Psychiatrist Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan, Founding Rector of Üsküdar Üniversitesi, made evaluations on "Social Decay, TV Series, and Media" in the 27th issue of Yetkin Düşünce Journal, published quarterly. Tarhan, featured in the interview section of the journal, pointed out that there are currently early signs of a great decay in the world. Emphasizing that media and communication technologies are the biggest contributors to social decay in the current situation, Tarhan stated that this threat actually harbors opportunities within itself. Prof. Dr. Tarhan mentioned the need to create small "islands" that will remedy the negative trend in society, and noted that good and beauty always prevail in the medium to long term. Tarhan also stated that selfishness has acquired new forms, such as ethnic selfishness.
Here is that interview with Nevzat Tarhan:
Welcome, Professor.
Thank you.
Dear Professor, there are complaints about widespread corruption covering the entire world and our society under many subheadings. As an introduction to our interview, how do you view social decay? Is social decay being exaggerated today as a reality humanity has always been exposed to, or can we say that corruption has gone far beyond acceptable limits?
Yes, of course, we need to start by looking at this on a global scale. On a societal scale, in terms of human behavior and human psychology, there are currently early signs of a great decay worldwide. What appear to be signs of decay right now are actually precursors; this needs to be stated. The decay is larger than we expected, but it's not felt sufficiently because it occurs under the effect of an anesthetic. In our professional practice, we see numerous daily examples of this. I believe different days await us if strategies and alternatives are not developed for five, ten, twenty, or fifty years from now. Of course, on the other hand, it must be kept in mind that these sociological decays are not happening for the first time; they occur in history like a sinusoidal curve; benevolent behaviors increase, and then goodness begins to lose its value. When it loses its value, bad people increase, and evil deeds increase. When good deeds hit rock bottom and evil deeds reach their highest level, then the bad consequences of evil become apparent. When these bad consequences of evil are seen, the favor and demand for good increase; there is a rise associated with good. Currently, the most severe decay in values is being experienced in society. Solutions for its rise are being researched, and should be researched. Therefore, I observe decay. I state this not as a guess, but as a rational intuition.
Professor, you mentioned the effect of anesthesia. Is this decay linked to human desire, or does it have a different background?
“Turkey’s education system turns people into Muslims when they retire”
In psychiatry, there is a popular expression: California syndrome. The California syndrome has four main symptoms. All of them are closely related to the socialization and globalization of decay that begins with the individual. The first symptom is hedonism. Today, the hierarchy of values has changed. When we look at societies, there is a value system focused on success, not on being a good person. The hierarchy of values has changed. Definitions of good and beautiful have changed in the style of; pleasure: what you like is good, what you don't like is bad; what benefits me is good, what doesn't benefit me is not good. Definitions of right and wrong have changed. As a result, the feeling of commitment to values has decreased, and consequently, honesty, in particular, does not find the behavioral response it deserves, and the rewarding of success comes to the forefront more than the rewarding of honesty. Ultimately, a pleasure-oriented system emerged, and the philosophy of life changed. Modernism presents pleasure as the most important principle in human existence on a global level, a situation that was also experienced in ancient times. In pagan culture, in ancient times, people glorified pleasure, and in response, Socrates spoke of "virtuous society." He said, "The purpose of life is to pursue virtue." He risked death for virtuousness. His students Plato and Aristotle, to some extent, continued this. Aristotle began to change it a little. 200 years later, Epicurus completely altered the philosophy oriented towards virtue, transforming the virtuous society feature of pagan culture in 300-400 BC into a pleasure society. Around the time of the emergence of Jesus Christ, in pagan culture, a life philosophy focused on pleasure on an individual basis and power on a systemic basis came to the forefront. For example, in ancient Sparta, theft was permitted as long as one was not caught, and everyone walked around naked until the age of 5. For this reason, the statues and everything else of that time were open and naked. Because societies had become pleasure societies, power societies. While this continued, Jesus Christ came later, and the direction of this changed somehow after 200-300 years. More recently, from the 1800s onwards, pagan culture was glorified again. As you know, Mitterrand had a glass pyramid statue of an Egyptian pyramid built in front of the Louvre Museum in France, and after that, all symbols of pagan culture were revived. Freud incorporated and analyzed these into psychology. The terminology of pagan culture began to be used extensively. Currently, both in the West and in our country, you see Latin values, from Athens to Olympus to Hermes, meaning pagan culture has become the culture of this era. So what were the characteristics of pagan culture? To glorify pleasure, to glorify visual enjoyment, to glorify power. Therefore, humanity will face the same fate that pagan culture did. This is social decay; history repeats itself.
The second characteristic of California syndrome is egocentrism. People think self-centeredly: what is good for me is good, what is not for my benefit is bad. Nietzsche has a famous saying: “Man is a selfish animal.” Cultures that prioritized social responsibility were tried to be ridiculed. They claimed that humility, sharing, helping, and almsgiving increased transaction costs, and they said that capitalism has no morality. As a result, what happened? Selfishness emerged. Selfishness gained new appearances, such as ethnic selfishness. What is ethnic selfishness, ethnic narcissism? Ethnic narcissism is Hitler's ideology. He said that the French and English are races turning black. He called Jews a parasitic race, a mushroom race; this gave him the right to kill them. 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 leading to social decay.
“Selfishness has acquired new forms, such as ethnic selfishness”
As a third characteristic, loneliness emerges as a result of selfishness. A Ministry of Loneliness was established in the UK, and in Japan. The World Health Organization, if I'm not mistaken, defined three global problems at last year's Davos meetings as follows: First, global income inequality; second, climate change; and third, loneliness. Loneliness is actually a consequence. A selfish person has people around them when they are powerful, but when they lose their power, they become completely alone. When they age, when they lose power, they are left utterly alone.
The fourth characteristic of California syndrome is depression. In other words, mental breakdowns are increasing. These lead to an increase in divorces and suicides. These four symptoms at the individual level—hedonism, selfishness, loneliness, depression—can be said to appear as social decay on a global scale because they have changed the hierarchy of values. We don't feel it right now due to material prosperity. This is what we call anesthesia. People watch movies, lose themselves in entertainment. The entertainment industry is acting as an anesthetic right now, the biggest anesthetic is the entertainment industry. The social structure is decaying; in a sense, our organ is decaying, but we are unaware of it within entertainment, we forget.
Frankly, I also had a question about TV series. You provided a summary explanation by touching on the subject, but if we were to talk in a little more detail, Professor, specifically regarding Turkish society, how do you evaluate the impact of TV series and cinema films on social decay? The continuation of my question will be as follows: Can we speak of a positive effect of series that center on values, or do they also contribute to this negative process in some way?
Current TV series and matchmaking programs are constantly platforms where evil is discussed. However, there is an entropic relationship between evil and good. In reality, there is no such thing as coldness, only the absence of heat. There is no such thing as darkness, only the absence of light. The same rule applies to behaviors. There is no such thing as bad behavior, only the absence of good behavior. There is no such thing as evil, only the absence of good. In other words, when goodness increases, evil automatically disappears. Indeed, Imam Ghazali described this best. They asked Imam Ghazali, "What is evil?"; he replied, "It is the masking of good." That is, evil eliminates good by masking it. So, when goodness decreases, evil automatically increases. Therefore, when evil increases, good is masked. The solution, then, is to increase goodness.
“The human brain reacts six times faster to negativity than to positivity”
Bringing the topic to TV series, they are an art form that uses communication technologies. If you use them for good purposes, they increase good and beauty; if you use them for bad purposes, they increase evil. However, the spread of evil and the spread of good do not happen at the same speed. This is a phenomenon closely related to the human brain; the human brain reacts six times faster to evil than to good. That is, the brain understands negative reactions such as fear, threat, and negative events six times earlier than positive events. This is because our brain is programmed for survival, to feel safe. The brain needs to expend more effort to react to positive situations. The urge to live and the desire for immortality are common characteristics of all living beings. The only difference for humans is knowing they will die and being aware of the future and the past. Other living beings are unaware of the past and future, they have no perception of death. Animals have no perception of past and future; these exist only in humans. For this reason, humans can produce philosophy.
If a person manages themselves well, they activate their positive-focused side more and use the fast thought network related to negativity more carefully. The brain's greater interest in evil has now become the vital sustenance of the media. For example, while perhaps a thousand normal births occur in a day, one abnormal birth attracts attention, and they immediately report it as news. A thousand beautiful events happen, one negative event occurs, and they immediately report it. TV series and daytime programs also try to garner interest by using people's sense of curiosity and wonder. Focusing on negative topics has become a method for the media. As a result, people are constantly exposed to negative messages, and this negatively affects mental health. When we say that these harm society, they respond with an attitude we call intellectualization, rationalization. They reply by saying, "We are creating awareness in society." This surprised me greatly. Creating awareness against theft incidents, domestic tragedies, betrayals, and intrigues by narrating them means deceiving ourselves. Unfortunately, our televisions do this for ratings, to earn more money. The bad consequences of this appear before us in the form of social decay in society. It particularly affects young people, who are the most vulnerable segment, and segments with weak family structures. The saying "Western depiction misleads pure minds" is quite meaningful in this regard. When you describe Western things, recounting them enticingly, people who cannot question them - and most people are like that - have their minds distorted, led astray, and deluded... Evil is like a cancer cell. What is the characteristic of a cancer cell? It is a narcissistic cell, a selfish cell. It always says "me," grows and devours the surrounding tissues. It rots the liver. Along with the liver, it collapses the entire body and dies; it also dies with the body. Social decay occurs in this way. There is a kind of social cancer right now, and there are early signs of this social cancer. We don't feel the pain due to the anesthetic effect, but the disease is progressing. Of course, being entirely pessimistic is also a problematic approach. When the bad consequences of evil become apparent, the value of goodness will increase, and the demand for good will rise. For this reason, good people also need to be able to offer alternatives. It will be a little late, but sooner or later, I believe good TV series and good values will find their reward here; it requires time.
Professor, how do you see the individual effects of social disintegration? What are the psychological factors that concern you the most?
Just as there is a hierarchy of values on a societal scale, there is also one on an individual scale. In our mental map, what is most valuable is at the top; what is less valuable is lower. Related to this, you know Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow was actually one of the theorists of humanism. He placed self-actualization at the very top. Towards the end of his life, he changed the highest value, designating self-transcendence as the ultimate value. This is a situation that is not taken into account, kind of being covered up.
Professor, in textbooks within the scope of educational sciences at universities, the version containing "self-actualization" is still included.
He introduced the concept of self-transcendence, and in the 1970s. However, this did not please the capitalist system. Because what does self-transcendence mean? It means giving, sharing, not always taking. In positive psychology therapies, self-transcendence began to be emphasized, but the capitalist system has not "bought" this idea. In recent times, it can be suggested as a solution to social decay. For a human to be a being who strives not only for themselves but also for the society they live in, and for humanity...
Professor, I might be straying from the topic a bit, but could martyrdom be the highest human behavior related to this self-transcendence? In other words, could this be one of the reasons why martyrdom is a noble rank?
A person's greatest capital is their life, their lifespan, their soul. You sacrifice this for a noble cause. In the military profession, in war academies, oaths still include sacrificing oneself for the homeland. Martyrdom is the greatest sacrifice. That is why it has been one of the most glorified concepts in all religions. Our religion has also given martyrdom a great honor. It is considered the highest rank after prophethood. Besides this, a mother transcends herself for her child. A person can be good to the extent of their ego ideal. If a person's ego ideal is only their own interests, they represent a type of person foreseen by the capitalist system.
There are three norms that sustain society: First, legal norms; these are determined by laws. If you don't comply, you pay the penalty. Second, social norms. These are the customs and traditions that sustain society, the social control system, the group pressure system, the neighborhood pressure system. When this weakens, only one norm remains: family norms. Family norms are the narrowest area of social norms. Technology, with tools like smartphones and media, has succeeded in penetrating the family. After these three societal norms, individual conscientious norms come. These are moral norms, determined by conscientious measures. It is a person's inner sense of accountability. It is the feeling of being accountable to a higher power, a higher cause, a higher ideal, a creator. Modernism challenged this norm system by stating that humans are composed of inorganic matter. Inorganic matter: carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, they don't hold you accountable. Therefore, life has no meaning, and humans have not come into life for a meaning, it says. It accepts meaninglessness as meaning, and this current is called absurdism in existential philosophy. If a person's search for meaning is meaningless, then life's turn towards pleasure will be inevitable. When humans become selfish and society consists of selfish individuals, the human ideal of self-transcendence is also affected by this. For example, when a person's spouse is ill, they can easily end the marriage by thinking they only live once. They can think, let the Social Services Institution take care of my child. In my book "Social Psychology," I tried to emphasize these effects of the hierarchy of values. The individual and society are in a way copies of each other. For example, social schizophrenia is like schizophrenia in an individual. When one side of the brain fights with the other, schizophrenia develops. In a society where different segments operate independently, when one segment sees the other as an enemy, social peace is disturbed. Indeed, the worst consequences of social decay are the weakening of trust in society. When trust in society weakens, the institution of justice also erodes. Poverty, corruption, and lawlessness increase. These support each other, and a power-oriented system replaces a justice-oriented system.
Professor, what kind of function or priority should religion and education have to prevent social decay?
If we recall the triple norm system in society and the individual-conscientious norms that complete it; religion comes into play in conscientious norms. Because others supervise humans externally. Even if evil is done secretly, the feeling that one will be held accountable can exist with moral norms. The feeling that after death, good and evil will be weighed, and if evil outweighs good, a price will be paid, is very important. Religion provides this. Especially among these religions, there must be a religion where the conception of God is correct, there must be a rational religious belief, a rational faith. Otherwise, even a person who says "theft is permissible unless caught" also believes. There must be a conception of God who knows everything, is aware of all good or bad behaviors, and is omnipotent. This is possible with the belief in monotheism.
Education within the family must also include love and discipline. The equivalent of this in moral teachings is the balance of compassion and justice. Discipline is the counterpart of justice, and compassion is the counterpart of love in the individual. In Allah's relationship with humans, compassion and justice are central, parallel to this. In the Quran, compassion is fundamental; punishment and intimidation are exceptions. The Most Gracious and Most Merciful are fundamental, punishment is an exception. Intimidation drives people away, but love is attractive. When a person lives with a sense of accountability to a power that knows and controls everything, along with a feeling of trust in His infinite mercy, uncertainty leaves a person's life. For an individual to be happy, they need to find solutions to meaninglessness and uncertainty.
Professor, you touched upon the function of the family, but what can you say regarding the functions of education, especially formal education?
Rockefeller stated in an interview that there are two important reasons for including women in working life. The first is to have more taxpayers. The second is that if women work, they are compelled to send their children to school, and thus the schools will determine how children should think. Turkey has copied this system that accepts life as consisting only of this world, disregarding human beings and conscience. The type of person raised in such an education system becomes accordingly. Before this, cultural transmission occurred through families. Values education is learned through experience, by spending time together. Especially with the globalization of the world, cultural transmission is done through media. Those who dominate the media also control the education system. The education system has no concern for teaching moral norms, conscientious norms. Currently, Turkey's education system has no such priority or concern. Yet, this should have been the first priority. Since the protection of families has also weakened, future generations will no longer be their mother's and father's children. Currently, Turkey's education system turns children into fascists in secondary education, atheists and communists in university education, capitalists in working life, and Muslims when they retire.
Professor, as you know, there is a serious effort to expand kindergartens. However, John Rawls, in his work "A Theory of Justice," spoke of the irreplaceable function of the family in the context of love and trust and stated that this function of the family lies at the core of trust-based human relationships. In this context, will the widespread expansion of kindergartens, taking over some of the family's most important functions, not create an effect that will increase social decay?
As we stated, families no longer educate children. Media educates them at home. When they go to kindergarten, there are professional educators there. Children learn from each other by experience, because a child learns empathy through experience, in a social environment. While with other children, they learn where to stand, their own rights, others' rights, sharing, helping, respecting others, recognizing others' feelings, emotional literacy, being able to read their own feelings, and being able to express their own feelings through play. Play is a child's most serious business. That's why kindergartens are extremely useful in such situations. But kindergartens must comply with pedagogical rules; an approach of pressure, threat, or intimidation is not right for this era. It is necessary to approach with methods of endearment, conviction, and persuasion. If used positively, the kindergarten system serves goodness.
Professor, my last question will be as follows: You are one of Turkey's leading intellectual figures. How do you evaluate the last 50 years in terms of social decay? And, of course, what do you suggest to combat these issues?
It is still possible to reverse social decay. What was the biggest contributor to social decay in the current situation? Media, communication technologies. This threat actually holds opportunities within it. However, in Turkey, football fields and large, expensive stadiums were built everywhere. Football is played once every 15 days. Swimming pools are built everywhere, even towns were allocated huge budgets. If just 1/5th of that budget were allocated to teaching human and family values, things would be much better. Populist policies have changed the importance and priorities of many things in Turkey. In Turkey, the Ministry of Culture is actually a Museum Ministry. The Ministry of Social Policies is in the situation of a Ministry of Social Aid Distribution. Feminism is also the official ideology of the state. Feminism, which started as a women's liberation movement, later turned into women-men wars. As far as I can see, commercial mediation worked. I say let's introduce a family mediation system. Law No. 6284 apparently does not allow it. If family mediation were introduced for those about to divorce, it is not being introduced. Why? Because promises were made to some, the law is not changed. "Repelling evil is preferable to attracting good," is a rule of the Mecelle. Something must be done to repel evil.
To summarize, there is no need for pessimism after all. As the bad consequences of evil increase, the efforts of good and virtuous people will also increase. When that effort increases, good and virtuous people will gather and strive to do good and beautiful things, just as bees strive to make honey. Therefore, let's create small "islands" that will remedy the negative trend in society. That island will gradually grow. This is something that will take time. Good and beauty have always won in the medium to long term.
Dear Professor, thank you for your time. I wish you health and well-being.
You're welcome, farewell.
Yetkin Düşünce - Süleyman Gümüş
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