The Mattering Instinct - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
About the event
Join us for a discussion of The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. The synopsis and some tentative discussion questions are below. If as you read, you encounter some thought-provoking lines and/or find yourself wrestling with some burning questions, please note them down and bring them to the discussion! Whether you've read the whole book or just want to explore some of its central ideas, you're welcome to join; and if you need help accessing the text, please feel free to reach out to me directly.
Synopsis: In The Mattering Instinct, philosopher Goldstein posits a "mattering instinct," or a desire to be deserving of attention, that arises in childhood and matures into a habit of organizing one's life around "mattering projects" that encapsulate one's "reason to live." The argument starts from biology: on the first page she writes that every living thing is driven by a mandate to prioritize its own surviving and thriving, and in humans this becomes a need to justify that self-concern. She describes four ways people seek significance, through transcendence, social connection, excellence, or competition, and argues that the unmet need to matter lies behind loneliness, extremism, and polarization. The book develops these ideas through case studies including Scott Joplin and his neglected opera Treemonisha, William James's recovery from youthful depression, an impoverished Chinese woman who rescued abandoned newborns, and a former neo-Nazi who came to see that mattering is not zero-sum. The project draws on Spinoza's attempt in the Ethics to ground an objective ethics on secular foundations. Goldstein's central claim is that the same drive that produces human achievement also produces much of human conflict, and that recognizing mattering as non-scarce could reduce the latter.
Discussion Questions (subject to revision):
1. Goldstein treats the desire to matter as an instinct with biological roots. Is "instinct" the right category, or is mattering better understood as a cultural or psychological construct? 2. Of her four mattering types (socializers, transcenders, competitors, heroic strivers), do you recognize yourself in one? Are the categories distinct, or do most people combine them? 3. Goldstein argues that material success cannot satisfy the need to matter. What evidence supports or complicates this claim? 4. How persuasive is the link she draws between unmet mattering and extremism or polarization? What alternative explanations might carry equal or greater weight? 5. The book suggests that mattering is not zero-sum. Yet status, recognition, and attention often appear to be scarce. How would Goldstein respond, and is her response adequate? 6. What does Goldstein's approach inherit from Spinoza and William James, and what does it add? 7. Can a theory of why people want to matter tell us anything about what actually matters, or does it remain descriptive rather than normative? 8. If the mattering instinct explains both progress and cruelty, what practical implications follow for institutions, education, or politics?
