Serialised book (with a progressively updated >>dashboard/ToC<< page). Part II: Philosophy of the Life Instinct

Book: Philosophy of Life Instinct: Chapter 22: Quality

To care is civilisation

One of humanity’s defining features is its desire for the better. We constantly want to find things that are superior or improve something. We appreciate and value higher quality.

Quality can simply mean the attributes or characteristics of something. But this chapter is about high quality. We will use the word ‘quality’ to indicate either functional superiority compared to similar things or the excellence of our experience of something, or both.

We cannot say that all of us care consciously for quality. But most do, and it has been so since we accelerated away from other life on Earth with our intelligence. This innate desire for perpetual improvement has developed from the Life Instinct (see Chapter 4). Our brains getting better has gone hand in hand with the progression of our geographical location, tools, products, practices and cooperation. It has made a tremendous difference to us over evolutionary time. Although we end up making several things worse, we inherently want to make things better.

In this perspective, quality is not exceptional, distant or challenging. It is just that we constantly expect more of it, so there never seems to be enough. Every progress to the extraordinary seems remarkable until it becomes routine.

Aspects of quality

We often disagree about quality. There are two types of quality, and delving into them will help us understand why. The first type is the intrinsic and individual value of things, and the second is their comparative or relative value.

1. Intrinsic Quality

1A. Quality from the emotional value

We feel this intrinsic excellence when, for example, we pick up a nicely made hammer, with a shaped handle that fits just right in our palm, the wood tawny and gleaming, with a head of nice proportions, polished with use, and the overall feel one of balance and solidity. It is true of a favourite chair, a beloved car and anything to which we feel connected. And, of course, we see the quality in those we love. We are satisfied and content and don’t feel the need to find something better. We are okay with growing old with something that in itself has high quality for us.

We are all different in what we connect to and why. Some things are appreciated and enjoyed by us because of how we are. For example, I appreciate a well-designed bedside lamp, which may just be a utility for others. Other things draw us into liking them. For instance, all jazz was the same pleasant music until I read an eye-opening book on it. We get quality, or quality gets us.

It does not seem to be about rarity. The quality connection can happen with things that are plentiful too. The value we connect to emotionally is in our interaction with our world, which is brain chemistry, or physics if you prefer. No wonder it varies for each of us.

1B.Quality from the intellectual value

We don’t always need to emotionally connect with an object or compare it with others to know if it is good. If the purpose of something is clear, we intellectually assess its capabilities against our expectations and evaluate its worth.

Take a street lamp, for example. We know it should give us enough light to show us what’s around us and under our feet but not blind us. It should be high enough, slim and set aside to be out of our way. It should be easy to replace the bulb and not consume too much energy. The colour of the light should be pleasant. It should be long lasting and robust enough to withstand winds and knocks. If a street lamp we come across is like this, we know from our thought that it is of high quality by itself.

Because thinking and expectations differ between us, we have intellectual disagreements too about intrinsic quality.

2. Comparative Quality

There can be an objective measure of quality when comparing the characteristics of two similar things and finding one superior to the other in function. The comparison can be intellectual or emotional and of three types:

• With itself as it was in the past, e.g., a home we improve or a child that develops.
• With other things having the same function and existing simultaneously, e.g., two different laptops or friends.
• With other things of the same function that exist at different times, e.g., telescopes of the last and this century or ex-husbands and husbands.

Although functional superiority seems like an aspect that we can quantify and rationally agree on, broader implications often raise questions on holistic goodness. Such concerns matter differently to each of us. We will examine this in the last section on wise quality.

The importance of quality

Quality is not an extravagance. The cost of poor quality is higher than that of excellence. There is a direct correlation between how much we value and practice making things better and how successful and happy we are. It is the species and our mind rewarding us for better following the drives of the Life Instinct and realising its goals.

We all appreciate something of quality, even if we don’t think about it explicitly. It is the inbuilt mechanism of our brain recognising that something is good for us in some way and rewarding its pleasure centres for using or appreciating it. For example, we enjoy travelling first class rather than economy, if we have the choice. Some may have misgivings about the cost or waste involved in producing the higher quality. But even they will probably admit the direct pleasure we get from it.

Here are some of the tangible benefits of high quality across four aspects.

1. Higher output

An excellent thing goes further, higher, or handles more of something. Examples are a superb marathoner or a large screen TV.

2. Lower cost

Superior things reduce several types of costs.

They

• Consume less energy and raw material per unit of output
• Produce less waste and pollution
• Have the most negligible impact on nature
• Last longer
• Break down less often
• Are easier to repair and maintain
• Are safer and more secure
• Are ethical, i.e., do not impose unacceptable costs on people or natural ecosystems.

3. Greater speed

Time is a precious commodity, and saving it is a part of high quality. Examples are inventions and discoveries for faster production of food and commodities, commuting, shipping, downloading or uploading data, computing, analytics, etc. For people, it is the speed of thinking, learning, doing, innovation, etc. Faster recovery from a setback or failure is also an essential aspect of a high-quality thing or person.

4. Pleasure and happiness

The enjoyment we get from something excellent is an indirect indication of its value to us. It comes from being more ergonomic, easy to use, engaging, intuitive, pleasant, etc. The pleasure can be physical, intellectual or emotional, and can grow with time. An example is a high-quality mattress or a caring service provider.

Art is also an excellent repository of high quality. It includes music, song, literature and architecture. We saw in Chapter 21 how art gives not just aesthetic pleasure but is an integral part of the Life Instinct. The quality of a piece of art is a reliable indicator of the edge it gives us for a healthier, more capable and happy life.

Even for utility items, designing them to give pleasure makes us want to use them more. We are willing to pay more for great combinations of form and function.

Where quality lies

The quality we perceive is relative to us, humanity. It reflects our needs and wants and manifests in the interaction between us (the consumer) and the thing (the provider). The goodness of the interaction depends on both. What is of high quality to humans may be poor for other living things, and vice versa.

What are the signs of excellence in human domains? Let’s look at this for ourselves, our things and our world.

Ourselves

Based on the drivers and outcomes for the Life Instinct, the signs of quality in us and society are:

• A broadminded morality (we examine Morality in chapter 23).
• An enlightened, ethical outlook for the family, society, and natural world.
• A high level of education, curiosity and a sense of wonder about everything everywhere.
• Excellence in communication.
• Emotional wisdom (see Chapter 13).

Our things

Our useful things have quality if they are:

• Efficient, i.e. do more with less
• Safe and secure
• Seamless, natural and intuitive human interaction
• Ethical for people, all living things and the environment

Our world

Our world is what we have evolved in. We fit into it like a key in a lock. We feel our part of the world is of high quality when it matches our survival, health and reproduction needs. It has an intrinsic quality for us, but we can quickly destroy it and have been ruining it for at least a couple of centuries now.

• Pristine air, water and land
• Stable climate and ecological zones
• Flourishing and self-sustaining populations of all remaining plant and animal species, as of the early 21st century
• Balanced food chains
• A sustainable ratio of land to human population

The quality of small things

It is not only the famous and prominent things of human culture that can be excellent. Quality is in the Taj, Shinkansen, Mars Rover, and the works of Beethoven, Shakespeare and Einstein. But it’s also in a lot of small things around us. We get great pleasure, an upswell of respect, a feeling of connection with kindred souls, and a renewal of faith in humanity when we see such ordinary yet fine things as:

• Perfect grouting between tiles
• Signs at just the right places, saying just the right things
• Sloped roads with clear water drains
• Grammatical writing
• Turning circles at the end of cul-de-sacs
• Impeccable road markings
• Litter-free streets
• Elegant libraries
• Nicely printed and bound books
• Neatly tucked beds
• Well dressed people
• Properly pressed clothes
• Shined shoes
• Lined-up shoes
• Large, beautiful parks in the middle of cities
• Japanese gardens
• A lovely teapot
• Oiled hinges
• Windows that shut perfectly
• Car doors shut, not slammed
• Squeaky clean places
• Squeaky clean people
• Pedestrians getting right of way
• Bathrooms with separated wet and dry areas
• Perfect scenes in great movies
• Lovely turns of phrase in books
• Intricate melodies that speak to us
• Mail and calls answered promptly
• Books returned punctually
• Strangers exchanging smiles
• Foreign names spelt and pronounced correctly
• Friends knowing our little traits
• Gadgets designed just right
• Thoughtfulness and care in every corner of a country

When we see care and attention in small human things, we gain strength from each other. It makes us renew our internal resolve to have the right attitude and do the right thing.

Ways to Quality

How can we achieve quality? Improving things requires effort and time, and there is a lot of evidence that those who put more effort and time into things earn more and have more joy.

Here is a 7-step way to quality for us.

1. Pick something we love in school, college, work, family life and the community to excel at.
2. Be curious and learn everything about it.
3. Give it focus, energy, and attention to detail to do it as well as we can.
4. Think for ourselves about every aspect of it. Imagine everything we can about its possibilities. Use our highest intelligence and wisdom for it.
5. Not give up until we make it as good as it can get.
6. Check the effect on others and the world, and make sure it does not make them worse off. Apply self-control and moderation to achieve balance.
7. Appreciate and support quality in others and take pride in the quality of everything we do.

To succeed and deliver outward excellence, we need to enhance our intellectual, emotional, and physical aspects simultaneously. (Many of these are covered in other chapters of this book. See the ToC.)

A culture of quality

How can an entire community, nation or company rise to a high standard in everything it does and is? Does a country have to be wealthy to achieve excellence in every sphere of life?

A lot of the quality attitude comes from individuals. A person or country may not be rich but can still have a tremendous amount of quality. It is especially true because quality is not only about material wealth. It resides equally in simple but wholesome things like cleanliness, order, good behaviour, social responsibility, etc.

Individual quality inspires everyone and spreads when others see its impact and pleasure. But there are at least a few things that institutions can do to spread the culture of quality.

• Increase the depth and breadth of education as it is a crucial element for quality thinking
• Systematically encourage and support quality processes
• Reward high-quality ideas and work and deprecate shoddiness
• Make the subject of quality ubiquitous through discussion, training and inclusion in everything
• Be open to the world and learn from the best

Quality is care

This passage from Robert M Pirsig’s ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ has stayed with me from long ago.

“What I’m talking about here in motorcycle maintenance is “just fixing,” in which the idea of a duality of self and object doesn’t dominate one’s consciousness. When one isn’t dominated by feelings of separateness from what (s)he’s working on, then one can be said to “care” about what (s)he’s doing. That is what real care is, a feeling of identification with what one’s doing. When one has this feeling, then (s)he also sees the inverse side of caring, Quality itself.”

Ultimately, caring is the quality that transmits out of us into the world and back into us.

Wise quality

Quality is a subjective term. It does not have the same value for everyone and everything.

The moral aspect of quality

One can’t deny that there was a sort of excellence in the Conquistadors, East India Company, Afrika Korps, Luftwaffe, or WW 2 Japanese Navy. But their intents and effects were morally and ethically terrible.

We need to recognise that quality is a holistic thing that includes its effects. A superb robot can replace a hundred people, but is that what we want?

The ethical aspect of quality

Humans cannot restrict quality thinking to their immediate surroundings. As a species, we produce houses, cars, food, gadgets, rockets, satellites and hundreds of things of great functional value. But the quality of our larger world has deteriorated as an effect. What happens to the rest of the planet as a biosphere has a direct impact on us. So, even if for selfish reasons, we should extend the idea of quality to include the whole planet, including everything in it.

The more this thinking spreads via education, leadership, and self-realisation, the higher our survival chances. The Life Instinct is undoubtedly trying to evolve this quality in us, but it may have left it too late. We may lose a large part of the human population before nature achieves the balance to let a small portion survive. There is no guarantee, though, that those that survive will be the ones who are of the best quality. It could be the opposite, ironically.

So how come the Life Instinct allows the emergence of capabilities that go against its aims? The only sensible answer is that the process is one of trial, error, and success. All intermediate states will not be perfect; the progress of life is not perfect. Evolution tries out many variations before better outcomes prevail. It is experimenting on a grand scale, and there will be collateral damage. Scores of millions have perished at the hands of those who became more robust, more technologically and militarily capable. Many millions more may die due to the effects of industrialisation and global warming.

Yet, we cannot pull back from advancement. We cannot revert to lower intelligence, less knowledge, and less power. But we can apply our minds to better ends. We possess both the power of choice in our Free Will and the intelligence necessary. Self-controlled advancement is the best type of quality we will achieve.

Conclusions

Quality is the alloy of care and immersion that lifts our life above the banal. The deeper and broader the quality we bring to every aspect of life, the more joyous is our pointless existence.

We need to promise the living and departed souls who’ve understood what quality and civilisation are, ‘Hello gentle friends. Don’t fret. We get it. We feel what you felt. We are with you. We care too. We won’t let you down.’

© 2020 Shashidhar Sastry. All rights reserved.

(As each chapter of the book is published, its link is updated in the ToC below.)

Table of Contents

Part I Metaphysics of The Life Instinct

Part II Philosophy of The Life Instinct

Part III The Life Instinct and The Future

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