Clearwing moth on rhododendron blossom

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Judging Generosity

Generosity is a quality that most everyone would agree is a noble practice, but agreement quickly gets derailed when we discuss things like (1) What motivates one to be generous? (2) Of the various ways that one could be benevolent in a specific situation, which demonstrates the real spirit of generosity? (3) Should there be a cost to generosity; should it require some kind of self-sacrifice? (4) What is an appropriate aftermath of giving—for both the giver and the receiver? (5) Can we measure generosity? (6) Is it innate or learned?

I recently took an online course on generosity from the University of Pennsylvania, wherein these and many more questions were raised and examined by professors who have taught the subject for many years. I will attempt to offer a few of their insights on the topic.

First, let's consider the definition of generosity, so we can begin looking at the issue from the same perspective. My dictionary defines it as “the act of giving more of something such as money or time than is strictly necessary or expected.” Some definitions go on to insist that the receiver of the generous act must actually benefit from it. I believe this last point is a crucial addition, because it requires that the giver put some effort into ensuring that their act is really needed and will improve the lot of the receiver—not just make them feel self-righteous. 

We often respond to a solicitation for a donation from organizations that seek funds in ways that are often adept at pulling on our heart strings; making it easy to give, without much of any assurance that our donations will actually provide what is needed. For example, jillions of tee shirts are often donated to groups in Africa, when people there have other crucial needs and already have too many tee shirts.

So, what constitutes a generous act? The above dictionary definition suggests generosity as the giving of time or money. However, are there not other forms of generosity? Can giving one's attention be an act of generosity? Can a simple smile be an example of generosity?

Another important factor is one's intention or motivation, when acting generously. Why does one's motivation matter? If your sincere intention was to do good, does it matter if its impact fell short of helping the receiver? And to whom does it matter... the giver or the receiver? When we give, how much of our motivation is due to our wanting to feel better about ourself? We often get a “warm glow” from being generous. How important is that to us? Does the size of my gift (whether measured in money or time) matter, or is the spirit of giving (or the sacrifice to me) the key? The Bible reports that Jesus valued a penny's donation from a poor widow far more than large donations from rich people.

And then there's the manner in which one gives. Do I expect or want something in return... if even only some form of appreciation or a thank you? Do I want others to know that I am giving? Do I wish my name to be listed as a donor someplace, or to get a free tote bag for my donation? Do I expect or want a tax incentive for my donations? Do I require an appeal to prompt me to donate, or am I self-motivated to do so? Should I try to control the use of my gift—such as give food to a homeless person, rather than money?

One of the interesting findings of the researchers who presented this course was that religious people give significantly more time and money than nonreligious people. Moreover, religious people who also regularly attend services are the most generous. It was suggested that there are several reasons why this is so: (1) generosity is a core tenet of all religions, (2) one is often encouraged by religious leaders to give, (3) one's religious peers also encourage, as well as model generosity, and (4) the belief that what we have in this world is given to us by God and is not ours, so be generous with it.

The last point above can be expanded upon, as the thought that, if we are among the more fortunate people, don’t we have a duty to use our skills and advantages to help others less fortunate? The point is that we don't really own our talents and strengths; they are not entirely of our making—they are a gift to us. Instead, we are shepherding them, and we are obliged to pass the gift on.

I find it interesting that a significant factor in religious people's generosity is the frequent reminders they get from their peers and leaders. I wonder if this is why I get so many repeated pleas in the mail for donations—indicating that those organizations know that if they are persistent in their requests (or offer a cute tote bag or tax deduction), they are more likely to get a response? To what degree do we need the push, or can we be self-motivated? Again, is generosity innate or learned?

Probing Polarization

Polarization is quite possibly the greatest problem facing American society today—as well as many other countries in the world. For various reasons, polarization has grown worse in recent years, to the point that it has extinguished most of what little common ground society once had. We have retreated into our isolated silos and enclaves, as we have come to view those in other silos as enemies, and refuse to listen to them or grant any validity to their beliefs. We engage in cultural wars that aim to utterly defeat the other—giving no quarter. Society seems to have descended into a zero-sum game, wherein one side triumphs while the other is thoroughly vanquished.

Years ago I was involved in conducting various types of nonviolence trainings. The core of the concept—when two parties find themselves locked in conflict—was to seek some common ground, come together on that ground, and then gradually build a cooperative framework to move forward together, for the common good. Those trainings were predicated on the willingness of conflicting parties to engage with each other, in order to work on a community problem that both agreed needed to be resolved—as well as to collaborate in a search for that common ground.

The extreme kind of polarization that permeates society today, however, prevents either side from even considering coming together—except to confront each other. They either do this while screaming at each other over social media, or while being filmed by media, as individuals get in each others' face, engaging in a shouting match. Psychological research has shown that, under these circumstances, each party simply hardens their perspective, with the tragic result that the gap is widened. The parties walk away from these clashes with even more deeply entrenched beliefs, and any possible common ground increasingly vanishes. The level of distrust of and alienation of the other side simply heightens.

Polarization was once confined mostly to the political arena. It has spread, however, and is spilling over into a number of other areas, such as personal relationships, medical advice, hiring decisions, vaccines, etc. As an example of the deleterious impact of polarization on society, progress is hindered on such critical problems as climate change, inequality, and immigration. The two warring sides cannot even agree on what the problem is, let alone find common ground to deal with it.

So, is there any hope for achieving progress on dealing with these issues? Psychological research also shows that there indeed may be a way: polarization can be decreased through what is termed  “mechanistic reasoning.” Very often people conveniently latch onto a viewpoint either because it's simplistic or because they wish to feel a part of a group that holds that viewpoint. We can be lazy... rather than logically arriving at our own thought-out perspective, we grab an easy explanation of something or adopt the perspective put forth by a group ensconced in a specific silo. We cannot really understand the issue this way, but we become convinced that we're right, because the group fervently believes so. When challenged, our certainty just hardens.

That certainty hides the fact that, because our grasp on the issue is shallow, we often don't really understand how it works. Furthermore, false confidence allows us to ignore alternative perspectives or ideas. For example, we may readily attribute the lack of governmental effectiveness in dealing with immigration to one simple factor or another. Those on each side of the issue will seize upon a shallow explanation that fits their preconceived perspective. They then engage in vehement battles based upon those simplistic explanations. Neither side fully understands the complexity of the problem.

Research shows that false confidence can be decreased through a remarkably simple process: ask the person to explain the details of how it works—not their reasons for their belief, but how it works. Ask them to explain how they arrived at their belief by detailing and explaining the issue. What often happens is when they try, they come to understand that they understand less than they thought. And when they can't explain how it works, their certainty decreases and they become less extreme in their view.

A simple example of this idea—from a mechanistic perspective—is that most people think they understand how a bicycle or a refrigerator works. Ask someone to explain the mechanics of a bike or fridge, however, and they often quickly see that they really cannot offer a mechanistic description. Their mind may then become open to learn more about the subject and to change their attitude. When we come to accept the fact that we can't know it all, we can admit to a little humility and begin to listen to others. We may even discover we do have some common ground.

Surveillance from Space?—Part 2

I often think how much more technologically advanced in space humanity could be, had we not invested so much time and energy on warfare. The US space program, for example, consumes a tiny fraction of the money that the military receives. I find it frustrating that Americans often criticize the space budget as being exorbitant, while quietly accepting the enormous amount of money expended on weapons and the military. 

NASA has achieved many impressive feats in space. Some of them have attracted lots of public attention, such as planting human footprints on the Moon, but the more meaningful (and less popular) accomplishments have been in the space science realm—the tremendous telescopes (like Hubble and now the James Webb scope), the geological surveys of Mars, and the lengthy missions to Jupiter and Saturn and their moons. These NASA programs have given us invaluable information about our solar system and outer space—that will inform and allow future space flight and the ongoing understanding of our cosmos.

But these peace-time space science missions of humans are far less interesting and sexy for citizens. How many movies can you remember about the boring aspects of space science? How many news articles have you read about peace-making activities? In contrast, have there not been a plethora of violent movies on space? Think Star Wars or Independence Day. Do the media not feature many articles about human activities on the International Space Station, while they ignore the complex—if not mundane—scientific experiments done there?

When we read about UFOs or advanced outer-space civilizations, it is easy to become fearful that we may be threatened by these advanced societies. Maybe this is an inappropriate response. If we could manage to eliminate our aggression towards each other, maybe we could be allowed to join the Intergalactic Union. Maybe they are waiting to see if we awaken to the truth and discard our war-like behavior.

Surveillance From Space?—Part 1

In two recent blogs I very briefly summarized the history of UFOs—noting that, after all the decades of investigations by the US government, most (about 95%) sightings can be explained by natural phenomena or human aerial activities. There is, however, a small proportion (about 5%) of sightings that cannot be explained, so have a credible possibility of having at least an unknown or even an extraterrestrial or outer-space origin. 

I choose the term “extraterrestrial,” here, in order to indicate that, in the government’s opinion, these sightings do not seem to point to any technology likely to have yet been developed on Earth. That finding could possibly point toward outer-space visitors. Moreover, that possibility is also what readily occurs to us humans—given our long history of speculating that life may have originated elsewhere. Many books and stories have been spawned by this notion.

So in this posting I will consider some of the features that might be associated with visitors from space—without necessarily attributing the currently unexplained UFO sightings to alien visitors. My intent is to step back, suppose that life did arise elsewhere, that that life did achieve a technological proficiency allowing space travel, and has decided to visit Earth. 

One conundrum that I described in my previous posting on UFOs is that, thus far, there is no irrefutable evidence of other-worldly visitors in the way of either a clean photograph, a chunk from an alien space ship, or a piece of their trash. That lack of solid verification causes many skeptics to doubt we have been visited. A similar conundrum exists in the field of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI): despite decades of searching space for the potential existence of aliens, no signals have yet been detected. It raises the question: If they're out there (or have come here), why have we not yet irrefutably detected them? These are vexing questions.

So, let's suppose that we might have been, or soon will be visited by alien space visitors. What might we assume about them, or what questions might come to mind about them?

1. Their technology has to be much more advanced than ours, just to have been able to traverse the vast distances.
2. Why have they not made contact? Why are they seemingly hiding from us?
3. Do they have some sort of Prime Directive—as posited on Star Trek—whereby they have a strict prohibition on interfering with the evolution of inferior or developing species? The Star Trek version is intended to avoid disturbance of an alien species' natural development.
4. Could it be that what we are detecting is not craft with outer-space beings aboard, but are robotic missions, or even some sort of holographic projection? Unless advanced civilizations have found a way to exceed the speed of light (extremely unlikely, if the cosmos behaves as we think it does), space travel between star systems would require hundreds of thousands of years, so sending live beings aboard a spacecraft would require an enormous amount of food and other life support systems to haul along.
5. Might the visitors simply wish to observe us and to avoid contact? This possibility differs from the Prime Directive proposal (#3), in that technologically-advanced species have likely long ago solved the issue of aggression and war, in order to survive—if they ever had it. They may be shocked at how the human species mistreats itself and its environment and have decided to keep their distance, until we either do ourselves in or grow up and figure out how to get along and behave.

I'd like to think that this last point is what may be the most likely option. If those UFOs do happen to be from outer space and their technology is so superior, we would be no match for them, if they decided to attack. But might that possibility be just a projection of our violent tendencies onto them? Why should they be like us? Maybe they are peaceful  beings and are just waiting to see how we develop. After all, if they’ve invested all that time for space travel, they could afford to wait.