Stage Behind the Mind

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In his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt maintains that “I can tell the elephant to turn, to stop, or to go. I can direct things, but only when the elephant doesn’t have desires of his own. When the elephant really wants to do something, I’m no match for him” (4). Haidt’s point is that mind is divided in two parts. There is a conflict between those parts and when it comes to a point where our unconscious mind has a desire to take the control, we can’t prevent it. It is impossible to overcome the elephant’s resistance. Basically the elephant is the unconscious part of our mind that evolved to store feelings, thoughts, urges and memories outside of our conscious awareness, also to protect us from ourselves, the environmental changes and outlanders. In short, no matter what we do, the elephant is the dominant and the wise one, not our will or our conscious wants. The rider should let the elephant go, because the elephant knows where it is going. They are two parts of a whole. The elephant and the rider want to go to the same direction — unconsciously.

When we try to think of a hundred thoughts and images or try to memorize fifty facts of some incident consciously, we probably won’t be able to do it — and we will probably have a bad headache afterwards. However, the elephant can do so many things without making an effort, such as storing infinite incidents and facts and generating thousands of thoughts and images every day (20). Haidt agrees when he writes “it’s hard for the controlled system to beat the automatic system by willpower alone; like a tired muscle, the former soon wears down and caves in, but the latter runs automatically, effortlessly, and endlessly” (18). Haidt empathizes that a person’s will -by itself- doesn’t even have an effect on the elephant. This is the reason why we need to do something in order to change a person’s affective style and start taming the elephant. Haidth suggests that “You need a method for taming the elephant, for changing your mind gradually. Meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac are three effective means of doing so” (43-44). I agree that Haidt is not wrong about these methods and all of them are effective but, a point that needs emphasizing since we should be the one who deals with the elephant, not someone else or a pill. If we are the one who are familiar with the elephant, then why should we trust something or someone else? If we start taming the elephant by ourselves, the elephant’s absolute power will be in our hands forever –unlike the other methods. The upshot of all this is that the most effective one out of those three is meditation. Meditation is the only therapy that allows us to explore our self – also the elephant- and permanently solve our problems.

Haidth demonstrates that reciprocity and vengefulness are a part of us which genetically come with the elephant when we are born. We are not blank slate when we born. Humans are born with some emotions and instincts (S.Pinker). And I think reciprocity and vengefulness are some of those emotions and instincts which are coded in our genes –maybe it has been coded for hundred thousands of years, because our evolutionary road decided that we needed those feelings. “Gratitude and vengefulness are big steps on the road that led to human ultrasociality, and it’s important to realize that they are two sides of one coin,” wrote Haidth in Happiness Hypothesis, “it would be hard to evolve one without the other” (52).

However, there are many ways to prove no matter what rider does, the elephant is always going to be there to keep everything on an even keel. Consider someone tries to change his breathing rate to faster or slower, what he is doing now is using his conscious mind to breathe. When he forgets about the exercise, he will notice how the elephant takes the control and returns the breathing rate to normal. Also if a person tries to hold breath and die, he/she can’t do it. Because after consciously holding the breath for a while, the person will pass out due to low amount of oxygen. At that point, the involuntary breathing reflex will kick in, and the person will start breathing again (control of respiration). In fact sometimes while we are doing something unconsciously, we feel like we are doing it consciously. “Our ego makes us think our conscious mind is in control of our actions, but that's simply not true. Our conscious mind is constantly controlled by our unconscious” ( Chhtraliya, Ravi). As a result it is not actually possible to overcome the elephant.

Every person comes into the world with an elephant. The riders start without knowing anything –our conscious mind. While the elephant is full of knowledge and wise. The elephant leads the way until the rider learns how to decide on his/her own to survive. Since the rider is not perfect (nobody is perfect) even after the rider learns how to decide and control his/her own path, sometimes the elephant takes the control. I believe we can’t judge the elephant because it’s the one with more experience. It’s the wise and sapient one. It’s there to help us out. As an illustration when we talk to a stranger, we unconsciously keep track on their mimics, voice tones and expressions. Then if the elephant detects danger or threat it tells us to walk away, if the elephant decides that it’s beneficial for us to stay it tells us to stay. Most of the time we do what the elephant says –we should do it all the time.

According to Haidth “The human mind have been shaped by evolutionary processes to play Machiavellian tit for tat, and it seems to come equipped with cognitive processes that predispose us to hypocorism self-righteousness, and moralistic conflict. But sometimes by knowing the mind’s structure and strategies, we can step out of the ancient game of social manipulation and enter into a game of our choosing” (80). Also I agree with Haidth’s idea of how human mind have been shaped by evolutionary processes up to a point, I cannot accept his overall conclusion that we can step out and enter into a game of our choosing. He may not realize that he notes “we are the rider, we are the elephant” (22). So as it seems there is a conflict in his words. Since we are the rider and the elephant, does it really make sense to step out the ancient game (elephant) and enter into a game of our choosing (rider)? I believe that consequently Haidt’s metaphor is effective, but we shouldn’t be trying to step out. We should let the elephant play the game with our support, and help the elephant to reach our, as we are the rider and the elephant, desires.

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Chhtraliya, Ravi. "What the Unconscious Mind Is & Can Do? - Free Online Library." News, Magazines, Newspapers, Journals, Reference Articles and Classic Books - Free Online Library. The Free Library, Sept. 2009. Web. 27 Mar. 2010. .

Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. New York: Basic, 2006. Print.

Pinker, Steven. "Steven Pinker Chalks It up to the Blank Slate | Video on TED.com." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. Sept. 2008. Web. 27 Mar. 2010. .

Wikipedia Contributors. "Control of Respiration." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 08 Mar. 2010. Web. 27 Mar. 2010. .