Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

under the term ‘phenomenology’ is mainly conjecture on my part and would probably best be described as ‘embodiment’. So, from this point forward in the chapter, please take what is said to be purely speculative.

If you, dear reader, are someone who wants to figure out the fickleness of human nature, then perhaps there’s no better place to start than with our sense of the sacred. Or actually, to start with what we find profane — a desecration, a violation. There are many strange examples of this. One is the reaction people have to strange clothing, or the lack of clothing altogether. Or perhaps it’s a person’s race or sexual orientation that offends. A person thus offended will get angry in often a completely incoherent way. The pre-frontal cortex is by-passed and they emit strange utterances straight from the reptilian brain! We could say, it’s pure emotion — a visceral sense of outrage and violation. If only — we might speculate — if only people got as upset as this by war, torture, rape, cruelty and the like. For these really are violations of the sacred — the sacredness of human life. But no! Often we are outraged by the trivial and indifferent to truly global problems.

What are we to make of this? Well, so often we are led into believing that we are sensible creatures who seek positive outcomes for ourselves and others via reasonable means such as education, employment, careful financial planning and deferred gratification. We are — on this view — primarily rational beings. We learn and observe, we consider and then we decide how best to act. But the angry

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