Prof. Nevzat Tarhan: "Selfishness has gained new dimensions, such as ethnic selfishness"

President of Üsküdar University Psychiatrist Prof. Nevzat Tarhan made evaluations on "Social Decay, TV Series and Media" in the 27th issue of the quarterly Journal of Yetkin Düşünce. Tarhan, who took part in the interview section of the magazine, pointed out that there are preliminary signs of a great decay in the world right now. Emphasizing that it is media and communication technologies that increase social decay the most in the current situation, Tarhan stated that this threat actually contains an opportunity. Mentioning that small islands should be created to remedy the negative trend in society, Prof. Tarhan mentioned that the good and beautiful are always gained in the medium and long term. Tarhan also stated that selfishness has gained new dimensions, such as ethnic selfishness.

Here is Nevzat Tarhan's interview:

Professor, first of all, welcome.

Thank you.

Dear Professor, in many sub-headings, there are complaints about corruption that covers the whole world and our society. As an introduction to the interview, how do you see social decay? Is social decay exaggerated today as a reality to which humanity has always been exposed, or can we say that we have gone far beyond the acceptable limits of corruption?

Yes, of course, we need to start by looking at this on a global scale. On a societal scale, in terms of human behavior, in terms of human psychology as a whole, there are preliminary signs of a very large decay in the world right now. What seems to be a current decay is actually a premise, it must be said. The decay is even greater than we expected, but it is not felt enough because it occurs under the effect of narcosis. We see many examples of this in daily life in our professional practice. If strategies and alternatives are not developed for the next five years, ten years, twenty years, fifty years, I think different days await us. Of course, on the other hand, it should be kept in mind that this is not the first time that these sociological decays have happened, they are like a sinusoidal curve in history; benevolent behaviors increase, increase, and then kindness begins to depreciate. When kidness depreciates, the bad ones increase, the evil ones increase. When the good deeds hit the bottom and the evil reaches the highest level, the bad results of the bad things appear. When the bad results of these evils are seen, the demand for good increases. There is an increase in the good deeds. At the moment, the most severe decay of values is taking place in society. Solutions for this rise are also being investigated and should be investigated. Therefore, I observe the decay. I say this as a rational intuition, not a guess.

Sir, you mentioned the effect of narcosis. Is this something that causes decay to be able to connect with human desire, or does it have a different background?

"The education system in Türkiye makes one Muslims when they retire"

There is a popular phrase in psychiatry: California syndrome. There are four main symptoms of California syndrome. All of this is very closely related to the socialization and globalization of decay that starts from the individual. The first symptom is hedonism. Today, the hierarchy of values has changed. When we look at societies, there is a success-oriented worthiness, there is no good people-oriented worthiness. The hierarchy of valence has changed. Pleasure: what one likes is good, what one does not like is bad. The definitions of good and beautiful have changed in the style of what is in my interest is good, what is not in my interest is not good. The definitions of right and wrong have changed. As a result, the sense of commitment to values has decreased, and accordingly, honesty cannot find the behavioral response it deserves, and rewarding success comes to the fore more than rewarding honesty. As a result, a pleasure-oriented system was formed, and the philosophy of life changed. Modernism presents pleasure as the most important principle in human existence at the global level, and the same situation was experienced in antiquity. In pagan culture, people also glorified pleasure in antiquity, and in response to this, Socrates called it a "society of virtue." Socrates said, "The purpose of life is the pursuit of virtue.” He risked death for virtue. His disciples Plato and Aristotle continued this to some extent. Aristotle began to change it a little. 200 years later, Epicurus changed the philosophy of virtue and turned the virtue society feature of 300-400 BC in Pagan culture into a pleasure society. Close to the times when Jesus emerged, the understanding of pleasure on the basis of the individual and power-oriented life on the basis of the system came to the fore in the Pagan culture. For example, in old Isparta, theft is free unless caught, and everyone up to the age of 5 walks around naked. For this reason, the statues of that time, etc., are all naked. Because societies that have become pleasure societies are societies that have become power societies. While this was going on, Jesus came later, and after 200-300 years, somehow the direction of that changed. More recently, from the 1800s, Pagan culture was glorified again. As you know, Mitterrand made a glass statue of the Egyptian pyramid in front of the Louvre Museum in France, and after that, the symbols of all Pagan culture were revived. Freud included them in psychology and analyzed them. The terminology of pagan culture began to be used extensively. Right now, you are looking at it in the West and in our country, from Athens to Olympos to Hermes, Latin values, that is, Pagan culture, have become the culture of this age. Thus, what were the characteristics of Pagan culture? To glorify pleasure, to glorify the pleasure of the eye, to glorify power. Therefore, humanity will wait for the fate of Pagan culture. This is a social decay, which means that history repeats itself.

The second feature of the California syndrome is self-centeredness and egocentrism. People think in a self-centered way: what is in my interest is good, what is not in my interest is bad. Nietzsche famously said, "Man is a selfish animal." Cultures that emphasize social responsibility have been ridiculed. They argued that humility, sharing, helping each other, and tasadduk increased the cost of the transaction, and they said that capitalism has no morality. And what happened as a result? Selfishness ensued. Selfishness has taken on new manifestations, such as ethnic selfishness. What is ethnic selfishness, ethnic narcissism? Ethnic narcissism is Hitler's ideology. He said the French and the English were the race that was bringing Negroes. He called the Jews a parasitic race, and he called them a poisonous mushroom race. This gave them the right to kill. In his book "Mein Kampf", he applied the rules of biology to social psychology and formed his ideology. To summarize, selfishness functioned as a motivation that led to social decay.

"Selfishness has taken on new manifestations, such as ethnic selfishness"

As a third characteristic of the syndrome, loneliness arises as a result of selfishness. In the UK, the Ministry of Loneliness was established, and it was also established in Japan. If I am not mistaken, the World Health Organization, at last year's Davos meetings, defined three global problems in the world as follows: First, global income inequality, second, climate change, and third, loneliness. Loneliness is actually a consequence. When the selfish person is strong, there are people around them, but when one loses their power, they are alone. When one gets older, they are left alone with their thoughts.

The fourth characteristic of Californian syndrome is depression. In other words, mental crises are increasing. These are increasing divorces and suicides. We can say that these four individual-based symptoms – hedonism, selfishness, loneliness, depression – appear as social decay on a global scale because they have changed the order of values. At the moment, we do not feel it due to material well-being. This is what we call narcosis. People watch movies, they get caught up in the fun. The entertainment industry is doing narcosis right now, the biggest anesthetic is the entertainment industry. The social structure is decaying, that is, in a sense, our organ is decaying, but we do not realize it in the fun, we forget it.

Frankly, I was going to have a question about the TV series. You made a summary statement by touching on the subject, but to talk a little more in detail, Sir, how do you evaluate the effect of TV series and motion pictures on social decay in Turkish society? The rest of my question will be as follows: Can we talk about a positive effect of values-centered series, or do they also contribute to this negative process in some way?

Current TV series and programs are channels where evil is constantly discussed. However, there is an entropic relationship between evil and good. In fact, there is no such thing as coldness, there is an absence of warmth. There is no such thing as darkness, there is absence of light. The same rule applies to behavior. There is no such thing as bad behavior, there is a lack of good behavior. There is no such thing as evil, there is no goodness. In other words, when good increases, evil disappears by itself. In fact, Imam Ghazali was the one who described it best. Imam al-Ghazali (peace be upon him) was asked, "What is evil?" he replied, "It is the masking of goodness." In other words, evil destroys good by masking it. In other words, when goodness decreases, evil automatically increases. For him, when evil increases, good is masked. The solution, then, is to increase kindness.

"The human brain reacts six times faster to evil than to good"

If we bring the word to the series, TV series is an art in which communication technologies are used. If you use them for good, it increases the good and the beautiful, and if you use them for bad purposes, it increases the evil. However, the spread of evil and the spread of good do not occur at the same speed. This is a phenomenon that is very closely related to the human brain. The human brain reacts six times faster to evil than to good. In other words, the brain understands the negative response six times earlier than fear, threat, and negative events than positive events. Because our brains are programmed for life and survival, to feel safe. The brain needs to put in more effort to react to positive situations. The urge to live and the desire for immortality are common features of all living things. The only difference is that a person knows that they are going to die and can be aware of the future and the past. Other living beings are not aware of the past and the future, there is no perception of death. Animals do not have a perception of the past and the future, they exist only in humans. For this reason, man is able to form a philosophy.

If a person manages themselves well, they work more on their positive-oriented side and use the fast network of thoughts related to the negative more carefully. The brain's greater interest in evil has become the vital food of the media at the moment. For example, while maybe a thousand normal births occur per day, one abnormal birth draws attention and they immediately report it. A thousand good events occur, one negative event occurs, and they immediately report it. In the same way, TV series and daytime programs try to attract attention by using people's sense of curiosity and amazement. Focusing on negative issues has become a method for the media. As such, people are constantly confronted with negative messages, and this negatively affects their mental health. When we say that these are harmful to society, they respond with an attitude that we call intellectualization and rationalization. They answer that we are raising awareness in society. I was very surprised by this. Raising awareness about theft, domestic disasters, deceptions and intrigues by telling them means that we are deceiving ourselves. Unfortunately, our televisions do this for ratings, to make more money. The bad consequences of this are also in the form of social decay in society. It especially affects the most vulnerable population, young people, and those with weak family structures. The phrase "Western depiction deceives pure minds" is quite meaningful in this respect. When you tell it with Western depictions, in the sense that people who cannot question it, which most people do, mislead minds, deceive, and deceive... Evil is like a cancer cell. What is the characteristic of a cancer cell? It is a narcissistic cell, a selfish cell. It always thinks about itself, enlarges and swallows the tissues around it. It rots the liver. Together with the liver, it collapses the whole body and dies, and it dies along with the body. This is how social decay occurs. There is a kind of social cancer going on right now, and there are preliminary signs of this social cancer. We do not feel pain with the effect of narcosis; however, the disease progresses. Of course, being completely pessimistic is also a problematic approach. When the bad consequences of evil appear, the value of the good will be increased, and the demand for the good will increase. For this reason, the good ones should be able to offer alternatives. It will be a little late, but sooner or later I think good series and good values will pay off here; therefore, it takes time.

Sir, how do you see the individual effects of social disintegration? What are the psychological factors that worry you the most?

Just as there is a hierarchy of values on a social scale, there is also a hierarchy on an individual scale. What is most valuable in our mind map is at the top? What is more valuable is lower. There is Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as you know. In fact, Maslow is one of the theorists of humanism. He put self-actualization at the top. Towards the end of his life, he changed the highest value, self-transcendence, which set self-transcendence as the highest value. This is a situation that is not taken into account, and it is a kind of cover-up.

Sir, in the textbooks of educational sciences at the university, there is still a version of "self-actualization".

He introduced the concept of self-transcendence in the 1970s. However, this did not please the capitalist system because what does it mean to transcend yourself? It always means giving, sharing, and not taking. Positive psychology therapies have begun to emphasize self-transcendence, but the capitalist system has not bought this idea. In recent times, it can be proposed as a solution to social decay. The fact that man is a being who strives not only for himself, but also for the society he lives in, for humanity...

Sir, I think I will dig away a bit, but I wonder if martyrdom is the highest human act of self-transcendence. In other words, could this be one of the reasons why martyrdom is a rank?

The greatest capital of man is his life, his life, his life. You are sacrificing it for the sake of a high cause. In the military profession, in the military academies, the oath of self-sacrifice for the homeland is still made in the oaths. Martyrdom is the greatest sacrifice. For this reason, it has been the most glorified concept in all religions. Our religion has also given great credit to martyrdom. It is considered the highest office after prophethood. Apart from that, the mother transcends herself for her child. A person can be good to the extent of the ego ideal. If man's ego ideal is only his own interests, he represents the type of person envisaged by the capitalist system.

There are three norms that sustain society. First, legal norms are established by law. If you do not comply, you will be punished. The second is social norms. The traditions that sustain society are the customs, the system of social control, the system of group pressure, the system of neighborhood pressure. When this weakens, there is only one norm left: family norms. Family norms are the narrowest area of social norms. Technology has managed to permeate the family through tools such as smartphones and media. After these three societal norms come the individual conscientious norms. These are moral norms, and it is conscientious measures that determine this. It is a person's inner sense of accountability. It is a sense of accountability to a high power, a high cause, a high ideal, and the creator. Modernism challenged this system of norms by saying that man was made up of inorganic substances. Inorganic matter: Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen. They do not hold you accountable either. Therefore, he says that life has no meaning, and people have not come to life for a meaning. He accepts meaninglessness as meaning, and this is called absurdism in existential philosophy. If man's search for meaning is meaningless, it will be inevitable that life will be about pleasure. When man becomes selfish and society is made up of selfish individuals, the ideal of self-transcendence is also affected. For example, when a person's spouse is sick, one can easily end the marriage by thinking that they have come to this life once. They may think that the Social Services Agency should take care of their child. In my book "Social Psychology", I tried to emphasize these effects of the hierarchy of values. In a way, the individual and society are copies of each other. For example, social schizophrenia is like schizophrenia in the individual. Schizophrenia develops when one side of the brain fights the other. In a society that works independently of each other, social peace deteriorates when one segment sees the other as an enemy. In fact, the worst consequences of social decay are the weakening of trust in society. When trust in society weakens, the institution of justice erodes. Poverty, corruption and lawlessness are on the rise. These support each other, replacing a justice-oriented system with a power-oriented system.

Sir, what kind of function or priority should religion and education have to prevent social decay?

If we remember the norm, the triple norm system in society and the individual-conscientious norms that complement it, religion comes into play in conscientious norms. Because others control the human being from the outside. The feeling that even if hidden evil is done, it will be held accountable can be based on moral norms. The feeling that good and evil deeds will be weighed after death, and that if evil outweighs, the price will be paid is very important. Religion provides this. Especially among these religions, there must be a religion in which the conception of God is correct, there must be a rational religious belief, there must be a rational belief. Otherwise, the person who says that theft is allowed unless one is caught is also a believer. There must be a vision of an omniscient God, omnipotent who is aware of all good and bad behaviors. This is possible with the belief in monotheism.

Education in the family should also include love and discipline. The equivalent of this in moral teachings is the balance of mercy and justice. Discipline is the reward of justice, and mercy is the reward of love in the individual. In parallel with this, it is the center of mercy and justice in God's relationship with man. In the Holy Quran, mercy is essential, and punishment and intimidation are exceptions. Rahman and Rahim are essential, but punishment is the exception. Intimidation makes you run away, but love attracts a person. When a person lives with a sense of accountability to an omniscient and controlling power, with a sense of trusting in his infinite mercy, uncertainty disappears from one's life. For the individual to be happy, one needs to find a solution to meaninglessness and uncertainty.

Sir, you have touched on the function of the family, but what can you say about the functions of education, especially the functions of formal education?

In an interview, Rockefeller said that there are two important reasons for the inclusion of women in business life. The first is that there are more taxpayers. The second is that if women work, they must send their children to school, so they can determine how children should think. Türkiye has also copied this system, which accepts that life consists only of this world and ignores people and conscience. The type of people who grow up in such an education system is accordingly. Prior to this, the transmission of culture took place through families. Values education is learned through life and spending time together. Especially with the globalization of the world, the transfer of culture is done through the media. Those who dominate the media also control the education system. The education system has no interest in teaching moral norms or conscientious norms. Currently, the education system in Türkiye does not have such a priority and concern. However, this should have been the first priority. Since the protection of families is also weakened, future generations will no longer be the children of their parents. Currently, the education system in Türkiye makes children fascists in secondary education, atheists and communists in university education, capitalists in business life, and Muslims when they retire.

Sir, now you know that there is a serious effort to expand kindergartens. However, John Rawls, in his work "A Theory of Justice", talked about an irreplaceable function of the family in the context of love and trust, and said that this function of the family is the basis of human relations based on trust. In this context, will not the expansion of kindergartens in this way and the fact that they take over some of the most important functions of the family have an effect that will increase social decay?

As we have stated, families no longer educate children. At home, the media is educating. When children go to kindergarten, there are professional educators there. Children learn empathy by experiencing each other, because children learn empathy by experiencing each other, they learn in the social environment. When they are with children, they learn where to stand, their own rights, someone else's rights, sharing, cooperation, respect for others, noticing the feelings of others, emotional literacy, being able to read their own emotions, and expressing their own feelings in the game. Play is the most serious business of the child. That is why daycare centers come in handy in such situations. However, kindergartens should comply with pedagogical rules, and pressure, threats and intimidation are not the right approach of this age. It is necessary to approach with the method of endearing, convincing and persuasion. If used in a good way, the nursery system serves well.

Sir, then my last question will be as follows: You are one of the leading intellectual personalities in Türkiye. How do you evaluate the last 50 years in terms of social decay? And of course, what do you suggest combatting it?

It is still possible to reverse the social decay. What has increased the social decay the most in the current situation? Media and communication technologies. This threat, in fact, contains opportunity. However, football fields and big expensive stadiums were built everywhere in Türkiye. Football is played every 15 days. Swimming pools are being built everywhere, even towns have been allocated a huge budget. It would be much better if 1/5 of that budget was allocated to teaching family values, to teaching human values. Populist policies have changed the importance and priorities of many things in Türkiye. In Türkiye, the Ministry of Culture is actually the Ministry of Museums. The Ministry of Social Policies is also the Ministry of Social Assistance Distribution. Feminism is also the official ideology of the state. Feminism, which started as a women's liberation movement, later turned into male-female wars. As far as I can see, commercial mediation has worked. I say that a mediation system should be introduced in the family. Law No. 6284 does not allow it. Even if mediation for families is brought to those who are about to divorce, it is not introduced. Why? Because some have been promised, the law is not being changed. "Def’i şer celb-i nef’a racihtir" is the rule of Mecelle. It is necessary to do something to banish evil.

To summarize, there is no need for pessimism. As the evil consequences of evil increase, the efforts of good and excellent people will also increase. When that effort increases, good and excellent people will increase and struggle to make the good and beautiful, just as bees struggle to make honey. For this reason, let's create small islands that will remedy the negative trend in society. That island grows slowly. This is something that will take time. The good and the beautiful have always won in the medium and long term.

Dear Professor, thank you for your time. I wish you good health and well-being.

You are welcome, take care.

YETKİN DÜŞÜNCE- Süleyman Gümüş

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