The Sunlight is the Illusion

Downey now approaches the question of whether or not humans are even capable of distinguishing good from evil.  He questions how it could be possible for us to know the good if we are not even capable of knowing ourselves and what we want.  We get confused between what we want in the private settings of our own mind, but get confused by what society tells us is the right thing to want.  Even if we were not confused, the difference between what we desire and what is good seems to not be innately engrained into our hearts or minds. 

Downey says in a depressive tone that maybe the philosopher’s were wrong.  Maybe as much as someone might want true knowledge, we will always be stuck in the cave and have, “political bondage to the shadow world of erotic and thumotic desire.”

I for one did not need to read any further (although I did).  This is what I have believed from the beginning.  While Downey’s example alludes to the cave, my example is the cross.

There is no way that we could reach purity through our own flawed rationality.  There was never anyway that we were going to reach Marx's utopian society.  We are too corrupted and selfish to reach any of this on our own. 

I believe that people genuinely want to be good.  However, what we want to be and what we are are two very different things.  We are not capable of reaching perfection.  If we were, there would be no need for Christ and His sacrifice.  We could all reach heaven on our own terms.

I would also use this argument to say that we are not capable of good on our own.  I think that left to choice, like Downey says with the ring of invisibility, we would always choose the evil deed.  It’s Luther’s “Bondage of Sin”.  We have condemned ourselves to our bad decisions and desires, and need to Christ’s sacrifice to free us from our own depravity. 

Although I disagree with Downey’s attempt to reinstate Freudian philosophy, I do agree with his conclusion that we are “Desperately Wicked” and are capable of things that we could never dream of, and that this fact causes several of our social and moral fears. 

Thank God for Christ, literally.

Aristotle's Addings

Downey now turns to the daunting question of why we act the way we do. Once again, his theory is that we have a disordered mindset.

Downey believes that humans want happiness more than anything in this world, but that we search for it through our erotic and thumotic desires.  He went further to discuss how he believes that people confuse happiness with a feeling.  The best example he gave was one of a drug addict saying that the feeling that addict gets while getting high might be pleasurable, but it is almost never happiness. 

After this, Downey begins pulling from Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics in order to explain where he believes true happiness comes from.  Like Aristotle Downey believes that happiness can be found through actions because through actions comes habits and from habits comes character.  Virtuous character and using ones logos to define their actions through this character creates a true happiness that goes beyond pleasurable feelings that are only temporary. 

Another interesting point that I thought Downey brought up was how our upbringing is what distorts our view of happiness.  From childhood we are told to follow the direction of others.  So, if we are given praise for a certain action or accomplishment, that is what we will continue to strive for, the pleasure of the acknowledgement.  Several problems spawn from this sort of beginning from making the wrong choices, living for other, and living based on emotions and pleasures. 

I really agreed with this section of the book.  I truly believe that one can find more than happiness from virtuous character, which is joy.  Happiness is now completely associated with a pleasurable feeling, but joy (or contentment) is a state of being that one can keep no matter what the temporal situation might be.  There are times when the initial pleasure might seem more beneficial, but it comes at the cost of this state of being.  Having joy allows one to focus on what they truly want and make the best decisions in life for both themselves and others.

Plato's City

Downey now looks at the soul as a whole from Plato’s perspective in The Republic. In The Republic Plato divides the city and the soul into three different parts: eros, thumos, and logos, all three of which Downey has now described in his previous chapters.

“Eros” is the desire to own.  To both be seen and not be seen as was discussed in the very first chapter.  This desire tells us what we want at the most basic level, and is also the cause of the fear to lose our status, reputation, etc.

“Thumos” is the desire for revenge against injustices done against us.  Injustices that we ourselves define.  This desire is silently guided by eros because we can only define injustice by the things we desire.  If someone takes something that we did not desire, then we are not alarmed by it.  Thumos leads humans to do unthinkable things in the desire to seek our own conceptions of justice.

“Logos” is the desire for knowledge.  Downey agrees with Plato in saying that the human soul, or in Plato’s case the city, is ordered imperfectly.  Logos is the only desire who’s fear leads it back to the desire.  In other words, if one fears that he does not have enough knowledge or the right knowledge, he simply seeks more of it.  If the soul is correctly ordered than it will allow logos to rule all other desires of the soul. Logos can check the desires of eros, and can reason when it is right to use our thumotic passion for the right kind of justice.

I actually do agree with this.  I believe that people often act on emotion and make decisions that they regret whether it be buying an outfit or marrying the wrong person.  If one stops and thinks, a lot of passion-driven decisions can be cut off before they are made.  However, I do have two problems with this.

The first is that, too much reliance on reason is just as detrimental as too much reliance on passion.  There are times when emotion and desire must trump reason.  Entrepreneurs or innovators are a good example of this.  These people often do what is unreasonable simply because they are doing what has never been done before.  Logos must be used to ensure that these decisions are being made for the correct reason, but there must also be a good portion of passion involved otherwise the person would not go for it at all, and we would still be lighting fire with rocks.

The second reason is that besides passion, reason must also be checked by faith.  I believe that sometimes God puts us into impossible situations simply to see how much we will trust Him to take care of us.  People miss out on incredible miracles by relying on their own fallible judgement. 

Biological Backgrounds

In this chapter Downey explains the human love of catharsis from as far back as the Greek tragedy. 

I have actually always wondered why people were drawn to violence, sex, and moral horrors in film and other mediums.  As someone who is not particularly bothered by watching violence in films, I asked myself if watching anything that falls within these genres is healthy for us as human beings.  Why do we like to be horrified?

Downey believes that it is cathartic for us to visually see what we are capable of because the idea that we are not taking part in those activities even though we can somehow calms us.  Actually, that is probably too much of an understatement.  Downey believes that subconsciously we actually do desire to take part in violence and incest, and he uses the Greek stories and plays of the gods to explain that somehow we are living vicariously through these things because society tells us that we cannot have them.

Unfortunately for Downey, he finally made an argument that I can disprove due to my days in pre-med.  While trying to explain that we avoid incest purely for societal reasons, Downey states, “Were we all born with a special insight into biological insight? Not likely.” Sorry Downey, but you should have done some biological research before you made that statement. 

Nature has equipped us with an incredible amount of information that we never knew about until modern medicine.  Take even the phenomenon of attraction for example.  It is very clear from our physical states that man and woman are meant to be together, but nature helps that along through simple things such as pheromones.  Another example would be the chili pepper.  This spicy food is detrimental to the cells lining of the tongue and the mouth; however, after it is bitten into, the brain sends out endorphins so that the person will keep eating the pepper.  This is because the body knows, for a number of reasons that would take too long to discuss, that the pepper is filled with vitamin C, a necessary nutrient for our survival.  If nature can dictate which kinds of foods we eat or who we are attracted to, is not safe to say that nature might also know that having sex with your brother is a bad idea, for purely genetics sake?

Add in the fact that, as Christians, we believe that God created Nature and her rules.  Wouldn’t it also be safe to say that God would put inside of us a natural repulsion for a physical relation with our family members because He knew the detrimental results? 

The more subtle idea of human beings being drawn to disturbing images because they are a cathartic release of our fears of what we can become is more compelling to me.  I believe that Downey is on the right track about human nature, but has taken it a step too far.  Although he would just say that by saying that I have proven his point because I have rejected his thesis based on my own repulsion to his ideas and my disbelief in my capabilities of doing such heinous acts.  He would be wrong.  I have seriously considered his ideas, and because of my knowledge in biology, I disagree with his sentiments.

Fictitious Orderings

I’ll be honest, I was really annoyed that I picked this book after the last chapter.  As I’ve already stated, I just don’t think there’s any basis for that Freudian psychosexual crap.  However, Downey reinstated my attention at least partially in this chapter.

Downey attempts to defend the claims he ended with last chapter about how we envy our role models to the point of murder because we view them as having the ultimate good, and since we are all striving for this “good” life, we see them as competition.  In order to maintain our sense of justice, competition has to be eliminated.  

He backs up this claim by saying that the reason we don’t end up murdering our mentors, or anyone else we envy, is because of the order we have created through scapegoats and ranking systems.  Both examples are clearly displayed throughout history in all cultures of mankind.  

The most vivid image of scapegoats that Downey gives is lynching.  The victims, i.e. our scapegoats, represent everything we fear, hate, and/or envy, and by destroying them, we are tangibly taking care of whatever it is we feel is threatening us.  Downey writes the powerful phrase, “Astonished by our own savagery, we are suddenly calm.”  Thumos has gotten what it wanted, revenge.  Although in the case of the scapegoat, the injustice was never really there. 

Ranking systems can be as literal as armies ranks and corporate ladders, or as simple as youth respecting their elders.  Either way, if the thumos within us understands that those above us are too far above us to replace, then they are no longer a threat, and the desire to replace them is eradicated.  

All of this reflects our feeble attempts to maintain order within ourselves and within our communities.  In a way it shows that deep down, we all know how messed we can be, both as individuals and as communities. 

Greek Wisdom Turned Fruedian Bull

The "ring" of invisibility previously talked about reveals what Downey calls a "body politc," which is the community we all share here, and it reveals our true definition of justice.

On the contrary to what we say to each other, our natural desires tell us that to be just is to go after what we want without reguard for others.  The problem lies in the fact that when someone does an injustice to us, it is suddenly deemed bad, especially if we are not able to seek revenge for the act.  Therefore, the justice system most countries/governments have is not there because we all seek justice in and of itself.  Our true vision of justice is skewed, and because of that the justice system is there to protect people from each other.  It is there to check our natural desires and put a limit on the injustices we are capable of.  The only reason this system works at all is because our fear of suffering injustice greatly outweighs our desire to do injustices.

Downey explains this as our fear of losing the possessions.  Once you have something you want, you know longer own it.  It owns you, and you become consumed by the fear of losing it.  So, individuals support and follow the government's rules because they are what allows you to protect your possessions from others.  In this way you don't need police on every corner, the police are an internal coercion inside each of our minds that keeps us relying on reason instead of our natural desires.

Downey then talks about the desire for revenge all humans experience if a injustice has been done to us. The Greek word for this passionate rage that comes forth is thumos. It is the passion that enflames crowds and groups to do things that they normally would not.  It is the rage that causes you to risk your own life in order to get someone back for cutting you off at 70 miles per hour. Thumos wants justice, but a skewed kind that we all individually invent and decide is just at the time we are acting it out.

Up to this point I had completely agreed with Downey, but then he started using thumos to explain why we desire what we desire.  He first claimed that we are all imitating creatures, which I believe is true, and because of this we all pick a model whom we want to be like and that sets the tone for what we want from life, including possessions.  From here Downey goes off kilter.

He begins to justify, without ever literally mentioning Freud, the Oedipus complex.  Downey claims that we first learn this skill of imitation and desire when we watch our parents.  They are our first models and therefore the first people whose lives we covet.  He even uses the dreaded example of a boy wanting his mother because he wants to be his father and his father has his mother...yeah gross and confusing.

I have never once agreed with this theory.  First, because I have never wanted either of my parents' social status in life, nor have I ever wanted either physically (eww).  Second, I don't agree with Downey's position that the only reason it doesn't happen amongst families is because society looks down upon it.  I believe that their is something inherent in us from birth that establishes a physical and emotional boundary between family member, and when that is diminished all hell breaks loose (just watch Psycho).  


However, I did agree with Downey's assessment that babies are capable of jealousy and therefore are not inherently good as many people want to believe.  That says something about our human nature.  I think it's a big step in proving that we are born sinners, and although society doesn't help us out any, it is not the cause of our fall.

Following Frodo

Downey begins his book with a verse from Jeremiah 17, "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked".  He believes that all people either truly long to be good or at least wish that they wanted to be good.  Our biggest problem in getting there is our inability to not only recognize but also admit to our own wickedness.

Downey then makes the argument that humans get entangled into three desires: the desire to posses, the desire to be seen, and the desire to be unseen.  His clearest example is a ring that can make one invisible if it is put on, referenced by both Plato in the Republic and Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Downey challenges the reader to look beyond what one hopes he would do with this sort of power, and instead define what he would truly do if this ring were in his grasp at this moment.  Personally, I was unable to avoid the truth that at the very least I would use the ring to steal something that I wanted but could not afford.  Who knows where it would go from there; I chose not to think about it further.

We are all afraid of what we are capable of.  Are all of us truly murderers, thieves, and adulterers deep down inside?  What would it take to bring these monsters out of subconscious and into reality?

"Why invisibility?" is Downey's next question.  What is it about being invisible that would free us enough to chase what we truly desire?  A step even further back would be, who told us that what we desire is bad, forcing us to hide it?  Here, Downey's theory of the three human desires comes in.

We define "good" as that which we desire.  Therefore, if we attain what we desire, we will have what is good.  But what if what we want is considered evil?  Well, what is evil?

Downey, in my opinion, makes a very good distinction here between "evil" and "bad".  We do not fear bad things.  Bad is a descriptive word we give to something like a pungent smell or something that disgusts us.  Bad is never tempting; in fact, Downey goes so far as to say that bad things actually only ever encourage us to do good because we have no desire to associate ourselves with bad things.  Evil on the other hand, is the temptation that leads us away from the good, and it is often very appealing because it comes from the very core of our true corporeal desires.  The only reason that we do not act upon these desires is fear, fear of being seen by others.

Our desire to posses does not end with the tangible.  It persists into the desire to be seen.  A desire for a good reputation and a pleasing image that we believe we have defined and desperately want others to believe in.  This can only be accomplished in tandem with the desire to be unseen when it comes to the darker labyrinths that make up who we truly are and what we truly want.

So, what does the ring give to us?  The power to be seen and unseen on our own terms.  We can satisfy both needs that people would approve of, as well as the ones they would shun.

Downey wants the reader to understand that the only way we can be good, or at least the shadow of it, is to understand how evil we are in our true selves.  What I am hoping he will answer in my further reading is, if we are truly innately immoral, why or how would any of us ever have the desire to be good?  And is our definition of good based simply in the cultures and religions we have grown up in, or is there also a part of us that inherently knows what is good as well?