Fishbowls, Progress, the Fall, and Knowledge: Meant to Be, Condemned to Know
“You can be anything you want to be – no limits,” the large fish tells the small fish. For us humans, however, the irony is clear: what can you be within a small glass sphere?
Barry Schwartz, in The Paradox of Choice, argues the contrary. Perhaps one can flourish immensely in the safety of the fishbowl. Throughout his book and an associated TED Talk, Schwartz provides a compelling argument that too much choice in Western countries has become paralyzing rather than liberating. This profligate array of choice induces more anxiety upfront about making choices and greater dissatisfaction afterwards with the choices made. Our utopia of choice paradoxically seems to be a dystopia of anxiety and disappointment for the human chooser.
There is much more to be said about the perilous effects of the paradox of choice, whether it is purchasing jeans, choosing a spouse, or even maintaining friendship – as I have explored in another essay. If Schwartz’s argument was drawn even further to the timeless questions of meaning and progress, fascinating speculations emerge.
What is progress, for example? More choices and freedom? Is progress a linear expansion of individual expression? Is the ultimate expression of this the Mormon fantasy of ruling a planet in the afterlife?
After reading (somewhat) empirical literature such as The Paradox of Choice and figurative literature such as Ishmael (Daniel Quinn), I wonder if “progress” is such a linear thing. We have obviously made linear advances in many areas, including health, transportation, technology, and such, but what about happiness and well-being? According to the Happy Planet Index , in 2012 the United States ranked 105th, whereas Venezuela ranked ninth and Costa Rica first. Going down the list, there is no Western country until New Zealand in the twenty-eighth position.
There seems to be something about non-linear progression. It has been suggested that the end of the Mayan calendar wasn’t something to fret because the precocious Mayans believed it was merely part of a cycle. Seasons would be another example of “cyclical progression.” There is life in the spring, growth in the summer, harvest in the fall, and death in the winter. This circle of life has existed successfully for millennia. Humans, however, have broken it. Apart from climate change (which has had a linear impact of increasing temperatures), we demand summer produce in the winter and vice versa. We’ve been breaking the cycle, the circle. We’ve been breaking out of the “fishbowl,” per say.
The idea of living within a fishbowl may seem pretty offensive at first, but more must be considered before casting judgment. Consider Eden. Adam and Eve were kept safe in a beautiful garden, were innocent, and did not know good or evil. Eden is held as the highest place of existence, and yet existence there is eerily like existing in a gardenized fishbowl.
When tempted to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, however, Adam and Eve are faced with an opportunity to exist beyond the “fishbowl culture” of the garden. Choosing to eat this fruit was tantamount to cognitively shattering the fishbowl. Physical rejection followed. This emancipation of the fishbowl, or more commonly referred to as the Fall, has curious implications.
One consequence of the Fall that many theologians suggest is an intellectual repercussion. It is argued that because of the fall, our reasoning has been corrupted, explaining the disagreement among science, philosophy, and spiritual matters. The noetic effects of sin is the term used to describe this intellectual consequence.
I would argue that the human mind and understanding was never intended for intellectual perfection, however. Whether it is in Eden, Heaven, or the New Earth, I find it hard to believe that our understanding will be consummate in the ways we imagine. For example, Adam and Eve apparently didn’t know good from evil or that they were naked while God was clearly aware of both. Neither did they seem to comprehend overtly spiritual or theological matters (argued as the primary consequence of the noetic effects of sin).
Instead of a traditional understanding of the noetic effects of sin – an intellectual corruption of our minds after the Fall – I think a new understanding would be an intellectual condemnation after the Fall. Because Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we are condemned to think about and navigate through issues of good and evil despite our very limited human faculties. We are condemned to use our minds in ways beyond their intent. It would seem we were never designed to completely comprehend Absolute Truth. We were creatures for the Garden. After a desire to apprehend more about the world, it seems humankind bit off more than it could chew and now we are faced with quandaries that we cannot adequately address on our own. We are sentenced to our own curiosity.
Despite our humanness and finite minds, it is incumbent upon us to work in earnest towards knowing and following the good while avoiding evil. It would not be right to simply crawl away from the world into an intellectual abyss – that would be crawling away from the consequence of Adam and Eve. Until the End, we are condemned to think as earnestly and cleverly as we can to know and do good. Most importantly, we are to think with the aid of God. Because of our limitations, every good thought, every glimpse at truth, is a sacred gift. Much like the church fathers, it is important to approach intellectual issues with humility and dependence that resembles our relationship with God.
In the beginning (and perhaps the end), however, we are creatures made for the Garden. We are meant to be, not to know. Maybe we are a little like fish in a wondrous fishbowl.
This analogy can be quite abrasive and uncomfortable, but that makes sense. It’s in our heritage. Apparently Adam and Eve weren’t content with it either. They certainly aren’t alone in their greedy curiousity, however, as Lewis reminds us in this story between a ghost and heavenly spirit.
“I am not trying to make any point,” said the Spirit. “I am telling you to repent and believe.”
“But my dear boy, I believe already. We may not be perfectly agreed, but you have completely misjudged me if you do not realise that my religion is a very real and very precious thing to me.”
“Very Well,” said the other, as if changing his plan. “Will you believe in me?”
“In what sense?”
“Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?”
“Well, that is a plan. I am perfectly ready to consider it. Of course I should require some assurances … I should want a guarantee that you are taking me to a place where I shall find a wider sphere of usefulness – and scope for the talents that God has given me – and an atmosphere of free inquiry – in short, all that one means by civilization and – er – the spiritual life.”
“No,” said the other. “I can promise you none of these things. No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.”
“Ah, but we must all interpret those beautiful words in our own way! For me there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? ‘Prove all things’ … to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.”
“If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for.”
“But you must feel yourself that there is something stifling about the idea of finality? Stagnation, my dear boy, what is more soul-destroying than stagnation?”
“You think that, because hitherto you have experienced truth only with the abstract intellect. I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as by a bridegroom. Your thirst shall be quenched.”
“Well, really, you know, I am not aware of a thirst for some ready-made truth which puts an end to intellectual activity in the way you seem to be describing. Will it leave me the free play of Mind, Dick? I must insist on that, you know.”
“Free, as a man is free to drink while he is drinking. He is not free still to be dry.” The Ghost seemed to think for a moment. “I can make nothing of that idea,” it said.
“Listen!” said the White Spirit. “Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again: even now.”
“Ah, but when I became a man I put away childish things.”
“You have gone far wrong. Thirst was made for water: inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.”
“If we cannot be reverent, there is at least no need to be obscene. The suggestion that I should return at my age to the mere factual inquisitiveness of boyhood strikes me as preposterous. In any case, that question-and-answer conception of thought only applies to matters of fact. Religious and speculative questions are surely on a different level.”
“We know nothing of religion here: we think only of Christ. We know nothing of speculation . Come and see. I will bring you to Eternal Fact, the Father of all other fact-hood.”
“I should object very strongly to describing God as a ‘fact.’ The Supreme Value would surely be a less inadequate description. It is hardly…”
“Do you not even believe that He exists?
“Exist? What does Existence mean?”