On Maps and Marital Spats: A Kantian Reflection

My family and I are traveling some in July and a few days ago we passed a spot on our travels where, last year, I got really lost and turned around. Ah, memories.

It wasn’t a good memory because I got really angry and frustrated. And some of this frustration got directed at Jana. Nothing big, but we both were reminiscing about the tense exchanges we had.

As I thought about what went wrong that day my reflections eventually settled on Immanuel Kant. Yeah, I’m weird like that. Marital spats make me think of deontological ethics.

Here’s where my reflections took me.

First, I’m not a stereotypical guy. That is, I readily admit when I’m lost. Mainly because I get lost so much there is no real point in pretending. Jana has the better sense of direction. So I generally ask her about how to get to places.

But while Jana has the better sense of direction she really doesn’t like maps. I, conversely, find maps easy and intuitive. So it’s sort of a paradox. She hates maps but has the great sense of direction. I get lost but love maps. Go figure.

Anyway, last year when I got lost I did what I usually do, I said something like “I’m lost.” I’m kind of obvious that way.

Being lost I hand Jana my iPhone and ask her to pull up Google Maps and get us located with the GPS.

This is Jana’s nightmare scenario, me handing her a map and barking questions at her because I’m lost.

Needless to say this doesn’t go well. I’m asking for help and she’s struggling to provide it. We keep making wrong turns and my temper rises. A lot of it is directed at myself. Some of it is directed at the gods. But some of it is directed at Jana. I want her to navigate me out of this mess but she’s not doing it.

This year, as we drove past the location of this mishap, I tried to reflect back to understand why I got so mad at Jana. We were lost because of my mistake. And while I handed Jana my iPhone I knew that she was going to struggle to make heads or tails of the map. So I’m expecting something of her that I know is unreasonable. And yet I got angry at her. Why?

In thinking about how to ground our ethical decisions Immanuel Kant famously came up with the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative goes something like this: Act in such a way so that you can will your actions to become a universal law. Basically, a deed is ethical if you can confidently assert that everyone should follow your example. For example, you shouldn’t steal because if everyone followed your example it’s pretty clear that the social fabric of society would fall apart.

While I like the categorical imperative it find it a bit too abstract for daily use. But what I do use a lot is Kant’s alternative formulation of the categorical imperative: Treat people as ends not as means.

I thought of that while I was reflecting on last year’s marital spat. The reason I was getting upset at Jana was because I was treating her as a means—a way to get me unlost—rather than as an end in herself. I wanted Jana to function in a certain way to help me with something I wanted, needed, expected, or desired. And when she failed in that function I got frustrated.

And frustration is diagnostic here. Freud said that frustration is the feeling we have when our goals are thwarted. When we are blocked from reaching a goal we get frustrated. Think of being late and stuck in a traffic jam. That’s having your goal blocked. And we all know what that feels like.

So I was frustrated with Jana because I wanted to get unblocked, I wanted to get pointed in the right direction again. The frustration was diagnostic that I was treating Jana as a means, as a tool, as a functionary to get to my goal.

Another way to say this is that I was being selfish. By treating Jana as a means toward my end I had placed myself at the center. I was the end, and she was the means.

As I stepped back from this incident and took in a wider view it dawned on me that this is the way it is everywhere in my life. When I notice myself getting upset at people it’s generally the case that I’m treating them as a means rather than as an end. The person I’m interacting with is viewed in functional terms. Are they helping me get what I want? And if not, well, I get frustrated.

You hear Christians say a lot “It’s not about me, it’s about God.” I get that sentiment, but I often don’t know what it means.

So how about this tweak? “It’s not about me, it’s about the person standing in front of me.” That is, one of the things we can to do to remove ourselves from the “center” of the universe is to stop treating people as means to our ends. For treating people as means is the very definition of self-centeredness, it is using people to satisfy your own needs. But when we treat people as ends in themselves we become, of necessity, de-centered. Their needs and desires become the focus, not ours.

Not that any of this is rocket science:

1 John 4.20-21
Anyone who says “I love God” and hates his brother is a liar, since no one who fails to love the brother whom he can see can love God whom he has not seen. Indeed this is the commandment we have received from him, that whoever loves God, must also love his brother.

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8 thoughts on “On Maps and Marital Spats: A Kantian Reflection”

  1. Nice way to bring Kant into marital conflict!  MarDee and I are exactly the same; maps help me, not her... but she doesn't get turned around like I do.  I think the categorical imperative here is "Get a GPS" and choose one of the voices that either soothes you or makes you laugh...

  2. I don't think the categorical imperative works. 'Thou shalt not kill' and 'thou shalt not steal' seem striaghtforward enough, but then if your family's starving, or it's Hitler in your gunsights, I don't think it's quite so straightforward!

  3. How about this: "It's not about JUST me, and it's not about JUST you: it's about you AND me." (Love your neighbor as yourself.)
    I think the "It's not about me, it's about God" take is that kind of spirituality that gets gnostic in practice.
    I love Five For Fighting's take with his song "The Riddle." "There's a reason for the world, you and I." 

    Meanwhile, we're roasting in the heat, waiting on the technicians to come repair our 16 month old AC system, trying not to get frustrated.

  4. Well said! My wife is fine with a map, but doesn't like using my GPS. Fortunately, I don't get lost often, but my ability to give my wife directions on her own is very lacking. Then she call me on her cell phone and it gets REALLY interesting.

  5. i've seen the following humor several times, with various paired groups -- manager/engineer, salesman/employee, democrat/republican -- but the basic idea is the same, it's the punchline that's applicable in many many cases:

    --------------------
    Hot Air

    A woman in a hot-air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her
    altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse
    me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago,
    but I don't know where I am."

    The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air
    balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet
    above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and
    100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."

    She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Republican."

    "I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

    "Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me I suppose is
    technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your
    information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to
    me."

    The man smiled and responded, "You must be an Democrat."

    "I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

    "Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are
    going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot
    air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me
    to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in
    before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."

    --------------------
    --sgl

  6. For some reason, your comments about not knowing what the phrase "It's not about me, it's about God" really means brought to mind this little story ... One night a little girl went into her parents bedroom because she was scared. When she woke her mother up, her mother reassured her, "Don't be afraid ... Jesus is always with you." To which the little girl replied, "Well, I was kinda hoping for somebody with skin on." Maybe our best ideas and intentions about God are best expressed to those "with skin on."

  7. Delightful. And fun! Thanks for the personal note personalizing Kant. Not quite sure how to work that into clinical practice :). But it’s worth keeping mind for clues given to me by those ‘odd’ others. You never know. When I need to diffuse my considerable Melvillian moments of anger ("from hell’s heart, I spit at thee ... thus I give up the spear!"), I lay down on my back at just the right time when filtered daylight streams at an angle through a window and I observe the utterly random dance of dust motes. De-centering to the max. Not a recommended therapy for a man already driving lost like a dust mote on the interstate with his wife! "Pardon me honey, but I need to pull over here in the fast lane on the interstate and put back the seat so I can observe dust motes!" When I cannot take a break to lay down (I’ve done this since I was a young child utterly absorbed), then I mediate on Gleick’s description of the utterly random influences during the downward fall of a snowflake and how the snowflake contains a registry of its every random influence - yet in perfect symmetry in the end! Again, de-centering. I’m otherwise clinically diagnosed with "Kanta-phobia maximus," which means at about a 99 percentile measure of Kant-hostility. I’ve been trying to go for the 100 percentile scale, because I want to define the category, but the tests will not allow it. My co-counselor tells me that I need to respect Kant as of value as an end in himself! That’s when I start sputtering the above hate speech from Melville. So maybe I need to compromise with you and start looking at snowflakes and looking at my beloved dust motes as Kantian ontic entities worthy of value as ends in themselves? "To dust you shall return."
    When I need to diffuse my considerable Melvillian moments of anger ("from hell’s heart, I spit at thee ... thus I give up the spear!"), I lay down on my back at just the right time when filtered daylight streams at an angle through a window and I observe the utterly random dance of dust motes. De-centering to the max. Not a recommended therapy for a man already driving lost like a dust mote on the interstate with his wife! "Pardon me honey, but I need to pull over here in the fast lane on the interstate and put back the seat so I can observe dust motes!" When I cannot take a break to lay down (I’ve done this since I was a young child utterly absorbed), then I mediate on Gleick’s description of the utterly random influences during the downward fall of a snowflake and how the snowflake contains a registry of its every random influence - yet in perfect symmetry in the end! Again, de-centering.
    I’m otherwise clinically diagnosed with "Kanta-phobia maximus," which means at about a 99 percentile measure of Kant-hostility. I’ve been trying to go for the 100 percentile scale, because I want to define the category, but the tests will not allow it. My co-counselor tells me that I need to respect Kant as of value as an end in himself! That’s when I start sputtering the above hate speech from Melville. So maybe I need to compromise with you and start looking at snowflakes and looking at my beloved dust motes as Kantian ontic entities worthy of value as ends in themselves? "To dust you shall return."

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