Why Think, Feel And Act This Way, Not That Way?

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

Every modern society, it can be stated, strives for the best possible good for its entire citizenry. This ideal situation, while difficult to achieve, is worth striving for and is, in principle, regarded as the basis for the effectual advancement of a society. Once people in a society begin to reap the fruits of settled lives, their appetites grow for leaders who can help them in stabilizing and further improving upon their lifestyles. Governments, for the most part, are established for such a purpose; and the measure of the success of a government is allied to how high the level of people's living conditions is.

If the general consensus is that governments have to function in the said way, why is it, then, so difficult for governments to work towards achieving this aim? In particular, why is it that it is too common to see people accusing governments of being incompetent? Does it mean such governments do not understand that good governance ought to correspond to quality life of the people they govern? But if these governments understand this basic point, why do they deviate from it?

First, all functionaries of government agree in principle that their goal is to work to let people's wellbeing improve to the highest possible level. This agreement may also be said to be a primitive understanding of the facts about people's wellbeing. But a primitive understanding does not translate into a processed understanding. It is the latter that contributes a sizeable portion of the different kinds of understanding that governments or decision makers or anybody attaches to doings. Thus, all decision makers may agree - and, in fact, primitively understand - that providing the best possible good for the people is the finest choice; but they may disagree on how to attain this goal precisely because their respective processed understandings of the best possible good are different. There is no point in asking why the processed understandings of decision makers differ. If individual minds differ in terms of cognitive value, processed understanding must likewise differ; but, then, the general structure of individual minds, whenever they are activated by data from percepts, incite thought processes; and this indicates that primitive understanding is generated from the primitive workings of the mind. Let the mind proceed to process information that its primitive understanding present to it, then dissimilarity of practical or usable ideas will be evident. That is processed understanding!

The lack of coordination between passion and processed understanding ought to explain the incompetence of a person who is entrusted duties and responsibilities even as resources for completing a job or jobs are fully available. This shows that processed understanding was incomplete or twisted, or that passion was weak or incoherent - or both. Hence, two persons may act differently even upon being given the same kind of resources to work with. Different outcomes are here expected. Cognitive discord of the form that connects to the understanding or passion need not embarrass us except when it casts gloom on a person's or people's lives and proves plainly to be from a scrappy source. Whether passion is the subject to study in order to judge the failings of persons in positions of trusts or whether processed understanding is what has to be studied, we need the service of the environment. It may be asked, for example: “why did Mac, a government functionary, fail so badly in executing tasks assigned him for the public’s good?” The answer here will not be straightforward; and apart from calling forth the aid of descriptive psychology - which is what we have done with regard to describing the mode of the understanding and passion – in judging Mac's personality, we must also look into Mac's social history and analyze it with the greatest possible care. And if this is what has to be done, it shows how individuals' passion and understanding are anchored on their social history while social history is itself inseparably tied to the environment of the persons in question.

The environment we are talking about is not merely what nature has donated, in its pure form, to us to enable us to survive, live. Environment also means how nature has been made use of to accelerate or degenerate human advancement, in whichever way or form. To fully appraise the environment, let it be noted that the observed core beliefs and practices of a social group that rationalizes the conclusion that that is the way the group functions is also an adequate signification of the culture. The environment largely determines this characterization but it moreover explains why other social groups are different - or ought to be different. We want to repeat that understanding operates in two forms: its primitive and processed forms. Passion operates in a similar fashion: primitive and processed passion.

For those whose processed passions do not complete their cycle of maturation, yet undertake to satisfy personal desires or desires pressed on them by the public, passion will likely be uncoordinated with the understanding and, thus, yield results that may be far below expectation. Like the understanding, passion is activated when data from percepts register in the inner character of the individual. Unless the understanding and passion are coordinated in a sustainable fashion, actions may lack the rational tone to enrich personality with authenticity.

A cumulative difference in each person's processed understanding and passion renders the scientific assessment of a person's temperament and, in general, a social group's temperament debatable or contestable. It is as if we are being warned to rather stick to intelligible speculations.

So far, a framework has been provided to - it can be said - help in grasping rational and irrational actions in so far as they are conceptually and perceptually adequate or inadequate for personal and public good. But care must be taken not to overstate the issue of the good; for the good ought not to be achieved at the expense of promoting harm or pain to others.

Suppose some top brasses of one culture get swayed into undertaking an expedition into another culture expecting to conquer the other culture and appropriating its coveted resources, what conclusions could one draw about the conqueror? What other conclusions can we draw about the vanquished? In line with our theoretical formulation of primitive understanding and passion and of processed understanding and passion, we simply have to say that processed understanding and processed passion of the conqueror were uncoordinated. An inordinate flow of processed passion compared to the understanding has the tendency to set off actions that may contradict the natural characterization of the human personality as one that is morally sane and socially composed. But is it the fault of us individuals that some of us tend to be cool, calm and collected while others tend to be unduly aggressive? But, then, a dearth of vigorous passion could encourage the understanding to overwhelm passion. That is when we might say: “this is a soft personality unsuitable for daring acts at decisive moments.” While a soft personality could promote compassion, kindness, generosity, it could also be marred by volumes of indecision relative to crucial adventures.

Now, it can be understood, for instance, how cultures help to shape the understanding and passion of individuals and groups in ways that ultimately have to be referred to the available environments from the past to the present. To check the excesses spawned chiefly by processed passion, there is the pressing need to invent governments whose functionaries are ably scrutinized by whichever competent people have the ability to do so. Accordingly, the respective personalities of the said functionaries need to conform to the principle that each person's processed understanding ought to coordinate with processed passion. But how can this evaluation be done?

We suggest a timely answer, which is a two-way affair. When you see for yourself that your passion is destabilizing your internal structure, do your best to refrain from telling acts. When you see another person's potential demeanour to be other than normal, do your best to restrain him/her from executing telling acts.