Category: Culture

Ideas around society, its structures and ideals, and how it’s working out are topics touched on previously (see Notes One), but here I’ll revisit them in the light of “The Spirit of Community” by Amitai Etzioni. While I’ve only begun reading it at this point, so much seems pertinent to situations we’re currently facing.

Etzioni begins by discussing the “urgent need to rebuild a sense of personal and social responsibility, a sense that we are not only entitled but also must serve, that the individual good is deeply intertwined with the needs of the common good”. And in terms of achieving such a thing, it’s noted that “to change a society’s course one must focus on changing the habits of the heart, on a grand dialogue in which people come together to agree upon a new direction”; as anything imposed without agreement seems destined to fail.

Which is, in a way, profound yet also self-evident: society is composed of individuals, but without a common sense of togetherness and purpose it’s surely a tricky reality to hold together.

Talking of the basic give and take of existence, Etzioni highlights people’s “tendency … to claim rights for themselves and to leave responsibilities to the government”; whereas these effectively go hand in hand. In a sense, our rights are limited by our coexistence: what we take, we take from others; and what we give upholds collective systems. For the moment, society mainly quantifies this financially; but we could take a wider view of “responsibility to our moral, social, and political environment”.

Questions of social morality are interesting to explore; little having stepped in to replace religion or tradition. Not to say the constrictive aspects of those forces didn’t need reworking, but to abandon any concept of moral sense seems a bold step and a difficult reality to navigate (Notes Two).

It’s then suggested that “individuals’ consciences are neither inborn nor – for most people – self-enforcing. We gain our initial moral commitments as new members of a community into which we are born. Later, as we mature, we hone our individualized versions out of the social values that have been transmitted to us.” Connected to which, the “only way the moral integrity of a society can be preserved is for most of the people, most of the time, to abide by their commitments voluntarily”

Placing morality as an essential foundation for society is interesting, and reiterates the importance of how we pass on those values that serve both individuals and society; whether that’s through family, community, culture, or formal education (Notes Three).

This is a book I’ll return to, as it approaches social responsibility in wonderfully detailed and practical ways: ideas around responsive communities and acting in consideration of others seem so relevant now and spill across boundaries between family, relationships, work practices, and public life. Given the interrelated nature of society and the importance of achieving or maintaining meaningful cohesion, a broad discussion of this nature does seem to be a sensible way forward.

Notes and References:

“The Spirit of Community” by Amitai Etzioni, (Fontana Press, London UK), 1993

Note 1: Community – what it was, what we lost
Note 1: Mirrors we offer one another
Note 2: Laws and lawlessness
Note 2: Antisocial behaviour & the young
Note 3: Need to stand alone & think for ourselves
Note 3: Learning to be human

With literature, it seems reasonably valid to separate off what might be termed as modern fables: stories that speak of the mystery of life and our sense of personal destiny; exploring the mythology of self as a being that dreams and seeks a path of truth and meaning within the everyday.

I’m thinking of people like Richard Bach or Paulo Coelho among others. Writers who touch upon these inner spaces of faith or hope or magical thinking where so many try to find purpose and meaning for their lives through a sense of existence containing reason and our personal realities forming part of that bigger picture. Stories of everyday heroes, where individual struggles carry wisdom and actions make a difference.

Bach’s tale of a seagull seeking to be all it can be, believing there’s more to life than the traditions of the flock is one such example. The choice between following the ideas of those around you and silencing your inner voice: “He felt better for his decision to be just another one of the flock. There would be no ties now to the force that had driven him to learn, there would be no more challenge and no more failure.”

Which is similar to Coelho’s Alchemist: “you are trying to realize your destiny. And you are at the point where you’re about to give it all up.” Pictures of a life full of inner mystery, omens, following your heart, and learning from the wisdom of your life and from interactions with others. Essentially, coming to trust yourself and walk your own path.

Or there’s The Little Prince with “here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” A book offering a re-evaluation of life, of what matters, of how we see things, and the important relationships of feeling and meaning we create.

Building on that idea of personal perspective, Bach’s “Hypnotizing Maria” investigates ways belief governs experiences: “How do we become part of any culture, any form of life, save by accepting its suggestions to be our truth?” It’s a more unsettling book, as it attempts to separate the self from the thoughts we hold as true; but seems valuable for doing so.

Mitch Albom’s writings also fit here, as he explores those encounters that shape us and our ideas; casting an eye over life to see what might really matter at the end of the day, and whether it’s the hidden and unappreciated things that truly changed our lives.

Within modern culture, these books stand out as seeking something more. Historically, culture seems to have offered such wisdom yet now acts slightly differently (Notes One); so where can we find greater meaning for life? There’s spirituality itself (Notes Two), then the stories we receive through culture and society; where, at times, ideas on life merge with fiction to ask what it might mean to move beyond our belief in limitations.

Notes and References:

“Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach, (Turnstone Press, UK), 1972

“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, (HarperCollins, UK), 1995 (originally 1988)

“The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, (Penguin Books, UK), 1971 (originally 1945)

“Hypnotizing Maria” by Richard Bach, (Hampton Roads, USA), 2009

“The Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom, (TimeWarner, UK), 2003

Note 1: The value of art in society
Note 1: How many aren’t well represented?
Note 2: Spirituality since the 80s
Note 2: The ideas of Eckhart Tolle

“However elegant and memorable, brevity can never, in the nature of things, do justice to all the facts of a complex situation.” Instead, we might “learn to concentrate upon the essentials of a situation, but without ignoring too many of reality’s qualifying side-issues” so we “may be able to tell not indeed the whole truth … but considerably more than the dangerous quarter-truths and half-truths which have always been the current coin of thought.”

There are relatively few books I consider as universally valuable as “Brave New World Revisited” by Aldous Huxley; possibly because, while an extremely astute observer of civilisation, he chose to offer up questions rather than neatly satisfying conclusions. His 1958 reflections on his 1932 dystopian fiction are fascinatingly insightful; but, then as now, solutions are up to us.

So much in this concise, intelligent, and beautifully readable text is incredibly pertinent to situations we’re now finding ourselves in: ideas on the health of society and its mental impacts; on methods of persuasion and social control; on lessons from history, crowd mentality and use of language; and on challenges to democracy.

That last point is something discussed elsewhere (Notes One), but worth revisiting. Huxley speaks of how logic serves us well in some areas but less so with politics, religion or ethics as the meaning of facts “depends upon the particular system of ideas in terms of which you choose to interpret them” (see also, Notes Two). Essentially, facts and truths are more interconnected and complicated than may appear on the surface; so “all that is in our power is to be as truthful and rational as circumstances permit us to be, and to respond as well as we can to the limited truth and imperfect reasonings offered for our consideration by others”.

Discussion then turns to knowledge as an important foundation for society as “only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures.” A difficult necessity in the face of “non-stop distractions which, in the West, are now threatening to drown in a sea of irrelevance the rational propaganda essential to the maintenance of individual liberty and the survival of democratic institutions”.

If our system “depends on the ability of large numbers of people to make realistic choices in the light of adequate information” then the ways our thinking and natural cultural rituals, symbols and meanings are undermined by media and advertising must surely weaken our ability to interact wisely with life. As “what is demonstrably good in the sphere of economics may be far from good for men and women as voters or even as human beings”.

The main signposts offered are “education for freedom” plus an increased awareness and organisation around what really matters. Many beautiful values underpin our way of life, one of the most significant possibly being freedom; so doing what’s needed to maintain and defend that seems a profound challenge for our times.

Notes and References:

“Brave New World Revisited” by Aldous Huxley, (Random House, London), 2004 (originally 1958).

Note 1: Media within democratic society
Note 1: “Manufacturing Consent”
Note 2: “Education’s End”
Note 2: Writings on Education

The book “New Renaissance” by Maurice Ash – although slightly challenging to read – is interesting both in terms of its place within the national conversation of the 80s, as the UK struggled with ideas around growth, politics and social change, and in its relevance to our current predicaments.

Opening with a philosophical discussion over language and the certainty of knowledge as hallmarks of Western civilisation, Ash argues that while “knowledge demands this detachment, because certainty cannot be had without it” it was a path that separated us from nature and sent us down fragmented paths of specialisation. Leading to the question of whether the limitations of that Age of Knowledge might give way to one of Meaning: a greater sense of wholeness, bringing us into more meaningful relationships with one another and the world.

The guiding idea thus becomes how to move beyond the dualism of subject/object, human/nature to a broader way of seeing how things are connected and approaching that reality. It’s a theme that’s cropped up elsewhere in considering paths we’ve taken (see Notes One) and alternative models of thinking (Notes Two); and whether there’s a readiness to adopt such ideas was a question in the 80s that remains largely unanswered now.

Focussing on political ideals and their practical realities, there’s a sense of modern politics having grown out of that way of knowing: of misleading certainty leading to “social engineering which treats people as objects” and local governments serving as “administratively convenient technical agencies” measured by money, rather than as meaningful centres of power within our communities.

In terms of solutions, Ash rejected utopia as unrealistic (“the very certainty it presumes, and the detachment of the idealist from the actual world”); questioned socialism as being essentially a function of capitalism; and pointed towards the system itself being in need of fundamental reform. There’s a sense of society having lost its way and also a warning that, with the death of idealism, there’s a risk of alternatives stepping in to fill the void of meaningless knowledge (e.g. nihilism, extremism).

The revival of interest in progressive education, community and environmental concerns are evidently where Ash focussed his efforts as well as being thoroughly modern preoccupations. How people, having “experienced the plastic society, and the senselessness of what is expected of them in it”, looked for involvement in meaningful processes and transactions, for a “politics of community, of the patterns that hold people together”.

It’s a far-reaching collection of essays and a valuable attempt at pulling threads of philosophy and social reality into a purposeful body of thought. The idea of a necessary ‘social metamorphosis’ is intriguing; as is the affirmation of ‘Green politics’ as offering a sort of environmental metaphor to place humanity back within the world we stepped away from with our rational thinking. Surely we exist within our environment where all we do impacts both nature and humanity; so looking again at the forms and functions behind our ideas and actions still seems a wise if daunting prospect.

Notes and References:

“New Renaissance. Essays in Search of Wholeness” by Maurice Ash, (Green Books, Bideford, Devon), 1987.

Note 1: “Small is Beautiful”
Note 1: “Towards a New World View”
Note 1: “Education’s End”
Note 2: Mindfulness, antidote to life or way of being
Note 2: Literature where West meets East
Note 2: The ideas of Eckhart Tolle

Also Writings on Education, which spoke of the importance of ideas in understanding and shaping our place in the world.

Having addressed the notion of propaganda in Media within democratic society, here I will focus more on qualities of modern journalism as characterised by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in “Manufacturing Consent”. It’s a fascinating book that, despite having been written in the late Eighties, still seems remarkably relevant and insightful in terms of understanding society and the challenges we’re currently facing in the search for reliable information (see Note One).

Their analysis of the practical impacts of business, consumerism, and revenue demonstrates how such concerns became increasingly influential over time. These days there’s often a slightly resigned acceptance of the power money has over various aspects of our lives: commerce is this undeniable force, and we’re now so inundated with direct or covert attempts to influence our views that it can seem futile to resist. But surely it’s an important reality to remain aware of, as various parties seek to shape public opinion and behaviour through reporting and advertising.

Because the information we receive and how it’s presented to us must to a large extent dictate the collective conversations we’re able to have and the situations we’re most aware of. The ways advertising weakens the perceived importance of information and challenges our ability to engage intelligently with life seems to be a genuine problem. And while our confusion, apathy or despair in the face of complex realities may be useful to some, it seems troubling for society. As is the fact our very awareness is informed by those events or topics we’re offered, and the standards we’re effectively made to accept (Note Two). If political and economic entities were truly acting in our best interests, it might be reasonable to trust in what we read; but that’s a questionable assumption and the stakes seem increasingly high.

Another interesting aspect of the book is the consideration of language and tone in how stories are delivered: the ways subtle shifts in vocabulary or inferred significance serve to inform our attitudes, often below the threshold of our conscious knowledge. It’s not something I’d given much thought to directly, but it’s clearly true that the terms employed would guide our feelings of compassion, disregard or indignation towards the human situations happening across the globe. How we view others and the importance we’re encouraged to give to certain sufferings seems crucially important, especially when such sentiments essentially come to validate or justify specific courses of action.

And while all that could be taken in the direction of ‘conspiracy theories,’ my conclusions were more around the responsibility of fully understanding the systems we’re a part of (Note Three). For me, it’s not so much a question of rebelling against these things but of handling information with that knowledge in mind: it seems wise to have a healthy distrust of concealed agendas and an increased awareness around the content that we allow to influence us. It’s unquestionably a book that’s acutely relevant to our times when, above all, it’s important to be clear on these matters.

Notes and References:

“Manufacturing Consent. The Political Economy of the Mass Media” by Edward S Herman & Noam Chomsky, (Random House, London), 2008 (originally 1988).

Note 1: Trying to understand our times
Note 2: Privacy and our online existence
Note 3: Media and responsibility

A while back, I wrote about the spiritual threads running through history and how they seemingly got swept away (Spirituality since the 80s). And, in that context, I want to talk about the book “Spiritual Emergency” which draws together contributions from the fields of psychology and spirituality to address what are essentially questions of the mind.

The main premise is that mental episodes, at times, might be moments of potential transformation: “a play on words, suggesting both a crisis and an opportunity of rising to a new level of awareness”. Of course, the writers are very careful to state this is “not to be confused with diseases that have a biological cause and necessitate medical treatment”. But, with that in mind, it’s interesting to consider if certain experiences categorised as mental illness could be something more.

Describing modern society as having arisen out of various revolutions and revelations whereby “rationality became the ultimate measure of all things”; the authors ask if we might’ve been slightly mistaken in discarding spiritual belief as incompatible, and thereby losing its ability to give a firm and meaningful foundation to our lives. Because if our civilisation lacks deeper meaning, and if “sanity today appears to rest very largely on a capacity to adapt to the external world”, then maybe some of our battles arise because we look for or see meaning within a world that denies it?

It’s a similar line of inquiry as forms part of “Towards a New World View” which looked at how engaging with alternative perspectives might assist us in overcoming our own imminent challenges (see also, Note One). Not that I necessarily advocate all modern spiritual paths (see Notes Two), but there certainly seems to be a market for metaphysics and a demand for greater meaning and purpose in life than is habitually offered or accepted (see Note Three).

The bulk of the book then covers ideas around shifts of consciousness; the therapeutic value of archetypes and myths; cultural traditions such as shamanism; Maslow’s study of “peak experiences”; past life or near death experiences; and notions of the psyche and the higher self. It’s a pretty comprehensive exploration of alternative ideas from various sources; focussing on how to safely guide people through such processes. Essentially, ways to “untangle and undo the knot of self” and let images of chaos or destruction give way to new forms of being.

It’s a worldview that risks getting a little dark (Note Four), but it still seems worthwhile contemplating. With the prevalence of conditions such as depression and anxiety, it’s timely to ask to what extent such difficulties arise from self, from society, or from thought itself. Because, in a way, our sense of self and our thoughts on life seem to arise and exist in relationship to the world around us (Note Five). If we look at the mind and the self as reflections of external reality, it could be that the shifts and struggles of the inner life might become more meaningful.

Notes and References:

“Spiritual Emergency. When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis” edited by Stanislav Grof, M.D., and Christina Grof, (Penguin Putnam, New York), 1989.

Note 1: Literature where West meets East
Note 2: Mindfulness, antidote to life or way of being
Note 2: The ideas of Eckhart Tolle
Note 3: Writings on Education
Note 4: Mental health relative to modern times
Note 5: Mirrors we offer one another

Also, “Education’s End” on the importance of knowing the path we’ve taken and the value of belief.

As with my thoughts on Podcasts as conversation, what I value most from the offerings of modern technology are those things that increase or strengthen our humanity. In that light, blogs can be seen to offer many things: to inform, to showcase a certain style or a set of concerns, to provide an outlet for personal creativity, or whatever else. From among all that, what often shines out for me are those who use technology to share who they are as people, how they see the world, and what their life is.

Beyond evaluating that as a strong personal brand with a loyal following, such individuals can introduce others to new perspectives and other ways of being. Even if you don’t experience the world that way, in seeing through those eyes you can understand how that might be and relate to someone completely different and unique. Essentially, presenting an opportunity for cultivating empathy and tolerance through stepping out of your own ideas and putting yourself in another’s shoes; qualities often lacking in online life, as explored in Empathy in a world that happily destroys.

Of course, everyone’s perspective and personality is different and unique to varying degrees; but some seem more able and inclined to articulate and share that. To me, it seems many take that opportunity and use it as a way of reinforcing a sense of self, or promoting specific views or consumer choices. Which is fine, it is what it is. But that’s not so much what I find myself admiring.

To take an example, the Australian writer and photographer Nirrimi Hakanson (www.fireandjoy.com) seems to have amazing self-awareness and courageous honesty in exploring the various aspects of her life and sharing herself openly. While clearly extremely talented, she apparently passes up the many commercial opportunities of modern times in order to hold to her personal sense of authenticity and the strength of her own voice. In a world where so many are trying to influence or promote, her words seem beautifully truthful as she simply describes who she is.

I imagine there are many others who offer us the same, managing to find ways to express who they are honestly and without much agenda beyond sharing their humanity and seeking to craft a constructive, wise storyline or path within the inevitable challenges of life.

We all have our preferences in what we seek or are drawn to online, and for me it is often that opportunity to appreciate life through another’s eyes and understand those whose way of being may be worlds apart from my own. It is a wonderful, generous gift when people manage to find a way to articulate life without pride or ulterior motive, just simply saying ‘this is me, this is how I see life and how I try to find meaning’.

There’s so much going on in the world, and looking to those who are trying to be fully human and offer that up quite freely to others seems important to me.

Rather than a thorough literature review, this post considers a few books where Western and Eastern thought intersect. And in using those terms, I’m talking loosely about Western civilisation’s objective, scientific approach; alongside the counterpoint of Eastern spiritual philosophy or belief.

As discussed in Spirituality since the 80s and then in Mindfulness, antidote to life or way of being, there seems to have been a shift in the West toward the latter part of the twentieth century whereby many have sought a cultural dialogue with Eastern ideas. Here we could talk about the spiritual movements of the 60s and 70s, or the more recent incarnations of mindfulness or modern spiritual literature and so on.

This could be characterised as the West seeking greater soul, meaning, beauty, or recognition for the human spirit; as if we reached a certain point in the development of our civilisation and realised something might be lacking. And of course this isn’t limited to a dialogue with Eastern philosophy; there’s also the rich wisdom of indigenous peoples or the revival of various folk traditions that pre-existed Western ways.

In looking at texts that embody this interchange between Western and Eastern thinking, I’ve had in mind “Towards a New World View” which compiles conversations between Russell E DiCarlo and various others; “The Ending of Time” charting dialogue between David Bohm and J Krishnamurti; and “The Art of Happiness” based on exchanges between the Dalai Lama and Dr Howard Cutler.

In a way, it’s interesting that these books all take a conversational format; and each one is a fascinating model of communication between divergent worldviews attempting mutual understanding. Many of those DiCarlo interviews draw on ideas from Eastern thought in seeking to address Western challenges; and much that takes place there is a discussion of terms, concepts and values across different cultural or personal experiences. Then Dr Cutler’s work with the Dalai Lama seeks to relate the deep yet simple perspectives of Tibetan Buddhism to the psychological approach of the Western mind; it’s insightful to witness these two ways of understanding human realities grapple to come to terms with one another.

Building on that, the talks between Bohm and Krishnamurti then raise these same polarities of thought into a heightened and lively meeting of minds. David Bohm, a theoretical physicist who worked closely with Einstein, seeks and finds common ground with the philosophical spirituality of Jiddu Krishnamurti. It’s a truly fascinating dialogue about the nature of thought, the human condition, and how we interact with life. It’s also a wonderful example of an exploratory conversation between completely different ways of thinking, as this highly intelligent yet open Western mind reaches through the veil and comes face to face with a much more mystical way of viewing things.

It would disrupt the flow of this post to attempt to quote or encapsulate these disparate and developed lines of thought, but I highly recommend these writers for anyone seeking to experience more of this often exciting and worthwhile cultural conversation.

Reference: “Towards a New World View: Conversations on the Leading Edge” edited by Russell E. DiCarlo, (Floris Books, UK), 1996.

Reference: “The Ending of Time” by J Krishnamurti & Dr David Bohm, (Harper San Francisco), 1997.

Reference: “The Art of Happiness. A Handbook for Living” by HH Dalai Lama & Howard C. Cutler, (Coronet Books, Hodder & Stoughton), 1998.

Following on from my sketching out of Spirituality since the 80s, I will talk here about the phenomenon of Eckhart Tolle and how that relates to modern spiritual literature and trends of spiritual practice.

Tolle’s writing has clearly been astoundingly popular and successful, which is interesting in itself given the nature of modern society. It seems there’s still a market for those seeking to explore meaning, inner life, and alternatives to traditional forms of belief or spiritual existence. For me, the value of his writing is largely in how it consistently embodies a different perspective on self and the mind; articulating this through written style and everyday example.

It’s essentially a single message: the separation of consciousness from thought; of identity from thinking; of meaning from perception. He’s speaking of consciousness, the aware presence behind thought. As if he had this profound experience of personal suffering that led him to fully appreciate that distinction, and be in a position to articulate it clearly and consistently in a variety of ways.

Some criticise his writings as repetitive and without substance, but to me that’s the point: he’s saying the same thing, describing all the ways in which we identify with our thinking, encouraging us to detach from the relentlessly spinning mind. Maybe it’s something that needs saying over and over. Simple as it may be, this is clearly still a message our civilisation struggles with; the thinking mind resists it. Our society is so interwoven with logical thought that his ideas still stand as a powerful challenge; pointing out the illusion of clinging, as the teachings of the East traditionally have.

With any spiritual writing, there seems to be the difficulty of matching expectations to what’s possible with a book. Tolle seems to do a wonderful job of articulating a certain perspective; but where does it go from there? I’m not sure spirituality is something you can download into a passive mind, hence the idea of spiritual practices: that we must apply ideas to reach a personal growth and understanding. So it seems books such as these aren’t an end in themselves, but offer a state of awareness that you then have to decide what to do with. Tolle himself talks of this awareness then experiencing a deepening, which possibly then changes how we choose to participate in life.

What do you do once you no longer identify with your thoughts and ideas about life? As explored in Writings on Education and “Towards a New World View”, our lives in a sense hold around this invisible centre of our beliefs. So how do you live once you see the ways in which we hold to stories about self, life, meaning, security? Can any writings fully answer that question and encapsulate a recipe of living; and, if they did, would we accept one? If writers such as Eckhart Tolle are reminding us to “wake up”, maybe the next step is simply to be awake and to find out what that means.

Reference: “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle, (Hodder and Stoughton, London), 1999. “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle (Penguin Books, London), 2005.

Revisiting a text touched on only briefly in Writings on Education, this post considers “Education’s End” by Anthony Kronman. A book concerned with the place of the humanities within American universities, impacts of the research ideal and trends of political correctness, and challenges arising from this in terms of the extent to which humanities can offer a strong voice of meaning we seem to be lacking.

One idea I find interesting is the ‘conversation’ of civilisation and the value of knowledge being rooted in an ongoing sense of meaning. How “the conversation of the West invites a free and critical response to the inheritance it conveys. It insists that the past be studied and given the weight it deserves, but demands that one struggle to reimagine its claims in fresh and better ways, in a conversation that is permanently open”. Kronman argues there’s value in the constraint of being situated within a flow of thought and relating yourself to what’s gone before; the alternative being “to cut oneself off from the responsibilities that come with an inheritance and the duty, as a steward, to conserve and improve it”. This disconnection from the chain of reasoning – living with the resultant ideas and realities without fully seeing the need to understand how we got here or keeping our place in that conversation – seems a plausible description of modern life; but if we lack that level of meta knowledge, what degree of control or freedom do we have to adjust our course?

There’s also an interesting argument around the pre-eminence of technology and how, in seeking to overcome “the existing limits on our powers”, it sets itself against us as “our powers have meaning for us only within the limits of human life”. That tech “encourages a partial knowledge of humanity and invites us to think that this is all there is worth knowing”; conclusions similar to in “Response Ability” by Frank Fisher. In response, Kronman highlights the appeal of religion as “it is the love of man that needs to be restored” and “without the humanities we lose the only perspective from which the demon of meaninglessness can be met”. Essentially, that we need some form of meaning and appreciation of ourselves – a “commitment to the human spirit”.

Running alongside is the idea of ‘secular humanism’; and while I have little time for a humanism that seeks to conquer religious faith, as I said in Why seek a single truth?, a non-confrontational approach able to contain both belief and non-belief within an inclusive dialogue seems something we’re lacking. “Secular humanism recalls us to the mortal facts. It helps us remember who we are. But it does this by sowing doubts where certainties exist and by putting into question the answers our scientific civilisation invites us to take for granted”, converting “certainties to doubts and convictions to questions. It would bring the moral and political beliefs that condition our lives into view and give us the chance to inspect them”.

This seems a valuable read for anyone looking to understand the path of Western thought into our times; and the ideas above may also offer a path towards new dialogue within modern life.

Reference: “Education’s End. Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life” by Anthony T. Kronman, (Yale University Press), 2007.