Can People Change?
In an adaptation from
his new book Altruism,
Buddhist monk and bestselling author Matthieu
Ricard takes on the
notion that humans have a fixed nature.
One day, after a talk
I had given on altruism, a person in the audience got up and said in an irritated tone:
“What are you hoping for by encouraging us to cultivate altruism? Look at the
history of humanity! It’s always the same thing! An uninterrupted succession of
wars and suffering. That’s human nature, you can’t change anything about that!”
But is this truly the
case? We have seen that cultures can evolve. For example, we have gone from
regarding torture as an entirely acceptable public spectacle and war as noble
and glorious, to tolerating violence less and less, and increasingly regarding
war as immoral and barbaric. But can the individual change? And if he can, does
this change have an influence on society and on succeeding generations?
True, our character
traits change little, so long as we do nothing to improve them. But they are
not frozen in place. Our basic traits, which result from the combined
contributions of our genetic heritage and the environment in which we grew up,
make up only the foundation of our identity. Scientific research in the field
of neuroplasticity shows that any form of
training leads to a reconfiguring in the brain, on both the functional and
structural levels.
Society and its
institutions influence and condition individuals, but individuals can in turn
make society evolve and change its institutions. As this interaction continues
over the course of generations, culture and individuals mutually shape each
other.
If we want to
encourage a more altruistic society to develop, it is important to evaluate the
respective capacities for change of both individuals and society. The
scientific discoveries of recent decades show that our genetic heritage,
influential as it is, represents only a starting point that predisposes us to
showing certain dispositions. This potential—and this is a crucial point—can
then come to expression in multiple ways under the influence of our environment
and by what we acquire through the efforts we make to train our minds or
physical abilities. Thus, it is more appropriate to compare our genetic
heritage to an architectural drawing that might be modified as the construction
progresses, or else to a musical theme on which a performer improvises.
How the brain and body evolve
The plasticity of the
brain plays a large role in our capacity for individual transformation. For a
long time, an almost universally accepted dogma in the neuroscience field
stated that once formed and structured, the adult brain doesn’t produce any
more neurons and changes only through decline with age.
Today we know this
doctrine was completely wrong. One of the major discoveries of the last thirty
years concerns neuroplasticity, a term that takes into account the fact that
the brain changes constantly when an individual is exposed to new situations.
The adult brain in fact remains extraordinarily malleable. It has the ability
to produce new neurons, to reinforce or diminish the activity of existing
neurons, and even to attribute a new function to an area of the brain that
usually carries out a completely different function.
There is a second
mechanism that allows individuals to change: epigenetics. In order for a gene,
which we have inherited from our parents, to be active, it must be “expressed,”
that is it must be “transcribed” in the form of a specific protein acting on
the organism bearing this gene. But if a gene is not expressed, if it remains
“silent,” it’s as if it were absent.
Recent advances in
genetics have revealed that environment can considerably modify the expression
of genes by a process called epigenetics. This expression of genes can be
activated or deactivated under the influence not just of external conditions,
but also of our mental states.
Two monozygotic twins,
for instance, who have exactly the same genes, can acquire different
physiological and mental characteristics if they are separated and exposed to
dissimilar living conditions. In scientific terms, one would say they are genetically
identical but phenotypically different. Similarly, a caterpillar and a
butterfly have exactly the same genes, but they are not expressed in the same
way, depending on the times of the insect’s life.
These modifications in
the expression of genes are more or less lasting, and in certain cases can even
be transmitted from one generation to another, even though there are no changes
in the DNA sequence of the genes themselves. These discoveries have truly
revolutionized the field of genetics, since hitherto the very notion of
transmission of acquired traits was regarded as heresy. The influence of
external conditions is thus considerable, and we know today that this influence
has repercussions all the way down to our genes.
Could training the
mind to cultivate positive emotions lead to epigenetic changes? Studies
undertaken at Richard Davidson’s laboratory in Wisconsin, in collaboration with
the Spanish geneticist Perla Kaliman, show that within a day,
meditating for eight hours on mindfulness, altruistic love,
and compassion already induces major epigenetic modifications. We can glimpse
here the possibility of an epigenetic transformation of an individual that is
due not just to the influence of the environment, but also to a voluntary
training in cultivating basic human qualities.
Becoming different beings
It
seems that a simultaneous transformation of cultures and individuals is
possible. Children who grow up in a culture where altruistic values prevail and
where society encourages cooperation will change no only in momentary behavior
but also in their general attitude and mental dispositions. They will be
different, not just because they will conform to new cultural norms and new
rules set by institutions, but because their brains will have beens shaped
differently and because their genes will be expressed
differently. Thus, a dynamic process of mutual influences will
continue over the course of generations.
In the final analysis,
it is individuals who put totalitarian regimes in place, and other individuals
who overthrow them to establish democracy. It is individuals who have
perpetrated genocides when they dehumanized their fellows, and it is other
individuals, sometimes the contemporaries of the former, who promulgated the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Despite immense
progress in the fields of democracy, women’s rights, human rights in general,
justice, solidarity, and the eradication of poverty and epidemics, much remains
to be done. It would be regrettable to neglect the role of personal transformation
in facilitating further changes.
One of the tragedies
of our time seems to be considerably underestimating the ability for
transformation of the human mind, given that our character traits are perceived
as relatively stable. It is not so common for angry people to become patient,
tormented people to find inner peace, or pretentious people to become humble.
It is undeniable, however, that some individuals do change,
and the change that takes place in them shows that it is not at all an impossible
thing. Our character traits last as long as we do nothing to improve
them and we leave our attitudes and automatisms alone, or else let
them be reinforced with time. But is is a mistake to believe they are fixed in
place permanently.
Knowing that emulation,
inspiration, and the power of living examples—the noble aspects of
conformism—are both the framework that ensure the stability and continuity of
cultures, and the motivating force behind their transformation and expansion,
it falls upon us to embody, in our being and our behavior, the altruism that we
want to encourage: the messenger must be the message.
Over the past fifty
years, we have seen aversion to war develop, and have witnessed the spread of
the view that the earth is nothing but a “big village.” This evolution is
underway. Perhaps it is enough to take part in it, by adding our stone to the
building, our drop to the ocean. But we can also decide to actively facilitate
it and amplify it, like a catalyst accelerating a chemical reactio
This essay was adapted from Matthieu Ricard's
new book,Altruism:
The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World (Little, Brown, 2015).
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