The Shaming of the Human Soul
Chet Shupe
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Unaware that the wisdom needed to govern a species’ life must come from the real-life experiences of countless generations before us, our intellectual minds presume that reason is both the origin and the endpoint of understanding. They see themselves as the masters of the forces of Nature that created us. Although the rational mind did not realize this, if it were to run things, the first force of Nature it would have to put down is our emotional intelligence.
The rational mind achieved this not through intention, but by happenstance when it introduced the practice of social contracting. Before social contracting existed, emotional intelligence held complete control over social order. When our emotional minds were in charge, people understood that if they wanted to be able to live with themselves, they needed to do what they felt was right and avoid doing things they felt were wrong. They learned this through personal experience.
But once the rational mind’s idea of social contracting took hold, how our behavior made us feel wasn’t our only concern. We also had to do whatever was necessary to secure a place to live. With personal survival as their main goal, people naturally pushed the limits of what felt good to achieve it. Sometimes, they went way over the line.
The rational mind, unable to see that the deviant behavior was born of desperation, mistook it for proof of deceitful souls. And from that misreading, it declared the human spirit untrustworthy. As a consequence, the rational mind has since proclaimed that the human spirit cannot be trusted. It has trumpeted this from the mountaintops, preached it from pulpits, and decreed it in the grand halls of ivory towers, with every legal imposition we face—impositions we must satisfy to have the right to live on this planet. For five thousand years, we, the upstanding citizens of Mother Earth, have borne the weight of that shame.
Mr. Intellectual Intelligence: The mistake you made put you in a situation that is over your head. I’m going to tell you something, not to scold you—this is no one’s fault—but because, had you only known this, the whole thing would never have happened. You do not own this planet by the authority of the legal systems you invented. Emotional intelligence, by the authority of the human soul, doesn’t own it either. The difference is that our souls are born of this place. They are expressions of life that has unfolded here for millions of years. They know how to celebrate it without destroying it.
Legal systems are fabrications of shallow minds—minds that know only the lay of the land, not the rhythm of life through which it sustains itself. And in their shallowness, they have found cause to ride high on their own mistakes.
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