The Forbidden Tree's Red Apple

The beginning of human history starts with the formation of human self-consciousness.

In this consciousness, there is a perception of time that includes distinctions of before and after. The memory we create by comparing past and future information is reflected in practical life as experience. However, the true driving force behind human progress is the ability to process information analytically. With this ability, we can combine existing information to create new knowledge. So much so that the new information created has been passed down through generations, forming today's civilization.

However, no matter how far we have advanced, the complexity of the human being remains our most challenging subject. This is because the consequences of our actions determine the universe in which we live.

The initial way of life for Homo sapiens sapiens, who managed to create a systematic order of life with the complex consciousness structure they possess, consisted only of communities such as tribes, clans, and lineages. These communities behaved like a herd model; behaviors created as a result of acquired experiences and repeated were accepted as traditions, and for everyone in the herd to survive, all individuals had to follow these vital rules without question. Therefore, it took a very long time for the demand of a member within the community to live as a free individual to emerge.

The behavior of a human who sees themselves as a natural and inseparable part of the tribe they live in, following traditional rules, is so integrated with their instinctive needs that being a member of the tribe and surviving are like the conditional sequence of the same logical inference. It is impossible for a human's basic instinctive needs—such as hunger, shelter, sexuality, and defense—to be met outside the tribe. For this reason, being alone is equivalent to dying, and the need for belonging is the defining overarching heading for all these instincts.

In this order where the herd paradise satisfies all instinctive needs, being free from the herd means being condemned to death in an individual hell. The fact that such a desire has never been welcomed, and has even been violently shamed and subjected to traditional and cultural sanctions, is a learned behavioral pattern. The foundations of this behavioral pattern are transmitted from such deep levels of collective consciousness that the changing world and the fact that individualization has now become a necessity mean nothing to this traditionalist learning. For them, the herd is still paradise, and those who leave the herd are snatched by wolves. It means nothing to them that the new world consists of sages or scientists. Because if you leave the herd, you perish.

They are right in their own way; if you leave the herd, you are lost to them, or in their words, you have gone off the path—that is, out of their control. Because by choosing to be an individual, you have stepped outside the herd's line of existence. The herd does not question, the herd does not doubt, the herd is a community of those who resemble one another.

The individual who shakes the fundamental principles of existing in the herd with their presence can no longer return to the herd even if they want to. Yet, the rule expected to be followed is very simple. Not to touch the apple tree that has been forbidden by the collective consciousness of the herd. This tree is the tree of knowledge (Baum der Erkenntnis) that we encounter in mythological accounts and many dogmatic texts. The price of eating the apple from the tree of knowledge is excommunication—that is, being cast out of the herd's paradise. Not questioning, not knowing, and deferring form the basis of the herd's life principles; the person feels gratitude for the good things that happen to them and gives thanks while asking for forgiveness for the bad. They entrust all control over their life to an abstract power. This power is sometimes the sun, sometimes the moon, sometimes fire or wind. This submission prevents them from using their faculties of doubt, questioning, and reason; for example, they try to solve the problem of their houses built in a creek bed being flooded every year through irrational methods like making vows and sacrificing animals.

You cannot solve the problem of flooding by sacrificing a goat in the creek bed if you have reached for the branches of the tree of knowledge. The rational individual who says, 'We must move the village from here,' is shown the exit door of paradise by the herd.

However, no matter how far you have fallen from the herd, the bond between you and your biological origins continues to exist in some way. It is useful to remember Plato's allegory of the cave here.

According to Plato's allegory, some people have been chained in the dark depths of a cave since the beginning of their lives. They sit with their backs against a wall, their hands and feet are chained, they cannot turn their heads to the right or left, and they can only focus on the cave wall in front of them. With the light filtering from the entrance of the cave, the silhouettes of objects are reflected on this wall as shadows. For the inhabitants of the cave, these shadows are accepted as the only reality. However, when one of these people eventually breaks free from their chains and steps outside the cave, they encounter the objects they previously only saw as shadows on the walls in their true form in the outside world. After this discovery, the person who returns to the cave excitedly tries to explain the existence, beauty, and reality of the sunny, sparkling world outside to the cave dwellers, but those in the cave not only refuse to believe, they insult this person with anger. They try to harm them, and if they have the power, they even attempt to kill them.

In the allegory, the cave represents society itself, the chains represent the rules, unquestioned norms, and traditions within society, and the shadows reflected on the cave wall represent the realities accepted by society.

So why can the individual who has freed themselves from their chains and found their place in the rational world not completely sever their connection with the cave? What is the name of the bond that constantly draws them back to that same place to save those in the cave? Is it the marks left on their wrists by the chains from the days they spent in the cave since birth, or is it a stronger bond?

The child is in a state of bodily unity with their mother in the womb; even if they have experienced a rupture by being born, the dependency relationship with the mother continues. The physically severed umbilical cord is replaced by a much stronger umbilical cord. The baby's survival depends on their mother and other adults around them, which brings with it a mandatory and primitive dependency. If the baby is raised without this primitive umbilical cord ever being cut, this mother-child bond continues into adulthood, such as loyalty to the lineage, loyalty to the religious community, or loyalty to the class to which one belongs.

In families that actively protect and support this bond, the child is expected to feel constant gratitude and admiration for their family for keeping them alive, and to feel indebted to their family. The more obedient and dependent the child is, the more their behavior is praised. As a result, when they become an adult, they are expected to dedicate their life to their family, tribe, and community.

In the herd contract they have signed, they accept that they are not meaningful as an individual on their own, and they promise to accept the norms of the herd without question throughout their life. In other words, they have surrendered their soul to the herd. They are no longer an individual, but an adult child who strengthens the primitive umbilical cord with the community.

The individual can only become free to the extent that they can question and sever this primitive umbilical cord.

In infancy and early childhood, for a child who sees themselves and their surroundings as a single entity, obeying is not a humiliating behavior. The sense of being an individual occurs when they begin to separate themselves from the universe around them. This separation begins as the child takes steps toward becoming physically and cognitively mature; they can now look at the universe they live in from the outside through their observations and interpret it as separate from themselves. This awareness, which is the first stage of individualization, brings loneliness with it, which is a very anxious process for the child. Because freedom, as described, is not a light feeling where one can be independent of everyone and everything; the price of being free is the ability to carry all responsibilities regarding oneself alone, therefore the transition to freedom is a painful process.

Until the urge to be an individual arrives, the person is a natural part of the universe where all their needs are met and they feel safe, without carrying any responsibility. However, as they insist on the claim of individualization, they will have to deal with all the difficulties they encounter in the outside world on their own. This situation causes high anxiety in them. As the individual moves away from wholeness, their loneliness, responsibilities, and duties increase; if they have not been prepared for this process since childhood and the state structure of the society they live in does not have a social state system that supports this, the person is forced to give up their claim to be an individual and submit.

With this behavior, the child-person may feel safe and peaceful in their upper consciousness, but in their subconscious, knowing that they have given up their own individuality and holistic freedom, they both hate the elements that force them into this and feel anger toward those who have been able to achieve the freedom they secretly desire for themselves. This state of conflict between the individual's consciousness and subconscious continues throughout their life. Since it is not possible for the person to realize themselves, discover who they are, and live the life they wish, they are forced to continue their life by imitating the herd within norms whose truth they can never question. Perhaps this is why they persistently refuse to acquire new information and improve themselves throughout their life, because as their awareness increases, the level of conflict-anxiety they experience will also increase, making it even harder to accept the life they feel forced to live.

However, the state of conflict does not start and end in the individual's inner world; this situation is reflected in the mirror of the community as psychological problems, aggression, and criminality. If the conscious decisions of a higher administration that prefers traditional tribal life over modern life are being implemented in the country, the situation becomes an impasse. In societies where traditions are not kept separate from dogmatic commands, groups with fundamentalist tendencies emerge. Because the intensity of oppression is directly proportional to the state of mental conflict. In fundamentalist groups that are closed to the outside and consider violence a command, since there is no option like adapting to the outside world, they apply psychological and physical violence in every medium they can reach to make the outside world resemble themselves. If their actions are not perceived as criminal offenses and are even praised by those in high positions, it is time to put our heads in our hands and think deeply.

Because no country that has astonished the world with the radical and reactionary changes it has undergone has changed overnight.

Source: Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

               Sigmund Freud, The Origins of Religion