The Enlightenment and the project of modernity sought to achieve a universal understanding of the world through reason. A part of this project included theorizing the goals of various academic pursuits. In Aristotelian terms, this is known as the final cause, which Aristotle used to derive the purpose of any given object or animal. For instance, the webbed feet of a duck has the purpose of wading through water. Another term for this approach to understanding is teleology. Teleology is applied to various fields in modernity to gain clarity of how civilization should proceed. For instance, within the natural sciences, the fields of physics, chemistry and biology differ by their defined goals of inquiry. Physics is concerned with answering questions about matter, motion and energy. If all of the unsolved mysteries of physics are explained (and assuming that no other questions emerge in the field), one can say that physics has ended. To put it another way, this ultimate resolution can be called the “end of physics”. Such proclamations have been made before, not by crackpots but by well-respected experts. Albert Michelson, the first American physicist to receive the Nobel prize, stated in 1894 that within physics, “most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established” and “the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.” Michelson’s claim, therefore, is that physics no longer requires additional explanatory theories and that progress in the field is limited to more precise measurements. (This claim is often misattributed to the British physicist Lord Kelvin.) 

For hundreds of years, philosophers and other intellectuals have made claims to the “end of history”, which is the concept that there is an end-point in the evolution of political, economic and social systems, which manifests itself as the ultimate form of human organization or government. Beyond this “end of history”, major changes in human systems will cease to occur. In his controversial 1989 essay “The End of History?”, Francis Fukuyama claimed that the combination of liberal democracy and market economy seems to be the final form of human organization. He based this theory on the fall of fascism and communism in World War II and the increased liberalization of the market in the USSR respectively. Almost like clockwork, the Berlin Wall fell a few months after his essay was published and the USSR dissolved two years later in 1991. In the remaining years of the 90s and up until the mid-00s, Fukuyama’s idea seems to hold. Even Slavoj Zizek said in 2014 that “in a certain sense, almost all of us were Fukuyamaists” as “most of the left, was not raising fundamental questions… They were just trying to make the existing system more just. And more efficient.” The belief in Fukuyama’s claim may have created a blindness to the effects of neoliberal policies, which contributed to the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. The economist Joseph Stiglitz, responding to Fukuyama, titled a 2019 essay “The end of neoliberalism and the rebirth of history.” It is important, therefore, to be skeptical about suggestions that humanity has reached the final stage of its development. Gradual shifts that occur under our noses and unchallenged assumptions can lead to significant societal upheaval.

A related strain of inevitability is the cynical view that nothing fundamentally changes. In response to the French Revolution of 1848, the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” He is arguing that sweeping societal change only serves to cement existing injustice and inequality. The phrase rings true to many today in the US, who feel that their government only serves to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Despite being bailed out by US taxpayer money in 2008, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon got a bonus of almost $16 million in 2009. One could argue that it pales in comparison to the $27.8 million that he received in 2007 but it leaves a bad taste, especially for the millions of people who lost their jobs or their homes. However, in the book Factfulness by the physician and statistician Hans Rosling, the world as a whole has improved immensely over the past century. Some of these improvements include a decline in child labor, nuclear weapons and smallpox. 

For some, the fact that the world is improving causes them to believe that there is a natural course that history takes. This position may be best represented by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who (citing the Unitarian minister Theodore Parker) said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” These words inspire hope, but they may also cause people to feel that there is a natural tendency toward universal human progress that is separate from individual or collective agency. A similar form of optimism was criticized by Voltaire in his satirical novel Candide, whose main character became unable to reconcile the suffering that he observed in the world with the Leibnizian optimism that we are living in the “best of all possible worlds.” 

Our discussion leads us back to the intellectual heavyweight who shaped current thought around the “end of history” — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. For Hegel, “World history… represents the development of the spirit’s consciousness of its own freedom and of the consequent realization of this freedom.” This means that he believed that freedom is an essential quality of humanity and that sociocultural evolution will always proceed in a way that increases freedom for all people. Similar to Karr, Hegel was affected by the events of the French Revolution but had an almost opposite interpretation. For Hegel, Napoleon’s conquest of much of Europe was one of many world-historical events that allowed humanity to get closer to the final stage of history. Today, some popular interpretations of Hegel view his work on the philosophy of history as a form of inevitable progress, whereas others claim that agency is central in his work. What is apparent to me is how certain groups of people adopt a somewhat Hegelian explanatory approach to justify certain supposed “inevitabilities”. For instance, the rise of automation and its replacement of human labor is increasingly assumed as inevitable. Why is that the case? To me, this so-called inevitability can be explained by the Friedman doctrine that a company’s only goal is to increase shareholder value. Costs are reduced by cutting jobs and investing in automated production capability, which increases company productivity and ultimately enriches shareholders. Therefore, it is important to question the underlying assumptions of people who sell us their version of the future. When necessary, we have to muster the courage to imagine and actualize our own vision.

We have now covered everything in our list except one — belief, which is the thorniest one to deal with. Within cognitive psychology, belief is defined as a “propositional attitude”. The combination of beliefs that one holds forms a worldview (or belief system), which organizes the different experiences and subsequent actions that one takes. Our worldview is such a fundamental part of ourselves that it comes as second nature to us; it is the closest conscious phenomenon we have to our primal instincts. One way to think about different belief systems is through the metaphor of different sports. Many different sports use the same physical space, for example, a field. On a similar field, different games have different rules and objectives, which leads to player actions having very different meanings in each game. In American football, players have multiple ways to score, including touchdowns and field goals. In soccer, the only way to score is by moving the ball into the opponent’s goal post. In the former, players grab the ball with their hands, whereas in the latter, it would be considered a foul. The unique gameplay across different team sports also changes the types of roles that are in the team, with each game having its own set of player positions. Similarly, beliefs help people understand what is valuable, make sense of their actions in their society, and identify and perform the roles that they play. This view is summed up by a quote often attributed to C.S. Lewis, “We are what we believe we are.”

We can generally agree that, like cognitive tools, belief is not innate but rather acquired through experience. For instance, we are born with the natural instincts to eat, survive, and procreate, but no one automatically has the belief that they are a citizen of any nation-state. At the same time, however, beliefs are not only hard to change, they are often an aspect of ourselves that we cannot consciously choose, especially if they are inculcated in us since childhood. Beyond biological relation, a shared worldview is often what ties us to the closest people in our lives. Oftentimes, this shared worldview takes the form of religion. Given the all-or-nothing nature of many religions who proclaim their belief as the sole version of the truth, the choice to leave the religion that one was born into can have grave consequences as it often costs the leaver their family and community. Such conversion (or deconversion) stories have been told by authors like Tara Westover in her best-seller “Educated” and Shulem Deen in his memoir, “All Who Go Do Not Return”. Belief systems stem not only from religion, but also science, ethnicity, nationality, and in this era of fake news, conspiracy theories. The choice of swapping entire worldviews is usually caused by pivotal and sometimes traumatic experiences that prompt a person to question their fundamental beliefs. A historical example is Leo Tolstoy’s mid-life crisis, which led to him writing his seminal essay “A Confession”. Which of us, however, has the choice to dictate what experiences we have in our lives? 

Moreover, people usually avoid having their lives upturned. That being said, I do think that people generally want to behave in ways that are mutually beneficial for themselves and their wider community. To do so, we should critically evaluate our beliefs from time to time. This is not easy and requires moral courage because we may have to admit that we were wrong. Drawing our attention inward and reflecting on our own lives is an important element of self-renewal and gaining agency over our own development. The cultivation of inner life, however, may be made increasingly difficult with social media and our digital devices constantly begging for our attention.

A common theme throughout this essay, therefore, seems to be that attention and awareness are crucial in facilitating change in the mutable aspects of ourselves. Even though the body and unconscious mind are resistant to change, the conscious mind is far more pliable — we can learn new knowledge and thinking approaches, revise our base assumptions which help to frame our world, and become better at interpreting our experiences and their meaning in our lives. I would argue that such changes are meaningful and can have a huge impact on an individual’s life and that of their society. We often hear words that describe personal change. Some Protestant Christian churches use the term “born again” to describe the conversion to Christianity. After recovering from a particularly grueling ordeal or brutal setback, we may feel like a “new person”. Needless to say, these are figures of speech, but we find such internal changes so significant that we liken them to rebirth.

It fascinates me how the plasticity of our mind seems well-matched to continual sociocultural change. When Darwin coined the phrase, “survival of the fittest”, he was not referring to physical strength but being “better adapted for the immediate, local environment”. Similarly, our social survival depends on the ability to adapt and/or respond to emerging sociocultural norms. Our mind, therefore, is a tool for us to resist premature obsolescence and remain a part of human discourse. However, just because we are able to change, does not necessarily mean that we do. The philosopher John Rawls has described our birth as a lottery. Our childhood conditions affect us throughout our lives and are the result of sheer luck. We should acknowledge how we often unwittingly become the people we are. To be an ally of change, both for ourselves and others, we need to practice compassion and non-attachment. Change is difficult — being kind to ourselves and others goes a long way in that struggle. By non-attachment, I do not mean to stop caring about the people you love but rather to give them the space to change. This applies equally to those whom we dislike. If we are too keen on sticking to an impression of a person, we are limiting their ability to change through our interpretation of who they were and how they ought to be.

Some of us may be struggling with who we are or trapped in incessant cycles of thought. Where there is change, there is hope. The belief that we can change gives us hope that tomorrow may be better because the inner conditions that we find ourselves in can and will change.

Let me start by saying that this essay will adopt a somewhat unconventional structure. I will state upfront my position on a matter and get toward that destination through a process of elimination. If that sounds like an ignorant student attempting to answer a multiple-choice question by a process of elimination because he is unsure, well yes — today, that student is me.

The topic for today is an individual’s capacity for change. This reminds me of an assignment that I did for my philosophy professor, Prof. James Yess, when we were discussing the topic of free will vs determinism. We were challenged with describing our position with six words, as a sort of homage to Hemingway’s six-word story. I wrote something along the lines of, “Freer — but not free — will exists.” My position here is that of a compatibilist, in short, I believe that individual agency can exist alongside determinism. As it relates to today’s topic, I believe that an individual should only be judged based on the things that they can reasonably change about themselves.

Let us begin by first unpacking the term “self”. We can think of the self from a first-person perspective: a physical body that can be moved by our volition and a conscious mind that thinks, imagines, and remembers, among many other mental actions. Between the false dichotomy of mind and body, we have senses that can receive and interpret external stimuli, feelings that can experience the greatest joy and deepest sadness, and beliefs that seem so deeply ingrained in ourselves that they seem like second nature. Then there are aspects of ourselves that we are often unaware of — the unconscious mind. Before we go through this laundry list to evaluate which elements of the self are more changeable, let us quickly discuss why we would consider changing ourselves in the first place.

If we lived in a world where we were the only human being, we probably did not need to change ourselves that much, with the exception of learning behaviors that prevent physical pain, increase sensorial pleasure and ensure survival by meeting our bodily needs. If we had an anger management problem in such a world, we may not be motivated to change because acting on it may not yield much negative impact. Perhaps we may hurt ourselves if we punched a rock — in which case we may change mainly to minimize pain, as mentioned earlier, but not to address the anger. Fortunately in our reality, no man is an island — we live in an interconnected society that is filled with rich social relationships, where individual acts can have social outcomes. Humans are social creatures and our relationships are very meaningful to us. Therefore, on top of the aforementioned reasons for change, we also try to prevent emotional pain and increase psychological wellness, not just on an individual level but expanded to a wider social dimension. The earlier example of an anger management issue would have more serious consequences due to the potential to harm others. The person would also be more pressured to change due to socioemotional mechanisms of guilt and shame. Many of our personal behavioral changes, therefore, can be traced to our desire to be good for our society.

Now, back to the laundry list – which of the previously stated aspects of the self are we more able to change? Alterations made to the body are commonplace in certain areas of the world and to specific groups of people. However, in general, it is something that is not easily changed. Procedures can be painful, expensive, and sometimes even endanger a person’s life. I guess this is why judging anyone based on how they look feels wrong. Next, the unconscious mind is usually out-of-reach to us unless we seek psychoanalytic intervention, which often requires professional help. It is important to note, however, that the psychoanalytic definition of the unconscious is still debated to this day. If we take the cognitive definition of the unconscious and extend it to the realm of implicit cognitive biases and heuristics (as pioneered by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky), we can counteract some of these automatic processes through conscious compensation. Therefore, we find ourselves in the realm of conscious thought and feeling, which includes sense perception, emotion (a.k.a. affect), cognition, and belief. By definition, we are aware of our consciousness, which makes it the most actively changeable aspect of our self relative to the previous two (i.e. body and unconscious).

We are aware of our sense perceptions, but they are generally unchanged by conscious thought. We can, however, compensate for perceptual illusions by being aware of them. Emotions, especially intense ones like anger and grief, can sometimes be felt viscerally, but they can be regulated through thought. Our emotions often come from our interpretation of certain events that occur in our life. The area of practical philosophy, which aims to aid people in living “wiser, more reflective lives,” has been a central part of philosophers’ work since Laozi and Socrates and likely predates them. Hence, even if we feel strongly about something that happened to us, we are able to respond in a measured way, sometimes by reframing the experience in different ways.

Cognition refers to the mental activities involved in acquiring knowledge and understanding. It can be strengthened through various thinking tools and approaches that we learn and then employ to solve problems and make decisions. It is probably one of the most changeable parts of our mind, as seen from the huge investments that societies around the world put into educating people, especially the young, to read, write and do arithmetic. Based on the World Bank’s figures, we spent around 4.53% of global GDP, equivalent to US$3.68 trillion ($3,682,348,740,000), on education in 2017. Generally speaking, someone who has a better understanding of how the world works should be able to behave in a way that benefits themselves and their society. They may also be in a position that helps them understand complex, strategic, and long-term decisions that require trade-offs, compromises, and short-term sacrifices. Therefore, learning — specifically the acquisition of knowledge and skills — remains to be a powerful force for both personal improvement and social mobility.

Writer’s note: I realized that this topic cannot be adequately discussed in a single 1000-word essay. Click here for part 2.