapy in other settings.
Meanwhile, other ideas were absorbing me—and further heightening my guru status among students despite all I did to avoid it.
No Guru 