The Politics of Why

A child asks a parent why; and a parent asks a child why; the two questions mean very different things. The child asks why the sun shines, why grass looks green. The parent asks why the child shaved the cat.

The child’s questions inquire into the cause-and-effect workings of the universe. The parent’s question inquires into the child’s motivations, which does not operate under any straightforward causal principles.

When applied to human behavior, the question "Why?" seeks to turn the ephemeral and multiplexed and multidimensionally-woven tangle of human motivations into a linear and static thing: a reason. The question puts the other on the spot, demanding that she produce a reason, which the querent can examine and judge.

Often, the other hears it as an accusation: you challenge your victim to produce her static, linear reason – a damn good reason. Perhaps you remember this: you did something, and your mother and/or father told you that you’d better have a damn good reason for it. Well, your victim’s parents did the same thing to him or her, and you’ve just touched on and activated the residue of parent-induced guilt.

Her motivations for doing whatever she did had a multiplexed, tangled character. Thus, the odds are that she will not be able to produce a static, linear reason which even she will find satisfying, let alone you – even supposing she can recall the ephemeral state of motivation that actually produced the action in question.

Thus, asking the bald question "Why did you do X?" has a very high probability of eliciting a negative reaction.

What about children?

In almost every situation in which you seem likely to question a child concerning his "reasons" for an action, you and the child will relate to each other in a defined power structure. The child may be your own offspring, or a student in your classroom, or even a stranger: but you are THE ADULT and he is the child.

The child – unless he is in a rebellious mode with respect to you – feels that he must satisfy your demand for a "reason." Yet he also does not want to lie. Thus, when parents or teachers ask small children "Why did you do X," they most frequently hear the classic, clichèd answer: "I don’t know!" Pressed for a "reason," the child will create (often from whole cloth) one which he hopes the adult will find plausible.

And so we begin learning to simplify and "rationalize" our motivations. We divide ourselves from the multiplexity of what goes on in our nervous systems, and create "rational" (meaning linear) models of our selves and our motives, in which we have "reasons" for our actions.

None of this, by the way, denies the rational. Most of us some of the time, and some of us most of the time, actually do things for well-thought-out reasons. We have goals in mind, and think through methods of attaining our goals. This constitutes rational behavior.

But the goal itself is not, and cannot be, rational in origin.

Many goals seem rational – or, rather, many things which seem like goals have rational bases.

"Why did you do X?"

"To make a pile of money."

"Why do you want to make a pile of money?"

"So I can buy the things I want."

"Why do you want those things?"

And so on. Perhaps our victim can list reasons for wanting each of the things she wants; perhaps not. But if we pursue this line of questioning far enough, we will come to a place where rationality ends. At this point, the victim can do one of several things:

• She can acknowledge that here we have struck an emotional "I-want" without any rational basis.
• She can say that the desirability of whatever motivates her "is obvious" – which comes to much the same thing, but generalizes, projects, even universalizes, her desires onto all humanity.
• She can rationalize her desires.

Such rationalization often takes the form of an appeal to some "scientific" theory or "fact": for example, "Well, I want to have children, because we evolved to want to reproduce; and I want to have three of them, because I believe that I can’t raise more than three responsibly, given my financial and other resources, my own physical and emotional make-up, and so on." Note that the second statement may well arise from reason, but the first rationalizes a drive which is not rational. Nobody seeks to obey the dictates of a master-entity called "biology" or "evolution"; they have non-rational desires. We may invoke the results of disciplines such as "biology" and theories such as "evolution" seek to explain, but these disciplines do not prompt those desires.

Alternatively, the rationalizer may appeal to neurochemistry. She may say, "Well, the chemical reactions which take place in my nervous system, including hormones, etc., produce in me a drive to have children." This seems true, as far as it goes, but in its reductionism, it removes the source of behavior from the rational framework of a conscious person, and so again acknowledges that our deeper motivations do not arise from reason.

Some practical conclusions seem to come from all this theorizing.

An integral and "rational" person must accept, even embrace, the non-rational source of his or her motivations. He or she will do well to seek out those motivations, and understand their overall structure, so that he or she can better follow Socrates’ advice and "know thyself." He or she may even find that he or she can work more effectively (and rationally!) to achieve the goals toward which these motivations drive him or her.

Granting that not all these motivations have "purely" organic/genetic origin – i.e., that some motivations arise from an individual’s history – some of his or her motivations may well conflict with others. The individual may then seek to understand these conflicts, and resolve them.

Also, he or she may find some motivations without which he or she could live more happily, and may wish to "adjust" his or her motivational structure. This seems a fundamental goal of psychotherapy, whether assisted or solitary.

Finally, it seems that parents have a special obligation to understand how their demands and other influences on their children affect their motivation structures, and to seek to affect them in ways which will help the children to lead happy, healthy, etc., adult lives.