Questions on the basic goal of human life

The human questions concerning true human existence are, according to J. Patočka, these: “Why is life worth living? Is there a reason to live? What is a person here in the world for? When and how is it truly worth living? When is a person well? When can one say that anyone’s life is truly good? When can one say that someone’s life has succeeded — that it was a fulfilled life?” (In: J. Křivohlavý: 2009, p. 120.)

In Socratic humanism, “Man is by nature originally unfinished, incomplete. Life itself is only apparently full living. Yet it is possible to awaken a person to true, authentic being. The natural person neglects this possibility — he ‘does not know himself.’ Behind apparent being stands the true one, behind life without purpose lies life with a purpose — life under its unity.” For Socrates, the soul is what matters most in life: through the soul one can come to understand the Good, and thus move from inner incompleteness to a firm form2. In antiquity, the heart and not the brain was considered the center of wisdom, and the essence of wisdom was caring for the “mind that is attached to the heart.”3

A good life

The idea of a “good life,” the quality of life from a subjective perspective, “includes psychological, ethical, and aesthetic priorities derived from a view of the world and of human beings. Its understanding is based on an understanding of the meaning of life, which represents the central point of self-understanding.”4 For a person’s life, for psychological development, a certain philosophy of life is needed, closely linked to core values and lived experience.

The right to human dignity

Is the right to human dignity a declaration or a lived reality for people in Slovakia? Do people exercise their right to human dignity, that is, the respect of themselves as unique carriers of human values? And at the same time, in demanding human dignity, are people ready to take responsibility for how they live? Right and responsibility are two sides of the same coin; they relate both to social discipline and to personal discipline. With the right to human dignity are connected substantial duties of the person — to work on one’s spiritual, psychological, and social development within the possibilities of one’s own individual potential and within the limits of the reality of one’s life. Living conditions, in the end, depend on the psychological and social maturity or immaturity of people individually and people in social groups with different life purposes and social hierarchy. This claim is illustrated by an excerpt: “It is told that Socrates asked people in the Athenian marketplace why they lived as they did, thereby discovering their life philosophy and whether their way of life was the result of conscious choice or only a random coincidence of circumstances. In the debate, he showed that they do not actually know why they live.”5

Theoretically, one may assume that declared rules and people’s actual life are confusing for many. It also applies to the phenomenon of declared human dignity on the one hand and lived violations of human dignity through indecent ways of manipulating people’s consciousness on the other. Spiritual and mental values of human being are proclaimed — that is, authentic experiencing (using E. Fromm’s formulation: the development of Being is declared: the spiritual and psychological aspect of life) — but in everyday living, values of material security, property, and the diversion of people toward virtual experiencing of their own life are encouraged (using E. Fromm’s formulation — in life, “Having” is practiced: owning, accumulating, consuming).

Education of people for life

Our understanding of linking education with solving people’s life problems is based on the idea of the “mystical marriage” between the internal psychological environment of a human being’s existence and the external social environment. From a social perspective, education is preventive systemic help for people in their lives and to their living. Timeless but still important is the function of education in socialization, personalization, and enculturation processes in forming a person’s personality. By supporting adults’ lifelong learning, an opportunity and a means emerge: protection, development, and cultivation of a person’s individual spiritual, psychological, and social potential — that is, the protection and enrichment of a person’s internal environment (that is, spiritual and psychological environment) and the person’s external environment (that is, natural, social, and cultural environment).

Psychological maturity (that is, spiritual, psychological, and social maturity) is visible in people’s behavior and is evident in conduct, especially when people are in high-stress situations and face life problems. A generally accepted view is that the highest aim of knowledge for an individual is self-knowledge. Through self-reflection, a person shapes their personal, social, and cultural identity throughout life. A psychological image of oneself very much conditions and determines the manner and level of life realization of a specific person. As J. A. Komenský put it: “Wisdom usefully serves man in that it helps him understand his path and everything he does; therefore the study of wisdom should prepare the human mind for everything we must experience in action or suffering during this life.”6

Individual potential

The mystery of the subjectivity of individual potential, that is, the human psyche, penetrates into the world through concrete expressions and acts of the person. In individual potential there is implicitly the psychological potential that influences the nature of individual potential. The body is also an expression of the “functioning” of the psyche and cannot be without organization and regulation by the psyche. Explicitly, individual potential is expressed and realized through qualities of psychological potential. Psychological potential consists of a set of a person’s dispositions, transformed over life into psychological qualities called:

  • Worldview and value orientation (which are transformed dispositions toward evaluation) — these are the subjective way of understanding life.

  • Psychological traits (which are transformed character dispositions) — these are psychologically unique individual manifestations of life in these forms:

  • In the form of abilities (which are transformed dispositions toward activity) — these are individual cognitive and sensorimotor activities.

  • In the form of temperament and emotions (which are transformed dispositions toward excitability) — these are the unique individual way of feeling and its expressions.
  • In the form of drives/motivation (which are transformed instincts and needs) — this is psychological energy, psychological focus, and psychological dynamics.7

The strength of individual potential without psychological and spiritual self-regulation can endanger other people, society, nature, the planet Earth, and even the cosmos. The absence of a spiritual dimension in people’s lives results in the fact that the person does not integrate into the order and discipline of Life. Thus individual potential can also harm the person who possesses this potential — the human being. This is captured in A. Einstein’s words, namely that henceforth the fate of humanity depends more on moral principles than on the level of technology.8

Changes of individual potential over life9

We assume that individual potential is formed and developed depending on the capacity of individual dispositions, on the transformation of dispositions into psychological qualities, on the nature and scope of activities, and on the various diverse influences of the external environment controlled and uncontrolled by humans (including upbringing, education, and people’s learning).

Over the course of life, in development, people’s individual potential changes intensively — that is, the quality of transformed dispositions — and extensively — that is, the scope of transformed dispositions and realization of potential in the life of a specific person. Marked changes in individual potential, in the sense of transforming quantity into a new quality, occur mainly in transitional periods of life. Individual potential can change significantly under the influence of demanding tasks and situations in the “turning points of life,” poetically called life turns, personality crises, crises of certain ages, or life crises.

In its state of dispositions, individual potential is a stable structure under normal life circumstances. It expresses human essence.10 Political, economic, and cultural conditions are always changing, but a person remains the same in their essence. Thus understanding human individual potential is possible only through knowing the depth of human nature and beyond any modern trends in social views and views on the human being. In people one must seek the source of psychological strength and meaning of life as well.11

Individual potential from the perspective of education of the person

In adult education, it is not essential to explain the implicit individual potential (which is the role of psychology), but to know the explicit individual potential (which is the role of education). In the context of educating people, experts of this field are concerned with the actualization of the human person’s individual potential and the development of this potential within education.12 Individual potential is defined by A. Tokárová13 as follows: “The term human (individual, personal) potential expresses the functional value of the human individual in socio-cultural relations, i.e., the existence of properties that can be developed in some way and utilized socially.” In our view, individual potential is14 a complex disposition of the person determined by genotype and is also psychological competence (readiness and readiness) that the person has acquired through socialization, personalization, and enculturation.

Individual potential is the unification of unique dispositions and abilities of the person toward a certain mode and nature of experiencing — that is, thinking, feeling, and toward a specific mode and nature of behavior — that is, expressing oneself and acting.15

Within individual potential, two aspects are unified:

  • The aspect of potentiality — in the form of the whole set of dispositions (genotype).
  • The aspect of realization — in the form of the whole set of psychological competence (phenotype).

A person’s unique psychological dispositions, which are transformed through lifelong learning into concrete psychological traits, determine and shape:

  • what the person can do — which depends on the person’s abilities;
  • what the person experiences, how the person experiences — which depends on the person’s emotions;
  • what the person wants, what they strive for — which depends on the person’s needs and motives.16

Social education of adults17 and the development of systemic capability for living

A person in suitable conditions possesses throughout life the ability to improve themselves psychologically and change their behavior. Psychologically, this is a natural process of achieving personal wholeness. The individual has a tendency toward self-regulation and self-awareness. The question is how to justify meaningfully for people why it is necessary for them to learn to learn, and to unlearn the habit of not learning, and lead them to understand that the only thing they can use in social endangerment, without any limitation, is their own abilities. The significance of educational social work is inferred from the development of people’s capability to live, which we called a system-level overarching capability “life capability.”18

  • The capability of people to live – “life capability” integrates these abilities into one whole:
  • The ability to socialize — in the social microenvironment and in the social macroenvironment: learning through acquiring social experience.
  • The ability to identify oneself — socially, psychologically, culturally: learning through identification with someone or something in the social environment.
  • The ability to adapt in the social environment.
  • The ability to integrate — to be a psychologically, socially, and spiritually integrated person: as a member of social groups.
  • The ability to identify and realize one’s psychological and social potential: for the qualitative improvement of one’s life.
  • The ability to identify and respect one’s own possibilities, limits, and constraints of personal development: within social groups and social relationships.
  • The ability for a lifelong process of psychological and spiritual development, that is, growth, development, development of individual psychological potential: in the interest of a lifelong process of achieving spiritual, psychological, and social maturity, i.e., psychological adulthood and maturity.

The meaning of social education of adults lies in shaping adults’ rational, emotional, motivational, value-based, and social readiness to evaluate life reality and to make optimal decisions and actions. The meaning of adult education lies in supporting people so they can adequately assess a social situation and problem and act constructively, with the intent of managing a demanding life situation while preserving health whenever possible.19 The social function of educational activities (educational, educational, advisory activities) follows from the fact that these activities are the means of educational social help for people in social disadvantage and danger.

The general goal of adult social education is20 social adaptation and integration of personality — that is, social survival and continuity of personality development and growth within social groups, relationships, and communication. The psychological goal of adult education is the integration of personality and formation of identity — that is, psychological integrity, self-image, worldview, and lifestyle. The content of social education should shape people’s readiness for life in demanding social conditions, which we express as follows: to be a sensitive person — think and understand what is happening in the social environment — distinguish what is harmful to one’s life and what benefits it — know how to apply knowledge in life tasks — act consciously and responsibly — be disciplined in living — transform and create life — have conscience and respect higher principles of life (values, faith).21

What does it mean to be a disciplined person in situations of life’s challenges?

A psychological problem of people today is the dominance and predominance of control over discipline in life. This means intensified control of one’s own thinking, acting, behavior, communication, own social relationships, but also control of other people. It should be understood that discipline is the basis of people’s preparedness for life.

In the following text we will try to interpret and emphasize, based on our understanding, the ideas of the thinker Osho:22 Discipline has nothing to do with control. There is a difference between control and discipline. Control comes from the ego, it is manipulation of oneself and other people, whereas discipline is an understanding of oneself. Discipline is spontaneous; control is a kind of suppression. Discipline requires a person to understand and become aware, and to decide and act consciously. Discipline leads a person toward wholeness, because if a person understands a situation, they act in harmony with that understanding. They do not need to be controlled. Control binds because it is associated with “what should be” and what should not be. People are in many ways in captivity of overused control, as if they did not have their own mind and feeling and did not live their own life. But a disciplined mind does not need to be controlled. The person is aware of what to do and how to do it. Understanding is linked to sensitive responsiveness to the dynamics of life and many of its changes. A person under control has no vision of life and is not sensitive to life. An undisciplined mind, however, needs control, because an undisciplined mind belongs to the unconscious person; the mind cannot trust itself, because it does not understand what is happening, cannot govern itself, and the person cannot manage themselves and needs some form of external control. A person fears themselves — what they will say, what they will do, how they will decide, how they will behave. A person should be disciplined and should not try to have everything under control. Their only law of life should be understanding of life and oneself in it. But life under control is comfortable and safe; people do not have to rely on themselves, they do not have to wrestle with problems, they can run away from them and demand help from outside. On the other hand, life with understanding is life accompanied by risk. A person lives according to their best awareness and conscience, according to their own mind, heart, and feelings. A person must rely on themselves. If people try to run away from a problem and do not want to face the situation, they ruin their own life, discarding one opportunity after another to grow as human beings and mature psychologically.

What does it mean to be a responsible person in situations of life’s challenges?

“Those who run away from the world and society… refuse to take responsibility, yet they also fail to understand that if they refuse responsibility, they refuse freedom. The more you love freedom, the more you are ready to accept responsibility. To live outside the world… outside society does not allow one to take responsibility... everything we learn, we learn by accepting a certain responsibility.”23

A person can act in two ways: one is reaction, the other is response. Reaction is mechanical. Response comes from awareness, from awareness of the present moment. Response is a key principle of personality growth. Personality is not governed by any external instructions; it is governed only by its own consciousness. Growth (development) requires a situation in which a person faces something, encounters something, and accepts the challenge of bearing responsibility. If a person acts with response, they act consciously; if they act with reaction, they act unconsciously, only mechanically reacting to an external stimulus. Therefore, the actions of an unconscious person can be easily manipulated.24 A psychologically mature (developed) person responds with response, not reaction. Through response and coping with life, one reaches self-awareness. “Only what we live through and feel in all transformations are we capable of understanding fully. For this path we have perfect equipment, consisting in the abilities we have within us.”25

A conscious person is unpredictable to their surroundings — they do not react to prompts, but answer with conscious response. Therefore they cannot be manipulated; in a given moment, they do only what is fitting from their conscious perspective. An unconscious person is predictable and can be easily controlled. You can force them to do something, to say something, even things they did not want to do or say. This is why they can be manipulated, because they do at that moment what is demanded of them by the external stimulus.26

The individualization process in social education for living

The individualization process is a process of learning whose outcome is:27 expansion of awareness of one’s own person; formation of one’s own identity; psychological autonomy of the person; wholeness and integrity of the person’s spiritual, psychological, and social dimensions. Learning is interiorization (internalization). The whole human being learns, and therefore learning is a living and creative process.28 Interiorization can be understood as a complex process of formation in which conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche develop and are expressed. Interiorization is a learning process in which cognitive (mental) abilities, temperament, personality traits, motivation, and a person’s value orientation participate. Interiorization is the psychological mechanism by which personal (personality) identity, social identity, and cultural identity are formed.29

Final words

“Know yourself” (Socrates), or What to consider in the social education of people? Increased interest in inner searching is “without doubt one of the few hopeful paths for our suffering and endangered world.” If it is followed through, the inner transformation of humanity could be the main force that might change the current world of human thinking, values, and behavior. The development of consciousness “is likely a critical condition for the preservation of life on this planet.”30

Adults need social education programs that are schools of consciousness and support the development of individual potential. People should be supported in becoming aware of what knowledge is indispensable for their living (how to survive) and what is valuable (how to live). Today, one can no longer ignore the massive access people have to information and their use of it without any evaluation of the impact of these inputs on people’s spiritual, psychological, and somatic health.

Author: Prof. PhDr. Mária Machalová, CSc.

References

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MACHALOVÁ, Mária. 2014. Edukačná sociálna práca. Prešov: Prešovská univerzita. 327 p. ISBN 978-80-555-1118-4

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1 J. PATOČKA, 1996, p.143. 2 IBID, p.145–146. 3 M. MRÁZ, 2006. 4 B. ŠULAVÍKOVÁ, 2006, p.113. 5 B. ŠULAVÍKOVÁ, 2006, p.114. 6 J.A.KOMENSKÝ, 2010, p.36. 7 M. MACHALOVÁ, 2014, p.64. 8 IBID, p.64–65. 9 MACHALOVÁ, M., 2014. 10 Human essence expresses the sum of deep properties, relationships, and regularities that determine the existence of the human system. Essence appears in phenomena—properties and states of the person—that can be observed from outside through exteroception and from within through introspection and self-observation. (Note: M. Machalová). 11 M. MACHALOVÁ, 2014, p.65–66. 12 IBID, p.66. 13 A. TOKÁROVÁ, 1997, p.19. 14 M. MACHALOVÁ, 2014. 15 IBID. 16 M. MACHALOVÁ, 2014. 17 We understand education as a broader concept that subsumes (includes) upbringing and education. We use education as a systemic concept and also as a term commonly used internationally. 18 M. MACHALOVÁ, 2014, p.72–73. 19 IBID. 20 M. MACHALOVÁ, 2014. 21 We understand education as a broader concept that subsumes (includes) upbringing and education. We use education as a systemic concept and also as a term commonly used internationally. 22 OSHO, 2007, p.203–205. 23 OSHO, 2007, p.209. 24 IBID, p.211. 25 JOS. A. ZENTRICH, 2007, p.254. 26 OSHO, 2007, p.213. 27 M. MACHALOVÁ, 2014. 28 M. MACHALOVÁ, 2014, p.73. 29 IBID. 30 S. GROF, 1992, p.218.