Leaving the Garden of Eden

Sometimes, I think about why someone wrote the story of Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden. I imagine it happening after some big drought or ecological collapse, with people trying to rationalize why they’d fallen on hard times, what they could have done, which God’s they might have pissed off. You see it in ancient religious practices, people making sacrifices to the gods to make it rain, prevent natural disasters, ensure a bountiful harvest, etc. I think this is probably accurate - but I’d like to offer my own reinterpretation, for the sake of it.

Adam and Eve were cast out from the Garden of Eden for consuming the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They had been forbidden from eating it by God, and their exile was punishment for their transgression. Why would God not want them to know about “Good and Evil”? Was He trying to keep humanity in the state of natural innocence that comes before entry into language? Is there something inherent in the capacity for “knowledge” itself which brings suffering into the world? Maybe it’s not that they were exiled, but rather that the human capacity for moralizing language about right and wrong, good and evil, itself robs us of an experience of ourselves which comes naturally to other animals.

Other animals don’t seem to be moral, at least not in the same way we are. Some pack animals seem to have something like empathy and social conventions which are established through experiences of conflict within the pack / herd. One animal does something, the other growls or barks, there is a moment of (perhaps violent) confrontation, and they learn that there are tensions between the interests of the group. They learn to navigate these tensions with various levels of grace. But they don’t have morality or ethics proper. We are able to have conversations about “if we all acted this way” which allow us to willingly regulate our behavior for mutual benefit. Though, we are certainly prone to breaking our own rules.

We have emotions like shame and resentment, the latter of which Nietzsche is famous for railing against. It’s hard to deny that resentment and vengeance aren’t in some way related to our everyday ideas about right and wrong. Nietzsche’s idea of resentment, which he referred to with the French word “ressentiment,” has a more specific meaning to him than the commonplace definition of the world. In my interpretation, it is about an urge to rhetorically dominate another person who you feel has wronged you. You want to destroy their reputation - but you accomplish this by provoking the righteous anger of others against your perceived enemy. In doing so, you don’t only make them the subject of scorn - you establish a social atmosphere of judgment towards that behavior. You set a precedent.

And all of this usually takes place within the language of good and evil, social contract. But to what degree is behavior moderated by an aspiration towards the realization of an ideal society vs the everyday experience of fear of being ostracized, fear of abandonment, fear of punishment, feelings of shame? In Abrahamic religion, morality is made materially objective - there is a God who is the ultimate objective arbiter of justice, and we will be judged according to His will. Outside of religion, you see arguments about whether morality and ethics are objective or subjective. And in everyday parlance, even if we aren’t concerned with these philosophical underpinnings, we use objective language. That’s right, that’s wrong. Perhaps it is sometimes implicitly interpreted as a subjective statement, especially when there is disagreement. But invoking the language of right and wrong means someone is making a claim about what people ought to agree upon.

Of course, our everyday experience isn’t only, or evenly mainly, about the rules common to almost every society: “don’t murder,” “don’t steal,” etc. It’s more about more subtle social etiquette. People are constantly gossipping with each other, talking about who was in the wrong or who was in the right in various circumstances. But the verdicts are usually delivered in the same decisive, objective language, which condemns or justifies certain behavior.

Some people are self-righteous - they rarely admit fault but constantly go on diatribes about the behavior of others. Others are self-critical, ashamed, always asking the question: am I in the right? Are my feelings justified? Of course, you can be some mixture of both. Anger and fear have a tendency to feed into each other. Shame, to me, is about anxious attachment - if I do this, if I don’t do that, what will people think of me? I’m a self avowed anxious people pleaser (hopefully, in recovery), and I admit fully that this essay is written from that perspective - but I don’t think I’m alone.

I think at base, we are basically the same as other animals in terms of our angry and fearful reactions to conflict. But I don’t think other social animals have the same capacity for judgment and shame that we do. That isn’t to say they don’t experience the anxiety of being part of tense situations and aggressive pecking orders. But they largely retain their sense of self interest, and shamelessly make attempts at getting their way. I think our moral sensibilities can add an additional layer of suffering on top of the same anxiety that other social animals experience. We have a unique capacity for thoughts like, “I am a bad person.” “I shouldn’t feel this way.” We have “sinful” impulses. We must overcome ourselves for a healthy social atmosphere to be realized.

You might notice that in shame, there is a subtle shift away from “it’s wrong to do that” to “it’s wrong to feel that.” Of course, the “ideal society,” as most people would imagine it, would be full of happy people. Or, maybe we should avoid the word happiness - doesn’t it evoke thoughts of trite social etiquette? “How’s life treating you?” “Oh, I can’t complain. I’m happy.” Isn’t there something complacent in it? What about passion, or joy? What are the situations where we experience these? I think of laughing with friends, having interesting conversations, being expressive, doing something creative, mastering a skill. I think of the word freedom - freedom in the sense of my actions as a natural expression of myself, as if they flow effortlessly from me. I don’t think of stoically performing my duty, forcing myself to do all the things I have to do.

Isn’t there something in our modern sensibility which implores us to try and reconcile the two? There is something in the idea of shame, that I “shouldn’t feel this way,” or that I “ought to feel that way” - what flows freely, effortlessly from us should be the things we are expected to do. If only I could somehow sculpt my mind so that everything I was expected to do became an effortless expression of myself. We see it expected in some forms of work culture, and at the personal level we would like it to be the case simply because if it were, life would be a whole lot easier.

This, to me, is the idea which underpins our modern conformism. We imagine a process of self-transformation which will allow us to both measure up to an ideal and simultaneously live in an organic, intuitive manner, always in the zone. But going back to my examples of everyday joy, when do we already experience this? In situations where we feel accepted, where we feel secure in our self worth, where we aren’t afraid of rejection or not measuring up to expectation. Moralizing culture deprives us of this, and then sells it back to us through the promise of self transformation. Have you met people whose passions and interests seem to align a bit too conveniently with what is in their financial self interest? You can’t get this on your own - you need hype men, you need rituals, you need mythology, you need social pleasures associated with these activities. You see this in the tech industry - we’re changing the world, we’re moving society forward, come be part of something.

Most implicitly know this - and we try to create the psychological conditions necessary to muster enough enthusiasm to do what we “have” to do. And people defend the mythos that galvanizes them, because it grants them access to what should be their natural right: their sense of freedom, an experience of life as a natural expression of themselves. But there is a sense of desperation that comes with this dependence on conformism. Perhaps we are naturally able to tolerate some amount of drudgery: chop wood, haul water, etc. Or in our modern world, work, get groceries, do the dishes, etc. But freedom, in the sense I’ve articulated here, is regenerative. It fulfills our emotional needs. And when you lock it behind cultural ideals, there is performance anxiety. When you stop being able to enjoy doing your duty, it’s an existential threat. You can’t simply unconditionally express yourself. That’s not acceptable. Your perceived outlet for emotional rejuvenation is the very activity you are struggling to perform. Isn’t it only natural that a person would double down, or turn to gurus and shamans promising to restore your passion and vitality? This can take many forms - it can range from the spiritual to the obscene. Buddhist meditation retreats to increase focus and productivity. A drill sergeant using vulgar jokes to make an intense training process more tolerable.

All of this to say - can this way of life really deliver on its promise? On the personal level, for an anxious mess like me, the answer is no. I have to simply cut through it all. I need release - and if it’s not an unconditional, total release, it just won’t do. If I’m worried about this or that, what will other people think, etc, I just can’t get what I need. I’m worried about myself, to be honest - can I do what I have to do? But if I can’t have this, if I can’t just speak my mind, express myself, be free, there’s just no way I can survive. Maybe it’s just my personal mental health issues. But I’m not so sure. What is it I feel I have to do, for sanity’s sake? I imagine slicing through all the worry with a mental blade - if I take it on a case by case basis, if I go through each fear one by one, coming up with a justification for each, I just end up going on and on and on. I have to say “fuck it!”

What if there is a kind of primal wisdom in just growling at each other? In just doing what you feel like doing, seeing how it pans out, and navigating the situation in an “amoral” way? Nietzsche railed against Christian morality, calling it “slave morality” - the manifestation of the resentment of the weak against the strong. And he abhorred “weakness,” an inclination towards moralizing resentment, viewing it as the source of all corruption. I think his relationship with “weakness” was more complicated than it might appear from short segments of his writing. He grew up as the son of a Lutheran pastor, and felt that the repressive culture of his upbringing caused him and others unnecessary suffering, and hindered the realization of individual “greatness”. It is rumored that he had a mental breakdown after witnessing the whipping of a horse, which caused him to collapse, sob and embrace the animal. I think he was a largely compassionate person struggling to reconcile the inconsistency between the perceived aim and the lived reality of a moralizing culture.

I don’t share Nietzsche’s hatred of weakness. I think he paradoxically “resented resentment.” The same righteous anger underlying the moralizing tendency, in my opinion, permeated his critique. I think he was aware of this, and it leant his writing a sarcastic, sardonic tone. I think that this is ultimately self-destructive. The hate of your own hatred - this, too, is the construction of an ideal, a desire for mystical self transformation. If only I could purge this from myself - then I could be free. Then from my freedom would flow the “right” speech, the right action. No - no ideals. No, “I will finally be myself when I am not what I am now.”

We have a term for someone who gracefully deals with another person’s verbal assaults and attempts to undermine their reputation: we call it “being the bigger person.” But I think you have to even go a step further - you have to help the other person preserve their dignity. You have to forgive yourself when you are the childish one, and even expect that others get over it. You have to accept that this is in some sense natural human behavior, but that if it becomes pervasive it creates a culture of judgment, shame and fear. That is what “strength” means to me - a dignified presence that tempers the all too human tendency to create a pecking order around social etiquette and conforming to an ideal.

And perhaps some people are naturally shameless psychopaths. But isn’t the animalistic, intimidation based method of keeping behavior in check really what works in that case anyways? Sometimes a more warrior-like, amoral approach to conflict is required. A pragmatic approach to tense situations which does not rely on demonizing the “other.” Social consequences simply do not deter some people.

We are animals. Maybe we’d be better off acting like them. Maybe there is a space in between, a way of socializing people that consistently engenders a secure sense of self worth as they come into adulthood. We are attached as children - we have a natural fear of abandonment that no one should be expected to “get over”. But we should ask - do we have a culture that keeps people in that state indefinitely? Which couldn’t function otherwise? Could we maybe create a culture that makes us collectively less miserable, which as Nietzsche implored, goes “beyond good and evil”? I don’t know - maybe it’s just too much to ask. Maybe we are just “naturally” miserable in this way, and it’s a pattern that simply can’t be escaped. But for myself, for the people I love, I want to advocate a way of interacting with others and seeing oneself which engenders strength, self love, and expressive freedom. Who knows. Maybe being human doesn’t have to be an exile from paradise, after all.