EP 1 Heroism

TRANSCRIPT

Interviewer:

You're listening to Youth Jam, and we're in the midst of the morning show with your morning show host, Lachlan Bose. And as it's a Thursday, we are right now set to kick off another set of discussions with Dr. Patrick Jones. Patrick comes on air to discuss a different facet of our mental health. And Patrick, over the last few of your appearances, we're looking at mindfulness, but today we're going to be looking at a new subject, specifically heroism, and how that links to mindfulness. So with that in mind, as someone, who doesn't have that much knowledge in these areas, can you just outline for myself and the listeners what is heroism and how it connects to mindfulness? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, it's a great sort of evolution in psychology and research that's happened whereas before, the typical approach has been looking at problems and trying to fix them, what we might call a pathology focus. And then over time, positive psychology started to grow, which looked at well-being and how to build that. And then in recent years, people have investigated what makes a hero, and what makes an ideal human being in society. And this whole research area that the science of heroism was born. It's an attempt to go beyond two things, beyond pathology or the problem side of things, and beyond the well-being focus, to almost like the next level of what's the upper ceiling of what a human being can be like and what they look like in society, in themselves. 

So that's kind of really the first bit in terms of the context heroism has been explored. Like, years ago, there was a guy, Joseph Campbell, who wrote this book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, but it was ages ago, like 1949, but it did map out what might be the stages of the development of someone who becomes quite heroic. And essentially they have an ordinary life. Then something challenges them, they face the fear of trying to overcome it and they go through this whole journey, the hero's journey, of changing as a result of trying to face their demons or the dragon, if you like, and then they overcome that. And then the last bit usually is that they return to their life, their ordinary life, potentially before, but they're somehow changed as human beings. 

So that was sort of the hero's journey approach, but it wasn't very scientific, but it was a great description. Throughout. The myths of time have often highlighted this journey. And then science and psychology somehow got interested. So then these people, Franco and Zabado, 2006, it was kind of their main, they started to write about it. So years later, but still for us, quite recent, and they reopened the inquiry almost from, let's look at this scientifically, or let's look at this and try and investigate, get some research behind what are these people like, how do they act? Why do they act, and do we have that potential ourselves? So that's kind of really how it started. 

And these people essentially just came up with what they consider to be major factors that makeup heroes, that it has to be some kind of quest to do something of significance, preserve life, or preserve some really important ideal. One of these, of the four, that was one. And the other is it's got to have some kind of actual or anticipated sacrifice or risk. It can't just be, hey, that sounds a good thing. It's got to be personally jeez, sure, I want to do this. It's got to have some risk element because it's heroic. The third one is it can be quite passive. It doesn't have to be completely active and phenomenal. It might be something that almost no one kind of gets to see, but it's still amazing what they're doing. It's just not, my God, they're superheroes. 

So that's the other bit can be either seen or not seen, or it can be like this one-off act that someone does, like pull someone off a train track, or it can be an ongoing thing that's just how this person perhaps like firefighters or something, they just operate like this in their life. So they started to look at that. My particular interest is I've looked at always the relevance of Mindfulness in different areas, and it's like my research area was, well, what could Mindfulness contribute to this research on heroism? So that's pretty much the context of all of it. 

Interviewer:

And you highlighted it there in the sense that when you hear the term heroism, you mightn't necessarily think of it in the scope of a scientific field. It's something that we'd associate with stories, and you highlighted it there as also ingrained in the stuff of fables and myths and things that have perpetuated through time. But as with Mindfulness, when were. 

Looking can I add that, in every myth, in every culture, what's been amazing? And I think Joseph Campbell's work highlighted this as a huge, long book. And it goes through every possible culture and how this same theme turns up, which is a person facing themselves and transforming into the best human being that they can be. And what that journey is like, is common to all of us and all cultures. 

Now, I was going to say with Mindfulness, we looked at that as being beneficial to not only our mental well-being but our physical well-being. And so when we're looking at heroism in conjunction with Mindfulness, how is heroism itself impactful to our physical and mental health? 

Patrick:

Yeah, right. Well, I think let's compare the opposite. And I think we all can feel or find this tendency in us. So the opposite of a hero perhaps might be a coward. And it's like when we look at our own life choices and those forks in the road of like do I take the cowardly choice or the heroic choice? And typically the cowardly choice. This is not in a mean or negative way, it's just simply our fear. But perhaps the cowardly choice within us might be I need to self-protect, this is just too much. And the heroic choice is like, well, I don't like this, but this needs to be done. This is good for these people. 

So the first kind of impact you could say is the whole almost moral, mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical impact of that transformation of who we are. And then all the research of course in terms of well-being is that when we are being congruent and authentic, it's correlated with well-being. Anything that is connected to the existential meaning they found in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation research is that well, especially to say, money people wanted to get rich. It was not correlated with well-being. But strangely enough, if they wanted to kind of get rich because they just hated how humanity was suffering and they just wanted to get all the resources they could muster to make a difference, that was correlated with well-being. 

So it's sort of this research on intrinsic extrinsic motivation is relevant here, is that when we change and we make this kind of positive choices, the whole of our system gets happier, you could say. So that's the first bit. And I suppose just to finish this and this is where I think compassion is continually relevant for ourselves and others. We always have that option to resist the call in that hero's journey and all the myths, they've got people that just can't do just there's too much for me. And even that classic Jonah and the Whale story, it's where he was invited. It's an Old Testament story. So it's a really old oral tradition from the Middle East and many centuries of millennia ago this stuff was written, but same principle. 

And it's just that notion that he was called to go and teach all these people that were being horrific just to buck up and become good human beings and he knew what that's going to include and he goes, oh no, that's my job, you can't do it. And he resisted it. And then he kind of like went on a boat and boat cap size, got in a whale, that whole story and reflection time got sped out. It's like God, okay, I can't resist what I know is right and I do it. And that's that classic thing of we often do feel that call and then it's like, can I act? Do I act? I think that's always the hero's choice and has a huge impact on us when we do. 

Interviewer:

In the scope of all of those definitions and those descriptions, it almost feels like there can be some ambiguity as to what is heroic and what is virtuous. If that makes sense, sometimes it's hard to define those two in a clear-cut way. So why is it that identification and definition are sometimes difficult? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, partly it's because heroes are so different. A bit like you might have a Mensa club for super bright people. There are heroes clubs where people who have done been given whatever it is, the Medal of Valor or something or other by an organization, or society, in whatever their version is. They have lists of these sorts of people and they have met up and they're quite different. And the research, of course, is interested in truth and trying to go, well, what are our patterns and what are our categories? And loves to research, categorize explain and understand. And it was a bit troubling because they're so different. And I love the example, I guess, of this I probably just finished that, is that you can have what they would call intermittent heroic profiles, where they do amazing stuff and then they're horrible. 

And it's like, well, how do we kind of reconcile that? Or people that are super good but aren't acting and people you think shouldn't be acting are. So there was a bit of confusion as to what predicts this. And so that's what I love about research. It's generally interested in the truth of things, even though it gets lost in its tale, but a lot of time. But that's its goal. And I think it's done a good job of trying to understand heroes. So a nice example of that ambiguity and confusion is there was Hurricane Katrina years ago that sort of ripped through a state in America and it was taking ages for the emergency relief to be able to do things, and the red tape and government this and that. 

And this guy, Jahar Gibson, who had a history of felony arrests and all that stuff, he basically just stepped up, stole a bus, loaded a stolen bus with all the poor people from New Orleans, all the people that could not get anywhere, do anything. Just didn't have resources, didn't have a car, whatever else, and just basically just busted them out of there and drove them to safety. And whilst those people who might have been or should have been doing stuff were like just hadn't got off the ground. So a nice example of how we're never limited by our past. This person might have had a troubled past, but it's like, I know what's needed right now and I'm doing it. 

Hence the difficulty of trying to define it predictably and it kind of leads me to why I link mindfulness to this, which is because mindfulness training is meant to be a progressive build-up of equilibrium or resilience virtue, really, of just becoming a more open, aware, clear human being. So it's a training method. And what had never been done in the research of science, of heroism. And that's the interface I was keen to explore was what role could mindfulness have in building a hero, building the heroic profile. So we got rid of this intermittent, unpredictable quality, like if it's a training center, a training way of being for building. In fact, in the Tibetan, when they use the term bodhisattva, basically, it just means like a virtuous human being. 

But the translation, the Tibetan is that's their ideal meditator in mindfulness adept or someone that's mastered mindfulness. The term bodhisattva, when it gets translated, means enlightened hero. In other words, to face yourself, which is the whole mindfulness work. It requires repeated courage. So that was my interest in how could we deal with this difficulty that you've raised, which is how do we define it and how do we get a predictable profile and a predictable way of training us to access this heroic way of being? And can we be trained to be a hero? Like, can we find ways and methods that are predictable that can take us from our tendency towards, in fact, a tendency towards cowardice? 

It reminds me of an old theologian from the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas, he said his view was that man his definition was his natural law theory was that man is essentially good, but with a tendency towards evil. And it's like I think it's a bit like us. We are naturally heroic. We want to be, but we tend to be cowardly. So this work that I'm looking at in terms of mindfulness work is trying to see, if could we build the goal of mindfulness as an egoless existence that is ethical, natural, altruistic, and spontaneously heroic. 

Interviewer:

What is the difference between being heroic and simply being ethical or principled? 

Patrick:

Yeah, okay. Well, if we just take some of it again, the research on what heroism is that sometimes it's determined by public perception. A great example is, say, for example, a lot of the equal rights movements, even the right to vote and so on, they typically have started as being unpopular at the time, and they're opposing the status quo. That might be heroic, but we're not necessarily seeing it as heroic until, in the end, Martin Luther King is seen as a hero, but at the time, he's an absolute nuisance and illegal and so on. So that's a little hard to know what to do when that's the you know, that would be classed as potentially very ethical but not a hero. 

And then I guess you got the next part in terms of what makes up a hero from the research point of view is that question of what they call is it external from a situation like people who are not normally heroic, and then they're put in a position to save people, like pulling someone off a train track. That might create a hero, but the research would say, well, that's because heroism is externally driven. And then there's another view, which is probably a little bit closer to what you're talking about in terms of what's the difference between that and a more ethically or principled person. And this third view in a way, was, is it public perception? Two, is it externally driven by situations that we wouldn't otherwise be that way? 

Or the third view is that it comes from an internal place that, if you're an ethical person, you will act heroically. I guess where the research has played with these two if heroism is just an ethical person, then it's not anything new. The science of heroism is just like, well, just go and research ethical people, and there's nothing more to say. But what we found is that ethical people aren't always heroic. They don't always like Hurricane Katrina. There were lots of ethically good people who just were not stepping up. And there are people that you wouldn't think would be who just go, enough snuff got to act. So it seems to be that they're not always related or they're not always the same person. I think that it's not just about being ethical or principled. 

There's a lot more to it. There's also psychologically healthy or stable. Just because you're a good person doesn't necessarily mean you're a courageous person. I think there are lots of beautiful, lovely people in the world who are shy and withdrawn and not able to speak their mind and whatever else but as good as gold beautiful people. So I think there's more to it than just ethics and being a principled human being. And to me, I would say connecting back to the mindfulness goals. It's about being a fully-rounded human being. As Jung said, someone is not which is very much close to the hero's journey approach. Jung said someone do not truly know themselves until they pass through their shadow. And so you might be a good person, kind, generous person, but have you faced that which you're scared of? 

And for the hero to be heroic, you have to have at least an oncoming train. So I think my answer to the difference between heroic and ethical is a fully rounded, psychologically healthy, altruistic, open, and generous human being. That wholesome, if you like, or integrated is probably a better term. Integrated personality, integrated human being, which kind of has an egoist foundation to me, is the closest that we get to joining up heroic and ethical. 

Interviewer:

Yeah. In that way, then, is there a link to how principles and values influence acts of heroism? 

Patrick:

I would say, in terms of what I probably just mentioned, that there are similar characteristics with the hero in that there is this respect for humanity with a hero. In a sense, there might just be respect for humanity at that time, but probably an ethical or values-driven person might have an ongoing respect for humanity just like a hero. It's kind of optional. It just happens to turn up at that time. But if you've got, I think, those values that are there it's going to be more likely there's more of a foundation for you to be able to make that good choice. So I think that would be one in terms of how that would influence it. Another might be, I guess, a willingness to act based upon your values versus Go. 

They are my values, but I can't so there must be I think those principles must be there not just the value, but also the willingness to do something about it. Because what is it someone said? You aren't what you say you do. You are what you do. And I think that my values are one thing but what's the action? So I think that willingness has to be there and I think another principle that is connected to the heroism research is the willingness to risk self-interest for the sake of those values or in a sense for others. So I think that is kind of a critical principle. I think another also would be the idea that it's not just about me or it's bigger than me. 

So that desire to inspire others to be all they can be or to be able to be saved in a particular event I think so it's very other would be a critical principle versus just like sometimes people see them as extremely loving to their families and it genuinely can be quite exquisite to witness and to see. My litmus test is how are they with other families? Because to me, that's when I think that principle if you're just loving to your friends then are you a loving person? Not saying it's always a quid pro quo with friendship, but it's back to that equanimity thing can I be loving to the friend stranger, and enemy? And if the enemy is on the train track, can I risk myself for this human being? 

Because I see them as the same as me in the regard that they want to be happy and not suffer just as I do and can I be there for them in that? So I think that's it and probably the last bit would be that I think part of a principled person that would influence these acts would be the humility that they're not so important that they need to be the one that's demonstrated as being so heroic. A common response from heroes who've done something amazing is look, anyone would have done the same in my situation which is not the case we'll talk another time about the bystander effect which is where people dilute social responsibility amongst the group so they only feel 10% responsible when ten people are watching. 

But if they were by themselves they might have done something but you need one of those ten people to go, someone needs to act but they're not kind of blowing their own trumpet about how good that is. It's just like that's obvious. It's not obvious to the other nine the issue. I think that's it but probably just to finish, I would say that the middle ground for me with the heroism research and kind of the ethical stuff you've been talking about is that it's usually heroic. I think action can occur when someone does have some of those relevant values and then the situation triggers them and then they act. And then, in that case, we have a successful outcome. 

Someone steps out of themselves for the well-being of another and that's seen now as one of the most perfect acts for a human being is that selflessness. 

Interviewer:

Yeah well, you've left it like a lovely cliffhanger for what we'll then talk about next week with mention of the bystander effect. In the meantime, though, Patrick, thanks for getting in touch with us this week. Look forward to our next yeah. 

Patrick:

Great topics, to be honest. This stuff, I think is very significant for the world. And when I say that, I'm also just thinking individually for each person, these kinds of conversations, these topics we meet at trivial or small decisions in our life, sometimes daily, to standing in the queue, letting the other person who's rushed go before us to the very big acts. And I think the more we can step up and hire each other to be all that is possible, I think it's a wonderful thing.

So a great topic.