When we feel low, we often make the mistake of scanning the external environment to find the cause of our state of mind out there. One could speak of the depressed person’s misdirected worldliness. We are convinced that something in the world makes us depressed. We exclude that we ourselves play a role in the drama: “I am depressed because he/she/they/society is so damned…”
The depressed person naturally believes that the way to happiness lies in eliminating the external cause of the depression: “If I just could be spared from dealing with him/her/them/society, I would feel a lot better.” That is what the depressed person’s worldliness looks like. We are unable to turn around and see (and treat) the emergence of the problem within ourselves.
Xenophobia might be a manifestation of the depressed person’s misunderstanding of life. We could speak of the insecure person’s misdirected worldliness. One scans the external environment to find the cause of one’s insecurity in the world. When one “finds” it, one apparently “proves” it beyond doubt. The moment one thinks about immigration, one is attacked by strong feelings of insecurity: no doubt, that’s the cause! The alternative possibility that one carries the insecurity within oneself is excluded: “I’m suffering because society is becoming increasingly insecure.”
Finally, one makes politics of the difficulty of scrutinizing oneself. One wants to eliminate the external cause of the insecurity one feels: “If we stop immigration, society will become safer and I will feel more secure!” That is what the insecure person’s misdirected worldliness looks like.
You might be surprised that even anti-xenophobia can exhibit the depressed person’s misunderstanding of life. If we lack a deep understanding of how xenophobia can arise within a human being, we will believe that there are evil people who in their stupidity spread fake statistics about increasing social insecurity. These groups must be eliminated, we think: “If there were no xenophobic groups in society, then I would feel much better.” That is what the good activist’s worldliness can look like.
Like that we go on and on, in our misdirected worldliness, because we fail to see our own role in the drama. We make politics of our inner states, which flood the world as if they were facts that should appear in the statistics. (Therefore, we see them in the statistics.)
Now you may be surprised again, because even bioethics can exhibit the depressed person’s misunderstanding of life. I am thinking of the tendency to make ethics an institution that maintains moral order in society. Certainly, biomedical research needs regulation, but sometimes regulation runs the errands of a misdirected worldliness.
A person who feels moral unease towards certain forms of research may think, “If researchers did not kill human embryos, I would feel a lot better.” Should we make policy of this internal state by banning embryonic stem cell research? Or would that be misdirected projection of an inner state on the world?
I cannot answer the question in this post; it requires more attention. All I dare to say is that we, more often than we think, are like depressed people who seek the cause of our inner states in the world. Just being able to ask if we manifest the depressed person’s misunderstanding of life is radical enough.
I imagine a bioethics that can ask the self-searching question and seek practical ways to handle it within ourselves. So that our inner states do not flood the world.
Posted by Pär Segerdahl 
