Chapter 19 The Spectator Within

We reached California's coast after a long night's drive. We wanted anonymity, and with the tourist season in full swing, the misty wooded parks below Carmel were a wonderful respite from our Utah adventure. It would be an unlikely place for a terrorist to look for us. I needed time to think, to plan. With the September board meeting of WorldChemm approaching rapidly, I still had nothing to give them. Yet I felt strangely at peace. September would come soon enough.

Our camp at Big Sur was set amid old-growth coastal redwoods that towered over us, the tallest living things on the planet. The canopy made it barely possible for the sun to penetrate, and provided protection from the evening's drizzle. We slept solidly our first day there, catching up on lost dreams of the past two nights. The following morning we continued to laze, letting the fog burn off. Lounging in silence, we admired the giant forms reaching to the sky. When the sun reached high noon our stomachs began to stir. We inquired at the park office, and drove to a cozy restaurant hanging from a cliff overlooking the ocean.

The northern California coastline stayed consistently cool year round, making it possible to leave Rex unattended by the car, content with a bowl of water and some kibble. We went inside, and the gigantic picture windows overlooking Big Sur immediately brought Julia to mind, and how much I missed her in this romantic spot. Once we'd ordered lunch and our drinks arrived, I broached Smith, "Feel like talking?"

"Fire away."

I took out the tape recorder and set it on the table. It seemed like a month since we'd last used it, but in reality it was just a few days. During that time, Smith nipped my Drambuie and imagined that a red-haired camper was his old girlfriend. He collapsed and provoked Harold's return, then disappeared for a half-day and was finally discovered in a gambling saloon, playing no small part in a town riot. With all that, was it any wonder I couldn't remember what we'd talked about?

On low volume I replayed the last few minutes of tape, with Smith propounding that extensive government control in society isn't needed because humans naturally tend to counter-balance their selfish motives with other motives. People have a conscience, he said.

"That's it," Smith nodded.

"All right. The next thing would be, how do we get a conscience? Are we born with it? Or, as a modern person wants to know, is it for sale at the mall?"

"Don't be crude," he said, but I saw him smile. "Although we aren't born with a conscience, we are born with the drive to develop one, and given the tools to do so. To the extent that a conscience develops during your lifetime, you are said to progress as a virtuous person—as opposed to a pig, a rat, or a rock. A conscience unfolds: it is pursued, cultivated, and nurtured."

I pondered this a moment, then said, "Why should I care about developing a conscience? Why not rely on instinct and reason?"

Smith took a sip of soft drink and set the bottle down. "Well, your conscience is formed using both of these. One instinct we've discussed is that of self-preservation or self-love. I tried to show in my books that this instinct isn't evil. Within bounds, it is even virtuous, as I wrote about in Wealth of Nations.

"But my second proposition," Smith said, "is that humans also have an innate instinct to seek approval. We do this by being in sympathy with others. By sympathy I mean no particular emotion, either good or bad, but rather an understanding of the passions of another. It is the 'fellow-feeling' shared with others. Now, one could say that some of this derives from selfish motives."

Across the room a baby was being lifted into a high chair and fussed over by a mother. "Yes," I said, motioning to the infant, "that child is looking at her Mama as the nearest thing to God. It wants the coos of affection that approval brings. External approval and survival seem synonymous."

"The issue is deeper," Smith replied. "Your desire for your own internal approval could ultimately lead you to oppose your parents and peers. Your conscience could lead even to your death, like that of Socrates. The survival instinct cannot explain all human behavior, not even, perhaps, its most significant acts."

The beach below us was deserted except for a solitary surfer who approached the edge of the water, cradling a board under his left arm. His black wet suit hugged his waist. A long gray ponytail hung down his back. He seemed oblivious to everything but the incoming rollers. The man dropped the board to the sand.

We watched as he slowly pushed his arms into the sleeves of the wet suit and zipped it over his back. He moved to where the incoming foam swirled at his feet and then stopped. Fifty yards to sea the surf broke in a narrow band about a hundred yards wide. On either side of this band, giant island boulders rose out of the sea, jagged rocks menacing at the edges.

"Look at that fellow," Smith said. "See how he hesitates at the water's edge. There is conflict inside himself."

"It's a calculus of pleasure and pain," I suggested. "It's rough out there."

"Yes. He's having an internal dialogue about whether or not to enter the surf. It's a decision about right and wrong action. Notice that he isn't basing his decision on our approval, since he can't see us. The audience he imagines is the audience inside his mind. The conversation he has is with himself."

"Yes, I suppose that's right," I said.

"Well, that conversation with ourselves is how a conscience develops," Smith said.

The man on the beach made a decision. He reached for the surfboard, fastened his ankle leash to it, and trotted into the waves. In a moment he was submerged under a froth of white-caps as he made his way to the breakers offshore.

I turned to Smith. "How could we develop fellow-feeling with that surfer?"

"We put ourselves in his place," he said. "Since I can't do that literally, I must get there through reflection. I ask the question, 'How would I feel being in his shoes?' It's the active working of imagination that makes sympathy possible. Imagination is our Creator's gift for becoming a truly human person."

Smith examined the waves below. He spoke slowly. "What I'll say next is subtle but critical: The sympathy of others is their approval that I am feeling what is appropriate to feel."

"Meaning?" I said.

"Suppose you are in a minor car accident which is fully covered by insurance. If you react as if your whole life were about to collapse because of this fender bender, it will be hard to find anyone to sympathize with you. Your reaction doesn't fit the circumstances."

"If your wife died in that car accident," I said, "your reaction is entirely proper."

Smith nodded. "You are alert to whether your emotional responses are, in fact, appropriate. You may alter your reaction, over time, as you come to see what is acceptable—what is within the bounds of propriety. A child who cries ferociously because of a slight scratch learns, is socialized, to minimize these tears and save them for a bigger wound."

"Becoming repressed little monsters?"

Smith laughed, "A Buddhist comes to see pleasure and pain as simply choices. Is the Buddhist repressing pain or not feeling it?"

"Point made," I said after a moment's reflection.

"Very well. Since I choose to moderate my feelings, I am conscious of my feelings and actions. I observe them, to see if they are, in fact, appropriate. I try to see myself as others see me. I become an impartial spectator, as well as an actor, in this drama."

Smith paused, then said, "This impartial spectator's view is critical for creating a conscience. When I look at my possible actions from the view of another, I learn that while I may be 'number one' to myself, I am not 'number one' to others who don't share my egoistic partiality to myself. Moreover—and this part is absolutely critical—we desire not only to gain the external praise of others, we desire to gain the internal respect and praise of ourselves. Yes, there is that final, but essential element—the rock onto which so many stumble—listen to me, we ultimately want to be worthy of our praise. We desire to be praiseworthy."

Just then the baby across the room began to howl.

"That baby hasn't learned any of that yet," I said.

We laughed.

The meal over, the waitress removed our plates. We lingered over coffee and tea, surveying the coastline from our hilltop perch. The sky was hazy with streaks of darker clouds racing through it.

Smith curled his lips and squinted, seeming to focus on some distant object. "No doubt, on many occasions, conscience loses out to the weakness in man." He turned to me. "Yet, the authority of our internal judge—our conscience, the great inmate of our breast—is very great. It is only by consulting it that we can ever see what relates to ourselves in its proper dimensions."

He leaned forward and patted my arm, "Let me give you an illustration. You are well aware, I'm sure, of optical illusions: objects appear large or small, not according to their real dimensions, but according to their proximity to us."

He pointed to the picture window overlooking Big Sur. "Take a look at that vista—an immense landscape of ocean, woods, and mountains. Yet, to our eyes, that vast panorama encompasses little more than these few panes of glass. Those colossal mountains appear, according to our eyes, much smaller than the very chamber in which we sit. That man on the surfboard is but the size of my fingernail. Our eyes deceive us!"

Smith was enjoying himself. "We remedy this defect of our eyes by adding perspective. We can form an accurate comparison between those mountains and this little room in no other way than by transporting ourselves, in our imagination, to a different place from whence we could survey both these objects at nearly equal distances. We can thereby form some judgment of their real proportions. Habit and experience teach us to do this so instantly and so easily that we are scarcely conscious of it."

Smith rose and began to pace. "In the same manner as our eyes, the selfish and original passions in our nature deceive us also. Whatever is closest to us feels most significant. This distortion is remedied through the perspective of propriety and of justice. These correct the otherwise natural inequality of our sentiments."

Smith rotated on the balls of his feet to face me. He had a deeply serious look about him. "Consider this: suppose a province in the great empire of China, with all its myriad of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake!"

I must have flinched, for Smith placed a hand on my shoulder. He went on. "How would a man, let us even specify, a man of humanity in Europe, who had no connection with that part of the world, be affected upon receiving news of such a dreadful calamity? Eh?"

Knowing him as I did, I refrained from answering an obviously rhetorical question. Smith went on smugly, "This man of humanity would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of those unhappy people, and he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of one's labors, which could thus be annihilated in a chance moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general."

Smith smiled in a cunning way, narrowing his eyes. "And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquility, as if no such accident had happened."

I stared at him.

"Oh yes! The most frivolous disaster which could befall his own self would occasion a more real disturbance to his mind than the annihilation of millions in China. Oh yes, if he was to lose his little finger tomorrow, he would not sleep tonight, but—provided he never saw them—he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred million of his brethren. Destruction of that immense multitude is plainly an object less interesting to him than a paltry misfortune of his own. This, my dear friend, is the painful truth: our passive feelings are almost always immediate, sordid, and selfish!"

"Then you've just eviscerated any notion of a human conscience," I replied.

"Not at all!" Smith said. "Bring this discussion into the realm of action. Suppose this man of humanity, acting in secret, could miraculously save the lives of these hundred million brethren? Suppose he could do so at the cost to himself of—a cost let us say, of—his little finger." Smith challenged me: "Would he do it? Eh? Would you do it?"

"Give up my little finger? To save a hundred million Chinese?" My reaction was visceral. "Of course I would."

Smith smiled broadly. "Well, then, a moment ago you were sordid and selfish. Now, you're willing to suffer physical pain and permanent disfigurement. What has made the difference?"

"We're talking about saving a hundred million people!"

"There you have it! You have just added perspective. In your imagination you visited some distant land, from whence you could feel not only your own minor pain, but also the travesty of your Chinese brethren. From the perspective of this impartial spectator your choice was decidedly easy: What choice would be praiseworthy in your own mind? What choice would cooperate, in some sense, with the laws of your Creator?"

Smith raised his index finger. "The key to a conscience is to exercise your moral imagination. Thus, while our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, our active principles are by contrast often generous and noble."

Smith's mind seemed capable of peeling a single layer of an onion. I said, "That's brilliant, Smith. Ingenious. I'm damned impressed."

He rubbed his chin contemplatively. "We've barely scratched the surface."

* * *

We rejoined Rex and drove from the restaurant lot, meandered south on Route 1 for less than a mile. The sharp right turn down to Pfeiffer Beach was easy to miss. The narrow road was unmarked and overlooked by most sightseers, but our waitress had alerted us to watch for it. Locals always tore down the sign to keep tourists away. We bumped down the one-lane road, which followed a dry canyon running between two hills. Occasionally a gravel driveway cut in, leading to a cabin or house hidden in the thick forest.

For a moment the road straightened, and I glimpsed a blue car trailing a few hundred feet behind us. My heart raced. Despite the enormous size of America's landmass, and despite the apparent tranquility of this spot, I knew that Max Hess still had a gun pointed our way. After a half-mile the car disappeared up a wooded driveway. Its profile revealed it too big to be a small sedan. I gave a sigh of relief.

After a few miles the pavement ended and the road turned to gravel and mud. We entered Pffeifer State Park and put five dollars into a self-pay envelope. The lot was empty save a Jeep with a rack on top, presumably belonging to the surfer we'd observed from the restaurant. A short walk led through a forest canopy to where the hillsides gave way to a pristine beach, about fifty yards wide at low tide. Just offshore the breakers crashed into giant, house-sized boulders. Natural arches in the rock caught the waves and lifted spectacular sprays of water in the air. The mist sprinkled down, turning into shimmering rainbows. The surfer engaged in his solitary craft, catching rolls and cutting through the channel in his black wetsuit. He could have been a seal.

Rex trotted to the surf's edge, barking and chasing as it momentarily receded to the vast Pacific. When it relentlessly surged forward again he raced back out of harm's way. It was exhilarating to be part of the push and pull of this cold ocean, on the edge of being overrun, yet also safe. We ambled up the deserted beach, following the ridge of purple kelp from a past high tide. Halfway up the beach we perched on a giant tree stump that had washed ashore in a storm.

I sat silently, wondering why Smith's seemingly clear articulations from lunch were mentioned nowhere in my economics textbooks. Why the "science of choice" taught only half the story—the "sordid and selfish" part of human behavior, and rarely or never the "noble and generous" part—nagged at me. The marketplace of Adam Smith existed not in some imaginary land of autonomous, amoral individuals, but within an interdependent social fabric in which virtue was extolled and a moral conscience constrained individual actions. To ignore these aspects could lead economists to incorrect and perhaps even dangerous conclusions. What were the implications of this for practical matters, I wondered, for the conduct of business?

As if he could read my mind, Smith said, "We must discover, my friend, what it is which prompts the generous upon all occasions, and the selfish upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others. Think about that."

Lost in thought, Smith bent to pick up a handful of pebbles from the sand and began weighing them in his fingers. The wind picked up and the sky darkened. The ocean now boiled with whitecaps and the surfer struggled to stay up. I jumped off the log and wandered further up the beach. A sharp stick lay at hand and I used it to break the air sac on a giant purple kelp. There was a popping sound as the skin was pierced. I threw the stick away and sank into the sand.

Smith came up. "I've taken your wind away?"

"Surely no dictator, no terrorist—the Stalins, the Maos, the Max Hess's of the world—would for a moment act with what you call a conscience," I said.

"Precisely." Smith gazed up at a flotilla of prehistoric-looking pelicans, floating overhead along the shoreline.

"There's no shortage of examples," I said. "Look everywhere and you can find terrible evil."

"Yes." Smith turned back to me. He measured each word. "The man of the most perfect virtue, the man whom we naturally love and revere the most, is he who joins, to the most perfect command of his own selfish feelings, an exquisite sensibility to the sympathetic feelings of others. Take this character of feeling away and you will have a monster, such as those you mentioned. What would be the state of that society, ruled by such unconscionable chiefs?"

I didn't need to answer. Smith folded his hands behind his back. He let out a sigh. "Ahh! Hardships, dangers, injuries, and misfortunes—these are the only masters from whom we learn the virtues of self-control. But these are all masters to whom nobody willingly puts himself to school."

With this, he turned and walked to the water's edge. I had the feeling he was tiring. I left him alone. Suddenly he pointed, and I followed his finger to the surf.

"He's gone under!" Smith said.

A giant wave washed up on the beach. A surfboard rode the crest of foam and came to rest at the water's edge. The surfer was nowhere to be seen. Smith trotted down the beach. I followed at a run and quickly passed him, getting to the surfboard first. I pulled it onto the beach; the ankle leash was broken.

I was about to go into the water when Smith pulled on my arm, and said urgently, "Why don't we let him drown and steal his board? No one else is around. It would be easy."

I stood in stunned silence, unable to believe what I'd just heard.