De Humani Dimicationes

In an interview regarding his latest novel, The Prague Cemetery, Umberto Eco raised a poignant point of view which has been on my mind for the better part of the last ten years. In a discussion with his american counterpart, a well-read but utterly misguided young man, he argued for the motion that the primary driving force for us as human beings is hatred. As shocking as his evaluation stands at a first glance, a brutally honest and incisive critique of the human spirit will reveal this to be true. With only minimal historical knowledge, one can easily see that hatred and all emotions associated with it, and therefore with the primal instinct of overpowering others and overcoming the "foes", these emotions, therefore have had the biggest influence in shaping the world as we presently know it.

Eco argued that love is a feeling that is extremely limited per se. The feeling of love cast upon another individual brings with itself in almost every case a desire that the feeling be reciprocated as well as the desire that no other individual, or at most a hand-picked, trusted conclave of individuals bestow upon the loved one alike feelings. We do not wish to share our love for another with anyone and this is the cornerstone of the family in the western world. There are obvious differences with regard to the Orient, but we shall not dwell into that for the time being. Despite these differences though, in both cultures the root of the problem stems from precisely the same root, only in the case of the oriental culture the sex of the individual and the strength of said sex come into play, which makes the argument as unfair as it is thus irrelevant. Until said society evolves into a more modern approach with regard to sexes, neither extreme nor indifferent I see no reason to give any amount of respect and consideration to this culture or to include it as a relevant argument on which to rest my thesis on.

One could argue the existence of groups of people that advocate the spread of "free love", a sort of unanimous gathering wherein all humans share all possible love for every other individual. And while some of these movements have had a larger or a lesser impact on history, they have been more often than not a reaction to certain historic misdemeanours. Their ability to profoundly alter our mentality has been, however, disappointingly limited. It would be fair to mention that the hippie movement of the 60's, which came as a revolt to the two wars which had taken the world by storm in an extremely short timespan, has had somewhat of an influence on modern civilization. However, to argue that the evolution into a more peace-prone world rests heavily on the existence on this movement is downright hilarious, as this is due more, in my opinion to the founding of, for instance, the U. N.

So if a very, if not the most, powerful driving mechanism of the human race is hatred, overcoming the enemies, overthrowing the "bad guys", erecting peace through extremely bloody conflicts, this brings me to my own thesis. The recently deceased(July 12th, 2012) Stephen Covey, renowned author, businessman, educator and professor at Utah State University, wrote in 1989 the highly-acclaimed book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". This book has a very particular meaning to me, but before I dwelve into the problem, I wish to point out that I do not believe in books written by people who are not themselves experts in the matter. Thus, if you write a book on positive thinking but you as a person are rather gloomy and easily irritable then I call hypocrisy and automatically disregard you as a person and everything you wrote in the book, even though the content might be accurate! I might be able to write a book on differential equations and even get some things right, but the book is of no value nevertheless and there is really no point in wasting time in reading it.

The reason this book is so famous is because, in this critic's opinion, of a clever play upon words which Covey used in order to lure and seduce, especially the more broad-minded individuals into reading him. He advocates a so-called "Character Ethic" as opposed to regular self-help books which advocate, in his view, "Personality Ethic". Now, I have to point out that there are several languages where character is indeed something different from personality, but in the American English which Mr. Covey can barely write in, the difference is so small it is practically disregardable. If Mr. Covey were to have written his book in Her Majesty's English, then his denomination would have made sense, however his poor grasp on the finer aspects of language leaves much to be desired and said aforementioned assesment stems from someone whose mother tongue is not English.

The first step in the so-called "Character Ethic" that Mr. Covey proposes, the basis for the entire system and the only one which I shall review is called "Be Proactive". The advice given to the reader is that we as people are far too reliant on being reactive. We react to everything around us and modify our decisions and feelings accordingly. Being proactive means a complete disregard for external stimuli and an inward-prone attention, with all decisions coming from the inside undistorted by outside influences. These are decisions for which we shall naturally assume responsibility. And however seducing, I, for one, think that humans are genetically engineered to be incapable of true proactivity the way Mr. Covey describes it. I find it also hard to believe that this man was never or was but seldomly annoyed by petty things which occur all around us. I think it improbable if not impossible, lest he be a monk or had found some access to the fabled Nirvana, that the bike fall which led to his being paralyzed and ultimately to his untimely demise in July after months of struggle to have been met with proactivity and with a shiny, positive outlook, with his life occuring undisturbed thanks to the proactivity he so vividly taught.

I could carry on with my argument but I think the following final example should suffice: at the "Save Traditional Family" fundraiser in 1998 he expressed a vivid opposition of gay marriage and asked that the constitution oppose such marriage as fast as possible. He apologized for the fervent opposing rant, but remained extremely outspoken against homosexuality. I once again retain the right to call Hypocrisy! and to point out that I find his takes on open-mindedness, freedom of each individual and reactivity nothing more than mere marketing ploys promising Nirvana for intellectuals. Like setting a hamster on a treadmill and unlocking the cage. He will spin forever with the apparent purpose of escaping the cage, never being truly able to. How exactly is opposing gay marriage not precisely the reactivity he so vividly portrayed as the purveyor of all that is evil in the human nature?

To end with a biological reference, it is reactivity which has allowed us to evolve as species, to evolve as thinking individuals, that which allows us to always go beyond, to question everything, to rise against the outdated and to establish the future. Reacting to external stimuli is what makes us human and what makes us alive. An areactive cell is a dead cell.

"Considerate la vostra semenza:

fatti non foste a viver come bruti,

ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza."

Dante, Inferno, Canto XXVI: Ulysses.