A discussion of the four quadrants of the Angyal-Dench Paradigm Assessment Schemata.

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In my initial discussion of the Angyal-Dench Paradigm Assessment Schemata (ADPAS) I presented a diagram of the ADPAS, and I included a “religious level” example for each quadrant: Buddhism for pragmatic nihilism, Christianity for dogmatic nihilism, Tenrikyo for dogmatic idealism, and Shamanism for pragmatic idealism.1 These groups, chosen as examples, are certainly not monolithic in their character (Shamanism is probably the least, and Tenrikyo is probably the most), nor are they necessarily perfect examples. But they are popular examples (Christianity the most, and Tenrikyo the least), there may be no perfect examples, and the general flavor of each of these groups seems to serve the purpose of exemplifying their respective quadrants well enough. That is not to say that they are the only groups that fall into these categories--indeed, the very purpose of the ADPAS is that it can be used to assess any worldview on how biopositive or how bionegative it is, and in what way it is. Consider, for example, that the Nazis--and really any totalitarian regime--tend to exemplify dogmatic nihilism in the same way that Christianity--as well as each of the other Abrahamic religions--does.

The Nazis did not base their beliefs on evidence--they looked for evidence to justify their beliefs. Hitler did not, for example, discover, through systematic and dispassionate empirical inquiry, that the Aryans were a race of godlike beings that descended upon the earth, that the Germans were the descendants of this race, that it was the destiny of the German people to come to power, and that the Jews were a people that needed to be destroyed for this destiny to come about. He had these beliefs and looked for evidence to justify them. But faith has always been an acceptable alternative to evidence in dogmatic thinking, because evidence is really only a secondary consideration when beliefs are based in phantasy. The concept of racial impurity is just another manifestation of the concept of sin--the belief in objective value standards, the belief in objective imperfections that need to be cleansed. The Nazis were thus dogmatic. In addition, they were based around a worship of the Führer--citizens were encouraged to base their values around what was good for Germany. The German people were applauded by Hitler as being superior because of their willingness to live and sacrifice selflessly for the good of Germany. They were a regimented order based on obedience rather than individual will. They were thus nihilistic.

A more paradoxical example may be that of Japan. I am, of course, not interested in defending Japan's military actions in World War II (siding with the Nazis, the rape of Nanking, the taking of sex slaves for use as “comfort women” by the soldiers, etc), anymore than I am interested in defending horrific actions of the U.S. throughout its history (the genocide of the Native Americans, the institution of slavery, the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc). Such actions are of course part of bionegative streaks that run through any given culture. That being said, there is much in Japanese culture which I see as being biopositive. As opposed to China, a culture that was once at the height of innovation and has for so long closed itself off in an attempt to protect itself from being effected by outside influence, Japan is in many ways very open. (Japan is rising in the pecking order--which goes hand in hand with innovation. America was once in this position, but America has been in the process of closing itself off and putting up blinders as China did.) The Japanese will take anything that they like from any culture in the world, study it, say to themselves “How can we make this better? How can we make this our own?” and then do so. They took the Western industrial complex and combined it with the Eastern concept of collective responsibility--synthesizing them in a highly effective manner. They regard values as being relational--not objective or absolute. In short, they are in general a highly adaptive culture that is pragmatic, rather than dogmatic, in character.

In some ways they seem very upbeat. They show a love of life and nature. Before the introduction of Western culture, they were very open about sexuality and the body--especially in rural areas. They find life hilarious and enjoyable in general. Japan has a sort of purifying effect on the ideologies that enter it. For example, Buddhism has long influenced Japan, but Japan has also influenced the Buddhism that has entered it. Buddhism teaches that life is suffering--but the Japanese don't think life is suffering in the same way that the Indians think life is suffering. When bad things happen, they say, “Shoganai.” Literally this means “Nothing can be done,” but in essence it means, “Life is suffering. So, don't worry about it. Move on and do your best.” The Japanese say, “Ganbatte”--which means, “Fight! Buckle down and work hard. Do your best. Don't give up.” They are tigers. Their native religion is Shinto, and Japan is unique among industrialized countries in holding on to its pagan roots in a way that remains non-transcendent and tied to the earth and nature. The Shinto temples are all nature preserves--a temple for the mountain, a temple for the beach, a temple for the woods, etc. The kami are somewhere between gods in the western sense and nature spirits, and they are kept on a short leash, as all gods should be. The oni are demons that can be bad, especially if they are disrespected, but that can also be good, if they are “tamed” and their power harnessed.

The general Japanese religious orientation is this-worldly in its concerns. “People go to the gods when they need something--and the gods do not mind this.” If you ask most Japanese individuals if they are religious or if they believe in God, they will tell you “no” without hesitation or concern. That's because in Japan to say that you are religious is the same as to say you are a fanatic. Even so, most people go to Shinto temples to mark different periods of their lives and to receive blessings, and they have Buddhist funerals when they die. Why? Because they regard, roughly, Shinto to be about life and Buddhism to be about death. The monks just know how to chant at the funerals in the right way. Unlike in the West, different religious traditions are not regarded as being exclusive in character. There is no contradiction in studying or participating in Shinto and Buddhism. Their life affirming, earth based demeanor makes the Japanese idealistic, rather than nihilistic, in character.

But there is a strain of nihilism that runs through Japan. The Japanese, for all their good qualities, are also very passive in certain respects. They have a heavy sense of duty and shame, and the individual is often encouraged to defer their own will to that of the community. There is more than a bit of self-denial hanging over their hearts. Thus, a military elite within Japan was capable of taking over Japan for a time and forging a fascist regime that was practically seamless and invisible. The people of Japan, use to working together for the common good, were quick to accept orders from others and to believe that these others had the common good in mind as well. They are the number one country in health, but they are also 90th in happiness2--and I think their lack of support for the will of the individual is probably why. If you look at the countries that are at the top of the list for the happiest, however, I think you will find that they are largely pragmatic and idealistic in the way I describe.

We will now move on to look at each of the four quadrants a little closer. Before doing so, however, let me clarify a few things: 1. Wherever any given thing falls on this schemata, it contains positive content (people, culture, emotion, etc), 2. Each of these four orientations is taken up for specific reasons and serves specific purposes, 3. Each of these four orientations have valuable lessons to teach us about ourselves and about the nature of existence. But, 4. The four orientations are not equally structurally sound.

To see a visual representation of the data we are about to review, click here:
http://bendench.blogspot.com/2009/06/adpas-holarchy.html

Pragmatic Nihilism

Primary Example: Buddhism (the Enlightened One)

Phenomenalistic. Nontheistic. Goal: Escape suffering. Buddhism seeks to derive values from the external world and it finds that the external world is lacking. They find that there is no meaning, no right or wrong, and no hope for a better world. Their ethics comes to be one of avoidance--how can we escape? How can we end suffering? And through meditation they are successful. By forgetting that one is a self with needs, one's anxiety disappears. Nothing matters--there is only an overwhelming feeling of joy and well being. “But isn't it strange? Some people don't know that life is suffering. They want to live. How can we go about convincing them that life is a mistake so that we can then help them escape?”

Other Examples: Yogic Philosophy, Schopenhauer, Stoicism (Stoicism affirms nature, but it is also indifferent to self), clinical depression, retreatism.3

This structural pattern is exemplified by “mysticism”4 on the religious level, an occupied state on the state level, clinical depression on the individual level, and necrosis or apoptosis on the cellular level.

This worldview corresponds with the “I Lose, Others Win” negotiation scenario.

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Archetype: The Monk.

Watership Down corollary: Cowslip's Warren: the warren of the snares, location on map: C4.

Architectural analogy: Take the 54 blocks in a Jenga set and sprawl them out across the floor. The horizontal exposure represents facticity (homonomy), and the lack of vertical exposure represents a lack of transcendence (pattern of vicarious living).

Dogmatic Nihilism

Primary Example: Christianity (the Anointed One)

Doctrine and Dogma. Monotheistic. Goal: Escape Satan, Sin, and Hell. Christianity, like Buddhism, seeks to derive its values from the external world and finds the external world lacking. But unlike Buddhism, Christianity's facts are derived not from the external world but from phantasy. “There is no meaning in this world--but there is in the next! There we find our justification for meaning as well as right and wrong, and there we find the hope for a better world. But isn't it strange? Some people don't realize that we live in a fallen, sinful world. How can we go about convincing them that this life is a mistake so that we can then help them escape?”

Other Examples: Kierkegaard, Monotheism in general, Fascism, Totalitarianism in general, Maybe Plato, Kantian moral theory5, the Inquisition, Al-Ghazali, psychopathy, ritualism.

Monotheism is inherently problematic. Compared to monotheists, polytheists tend to get along with one another. “You have your gods, we have ours. No problem.” Monotheists don't get along with anyone. They don't get along with polytheists, and they don't get along with other monotheists. Genuine peace among monotheists is only possible to the extent that they don't take themselves seriously (liberal Christianity, for example). The polytheist methodology is something akin to, “This is what it looks like from our perspective. How does it look from your perspective? Okay, how can we work out some common understanding?” In contrast, the monotheist perspective starts out with the assertion, “We are totally right and everyone else is totally wrong. The reason why there are bad things in the world is because not everyone does what we want them to do. Solution: All we have to do is get everyone in the world to believe exactly what we believe and to do exactly what we tell them to do. Then everything will be perfect, forever!” Even if this were possible, which it isn't, to the extent that it becomes a reality it is horrible. It is the very definition of tyranny. It closes down innovation and turns individuals into slaves. Monotheism, like totalitarianism, has only ever come into being under the most dire and unstable of circumstances--as a last ditch effort for some aspect of life to at least survive in some form. Its maintenance has always come at the cost of science, social welfare, and individual liberty. The reason Europe and Canada, for example, are not prone to the same religious fanaticism (or violent crime, for that matter) as the U.S., I would hypothesize, is because their social welfare programs prevent them from yielding a sea of desperate and easily exploitable masses. (Of course this is merely a hypothesis. Correlation is not causation--a basic principle of science which is often lost on the larger populace and which we all need to be steadfast in recognizing.) Within the U.S. there are certain aspects of the Religious Right who would like to see the social services that do exist dismantled, so that their roles can be taken over by churches--something that should give pause to those that praise them for their love of charity. The continual splintering that occurs in monotheism should come as no surprise, given how artificially imposed a perspective it is from the outset. So really the difference between monotheism and polytheism is the difference between violent, balkanized, disastrous polytheism and unified, cooperative, sustainable polytheism.

http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/consequence.html

This structural pattern is exemplified by monotheism on the religious level, totalitarianism on the state level, and psychopathy6 on the individual level. On the cellular level it is called cancer. It exhibits the appearance of strength--converting or destroying all around it--but it is fundamentally unstable and ends by destroying itself and destroying its host. It's a “Lose-Lose” scenario. Cancer is of course the most acute form of this and it runs its course rather quickly. In the religious sphere this is comparatively very subtle and slow in its operation--though in the time-table of the human religious experience monotheism has not been around for very long at all, and within that time it's done considerable harm. Whatever level it is operating on, however, its behavior is the same--disregard for its internal components and external environment.

Dogmatic nihilists often consider themselves idealists, and the term idealism has traditionally been used to describe this perspective, but they are not idealists in the sense that I mean because--well, because they think life is bad. They think life is so bad that they seek to escape into a fantasy that is its antithesis--as opposed to dogmatic idealists, whose fantasies are used to reinforce the processes of life, or pragmatic nihilists, who seek shelter in knowledge rather than fantasy.

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Archetype: The Crusader / Inquisitor.

Watership Down corollary: Efrafa, location on map: D15.

Architectural analogy: Take the 54 blocks in a Jenga set and try to build an upside-down pyramid (with one block as the base, two blocks on top of that, three blocks on top of that, etc). This structure has both horizontal and vertical exposure (and thus both facticity and transcendence), but it has them in the wrong place (pattern of vicarious living and pattern of noncommitment). Thus it is more structurally unsound, not less. Though it forms an interesting mirror image of pragmatic idealism.

Dogmatic Idealism

Primary Example: Tenrikyo (Divine Reason)

Doctrine and Dogma. Panentheistic. Goal: Live the Joyous Life. Tenrikyo derives its facts from phantasy--there is a mother/father God; the universe was created 900,099,999 years before the year 1838 (not as bad as 6 thousand years ago, mind you, but still wrong); human beings were created in Japan; the first man was made from a fish; the first woman was made from a snake; various animals were made into our organs; Tenrikyo's foundress, Miki Nakayama (yes, a woman), became the Shine of God the Parent on October 26, 1838, etc etc. But its values are derived from phantasy as well. What is the purpose of life? “To be happy. And life is wonderful!” They seek to create the Joyous Life here on earth. Does Tenrikyo, deriving its concept of reality from phantasy, have an idea of sin? It does, though in that its values are positive, this has a less destructive incarnation. There are “dusts of the mind” that get in the way of one's experience of joy and that one must brush away, but the goal is still happiness in this world (in general, everything that we call “superstition” would also fall under this category of cultural OCD for dogmatic idealists). Christians want to escape to heaven and have their enemies sent to hell. Buddhists want to escape to Nirvana and have their enemies reincarnate (in hell, as animals, as hungry ghosts, etc) where their suffering will either merely continue or actually increase. But those of Tenrikyo wish only to reincarnate as human beings in this world forever--and this fate they assign to all human beings. “And isn't it wonderful! Why would you ever want anything else? This world is a wonderful, beautiful place. Let's live together in joy forever!”

Other Examples: Polytheism in general, the majority of pagan mass movements in general (especially empiric pantheons like those of the Egyptians, the Greco-Romans, the Babylonians, etc), possibly Ayn Rand's ethics, conformity.

This structural pattern is exemplified by polytheism on the religious level (or really, more properly, religious pluralism in general7), national zealotry on the state level, the disagreeable person (or even someone with narcissistic personality disorder) on the individual level, and tissue having suffered nerve damage or scar tissue or even benign tumors on the cellular level.

Although these movements tend to be genuinely positive in orientation, in that the personal values of this structural pattern are taken to be objective and it is not tempered by actual knowledge, it can come to disregard the interests of others and take on a “I Win, Others Lose” format.

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Archetype: The Miser.

Watership Down corollary: Sandleford Warren, location on map: A1.

Architectural analogy: Take the 54 blocks in a Jenga set and try to build a tower straight up (with each level having only one block, for 54 levels in all). The vertical exposure represents transcendence (autonomy), and the lack of horizontal exposure represents a lack of facticity (pattern of noncommitment).

Pragmatic Idealism

Primary Example: Shamanism (those that know)

Phenomenalistic. Animistic/Animatistic. Goal: Affirm the will of life. Shamanism derives its facts from experience and its values from desire. What happens when you die? “Your spirit enters into the dreamtime--the great mystery--from which we, the shamans, can access you if need be. Or we can enter into the spirit realm ourselves through astral projection. We can sense the spirits of nature and can speak with the various forces of life. Eventually perhaps you will reincarnate as a human, or an animal if you so choose--both of which are wonderful--and when one reincarnates everyone in the village can tell that it is that person. We can see it. It is obvious.” What is good and evil? “There are forces that oppose us and our people and we seek to either make friends with or fight off any forces that may threaten us. Power is power--and if it is used for us it is good, and if it is used against us it is evil. But ultimately everything is perfect, and part of our job is to help people understand this when they have forgotten.”

"Now wait," you're saying, "Those assertions sound as outlandish as those of any of the other groups. Why is shamanism being listed as pragmatic rather than dogmatic?" The difference is, right or wrong, a shaman's beliefs are based on direct experience and an experimental model. When it comes to assessing epistemology, the question isn't so much “what do you believe?” as “why do you believe it?” If I ask you why you think something is the case, do you make reference back to experience and remain open to talking about it and updating your beliefs based on new evidence (a pragmatic epistemology), or do you hide behind faith (a dogmatic epistemology)?

Other Examples: Nietzsche, Spinoza, Hume, the Islamic Golden Age, the Renaissance, Taoism (Taoism may appear passive, and it may lack a sense of overcoming, but everything it teaches is to help the individual survive and live effectively--treat life and death the same so you can move through them like water), maybe Confucius and Aristotle (to the extent they understand their values to be subjective), the self-actualized individual (in Maslow's sense), innovation, in short: all movements that affirm life and self and seek to build something desirable out of the reality of this world, for which they expresses love rather than disdain.

This structural pattern is exemplified by shamanism on the religious level, the open and free society on the state level, the self-actualized individual on the individual level, and healthy tissue on the cellular level.

Aware of its own interests and tempered by genuine knowledge, this structural pattern is the most likely to be able to negotiate a “Win-Win,” or at least a compromise, solution when conflicts of interest arise.

Face Icon: 8)

Archetype: The Sacred Clown / Cosmic Fool.

Watership Down corollary: Watership Down Warren, location on map: E9.

Architectural analogy: Take the 54 blocks in a Jenga set and try to build a pyramid (if you start with nine on the first level, eight on the second, etc, you can get nine levels with nine extra blocks left over). This structure has both vertical exposure (representing transcendence) and horizontal exposure (representing facticity), organized in a structurally sound way (and thus representing both autonomy and homonomy).

1 All of my examples are imperfect. For each of them, consider why it was appropriate for the given category and also why it was not appropriate for the given category. Most things are in truth a mixed bag, as should come as no surprise. To see an attempt at a more detailed sorting, though still far from perfect, click here:

http://bendench.blogspot.com/2009/06/adpas-flower.html

2 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4025
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061113093726.htm

3 Compare with Robert K. Merton's Deviance Typology. I obviously am using the terms retreatism, ritualism, conformity, and innovation in a different sense than he is, but these same terms seem descriptively appropriate, and that's not simply a coincidence. In place of cultural goals, I'm assessing the goals of the individual--or whatever acting organism is being assessed. In place of institutionalized means, I'm assessing means in general.

Also consider the work of Dr. Will Felps on how certain personalities can ruin group dynamics. These personalities are referred to in common parlance as “the jerk” (compare with dogmatic nihilism) who accosts others but offers no positive solutions, “the slacker” (compare with dogmatic idealism) who feels the group's work is pointless and just wants to do their own thing, and “the depressive” (compare with pragmatic nihilism) who feels the group's task is impossible to accomplish. Each of these successfully makes the group less productive, and the other members of the group actually start to imitate the person portraying these personalities. The presence of one personality, however, was able to override the presence of any of the negative personalities. This was called “the diplomat” (compare with pragmatic idealism) who maintains the group by listening to everyone and coordinating their efforts. This research was discussed on an episode of This American Life entitled “Ruining It for the Rest of Us.”

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=370

Felps, W., Mitchell, T. R., & Byington, E. (2006). How, when, and why bad apples spoil the barrel: Negative group members and dysfunctional groups. Research in Organizational Behavior, Volume 27, 181–230.

4 The terms “mysticism” and “pluralism” appear in quotes, because shamanism contains the positive aspects of both mysticism and pluralism. Thus “mysticism” here signifies mysticism without any practical grounding in this world, and “pluralism” signifies pluralism in the absence of unifying dialogue.

5 Although, in a Lacanian Kant avec Sade sense, I, with Nietzsche before me, may be the ultimate Kantian--its destruction through its fulfillment and self-cancellation. Out of justice--grace. The world turned white as snow.

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/zizek/zizek-kant-and-sade-the-ideal-couple.html

6 The structural pattern which I describe as “confusing facts for values and values for facts” in the case of psychopathy manifests as a nervous physiological disposition (lack of autonomy) coupled with a physiological inability to modify behavior in response to pain (lack of homonomy). Clinical depression, in contrast, is a nervous physiological disposition coupled with an extensive ability to modify behavior in response to pain that results in an exaggerated behavior of withdrawal as a result of this nervous disposition. This is confirmed by clinical trials in which rats that had been bred for the qualities of nervousness and the ability to respond to pain manifested learned helplessness (clinical depression) when faced with electric shocks (rather than learning how to avoid them to get a prize, they simply gave up); whereas those bred for nervousness and a stunted ability to respond to pain ignored the electric shocks entirely (psychopathy) and went directly for the prize without concern for their own well being; those bred for calmness and a stunted ability to respond to pain learned how to avoid the electric shocks and get the prize; and those bred for calmness and the ability to respond to pain learned how to avoid the electric shocks and get the prize faster than their stunted counterparts.

Savage, R. An analysis of learning curves. Behavior Research & Therapy, 1965, 2, 281-284.

Broadhurst, P., & Bigami, C. Correlative effects of psychogenetic selection. Behavior Research & Therapy, 1965, 2, 273-280.

Eysenck, H. J. Emotion as a determinant of integrated learning. Behavior Research & Therapy, 1963, 1, 127-140.

7 There are two problems with the use of the term polytheism to describe this quadrant on the religious level: 1. It's a monotheistic construct (polytheists didn't initially call themselves polytheists--monotheists started calling them polytheists), and 2. You could theoretically be a monotheist in name and still embrace pluralism--though it would be a somewhat less comfortable fit. By religious pluralism I mean a multitude of different religious perspectives coupled with an inherent rejection of any attempt at unifying dialogue or critical analysis. A plethora of different cultural sources and intellectual perspectives is of course essential from a pragmatic idealist point of view as well. Imagine all the different worldviews that people hold as well as the personal interests that they have as being like the shards of a mirror. Buddhism would represent an attempt at getting rid of all the shards--emptiness, no-self, the world as illusion. Monotheism would represent taking one shard, asserting that it alone represents the one objective truth, and attempting to annihilate all others. Religious pluralism in the sense that I mean would represent each separate shard competing in a more or less zero-sum fashion but still respecting the right of other shards to exist. Pragmatic idealism would represent trying to actively piece these mirror shards together into a cooperative, win-win, cohesive whole as much as possible.

If you identify with the message of this article, please email it to people, tell your friends, even print out copies to pass around. Together we can raise awareness. Thank you.

Authors Bio:
Ben Dench graduated valedictorian of his class from The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in the Spring Semester of 2007 with a B.A. in philosophy (his graduation speech, which received high praise, is available on YouTube). He is currently enrolled in the Pebble Hill School of Sacred Ministry, where he is studying to be an interfaith minister. His interests include all forms of experiential and technique oriented spirituality, especially shamanism and the out-of-body-experience; social justice, including environmentalism and building a sustainable global community; and the study of how to live effectively and maximize human potential.