The Essential Phil Harker

Some weeks ago I published a tribute to Phil Harker. I thought it might be useful to outline some of his key beliefs. As we travelled on this journey of discovery together, his philosophical understandings and psychological insights had a beneficial effect on my life. It is likely they might be helpful to others as well. Consequently I will try to summarise some of the key elements of his thinking in the hope others may benefit.

(Obviously in a short essay it is impossible to do him full justice. If you are interested and want further information you might refer to our little book The Myth of Nine to Five which is an easy read.  I will quote some passages from that book in my essay. Alternatively if you want to plumb the depths of his thinking you could refer to Phil’s own book, One Degree of Freedom.)

Now, as I mentioned in my tribute to Phil, the greatest philosophical debate in psychology in the last century or so was about how human behaviour is determined and whether or not “Free Will” existed and if it did what was its nature.

Scientists knew for centuries of the impact of genetics on behaviour. Farmers had been selectively breeding animals to enhance such behavioural characteristics as placidness and tractability. Then B F Skinner came along in the early part of the twentieth century and developed his theory of operant conditioning thus showing how behaviours are learnt in early socialisation, dependent on the consequences that follow. If we reward an animal for displaying a particular behavioural trait, that behaviour is reinforced. If there are negative consequences for a particular behavioural trait such behaviour becomes less frequent.

(This applies to human animals too. If parents understood this simple relationship we would have many more well-behaved children!)

Phil quoted a little passage from Rudolph Dreiker’s book, Happy Children, to demonstrate how behaviours that don’t get results are less likely to reoccur. This sometimes necessitates the development of other responses as this example demonstrates.

Nine-month-old Peter was a normal child of deaf-mute parents. He was crawling on the floor one day and bumped his head against the table; tears poured from his eyes — but the astonished observer heard no sound! She stood watching for a moment, then rushed over to Peter, picked him up and comforted him. Infants size up situations. Peter didn’t bother with the sound effects because he sensed that his parents were deaf. Older children of deaf-mute parents display a loss of temper by stamping their feet rather than by futile screaming. Their parents feel and react to the vibrations.

For a time this debate became somewhat mired by the proponents of genetic influences (Nature) and the proponents of socialisation (Nurture), opting to advance one of these behavioural conditioning causes as being most important. (This was the basis of the famous Nature vs Nurture debate.) But in the end psychologists and social scientists came to the eminently sensible conclusion that both these determinants were influential in shaping human behaviour.

So it is not at all controversial that in the model Phil developed to understand how human behaviour is determined, that he included Biological History (essentially genetics) and Social History (socialisation).

Now of course it is very difficult to unpick the exact influences of these determinants because they are quite interactive.

Consider, for example, someone who suffers depression. We know that there is a considerable genetic component to depression. But if you live in a household where significant others are depressed it is quite possible that some of your depressed behavioural responses are learnt rather than inherited.

What if one of you parents is prone to anger? When you live in a household when someone uses anger to get their own way, it is quite possible you might have learnt anger as a useful strategy to get your way also.

I don’t want to confuse you, but genetics and socialisation are key determinants of human behaviour. It just seems futile to me to try and unravel their respective impacts.

One text I read (I can’t remember the source) explained it like this.

If your parents are criminals and you were brought up in a criminal environment, you would more than likely end up being a criminal.

If your parents were criminals but you were brought up in a non-criminal environment, there would be diminished likelihood that you would turn out to be a criminal

Similarly if your parents weren’t criminals but you were brought up in a criminal environment there is still a reasonable chance you might turn out to be a criminal.

Finally, if your parents aren’t criminals and you are brought up in a non-criminal environment, there is little likelihood you would end up being a criminal.

Now, I have no evidence that criminality is in any way genetically determined. The point that is being illustrated here is that often socialisation and genetics are hard to disentangle. If your genetic endowment is also reinforced by your socialisation this is an especially potent motivator of human behaviour.

But before we have to make a behavioural response, there needs to be a stimulus. Therefore, in his four factor model of human behaviour, the next determinant that Phil perceptively highlighted was your environment. Your environment impacts behaviour in a number of ways. Firstly it is your environment that provides a stimulus for a behavioural response.

Perhaps you are at work and you need to act to make a positive contribution to a team project.

Or maybe you are socialising and need to respond to a personal demand.

Or perhaps you are in a family situation and you need to correct your child’s inappropriate behaviour.

There are virtually an infinite number of environmental circumstances that arise requiring your response.

But the environment has other impacts in facilitating or inhibiting your desired response.

Suppose that I, living in tropical Central Queensland, wake up in the morning with a desire to go skiing for the weekend. Despite my fervent desire I am thwarted by my environment. The closest snowfields are a couple of thousand kilometres from here.

Or perhaps you wake up one morning and feel you need some quiet time to develop your new business strategy, only to find that your diary has you scheduled to attend a half dozen important meetings that you are unable to avoid.

So it is obvious that our environment provides stimuli we must respond to but it also can inhibit or enable our behavioural response.

Consequently, we often seek to modify our environment to meet our behavioural needs. For example if I really want to go skiing so much I might move to be closer to the snowfields. Or, if for example, I decide to try to give up smoking, one of the first things I might do is to get rid of all the cigarettes in the house.

So then in Phil’s model, the first three determinants of human behaviour, viz:

• Biological History
• Social History
• Current Environment

are not very controversial and most determinists would agree on their impact on human behaviour.

We are stuck with our biological history and our socialisation – we have no choice about them. And whilst we might seek to change our environment, on an instant to instant basis we have to deal with life in the circumstances we find ourselves.

One of the manifestations of the fact that our behaviour is largely determined is our erroneous attribution of intent to the behaviour of others. As Phil was wont to say, “When someone does something that you believe is hurtful to you, you automatically assume that they could just as easily have chosen to act differently and this is not normally the case.”

When people no longer attribute deliberate creative intent to others for perceived negative behaviours towards themselves, and come to understand that this behaviour is simply the other person’s learned way of maintaining a fragile ‘self’ in what is perceived to be a hostile world, they will no longer see themselves as victims. They will learn not to feel hurt, angry, or otherwise defensive. They will actually begin to see the ‘aggressor’ as the real victim – a victim of ‘fear’ (explained later) and social programming.

What they will find is that when they no longer feel that they are victims in the situation, they will be in a much better position to know how to respond to other people in a positive and helpful fashion. Perhaps they might even make it possible for the ‘fearful’ people to begin to come out of their own ‘self’-defence corners and relate in a more personable fashion. A new social reciprocity will emerge and the changed social dynamics will permit far greater personal, interpersonal and organisational effectiveness.

This willingness to ‘pay the price’ and get beyond fear as a fundamental core motive in one’s life is the real key to being able to become a more effective human being in every situation. This is particularly true for those situations over which we have little direct control. It is also the key to gaining and maintaining a robust sense of well-being that is not dependent upon maintaining the good will of others.

The shift in the orientation to life from fear to love, (which I will elaborate on shortly) is also a shift from a sense of dependence and insecurity to a sense of freedom and inner security. Decisions are more easily made because the subconscious ‘virus’ (fear) has been removed and the computer like intellect can get on with the business at hand of living a meaningful and fulfilling life without constant fear of being ‘shot down’ by the defensive darts of those who have not yet come to understand the co-operative principle of life and who still live their lives through fear and competitive engagement.

The co-operative principle of life is not an option. It is a causal principle of life that cannot be broken any more than any other causal law of nature. It is a psychological law in the sense that it operates at the psychological level and determines the nature of our psychological well-being.

The law states that, in terms of my psychological well-being, as distinct from my physical well-being, ‘Everything I give to another, I give to myself’.

In a similar vein, the Dalai Lama once said, “If you want to make others happy, be altruistic. But if you want to be happy, be altruistic!

In other words, I live with my emotional response to a situation, not with the situation itself.

The great American Psychologist, Philip Zimbardo taught that the greatest impediment to positive human relationships was the attribution of intent.

Here’s a little vignette which we often used to explain this concept:

Suppose you are standing in a queue on the footpath waiting to purchase a ticket for a performance you want to see. All of a sudden you are pushed violently in the back. How do you feel?

Most people respond by saying either they feel momentarily afraid that they are being assaulted or angry that someone has violated their territory. (As we shall see later, these are typical “fear” responses.)

But when you turn around you observe that an old lady has slipped on the pavement and in trying to prevent her fall she has shoved you in the back.

How do you feel now?

Probably you are now more concerned for her welfare than you are for your own. What has changed?

Now you deduce there was no ill-intent. The action was the same but your assumption about the intent of the action is now different. Often it is our assumption about intent that colours our behaviour rather than the action itself.

So then what about this much vaunted free will? Is there anything where we can actually exercise some choice? Phil concluded that there was. He believed we had the opportunity to choose our worldview. And here Phil concluded that we have only two choices, viz: Love or Fear. He taught that this was the only choice we had. In many respects this is a moral or indeed, a spiritual choice. It seems to many a trivial thing but I will try to explain to you the huge importance of this choice.

(No doubt you would by now have deduced why Phil called his book One Degree of Freedom.}

So why is this choice, the only one we have, so important? To understand that we need to examine more closely what it means to be human.

In our book The Myth of Nine to Five we wrote the following:

As the child grows into adulthood there are three great sets of needs that dominate life, and satisfaction of these needs becomes the basis of the child’s sense of well-being.

 The first set of needs is the physical needs, the needs we have in common with all living things. If we don’t supply our physical needs we die — physically. Fulfilment of our physical needs allows us to survive.

 The second set of needs is the social needs, the needs we have in common with animals because, like animals, we have the capacity to be aware of our outer world and to respond to that world through the processes of thinking, feeling, and decision making. Like animals we are intimately connected through strong emotional bonds to our fellow creatures, particularly those of our own species. If we don’t find reasonable satisfaction for our social needs we die — emotionally (and sometimes even physically). Fulfilment of our social needs allows us to cope emotionally.

 The third set of needs is the spiritual needs — needs for meaning, the uniquely human needs. We have these needs because, not only do we think and have an awareness of our social and physical world (just as animals do) but we also have a ‘watcher’ (what is sometimes referred to as the ‘spirit of our being’) that gives us the capacity to ‘watch’ our own thinking and decision making processes at work; at least the conscious tip of these processes. Hence, we are self-aware and experience an inner psychological world as well as an outer material world. Because we can access and ‘look over’ our memory banks we are consciously aware of the passing of time and look for some continuity of purpose in what we do day by day. In other words, we have a need to understand the ‘meaning’ of our lives. If we don’t supply our spiritual needs and thereby fail to find meaning in our lives we can languish and die — spiritually (and sometimes socially and physically). This ‘spiritual sickness’ is sometimes referred to as mental illness, although this should not be understood in terms of something a person can ‘catch’, such as one catches the measles. Fulfilment of our spiritual needs is necessary for a sense of personal worth. We must find meaning and purpose in our lives if we are to experience our full humanity. The meeting of these needs provides a sense of well-being that transcends the conditions of our immediate social and physical circumstances and thereby allows us to be better adjusted in our attitude towards such circumstances.

(The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche understood the importance of our spiritual needs very well. He wrote:

He who has a why to live for can bear can bear almost any how.)

Any perceived threat to our physical, social or spiritual wellbeing produces essentially the same internal response — the fear response. It is the natural inborn fear response that drives us into action (known as the ‘flight or fight’ response) and the reduction of this sense of fear (when we do something that ‘works’ to satisfy our vulnerable needs) becomes a reinforcer of that action or behaviour, increasing its use in similar situations in the future. Whenever there is a potential for fear, related to one of our needs — and this occurs almost anywhere — we will learn ‘fear avoidance’ behaviour.

 Satisfaction of our three types of needs, however, should not be seen as separate pursuits, as the three sets of needs are intimately tied together into a whole which we call the self. Towering above the three sets of needs is the ego’s need to maintain the integrity and the consistency of the self-image as a whole and meaningful picture. It is with this concept in mind that we now attempt to develop the understanding of human behaviour a little more deeply.

 (Note: in the above Phil used the term “Watcher” to describe our capacity to observe the conscious processing of our mind. This was a term ascribed to Wilder Penfield an eminent neurosurgeon. But Eastern sages had identified this unique capacity in humans for millennia. In their writing they called this capacity the “Witness”. This is the term I prefer and usually use it to describe this seemingly unique human characteristic. But for this essay I will continue to use Phil’s preferred terminology.)

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(click here to display diagram)

The Tripartite Model of What It Means to be Human

 Here then is the Tripartite Model of human behaviour as we outlined it in our little book The Myth of Nine to Five.

Some elements of this model we have already discussed but for completeness sake I will summarise what it portrays.

As a human being we are always reacting to environmental stimuli. How we react to such stimuli is coloured by our biological history as well as our social history as we have seen.

Because of our consciousness (which we could just as easily describe as our self-awareness) we are aware of our thoughts, our conscious decision making, our feelings and perceptions. As a result we have what I have often called a “theatre of mind”. We not only have thoughts and so on, but we are aware of these mind processes. As far as we can tell other animals don’t have this capacity, or if they do, not to the same extent as human beings.

As a result of this unique human feature, we not only have to deal with an “external” world imposed upon us by our environment, but we also have to deal with an “internal” world which the Watcher has exposed to us. What most of us have failed to understand is that it is how we come to deal with this “internal” world that has the biggest influence on our sense of personal well-being.

But what is the function of the Watcher? Is it merely a passive observer of our inner conscious processes? Seemingly not! It is here where our fundamental moral choice is made. It determines our worldview. Essentially this is a binary choice – a choice between fear and love.

Interestingly Albert Einstein came to the same conclusion, He wrote:

 Everyone has two choices. We are either full of love…….or full of fear

 What is the manifestation of these two diametrically opposed moral positions?

A worldview of fear is an instrumentalist view of the world where I need to use any resource available, including other people, to enhance my material well-being. It is a “dog eats dog” world. It is a zero-sum world where your success comes at my expense. I must be continually on guard against not only assaults to my person but assaults to my ego. It is a world where I must protect my ego and enhance my sense of specialness.  This is a hostile view of the world and not conducive to personal well-being and equanimity. In such a world we strive to prove how wonderful we are to assuage our ego. Countering this, Phil counselled, “Nobody is special!”

Contrast this fearful and dysfunctional viewpoint with a worldview f love.

Carl Gustav Jung (perhaps the most influential psychologist in history) wrote:

Where love reigns, there is no will to power: and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking.

 This insightful aphorism from Jung implies love lies beyond an instrumentalist view of the world. It also implies that love is beyond ego.

As I related in my tribute to Phil, he once asked me how would I define love, and I replied that “Love is the dissolution of separateness.” Love acknowledges my commonality, indeed my unity, with you and all other humans. As we said elsewhere, everything I give to another I give to myself. Love is the antipathy of fear. A fearful person resents the success of another as though that somehow diminishes him. A loving person celebrates the success of another knowing that that success enhances him as well.

In The Myth of Nine to Five we quoted the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber to reinforce this point.

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber has aptly described this shift from fear to love as a shift from an ‘I-IT’ to an ‘I-THOU’ view of relationships. If I have an ‘I-IT’ view of relationships I see others as objects and therefore potential resources for the satisfaction of my own “self”. In such relationships I may want to use this or that part of you, even at the cost of some other part of you, just as I would view any other type of resource available for my ‘use’. If I have an ‘I-THOU’ view of relationships, however, I see you as a whole person and therefore I have to take into account the impact on your whole set of needs when I deal with you.  Martin Buber saw this choice as the great and possibly inly choice that defines us as human beings. Such a conception of human relationships is worth contemplation by those who take a purely ‘human resources’ approach to the utilisation of human beings in the workplace

 As we saw earlier, fear leads to the attribution of intent resulting in defensive, fear based behaviour. This causes self-defence mechanisms to be initiated in those faced with this behaviour. This is, in turn, is interpreted not only as negative but also as intentional behaviour, which leads to reciprocal self-defence mechanisms and so on, like the image repeatedly reflected in two opposing mirrors. The outcome of this type of behaviour is dysfunctional relationships that may become so set in place that they are virtually impossible to supplant.

My old friend and intellectual sparring party, the late, venerable “Father Robin” once said in a commentary to one of my blog essays:

It might be true that love makes the world go round but fear certainly makes it go pear-shaped!

As an outcome of the fact that our behaviour is largely determined, Phil counselled we should forgive everybody everything!

 That is not to say we shouldn’t attempt to change bad behaviour. And sometimes that behaviour is so inimical to a proper functioning society that people need to be removed from it (by going to jail). But our response to such behaviour shouldn’t be one of retribution.

It is the same with our children. When they do something wrong they should suffer the consequences of their behaviour, not to punish them, but to help modify that behaviour. This is the application of Skinner’s operant conditioning that we discussed earlier. Unfortunately too many parents respond to such behaviour with anger ( a fear response) and take punitive responses rather than teaching responses.

As I outlined earlier, because of our consciousness we are compelled to deal with an inner world as well as an outer world. Contrary to what many think, our personal well-being is largely determined by the state of our inner world. Fear avoidance mechanisms which emanate from the ego tend to focus our attention on the external world at the expense of our sense of well-being.

If we have come down on the side of love as our core motive and put aside fear driven ego creating fearful  notions that clutter our minds, we are far more likely to achieve a sense of personal well-being.

Those immersed in the fear motive think that in order to gain happiness they must change the world and the people they interact with. This is illusory. To gain a sense of personal well-being we don’t have to change anything except ourselves and the way we view the world.

There is much more I could say in support of the empowering and unique philosophy of my friend and mentor, Phil Harker, but I probably have already exhausted the patience of my audience!

[When I explain Phil’s philosophy, the most difficult notion for many people, is understanding what Phil called “The Watcher” (and which I prefer to call “The Witness”}. I intend to write some more shortly hoping it will help you to come to grips with this uniquely human characteristic.]