What is dignity?
Can we see it in a laboratory, in an X-ray, in a brain scan?
Can we measure it, track it, manipulate it, or run tests on it?
How do we know what we claim to know – that violating dignity tears people apart, that honoring dignity can bring us back together?
Of course, we read the work of experts in conflict resolution. And we read the research of psychologists, who are experts in relationships.
But many of us who care about this work also spend a lot of time in introspection, watching our thoughts and emotions, reflecting on our behaviors, seeing what starts conflict and what leads to peace.
This is partly what we mean when we use the term “looking through the dignity lens” – seeing how events are shaped by dignity and contempt, by how we treat each other.
In the end, dignity is not something we create or invent – it’s something we detect.
We learn about dignity by watching.
A skeptic might say that if dignity is real, we should be able to see it with medical instruments or research technology.
But actually, when we’re not dealing with bones, or tendons, or internal organs – but objects of thought and things of the mind, introspection is part of scientific inquiry.
In the early pages of his book Feeling & Knowing, Antonio Damasio, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, writes, “Before we proceed, I need to say a few words about how I approach the investigation of mental phenomena. The approach begins with the mental phenomena themselves, when singular individuals engage in introspection and report on their observations.”
“Introspection has its limits,” Damasio says, “but it has no rival, let alone a substitute. It provides the only direct window into the phenomena we wish to understand.”
In studying our mental states, then, we are in a unique domain of scientific inquiry that elevates the role of ordinary, nonspecialist human beings. What we see in our own mind matters—and not just for the reports we make to brain scientists.
If we keep watching, we see things we didn’t use to see. We see that we have a flattering self-image. We see that when our self-image is challenged, we feel pain.
We see that when we feel pain, we often treat others with contempt.
This is hard to see – because we don’t want to be people who use contempt.
Contempt conflicts with our flattering view of ourselves, so it tries to deceive us. It disguises itself as virtue. So when I pierce the disguise and see my own contempt, it can be surprising, even embarrassing. But it can also be exhilarating and empowering, because it shows me how I’m contributing to the problem of division, and how I can be part of the solution.
That’s why my most frequent practice is to just watch what’s happening – and keep watching. I look at the eight-point scale, I commit the words and phrases to memory, and soon enough, I catch myself using contempt. And when I catch it, contempt loses its power and retreats, embarrassed to be seen in the light of conscience.
It’s a striking experience, so I stick with it, confident that dignity and its wonders will reveal themselves more deeply if I just keep watching.
Tom
