Meanings of Life (Roy F. Baumeister)
OVERVIEW
In “Meanings of Life,” social scientist Roy F. Baumeister attempts to revive the topic of life’s meaning. He doesn’t seek to provide a mystical or grandiose theory, he looks at facts and what social scientists have learned about suffering, love, work, death, etc. He’s interested in how meaning functions, what forms it takes, why people desire it, and how meaning is tied to our mortality – the broad and general patterns. He asks: what is meaning, what do we need to feel our lives are meaningful, why is modern meaning elusive, and how does death threaten the whole thing?
What is meaning?
Baumeister doesn’t believe meaning in life is some exotic or existential substance, it’s just meaning in the ordinary sense. When we ask “what is the meaning of a sentence,” we’re asking about the intent of the sentence, what it conveys, if all the parts fit together in a coherent pattern, what broader context it belongs to, which in turn is founded on connections, shared understandings, concepts, symbols, and distinctions. Meaning in life is not a special kind of meaning, just a special usage of the term.
In general, then, what is meaning for, and why do we have it? In the broadest sense, meaning fits into one of two categories: patterns and control. We evolved a sense of meaning to detect associations and distinctions (patterns). Hoofprints in the sand mean bison came this way; dark skies mean a storm is coming; raised voices and violent gestures mean someone is angry. This gave us the ability to respond beneficially to our immediate physical and social situation, to change or control the environment. But there’s also the benefit of controlling oneself. This second aspect involves regulating our behaviour so we can respond effectively, act beyond impulses, instincts, and immediate satisfactions. “Meaning enables people to make decisions based on considering options, consulting values, and referring to long-range plans and hierarchies of goals. Resolutions, obligations, ambitions, promises, and many other meaningful factors can determine how a person acts. Meaning thus liberates the human being from the present situation.” Suddenly our behaviour can be guided by several non-immediate factors, oriented toward value systems or conceptual/symbolic hierarchies of importance. Meaning enables learning and self-control. Recognizing patterns gives us useful information, but the ability to ascribe values and meanings to actions, and to consider long-term goals, gives us options. Meaning is something we superimpose on physical reality. Meaning in life occurs in abundance at low levels, on the scale of days and weeks. Our anxiety is rather whether these small, daily meanings add up to a high-level meaning or coherent story line… whether they integrate into any worthwhile whole.
Two additional elements of meaning are standards and interpretations. Standards are abstract concepts that allow us to interpret (evaluate) people, things, and events. They include norms, expectations, laws, criteria, conventions, models, and ideals. It’s the role of culture to forge connections between standards and emotions – culture teaches you to feel joy when you get a good grade, guilt when you steal or cheat, pride when you accomplish something significant, anger when you don’t get what you want. So, our emotional responses are shaped by standards. The evaluation, or interpretation, is sometimes about recognizing, but it’s mostly about conferring. We don’t typically recognize or unearth meaning, rather we confer it creatively through a more active process of interpretation.
The focus of this book then, is on the meanings people construct for their own lives. Meaning exists in our minds and is baked into our social structures and institutions. “Culture offers broad systems of beliefs and values that tell people how to think. These systems (ideologies) offer broad frameworks that help people make sense of events and that provide the contexts within which lives find meaning.”
When do we feel a life is meaningful?
A life feels meaningful when it fulfills the “four needs for meaning,” what you can consider an existential shopping list. These four needs for meaning are: purpose, efficacy, self-worth, and value. If you have all four, you will probably feel your life has sufficient meaning. If you’re missing one, or if any feel thwarted/frustrated, you will try to replace it with something else in the same category; if you can’t make up the deficit that way, you’ll turn more fervently to the other three (you’ll stretch your remaining sources of meaning).
1. Purpose, or rather purposiveness, is the first need for meaning. We want to feel like our activities are oriented toward worthwhile goals and we want to interpret our actions in relation to desired future states. Purposiveness is goal-orientation. The goals may be extrinsic (like mowing the lawn), or intrinsic (like listening to music). Life can be sufficiently meaningful guided by extrinsic goals or intrinsic fulfillment states. “All that matters for the sake of making a life meaningful is that the person’s current activities derive meaning from the ideas of possible future events, states, or outcomes.”
2. Efficacy means feeling strong and capable, having control over events. In our day to day, this manifests as the need to feel we’re making a difference. Meaning is more than just having goals, you also need to feel like you have the capability of achieving them. We find efficacy most commonly through our work/careers, and the feeling of efficacy is maximized when we are challenged and can get into a state of flow.
3. Self-worth is created through our belief that we have positive value and are regarded positively by others. Usually, this manifests as finding ways to feel superior to other people: status-seeking, showing off, engaging in competition, gossiping, encouraging prejudicial views, striving to get promoted, having nice things, going on glamorous vacations, etc. We need to find some basis for positive self-worth, to find some purchase on self-respect and the respect of others.
4. Value is the fourth and final need for meaning. Value can be a tricky thing to define, but Baumeister would rather focus on what the presence of value looks like; it all boils down to justification – values are about justifying our actions. We want to believe our actions are well-founded, which means a positive orientation to some value or value system. The surest way to identify values is to look for the oughts – what ought you do? If you feel you ought to attend your friend’s Birthday party, you ought to stay late at the office, you ought to go to the gym, some value system is at work.
People that can find purpose, efficacy, self-worth, and align with established value systems, will feel their lives are meaningful.
What’s missing in modern society?
Which of the four needs for meaning is lacking today? What is it that drives us to anxiously ask: “is this all there is?” Why do we find “true meaning” and fulfillment suspiciously absent, frustratingly hard to come by? The problem is the fourth need for meaning, value, and what Baumeister calls the “value gap.”
Modern society gives us plenty of ways to satisfy our needs for purpose, efficacy, and self-worth, but not value. With the decline of religion and tradition, so too diminished our belief in universal values, or in doing things “because we’ve always done them this way.” Our social groups also widened… immorality no longer has the same social consequences it once did; in the movement from small, connected, local circles of extended family to an increasingly globalized world, a firm basis for morality has also eroded. “As a result, the modern individual faces life with fewer firm criteria of legitimacy and fewer reliable ways to tell right from wrong. . . The culture does not supply enough value bases to take care of people’s need to justify and legitimize their activities.” The result is that value, the fourth need for meaning, goes unsatisfied. What’s missing is a firmly entrenched, shared value base to validate our life choices, to validate our decisions and actions. We may have previously valued things like propriety, family duty, or patriotism, but our modern values have shifted and diluted. Probably the only shared value we now possess is a vague and ill-defined idea that we should “make the world a better place,” whatever that means.
Baumeister does not go on to postulate how we might remedy this situation, he’s more interested in the social fallout. Remember, if any need for meaning erodes, we cling more tightly to another. And in our modern world, the direction of that embrace is towards self-worth. The decline of traditional values helps explain the rising importance of self-identity. The same social and cultural forces that weakened our central value bases were the same forces that strengthened individualism. Modern economic life made rational the pursuit of self-interest, and those who acted out of self-interest were rewarded. As we moved away from feudal societies, democracy also put the power in the hands of the individual.
“The new, intensified individualism grew out of the emerging economic, political, and social patterns of relations in the modern world. The accumulated effect was to expand the concept of self far beyond what it had claimed in the Middle Ages. The self came to be regarded as a vast, complex, and intricate entity, full of buried potentialities and sources of meaning. The self became established as a source of meaning in life, as was reflected in modern notions that you could look inside yourself to find answers to questions about life’s direction, to find guidance about the right and best decisions to make, to find the wellsprings of creative efforts, and so forth. . . This view created a readiness to accept as plausible the idea that another sort of meaning – specifically, value – could come from deep inside the self.”
In response to the modern value gap, we have turned inward. Consider how many of us believe it’s an obligation to find our true inner nature so that we can act authentically. Think of how many people feel they ought to find themselves. We’re told to respect personal values (a concept that would have seemed absurd if not totally incoherent only a few centuries ago). Not only have we clung more tightly to the need for self-identity because of the value gap, we’ve turned the self into its own source of value.
The decline of moral values, traditions, and religious direction means that the issue of value has, in large part, been left up to individual resolutions and inclinations – the highest moral authority is now the self, and we justify our actions in terms of what’s best for us, or what provides us with the most personal satisfactions. Our individual leanings and desires have become our only reliable navigation system.
“The surest way to know what is right is to understand yourself well enough to ascertain what feels right. That is what people today believe. . . In past societies, perhaps, values served as a buffer against anxiety by protecting the individual from the penalties threatened by the community. One did what the community regarded as right and good, and that made one reasonably safe from social rejection, ostracism, and other punishments. Now, however, the community no longer speaks with a united voice about morality. Instead, the individual is left with only his or her own feelings as a guide.”
The modern problem of meaning is tied to our lack of shared values. In response, we have glorified “self-actualization” and turned the self into its own source of value, its own source of meaning in life.
The problem of death
So now you know what meaning is (the interpretation that your life has intent, that it fits into a coherent pattern, that it belongs to some broader context), and you understand the four needs for meaning: purpose, efficacy, self-worth, and value – these are the sources of meaning. You also appreciate the modern value gap, and how we’ve filled it by obsessing over self-identity and encouraging “self-realization”, ultimately turning the self into its own value base. Now we can direct our attention to the problem of death (the de facto endpoint for everything on this blog).
Not all fears about death are tied to meaning. The social problem of death is that it highlights the fragility of relationships and our desire to belong; it also undermines the illusion that things are stable and controllable. Personal problems of death (non-meaning related) include the fear of suffering – that the dying process may be painful and protracted, and the loss of opportunity – the sadness that accompanies the understanding that we may never get to do the things we really wanted, that the world will go on without us (death is a foreclosing of all potential futures). But meaning-related fears are also stirred up by the prospect of personal annihilation, and they are tied to the four needs of meaning. If for meaning we need purpose, efficacy, self-worth, and value, how does death threaten them? For both purpose and efficacy, meaning is mostly drawn from future events, the striving toward worthwhile goals and our belief that we can achieve them. When your life comes to an end, all that counts toward these needs for meaning is what you have already accomplished (or didn’t accomplish). You may ask “did I actually achieve anything worthwhile?”, “did I really make a difference?” You’d better hope the answer is yes, because all present efforts toward purpose and efficacy are somewhat futile without a future to deliver them to. At the end of life, it may also be hard to find a foundation for self-worth, to feel like you have anything important to offer. On what can you base your self-esteem when you can’t be productive or admired? And with our modern value gap, the emphasis on the self becomes doubly problematic. The obvious issue is that death is the annihilation of the self. And so the more you have clung to the self (the more you derive your meaning from your individuality), the more death threatens meaninglessness. “To the modern person, who places great value on individuality and who often invokes the self as an important source of value and justification, death is especially threatening, because it removes the very thing – the self – upon which life’s meaning is based.” By making the self a value base, we tie ourselves to a time-bound value. Our actions and accomplishments lose their value and justification upon our death.
In conclusion
There is nothing special about meaning in life. In the end, all meaning boils down to patterns and control, integration and interpretation. When we ask “what is the meaning of my life,” what we’re asking is: what was the intent of my living, to what context did my life belong? Was there a pattern to my life, a trend? Did all my small daily meanings integrate into some bigger, overarching meaning? This will all depend on how much purposiveness you had, how effective you felt in achieving your goals, and how much self-worth you possessed – doubly on the last, because with our modern lack of value, the self has become the primary value base. Of course, tying meaning to the self in this way has an obvious flaw – the more you cling to the self, the more you fear death. But it’s not so easy to simply decide you will pick different priorities. No one chooses from an infinite array of meanings, it’s the culture that dictates the à la carte selection and the hierarchy of choices. At present, the top option is individuality, which means meaning is up to you, what you can accomplish and achieve, your worth and value. And all the while the Grim Reaper looms large, ready to erase the meaning of your life by erasing you.
WHAT NOW? (actions for mortal atheists)
Well, that was bleak. Let’s see if we can find some redeeming “to dos” in the after-party of this summary.
Give death a positive meaning
If death detracts from meaning by threatening purpose, efficacy, self-worth, and value, perhaps we could turn the tables and impose a positive meaning on death using those four needs as our guide.
· “If death serves a purpose, then it is far more acceptable than a useless or pointless death. So one approach is to find some purpose served by the death.” There are obvious examples, like the soldier’s death, or giving your body to science. But there are subtler examples: the dying person who uses dying as an opportunity to make amends, or to share life stories, or to enjoy what’s left of living more deeply. Maybe they have willed money to a charitable cause, or shared their secret banana bread recipe.
· The dying process may render us passive, threatening efficacy with helplessness. We have revolted against this by creating hospice, by ensuring that the dying person still has choices and authority over their care. If we can discern worthwhile goals in our dying (purpose), and feel capable of working toward them (if not achieving them) (efficacy), then we can keep meaninglessness at bay.
· Death threatens our dignity and self-esteem. Our decline and deterioration may feel absurdly degrading. Terminal self-worth, like efficacy, might be tricky to accomplish in a culture that so values productivity, performance, and usefulness. That said, there are still several qualities that we can display and feel proud of, even in the face of death, like bravery, humour, compassion, or gratitude. It will likely be entirely personal. One person may embrace vulnerability while the other may be proud of their resilience. The bottom line is that some basis for self-esteem can always be found, even at the end of life.
· We can also endow death with positive value to make it seem more acceptable (we won’t go as far as saying desirable). For one, death serves a vital role. All life is made possible by death. Every organic enjoyment is available only because something else died. In the end, death (including your death) is necessary, and therefore valuable. In addition, there are several philosophers who will tell you that finitude and fragility are what make your life worth living (check out Martin Hägglund). If you buy into that concept, then mortality is essential and inherently positive.
Don’t get caught up in harmful myths
Myth of Forever – the myth of forever is the desire for stability. While ideas and concepts might be stable, events are not. The concept of marriage is stable – you are not less married on some days compared to others, but the experience of a relationship is constantly in flux. Try not to overestimate the stability of phenomena. Life is constant, relentless change. Meaning involves stable conceptions, and so when applied to our lives we find a superimposition of something stable onto something that’s constantly changing. Be aware that looking for meaning is one of the ways you try to impart stability and permanence.
“In theory, a meaning of life is an interpretive construct that pulls together all the actions of someone’s life and their consequences. In practice, life is often a hodgepodge of inconsistency, false starts, changed plans, loose ends, and mutually irrelevant projects. It may be unrealistic to expect a single meaning to draw together all the diverse strivings and daily events of a single life. Yet the notion of a meaning of life implies precisely that. To the extent that such notions are unrealistic and inadequate, the very notion of a meaning for a given life reflects false permanence.”
Myth of Higher Meaning – We generally want unifying, all-encompassing meaning, something that integrates and makes sense of our lives as a whole. We want things to make sense, for events in our lives to be consistent with some over-arching narrative, to avoid any contradictions. Be careful when you try to super-impose a broad meaning that avoids any inconsistencies. Why should all your experiences fit together in non-contradictory ways? Why should they be integrated into some unifying story? Why should a bunch of mini, local meanings sum to a grand meaning? Maybe everything doesn’t fit together; maybe lots of moments and events in your life will be irrelevant or even contradictory to the life “themes” you try to construct. We all have an idle hope that life, that all of this, is of some lasting importance. It might not be. There may be no centrality or ultimate significance to your life (or any life, for that matter). Your web of meaning will probably be built from the bottom up, not the top down, and that means there may be several “themes,” and they may not fit together. Accept that there may be no magnificent unification or consistency to your life story.
Start from the top and work down
All that said, if you are still hoping for some coalescent quality to your life, remember that it’s easier for meaning to flow downward than it is to be constructed upward, and so it may be useful to search for the higher-level meanings and the long-range story/trend you want to be part of first. It might be long-term concepts of generational continuity (family), evergreen spiritual doctrines, broad historical, scientific, artistic, or humanitarian trends or movements… all these things extend beyond any individual lifespan, any single life, and so their meaning exceeds that of a single life. Starting from these higher-level meanings then can help integrate all your lower-level meanings.
Lastly, while it might be hard to take a hodgepodge of daily meanings and sum them into something cohesive, the good news is that meaning is mostly about interpretation, and you can choose to interpret your life and its meaning(s) however you want.
IN SUM:
Is this book entirely secular? Yes (even if you dislike Baumeister’s conclusion that religion is probably the most reliable way to find high-level meaning).
If I had to describe the book in one sentence? A social scientist’s thorough and well-researched thoughts on meaning in life.
Who should read this book? Anyone who wants to understand the four sources of meaning, how modern society thwarts one of them, and the disastrous spiral of consequences that follow.