16 December 2023
IDEA
This blog continues last week’s fascination with the three parts of kalokagathia (pr. kah lo KAG ath eeah). Those parts are action, aesthetics, and autotelos. Action, in this context, is the human capacity to intentionally act. Aesthetics is the study of beauty. Autotelos is compounded of two more frequently heard terms from Greek, auto, or self, and telos, or ends, goals. (Teleology is the branch of metaphysics dealing with the study of ends/goals.)
ELABORATION
Acting is the seemingly simplest of our three terms. To act is to select a slice of bread, pop it in the toaster, butter it, jam it, and eat the sucker. But…there are a string of important decisions made before that action can be carried out with equanimity, or peaceful harmony.
If you doubt this, think of a person who has a starving family and only two pieces of bread left. Or consider a person with an eating disorder, who is repulsed by food and/or his body to such an extent that acting in favour of self-sustenance feels impossibly self-sabotaging. The point is that acting in your own best interest is the act of a healthy human being. At any given time, about 20% of the population is suffering from a mental health challenge (Statistics Canada, 2022).
With those possibilities before us, action becomes one of the final sequences of motion concluding a long set of thoughts and beliefs such as:
Hunger is an inevitable part of the possession of a functioning anatomy. Having food, believing yourself worth sustenance, having the health, skill, and equipment for food preparation are all acts aimed at an end (telos): keeping me fed so I can remain alive—and hopefully flourish.
Autotelos (self-aiming) is the product of the factors listed above. If you are a human being taking your direction, toward your self-fulfilment, from within, you have autotelos. If you are a human being taking your direction from anyone or anything other than self, you are more dependent and less autonomous. By the standards of Aristotle, Maslow, Csikszentmihalyi, Rogers, and Frankl, et al., those with autotelos are on a course most likely to result in moments of joy and an ultimately satisfying life.
I will propose that action and autotelos cover most variants of virtue ethics, or the sense that good actions are consistent with, and result from, a good character. And this is where kalokagathia really comes into its own: aesthetics.
Aesthetics is the study of beauty. Ethics is the study of right human actions. When aesthetics is added to ethics, as our word of the day does, how a right action is accomplished becomes more important. Can a right action be carried out unpleasantly or charmingly? Can a person act with more and less grace? Do you have a choice between being harsh or gentle? These seem relevant questions to ask when gaining an understanding of kalokagathia.
EXAMPLE
Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who pioneered a therapeutic way of being known as logotherapy here. Logos is approximated as meaning; therapy, you know. Logotherapy has three parts: 1. the freedom of will; 2. the will to meaning; and 3. the meaning of life (Frankl, 1969, p. ix). I don’t know how many people he helped but I know he and his ideas arise constantly in discussions of therapy today.
That’s preamble to the real reason Frankl was chosen as our example of kalokagathia today, particularly the aesthetic component. Frankl was an Austrian Jew born in 1905. Despite, or maybe because of, his prominence and effectiveness in treating people, he and his family were interned in the death camps of German National Socialism (Nazism). He lost his father, mother, brother, and wife. His mother and brother were systemically murdered, his father and wife died of illnesses contracted in the camps. As I’m sure you can feel, many people would have headed into bleak, morose, self-pitying depression. Many did, but not Frankl.
Frankl’s takeaway was that we always—in any situation (and I use two absolutes knowingly)—have a choice regarding the personal attitude with which we choose to respond. That sentence has action, self-direction, and a magnificence of soul. Per my understanding, that’s kalokagathia.
CONCLUSION
This is a tough time of year, particularly for those with addictive behaviours and dysfunctional relationships. It is also a tough time on Earth with so much injustice being perpetrated, misinterpreted, and ignored by those who ought know better. Despite all of this, we can choose, each day, in each situation in which we are consciously being where our feet are, who we are and how we are. If you live with the intention of acting for the Good, based on your self-chosen path, in a compassionate manner, you are practicing kalokagathia. As a fellow Earthling, I thank you for spreading that goodness.
Dan Chalykoff is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). He works at CMHA-Hamilton and Healing Pathways Counselling, Oakville, where his focus is clients with addiction, trauma, burnout, and major life changes. He writes these blogs to increase (and share) his own evolving understanding of ideas. Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery. Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the Bcc’d emailing list.
References
Frankl, V.E. (2014). The will to meaning: Foundations and applications of logotherapy. Plume Books, Penguin Group.
Statistics Canada (2023 12 December). Mental disorders in Canada, 2022. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2023053-eng.htm
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