Secularity, Philosopher Style

I have just listened to an interesting talk by the English Philosopher, Daniel Whistler, courtesy Backdoorbroadcasting.net, called Utopia, Abstraction and the critique of religion.  His title is a bit misleading as  he never gets to a critique of religion.  Rather, he uses German Idealism, specifically Fichte and Schilling to do what he calls, 'rescuing secularity'. This involves and attempts to describe secularity and to free it from an immersion in the realities of politics and to transcend the Hegelian dialectic, that is, to be abstracted from the particular and to exist as a pure idea. This pure idea he hopes will be indifferent to any ideology.

He begins in an interesting way for a philosopher by dissecting a court case in modern Europe.  The Italian government fought a European court ruling that crucifixes must be removed from classrooms. The reasoning used in part by the Italian lawyers was that secularism was itself an ideology and by removing all religious symbols from classrooms you were not presenting a neutral space, but in fact promoting the ideology of atheism.  This seems a reasonable argument as far as it goes, though I have trouble with the second half, which is that the Italian government argued that Christianity, as a religion of negation - basing this on the crucifixion - was itself a neutral ideology.  I don't see that myself, but understanding this is unimportant to Prof. Whistler's intent.  What he goes on to attempt, is to find a secularity that is not subjective.

To do this he takes his listeners through the German idealism of Hegel, Fichte and Schilling.  One of the regrets of my academic self is a lack of training in Philosophy, even an introductory course.  Keep that in mind as I do my best to summarize Daniel Whistler's thesis here.  Firstly he dispatches Hegel, as a dialectic involves subjectivity.  Next he looks at Fichte who argued that the philosopher must transcend the objective but can never do this.  Finally, he looks at Schilling, from whom he gets his idea presented here that there can be (possibly) a state of indifference that transcends the always dialectical particular of the ordinary world.

I should not comment as I am hardly versed at all in Philosophy, let alone German Idealism, but this being my blog, I will anyway!  One questioner in the Q & A session following the talk,  defended the dialectic by noting that every an idea that transcends the particular is in itself defined against that state, so you have not abstracted secularity from a dialectic.  I would note that seldom do pure ideas survive the reality of life as it is actually lived.  The fate of Marxism is a good case in point - this philosophical idea was altered to suit the reality of Russia, China and other smaller countries.  The claim was made that if the entire world adopted Marxism, then it would work, but that is a chimera and to be frank, nonsense.  The only philosophical ideals that function are those that take into account the realities of human nature and human nature in groups, and how these change over time.  My thinking, such as it is, concludes that religion will always exist whatever your opinion of specific claims because both human individuals and human societies need religion.  Of course, that is an historian's opinion and is therefore based on what I do know about history in general and the history of religions.  A smart intellectual could well argue, as does Daniel Whistler here, that one can conceive a fully abstracted and indifferent philosophy where religion is neither included nor excluded, but I don't see it.

The Soft Semi-atheists of Today

I was writing something entirely different elsewhere when my mind shot off on a tangent and the title above dropped in to my brain.  Oh, I remember the chain of events!  I am writing a blog post on my writing blog about how writers can write love.  I started by toying with definitions, and in that process, the basic Christian idea of God, that God is Love had to be mentioned.  That blog being wholly secular then required me to apologize for mentioning something so crass as God in a rational forum.  Something like farting while being presented to the Queen I would guess.

Despite all the evangelical preaching of public atheists such as Richard Dawkins, I don't really believe most people are convinced.  Perhaps they want to be convinced there is no supernatural sphere as this would justify any sort of behaviour in this life, or at least allow a cleverly rational person to find a justification.   At this moment in history, of course atheists and soft semi-atheists [I suppose, structurally, I should have defined this term by now... but bear with me], are required to publicly assent to the morality taught by religion - I don't mean here the nut bar fringe and their moral imperative to handle poisonous snakes or have sister wives, but basic moral precepts - play nice, in other words.  All religions teach us to play nice.....and both evangelical atheists and soft semi-atheists who make up the core of their congregation must assent to this precept at this moment in history.  They must because the habit of religion over a million years of humanity has ingrained this into their psychological makeup. Internal restraints then are more important than outward forces such as law, or social sanctions.

Soft semi-atheist [definition]:  Those who are not quite sure if there is a God, god, goddess, supernatural order, etc. but devoutly hope there is not as that frees the individual person from internal restraints. Hence the eager, laughing, clapping crowds at hard, pure atheists' sermons.

Internal Restraints [definition]:  now termed 'freedom' - freedom used to have a different meaning but this is its current usage. [freedom used to involve knowing or seeking, truth]

An interesting man

Muhammad Iqbal

Like Gökalp in Turkey, Muhammad Iqbal (1873–1939) is also widely known as the ideological father of a modern state (in his case, Pakistan). He first proposed a Muslim state in northwestern India as early as 1930, and was a much-loved national poet. However, his most lasting legacy may well be as a philosopher who regarded the kernel of Islam as being the betterment of the individual. Iqbal took the earlier Islamic modernist approach to science one crucial step further: for him, the study of nature was itself a religious act since natural laws were created by God. As he said: “Nature is to the Divine Self as character is to the human self ...[and] knowledge of Nature is the knowledge of God’s behaviour.”6

At the same time, Iqbal felt that the Qur’an pointed toward the spiritual nature of reality. In his view, religion provided answers to questions beyond the scope of science, which ultimately has only a “sectional view of Reality.” Indeed, only religion enables human beings to understand their cosmic purpose, which is to be God’s representatives in this world, despite all their failings. In this context, Iqbal interpreted the expulsion of Adam and Eve from heaven not as a fall, but as an elevation to another plane of consciousness. Adam—and by extension every human being—was a free agent, capable of disobedience and doubt.

Iqbal’s worldview was a positive one. The universe was forever growing and improving, and humans would ultimately triumph over evil. But that required each and every individual to strive toward self-improvement, in the full knowledge that they bore responsibility for representing God in the universe. In many respects, these ideas reflected the prevalent attitude of European thinking, and indeed Iqbal enjoyed the benefits of a European education—first at a British missionary college in his native town, then at Government College, Lahore, and later at Cambridge, Heidelberg, and Munich. Yet his ideas also flowed directly from the Qur’an. The conclusions he drew, though, were revolutionary: self- perfection, in and of itself, becomes an act of prayer, and thus prayer need not be limited to Islamic ritual.

From:  Islam, by Jamal J.Elias

Amherst College, Massachusetts 

Taylor & Francis e-library, 2005

Creativity and sub-creation: a ramble through the junk house of my brain

I spent some time thinking idly this morning - always a dangerous activity!  Yesterday I watched a video interview of Sir Ken Robinson in France - he spoke in English with French sub-titles.

Here it is:  Créativité avec Sir Ken Robinson


I don't intend to engage with his ideas on creativity here, but simply to note as a cultural historian that  'creativity' is an interesting concept to engage with in the study of religion.  Dr. Robinson [notice my segue into Brit style determination to use proper titles!  To go off on a wild tangent - I recall in the early 70s,  English newspapers referring to Fidel Castro as Dr. Castro because he had an honorary doctorate...]  Anyway.... I don't intend to engage with his contention that every human is creative, but that our schools squash that over time.  What I do intend to engage with is that some people are indeed creative in different ways.

I am not either, going to get into the debate over creativity in terms of Catholic vs. Protestant - Weber has fierce and pointed critics enough here.  But, this morning I was mentally caressing the Robinson video and up popped Martin Luther into my mind.  He was religiously creative.  That is, he took existing elements of western Christianity, aka Roman Catholicism, and moved the pieces around, gave new emphasis to some, and rejected others to create a new form.  I am also avoiding another debate here - was his new form actually an old form reborn as he claimed? Anyway, it was new and creative within the context of the 16th century.  His creation caused the then standard form to become creative itself and move around bits and pieces and rejig generally.

Then, of course, I thought of J.R.R. Tolkien.  Why, you might ask?  Well, Tolkien insisted that we humans are not creative in an essential sense, but rather we are sub-creative.  That is, we re-arrange already created elements of this world.  We do not do anything 'de nihilo' [for those Latin-challenged who might happen to arrive at this blog - this means loosely translated, 'out of nothing'].  Even if you go down to the physical level of quarks.. or atoms etc... they exist already.... to  use modern advertising parlance, they are pre-enjoyed.  We merely alter them to sub-create.  If indeed, we humans are made in the image of God, the creator, then of course we must sub-create as a function of our very essence as human.

There is a battle over to what degree should we change anything?  What, if anything, is left sacrosanct, and what is allowable in terms of change...

My next set of ruminations looked at the tendency of the 'western' world to give special privilege to creativity in all areas - not without protest!  That is the essence of what we call conservativism - meaning simply to conserve....and there is a constant tension between liberalism - the tendency to liberate ideas from constraints and conservatism, the tendency to conserve and change as little as necessary.  Both are human traits.... but we  honour the sub-creators generally over the conservators.

Anyway... off to more mundane tasks now that I would love to change... but alas, cannot...

Religion and Beauty

While doing my morning routine, I watched a YouTube video on classical Indian architecture, focussing on temples.  This got me to thinking about the old chestnut that the prime impact of religion on humanity is warfare.  This, to an historian, is of course demonstrable nonsense, but it is a meme that endures nonetheless.  The video got me thinking about the true impact of religion, speaking generally, on humanity. Religion has introduced another level of beauty into an already beautiful earth.  We humans take that which is here and refashion it according to our imaginations.  We sub-create, to use the term coined by J.R.R. Tolkien. Only divinity truly creates and myself being a Christian, I would say only God creates.  Humanity sub-creates, that is, we take creation and being in the image of God, we refashion it into various forms of beauty.

I cast my mind and memory over examples of religious architecture.  Gothic cathedrals, Quaker meeting houses, grand mosques, Hindu temples, all represent the highest forms of beauty ever produced by humanity.  Our secular architecture always pales next to the religious. Even that great evangelical atheist Richard Dawkins said that he would miss Hindu temples if religion were to vanish.   Add to this great endeavour, the arts:  painting, sculpture, calligraphy, metal working, poetry, music, dance.

Religion has as its face, beauty.

Happy

Happiness.  I came across this in a student's discussion post where he disputed the fact that First Nations' peoples may have  been 'happy' to convert to Christianity.  This got me thinking about happiness and our pursuit of it in this modern world.  The Americans have it built into their Constitution as a human right.. not happiness itself, but the pursuit of same.  I may be reading history badly, but I don't think happiness was a goal of human societies, or even of individuals until the Enlightenment.  This is not to say a society or an individual might not be happy, either generally, or on occasion. In another discussion in another class, a student brought up one of those statistical studies that float through the ether these days which stated firmly [being the result of scientific research] that the Danes are the happiest people on earth, while being amongst the least religious. I wonder what Hamlet would have thought?

Hmmmm......

Right brain/left brain and Religion/faith

For some years I was on a discussion list that purported to find a way to unity amongst Christian denominations.  At one time it had representatives from a range of churches, but in recent years there were mainly traditionalist Anglicans, some Catholics and occasional visits from extremists of various sorts.  It was going nowhere in terms of Christian unity, so I asked a Baptist friend who had no fear of engaging in dialogue to join as I wanted to  see what would  happen.  Well, it became obvious that the long term members could only think of  'the church' in terms of carefully defined and delineated structures, bound with clear rules. I could see at last why the purpose of this discussion list would never be realized, as they could not think outside the very precisely measured box they had constructed for themselves.

Today, I happened on a talk given by an English psychiatrist about the physical and mental structure and architecture of the human brain and mind - the old left brain/right brain dichotomy updated where the dichotomous was amputated from this understanding and replaced with a holistic view - but one which noted the particular features each hemisphere brought to this whole.

After watching it, I realized that the members of the fruitless discussion list all saw their faith from a left hemisphere dominant mode of thinking.  They were rational, but not reasoning - that is, they focussed on the particular and could not see the whole.  A properly functioning brain uses both to give us a full idea of the nature of life.  The left brain according to this psychiatrist [Dr. Iain McGilchrist] functions to focus narrowly and perceive in a wholly scientific mode - a kind of dissection of life into component parts, a view of life as a machine to be studied and which functions in a machine like fashion.  The right brain has the primary function of seeing holistically - of seeing life in a whole context.  Both are necessary to living, but our modern world gives primacy to the left hemisphere's view.  Hence we have constructed a world - which he opines began with the industrial revolution and the lifestyles necessary to the operation of industrialism - which has as its essence, the cogs in a machine view of life.  The now secondary right brain which sees life as a holistic, integrated, interoperating system, has been relegated to entertainment, rather than the serious business of functioning in the world.

Dr. McGilchrist did not talk about religion.  But immediately I began to see the left brain dominant position of the members of this list I had finally abandoned.

In religion, extremists are modernists in this sense - an irony indeed, in that they view religion as a rigid set of rules and practices that must be controlled and never deviated from - while ordinary believers, see religion in its context, as a part of a whole and full life, but which can be altered to fit reality, as it is part of reality.  A balanced mentality sees the left brain need for some structure, some large box to put it in those terms, or you do have chaos, but also sees that like all of life, context is vital and flexibility is more so to function within a context.

Anyway, I will probably view this talk again - and if I can scrape together the money, buy his book [alas, my finances are handled by my right hemisphere!].

I found the video in the excellent Big Ideas series by TVOntario - far better talks in my estimation that the much better known TED talks as the speakers here go into greater depth, not being limited to 10 or 15 minutes of sound bites while striding around a stage....

Here is the link:

Dr. Iaian Gilchrist: The Divided Brain