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I want to look at this notion of "rational self interest." What does this question first ask us? It asks us, "what is the self"? The notion that we are all operating under the same definition of "self" is problematic. As infants, we are born with no such idea of a "self." (If I was more well versed in other sources I've read, I would also feel compelled to argue that, before the rise of rationality and modernity, there was no such think as a "self" differentiated from the world of objects, even further back than that, not differentiated from Pure Subjectivity...but that for a different day). Through the process of maturity and gaining of desires, separating ourselves off from the rest of the universe, we create self-complexes, self-conceptions that think "I" is separate from all else. It is hard for me to bring this up in class, but it seems to me that this separate self-sense is an illusion and is to be transcended! I am sensing this isn't much of an anthropological topic of discussion, but then again, doesn't the "self" lie at the heart of all we do (or consider ourselves to be doing)? In my view, the idea of "rational self interest" is working for an illusory self that does not exist apart from the whole of the universe. It is ignorance of the fact that those who share the commons are the commons and share in the same existence with all "others" participating in the commons---there is no welfare for me, welfare for you; there is no me or you, but only welfare. When a "self" identifies as the body-mind complex, all efforts are done to preserve the body-mind complex. But we have to realize that we are not "predestined" to be this way; it is a reality created by the mind and doesn't exist independent from it. It is through the process of identification and self-contraction that we come to believe we are the body-mind. Anxiety over dying has its roots in identifying our existence with the body. Every one of us is going to die, but am "I" going to die? Bodies die, but who am I? It seems to me that not enough of us seriously ask this question without answering in rote ways. To me it is a question of where our identifications lie (literally). We think that we are our bodies and we are the only ones who are capable enough to see to it that we are fed, yet millions of animals have no such self-conception, no capability to "look out for themselves," and evolution has proceeded on towards increasing complexity and integration regardless, feeding and tending to them all. We think that we are our feelings and thoughts that needed to be attended to, thought through, worked out, psychoanalyzed, but it is precisely because we have separated an "I" away from our true nature that these things arise. We think that we have desires but our desires are our bondages. We think that to "do what I want to" is freedom. Yet if we begin to investigate the "I-am-the-doer" idea we have, I am afraid we will not find the doer but only deeds-done as a product of memory. To do what "I want" is really a process of binding my true nature to an illusion which has no reality independent from the whole of the Kosmos. To do what "I want" is to continually work for an entity with no real existence outside of our conceiving of it. Do we want to create our own world, or live in the Real world? We think that there is a future to work towards or a past to which we are bound. These are illusions that put limits on the endless well of creativity which exists only now, in the presenting.

"Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom." To me the tragedy of the commons is not that there is freedom to do what one wishes, but rather a deeper notion that "freely doing what one wishes" is a falsity and will inevitably lead to suffering, bondage, tragedy. It is a freedom that rests on a false identification with desire, rather than a freedom defined by the ebb and flow of all things. It is a tragedy because unless the fundamental unit of existence for humans (the "I") is reevaluated and seen for what it truly is (and it is an "it," a thing, a mental object), we will continue to live in false ways which only bring about more suffering. I care deeply about the welfare of the Kosmos and I think most of us in the class do as well. But I know deep in my heart that unless I am connected with the true commodity of the universe, Love, all solutions will be futile, they will be technical. My I exists as I conceive it. Your I exists as you conceive it. A person's "I" will determine the level and scope of their subjective awareness and the person will live accordingly. The reason the "I" feels so real is because it is our very own special product. But by the mere fact that it is of our own mental creation, that it is unique to us, that it feels intrinsically to be "ours," this does not mean that it is real. If anything, it should point us to the realization that my I exists only to the extent that I conceive it to exist! We need to ask ourselves who "I" belongs to, where it comes from. Before we can discuss what is in our rational self interest, we have to see truly into the nature of the self. Now, I need to clarify my position. I am not saying that I walk around all day thinking that I don't exist; in fact, it is the opposite. The whole of the development process has been summarized by Robert Kegan as "the subject of one stage becomes the object of the subject of the next." Understanding who "I am" is a continual process of turning who I think I am (my subject) into an object that I can analyze and be aware of subjectively, allowing me to see how it acts, what it does, how it feels, etc. It is a processing of extending "my own" umbrella of subjective awareness outward and upward to include more and more in my embrace. It is not negating my existence, it is validating it and allowing it to embrace more and more of existence as I grow. In this way, the subjective awareness with which I approached the world in the proverbial yesterday becomes an object to be transcended by the subjective awareness of today. This all may sound mystical, but it is really practical and useful (though I am drawing from a wealth of mystic knowledge and practice here). If you make for a child to understand two subjective moral responses to the same moral question, the child will almost invariably choose the higher response. Unfortunately, the growth of our subjective awareness ceases at rationality for the vast majority of our modern world, perhaps a product of Descartes "I think, therefore I am." He's right! If I think that I exist separate from from the Kosmos, then in my mental world I do. But this thinking is bondage. There isn't a universe with me as the center.

Hardin (and many other academic writers I've encountered) seem to consider rationality to be the end-all of human mental evolution. It is as if the modern world is the final product of a pre-modern slumber and that we are set to spin the logic machine endlessly until we find solutions to our problems. Ironically, the same rationality that Hardin seems to reduce the human psyche to is the same rationality which he says will never solve the problem, a proposition with which he agrees! I think there is a mistake made when we consider all non-rational thinking as pre-rational. In my view, there is pre-rational thinking, rational thinking, and then trans- or post-rational thinking. What does trans-rational thinking mean exactly? It means that the insights from "rationality" are understood and taken into account, but that the whole situation, the larger picture, can never be understood by a simple rational snapshot of the situation. It does not discard rationality but it goes past it to see that there are different levels of it, that our "reasoning" is not separate from the subjective I who uses reason. I have long been fascinated by the limitations on the concept of "cause-and-effect," on which all rationality is founded. To isolate one cause for one effect seems to be a drastic reduction of what's really going on here. The cause is contained in the whole of the past. The effect is contained in the whole of the future. But both past and future are constructs of the mind-- the only thing that ever exists is the present. I am not trying to say that cause-effect relationships do not exist, but rather that they exist only by deduction, when retrospection comes in to play, they exist when the totality of the system is represented by variables that inevitably fall drastically short of the totality. And to construct a cause-effect relationship makes us necessarily ignorant of an infinity of other causes, blind to an infinity of effects which are to follow. But the point of this is that there is no "rational self interest" unless we are identifying with a "rational self," and that the rational self is not the culmination of human mental evolution.

So I know you are probably wondering if I'm going to apply this to Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons. If anyone is free to use a resource freely, therefore dooming the resource---what is society to do? Hardin's options include privatization of the resource so that the owner feels the total cost of his benefiting and/or mutually agreed upon coercion to restrict the freedom to breed. His ultimate cause is the proposition that we all operate on rational self-interest to preserve ourselves and to "get ahead," selfishly. For the rational structure of consciousness, which operates in strategic and multiplicitic ways, this is perhaps true. But not all of us are egotistic and wish to rape the earth. There are many well researched sources that show us the spectrum of consciousness does not culminate with rationality, it goes far beyond it. The whole purpose of development is to be able to hold more objects in our subjective awareness, culminating as it does in sages and yogis with their identification with pure Subjectivity (God). If a certain subjective awareness is developed enough to understand the plight of the planet, the limits on resources, and the responsibility we have to all other sentient beings, that subjective awareness acts accordingly. It is a small and unwise mind that ignores these factors, truly acting as though the welfare of all factors doesn't effect the welfare of the 'individual.' So my quip with Hardin is not that his analysis is wrong. It may work for a while, though I think one would have a hard time restricting the right to free breeding. But his analysis is painfully incomplete. He reduces the issue to a problem of social arrangements and contracts, a sort of top-down managing that may work in the short run. But he neglects the fact that cultures create shared value systems and that they can change. Any lasting solution to the problem will manifest from a culture that deemphasizes materialism in favor of (my opinion here) spiritualism (equally psychologism/developmentalism). This means less resource conquest and more discretion, based on an ever-growing subjective care, not personal egotism. But that culture will manifest only once a tipping-point of that population has sufficiently advanced their subjective awareness to truly understand the plight of the planet enough that they care about it and live accordingly. I agree with the radical presidential candidate Ron Paul on one issue---"We've got to live within our means." Rational self interest has no conception of that, but we can live past that way of thinking, we can transcend it. But what it will take is a culture that recognizes the role of development in all life. I guess then my ultimate cause is our ignorance of our true nature, is our creation of the separate-self that isolates and alienates itself from the whole of existence, hiding from us the creative potential contained within. So what is the solution that might lead an individual to develop his or her own subjective awareness higher and higher, therefore encompassing more and more of existence in its awareness and living accordingly, according to those understood means? I suppose you could say the answer to that is part of my life's question, part of what I want to do with my major. Is religion best suited for this, psychiatrists, education systems?

I can say: A heart is inspired to the extent it listens to the voice of Love and that the voice of Love is muted only by our thinking we are separate from it, by thinking we are something other than embodied Love. Anyone who really wants to wake up does---after all, it is our true nature! I fear I will face the same reality so many aspirants have faced in the past: the majority of people just love their rational self and its interests, love to rationalize what that self does, love to feel unique or glorified in their existence, people just do not want to probe the question of 'Who am I?' They feel the suffering but feel they have it in 'their own power' to relieve it. I can't tell you how heart-wrenching it is to realize that all our world problems stem from all of us thinking we are isolated little entities running around trying to get ahead or win. There is no separateness between us, no us and them, no "getting ahead," no +1 or -1.

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