By: Dr. Kumar Raka, Bureau Chief-ICN Delhi
Tel Aviv: Suffering has been defined in different contexts in different social and also the medical sciences. Suffering can be mental, physical, social, economic and heavily influenced by the cultural, religious and spiritual orientations.
Moreover, it is an objective as well as subjective phenomenon and closely related with the well-beingness and happiness of individual, groups, community or the nations when we talk about measurement of suffering. Finally, the threshold of suffering is inherent in its psychological definition which emphasizes pain, distress, sorrow, and grief an individual feels that may be absolute or relative or both due to the various factors.
A person with high emotional cognizance may suffer more compared to a very practical individual. For example, a person with deep religious instincts may suffer less in comparison to a non-believer for worldly things; whereas, it can be opposite if the sin committed are religious.
Going through the various definitions, interpretations and academic writings about suffering, I would like to emphasize that even if two different individuals are suffering in almost same adverse conditions the threshold cannot be the same and they may experience different levels of suffering individually based on their socio-economic status, religious-spiritual beliefs, mental & psychological orientation and also culturally imbibed norms and mores.
In this situation, a universal measurement tool for suffering seems to be inadequate. Further based on this research, I would like to stress that there would be no universal threshold, measurement tools or indexes for suffering in an individual, group, community, society or a nation.
Interpretation of Definitions
In common and scholarly usage, suffering encompasses “mild unpleasantness up to excruciating torture and intense agony (an intense paradox for understanding a psycho-social phenomenon)”. Wilkinson (2005) in his book “Suffering: A Sociological Introduction” observes “The problem with suffering is that it involves us in far too much pain….Suffering destroys our bodies, ruins our minds, and smashes our ‘spirit’.” He continues by arguing that social science researchers have been unable to understand human suffering because it raises so many unsettling questions about the nature of humanity, meaning, and morality.
Most scholars of suffering tend to focus on very narrow dimensions of suffering such as aging (Black, 2005), children (Lauredan 2010), mental health (Fancher, 2003), nursing (Ferrell & Coyle, 2008), cancer (Gregory & Russell, 1999), and various others on different parts of the world: Asia (Nagappan, 2005), North America (Parish, 2008) or Africa (Chabal, 2009). In what is perhaps a growing trend, researchers are addressing the bigger picture and the underlying the inherent ethics (Hirata, 2011).
Social suffering, in contrast to psychological suffering, refers to the pain and distress of a social system and its consequences. Bourdieu’s (1999) in his book “The Weight of the World – Social Suffering in Contemporary Society” exemplifies this perspective by elaborating many themes of social suffering across multiple societies.
Vollmann (2007) in “Poor People” also conveys the anguish of the destitute and community climates of fear, violence and victimization. Both social analysts build a large body of evidence on how the social dimensions of suffering produce intractable cultures making individuals’ escape from suffering nearly impossible.
Although a negative phenomenon, there are progressive aspects as well. Suffering unfolds an array of deeply human ironies. Every major religion calls for compassion and aid for our fellow humans who suffer, yet the number who struggle with severe suffering continues to enlarge.
Those who reach out to others who suffer, themselves encounter subjective suffering, even if they feel joy from having reduced someone’s suffering. Arguably, the noblest human emotion, compassion, cannot exist without suffering. Without suffering, would we have humanitarian actions and charitable givings (not counting on tax savings here)?
Interpreting the definition of suffering in medical sciences, Pain, very much a neurological signal, has been synonymous with suffering. Whereas in religion, the First Noble Truth of Buddhism is: “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional” (the medical science and religious teachings are at sharp contrast). Hundreds of book titles advertise religious techniques for avoiding suffering, yet it persists.
Underlying the principles of most religions, especially Buddhism defines the premise that leads to the path to nirvana or salvation consists of accepting pain and distress without self-pity (Dalai Lama, 2011). The premise of “self-pity suffering” is that anger, resentment, retribution and such negative states of mind are justified, when in fact they arise from self-pity. The eradication of self-pity makes it also possible to accept life’s painful episodes with much less suffering (but it exists).
Religions and other ethical systems generally accept the premise that suffering calls for moral responsibility (Bowker, 1970). Thus, suffering is the spark that energizes the compassion of the sympathetic bystander. For those believing in universal moral responsibility for suffering human beings, everyone is a global bystander.
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama (2011) said “We must recognize that the suffering of one person or one nation is the suffering of humanity (another relative paradoxical statement)”. According to Thomas Merton (2011), “It is through suffering that we grow into the beings that we are born to be, and cultivate compassion for ourselves and for others.” Pruett (1987) argues that “Buddhist claim of craving as the root of suffering is equivalent to Freud’s claim that neurosis is the root of suffering”.
To Be Continued…..
