At Boy Scout camp in the 1970’s we would send naïve younger boys off to other troops in the area to ask for things like a left-handed smoke shifter or a cup of propane. So many people were in on this kind of prank that some boys would visit two or three other troops before returning to say, “Nope, they don’t have one.” (Yes, this happened to me my first year at camp. I fell for the “disposable tree root extractor” errand.) But once a victim of this prank you weren’t a victim again. You were ‘in’ somehow through this rite of passage.
Human beings are exquisitely sensitive to love. Even young children can spot fakery. We’re attracted to love, desperate for it. If we can’t get love we seek substitutes.
Harold Berry provided this functional definition of love: “Seeking another person’s highest good.”
Most people accurately sense if someone loves them this way – the deep sense that they are seeking my highest good. We despise “corporate speak” and “political speech” partly because we sense a massive gap between the words and the amount of love there. This gap fuels cynicism and resignation that “it’s just how it is.”
Mark Horstman correctly says that good people management is fundamentally about love – acting in ways that are congruent with wanting the best for them in the process of delivering results for the organization.
We respect people who tell us the difficult truth if we also sense they are seeking our highest good. Good parents, good sports coaches, and school teachers & administrators demonstrate love in this way. Good neighbors demonstrate love in this way.
I’ve spoken to multiple atheists who argue that you can create a moral framework apart from the transcendent. I’m not convinced. Seeking another person’s highest good will not consistently happen in a world entirely driven by the material and selfish interest. Where you see it happening it’s a carryover effect of social and moral frameworks established by others. It truly matters where the source energy comes from for seeking another person’s highest good. The apostle Paul wrote to his protégé Timothy, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1 Timothy 1:5)
A related observation: Political collectivists and some corporate leaders focus not on the individual’s highest good, but the good of the state, or the good of the corporation, or the good of the class. It’s true that collective good can emerge from seeking the good of individuals. It’s true to say, “It’s not about you; It’s not about me, either.” Yet our experience is that optimizing for the good of an abstract collective at the expense of seeking an individual’s highest good always leads to corruption and evil. Therefore, we should focus our energies on seeking the highest good for actual individual people, not faceless abstractions.
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It’s perfectly rational to do whatever gives you the most of what you want, by whatever means you can, if your worldview is that nothing of consequence matters beyond the years you’re alive. Lie, cheat, flip-flop when convenient for immediate gain, always act in your self-interest.
If your worldview extends beyond your physical lifespan, if your moral framework is based on righteousness to an external standard and judge, then you will sometimes choose not to operate in your immediate self-interest.
Jesus summed up all the commands with these two: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)
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The Beatles sang “All we need is love.” Pay attention this week to how much of the behaviors of the people around you are oriented to love, and how “is this genuine love for me?” is the measuring stick for whom we believe, whom we follow, whom we sacrifice for.
Want to see improvements in the world? Seek another person’s highest good.
This will encompass justice, peace, reconciliation, and all the other things the world clambers for. Seeking those things in any way other than seeking another person’s highest good is like sending a kid out to get a cup of propane.
