Living with remorse

[BILL TONER SJ] :: Feelings of remorse and regret that afflict us from time to time are among the most distressing aspects of life. We can be just walking down the street, or lying in bed at night, when some episode from the past comes back to haunt us. Perhaps it was something trivial we said to a sibling or classmate when trying to explain a homework problem – “You must be really stupid”. Words said that can never be unsaid and are never forgotten. Or, more seriously, maybe we injured somebody badly by careless driving or by deliberately fouling them on the sports field. Or maybe just hearing a song like Lloyd Webber’s ‘Tell me on a Sunday, please” reminds us of a romantic relationship that we terminated in an abrupt or cowardly fashion, wounding a person deeply. In the Bible, King David was constantly afflicted by the memory of his crime of arranging to have Uriah, one of his best army commanders, killed, so that he could take his wife, Bathsheba. His memory of this incident is echoed again and again in the Psalms that David composed – “My sin is always before me”.
We can never erase these memories and feelings, but it may help us to deal with them if we understand them better. A book I came across recently, The Compassionate Mind by British psychologist Paul Gilbert, explores the lack of compassion we often show, not only to other people, but particularly to ourselves. We fail in this when we judge or evaluate ourselves by painful events in the past. We can damage our sense of self-worth by dwelling on memories of failures, bad decisions, and unhappy experiences.
Paul Gilbert locates the source of the problem in the distant past, when all living beings were being fashioned by evolutionary forces. Nowadays most of us occasionally watch nature programmes on TV or the internet, and we may be struck by various characteristics of the animal kingdom, such as aggression, or the pursuit of dominance or status. We see groups of animals, such as wolves or baboons, being dominated by alpha males, or, less often, by alpha females. An animal gains this position by being physically strong or being a good hunter, by being more aggressive, or even by being more ‘politically’ astute or ready to bestow more favours than the others in the pack. Dominance is an important trait in the evolutionary process because the dominant animals acquire breeding rights and pass on the ‘best’ genes to the next generation. But these leaders have to watch their back all the time, because there are always ‘young pretenders’ seeking to knock them off their perch. But this too has advantages in the evolutionary process, with a regular inflow of fresh, ‘younger’ genes.
The ‘old brain/mind’
The instincts that give rise to animal characteristics such as striving for dominance are situated in the brain, though other physical features such as hormones play a role. Gilbert refers to the brain that developed in pre-human animals as ‘the old brain/mind’. Gilbert describes three major ‘systems’ in this brain that regulate the emotions. One is the ‘Threat and Self-Protection System’ that prompts the animal to detect threats quickly and gives rise to bursts of anxiety, anger, or even disgust, urging the animal to take action to ward off the threat. Because survival depends on warding off attacks from other species or individuals, or avoiding danger, the brain gives this system priority. If you don’t survive, the other brain systems are not of much use!
Gilbert calls the second system that regulates emotions the Incentive and Resource-Seeking system. This guides animals to seek out resources they need to survive and prosper such as food, sex, status, and (in many cases) companionship. The evolutionary process of ‘selection’ has ‘discovered’ these ways of promoting successful and self-sustaining life forms and has embedded them in the brains of animals in the form of instincts.
The third system is called the Soothing and Contentment System. When animals are not defending themselves against threats and don’t need to achieve or do anything because they have enough, they can be content. We have all seen cows just ‘chewing the cud’ or family pets lying by the fire. This system is also linked to affection, which is essential for the healthy development of many animals.
The ‘new brain/mind’
Human beings are different from every other species on the planet. Yet they share a high proportion of their genes with many other animals. In the case of chimpanzees, it is reckoned to be more than 95 per cent. We share a high proportion of genes even with dogs and cattle. However, something happened in the evolution of the human mind a few million years ago that made our brains/minds radically different to those of other species. For one thing, the human brain is very big, about 1,500 c.c. compared with 350 c.c. in a chimpanzee, with a notable increase in the proportion taken up by the cortex. The development of the brain increased potentials for thinking, feeling, imagining, and social behaviour. The abilities and development of the brain are due not only to the genes we are born with, but also our experiences in life.
So, evolution gave us a ‘new brain/mind’ and with it the ability to think, imagine, learn, and use symbols and language. These are wonderful advantages, that have led (for good or ill!) to the dominance of the human race on the earth. But as Paul Gilbert writes in the key sentence of his book:
The problem comes when you put the ‘old brain/mind’ dispositions, emotions, wants and desires together with the ‘new brain/mind’ talents. 1
While we have inherited this wonderful new brain that gives us our intelligence, memory, imagination and many other gifts, we still have the old brain, with its anxiety, anger, disgust, focus on getting resources, constantly on the lookout for threats, and concern for status. This old brain is alive and well, and causing lots of problems for ourselves and others. The original basic mechanism of evolution – natural selection – barely applies in the human race, since the human beings most fitted for survival do not necessarily tend to have more offspring than others, which is the general mechanism for ‘survival of the fittest’. This means that we humans are doomed to be stuck with our ‘old brains’, and with them many features and qualities that are quite unsuited for modern human living.
The impact of genetics
A long time ago, when I was in my late teens, I began to have a big problem with the concept of free will. I knew enough about cause and effect in physics to see that, in general, every physical event is caused by something else. I understood the brain to be a physical system, loaded with ‘triggers’ that cause us to take some particular action, such as go for a walk when we feel restless, or buy an ice cream on a hot day. I could not see where there was room for a ‘free decision’ in all this. I could also understand that some people’s brains were modified by a ‘bad’ upbringing, and this explained why they shoplifted or started fights. One day I went to confession to an Augustinian priest in John’s Lane Church, in Dublin, and shared my doubts about free will. I remember him telling me that all we had to believe was that on some occasions there is ‘a tiny spark’ of free will that determines why we take one particular action rather than another.
The studies of identical twins separated at birth suggest a remarkable influence of genetics on the choices people make. The most famous case studied is that of Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, identical twins separated at birth, who were reunited after 39 years.2 Born in Ohio in 1939 to an unmarried mother, they were given up for adoption shortly after birth, and lived about 40 miles apart, unaware of the other’s existence. When one of them was encouraged to trace his twin, and did so, they discovered that their life histories and character traits were remarkably similar. They both loved mechanical drawing, and carpentry, and had problems with spelling. Both had studied law enforcement; one worked as a security guard, and one as a deputy sheriff. Their smoking and drinking patterns were almost the same. Some other similarities got most of the headlines at the time, though these did not clearly reveal character traits: both married girls called Linda, both divorced, and then married girls called Betty. Both had a dog called Toy. Both of them drove Chevrolets, and vacationed at the same beach in Florida. One named his first son James Allan, and the other James Alan.
Studies of other identical twins separated at birth have shown similar patterns, though not all as dramatic as the two Jims. There are now few sets of such twins available to be studied, as it is rare for them to be separated at birth, given that the social stigma attached to single motherhood has faded away in much of the world.
The important point is that, like all identical twins, both Jims developed from a single fertilized egg that divided to produce two embryos that were, for all practical purposes, genetically identical. Both boys were adopted into working class families (the adoptive father of one was a utility company lineman; the other a boilerman). But there has to be a strong suspicion that it was their same genetic ‘nature’ that accounted for the eerily similar choices they made in life. It would suggest, as the priest in John’s Lane suggested, that our ‘freedom’ is more limited than we like to think. Our DNAs, so to speak, make most of the choices for us. At the same time, it is true that advances in quantum physics have challenged the old ideas of identifiable ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ that underpinned the notion of determinism in the physical world. So there is still room for belief in a ‘tiny spark’ of free will that occasionally permits us to ‘act out of character’ and do things that surprise even ourselves. Some will locate this freedom in the ‘spirit’ that they believe or sense is part of our make-up, a part or dimension that can escape the limitations of ‘matter’ and so is not at the mercy of the tyranny of our genes.
In the light of all this, our basic attitude towards our fellow humans has to be one of sympathy. They did not ask to be born, but find themselves in a world that is “one great blooming, buzzing confusion”, as William James famously called it. Their early lives are dominated by their genes and their ‘old brains’. As their ‘new brains’ develop they go through a painful period of adjustment as they struggle to live in a world where some of their natural instincts like anger, wanting, pursuing, achieving, consuming, and fighting for dominance and status are constantly being challenged and reined in, in an effort to ‘civilize’ them. This was what Paul Gilbert was thinking of when he called his book The Compassionate Mind. We need to be patient with our fellow humans (and them with us!) since most people can’t help being the way they are. This is not to say that we do not occasionally have to challenge people or stand up to them. This may be the only thing that their ‘old brain’ understands, just as in the animal world many species will ‘back off’ when some animal in their pack stands up to them. Many of us keep pets, mostly cats and dogs. They are dependent solely on ‘ old brains’, and sometimes display aggression (usually towards other animals), jealousy, or stubbornness, especially when they are young. But most pet owners are able to cope with this and don’t get angry with their pets, or punish them. They generally treat them in a compassionate way, by patting them or speaking to them gently. At the same time, they will often try to wean them from ‘bad’ behaviour, by training and a system of rewards.
Humans, with their ‘new brains’, are much more complicated, and often display complex emotions and strategies that animals rarely do. They can be dishonest, mean, moody, paranoid, cross, vindictive and so on. Their capacities of memory and imagination can be turned to bad use as well as good. And crucially, because most of us like to believe that we have free will, we tend to project free will onto the actions of others. We use phrases like, “It was all his fault”; of “She has to take responsibility for her actions”. Whereas perhaps we should be more compassionate and assume that for the most part people are driven by ‘old brains’ and instincts and hormones, and can’t help being the way they are and acting the way they do.
Although in most of the western world we tend to accept as inevitable that people can be judgemental and angry with one another, there are some cultures in the world that are very peaceful. For instance, the Semai people of Malaysia, numbering about 30,000, have a high tolerance for bad behaviour, in order to prevent conflict. They have no police or jails. However, displays of anger are much frowned on. The Semai have a saying that “there is no authority here except embarrassment”.
It would be a more peaceful world if all of us, like the Semai, were more inclined to take people as we find them. In the New Testament there are many examples of Jesus doing just that. Admittedly he had hard words to say to the Pharisees. But what they criticised him for was precisely for being “all things to all men”, insofar as he associated with outcasts of Jewish society, such as public sinners and tax collectors. Jesus refused to condemn the woman who was about to be stoned for adulterous behaviour, and spoke kindly to the Samaritan woman he met at a well, who also led a sinful life. Famously, when he was being crucified, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. It is instructive that St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, wrote of the importance of trying to put a good construction on whatever people say.
It is striking that the Semai have no jails. Countries vary enormously in the number of people they put in prison. In the United States, the dominant philosophy is one of personal responsibility, – people are assumed to be responsible for their actions. This has contributed to the United States having the highest per capita rate of incarceration in the world.
Back to ourselves
It is surprising that while many of us do try to be forgiving and non-judgmental in relation to other people, few of us extend the same courtesy to themselves. As mentioned at the top of this article, many people torture themselves with remorse about ‘bad’ things they have done. This is probably due to a certain kind of pride. Perversely we can believe that while other people are at the mercy of their ‘old brains’ and their DNA, that could not be true about ‘me’. We all want to think that whatever we do, we do it freely. It is a strange fact that we rarely have any perception of the unfreedom within ourselves. We may sometimes have a sensation of being ‘carried away’ by anger or lust or whatever, or feel that we are not quite ourselves when we have a lot of drink taken. But by and large we are reluctant to accept the possibility that we may not be fully responsible for our actions. We would see this as some kind of weakness of character.
It is possible that religious beliefs have habituated many of us to the idea that every ‘bad’ action we commit is our own fault. For instance, the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church has been that ‘mortal’ sin is sin whose subject is grave matter and which is committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent. The customary way of conducting the sacrament of Penance or ‘Confession’ in the Catholic Church developed over the centuries into a form that assumed that penitents were aware of their degree of personal responsibility. Older Catholics will have recollections of the responses of many priests to confessions of sexual fantasies, or ‘bad thoughts’. Penitents could be asked, “Did you or did you not take deliberate pleasure in these thoughts?” I think now that the correct answer to this question was “How would I know?”. Do we ever know whether we commit any action with full consent, or whether we are being pushed and pulled by hidden forces in our ‘old brains’ or our DNA? Should we not cut ourselves some slack, as we often do in the case of other people? Would it make us worse people, if we left it an open question whether harmful actions we committed in the past were ‘our own fault’?
The great Jesuit spiritual writer, Tony de Mello, in his book Awareness, wrote about a certain way of being that we could all aspire to:
To watch everything inside of you and outside, and when there is something happening to you, to see it as if it were happening to someone else, with no comment, no judgement, no attitude, no interference, no attempt to change, only to understand. 3
If we could, through the grace of God, achieve this, we might allow ourselves to be freed from the torture of remorse that we so often pointlessly nag at like a loose tooth.
- Paul Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind, Robinson, London, 2013 (3rd edition), p. 36.
- See ‘Twins reared apart: a living lab’, in New York Times, 9 December, 1979, available on Google.
- Anthony de Mello, Awareness, Zondervan, U.S.A. 1990.