Philosophy Unplugged
I’ve been rereading the book Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution. The first time through, I found myself having some heavy-duty reactions and resistances to the spiritual underpinnings of this worldview. I put the book away and went about my business (which means, I continued reading more books, Web sites and blogs concerning the Big Issues of Life.)
I pulled the book out again to remind myself why intelligent people are attracted to the increasingly popular ideas of Eckart Tolle, as well as to the notion that people are now “waking up” and recognizing their “mission” to shift the consciousness of the world in order to save the world.
Sometimes I’m inconsolable after spending time surveying the state of the world and discovering the various and conflicting ways people think, believe and act. The problems seem insurmountable; the dialog among holders of different worldviews a grand waste of time. I often feel this way after visiting certain blogs and reading all the comments 
I want the world to start over. I’ve always wanted that — during the time I was a Christian and now as an agnostic.
I took philosophy classes in college, but most of what I read went in one eye and out the other. I didn’t have the capacity to understand much of anything at age 18. I have a lot of catching up to do now that I’m, um, a bit older and wiser.
So this morning I’m reading about several of the great philosophers, including Hegel and Habermas. In my travels I came across this blog post, which I think is priceless.
Dialectic of Secularization
April 1, 2008 — AlexeiHabermas’ article, “Die Dialektik der Sekulärisierung” has recently appeared in Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik. And its worth checking out. He ends his piece with the following,
Säkulare Bürger, die ihren Mitbürgern mit dem Vorbehalt begegnen würden, dass diese aufgrund ihrer religiösen Geisteshaltung nicht als moderne Zeitgenossen ernst genommen werden können, fielen auf die Ebene eines bloßen Modus Vivendi zurück und verließen damit die Anerkennungsbasis der gemeinsamen Staatsbürgerschaft. Sie dürfen nicht a fortiori ausschließen, auch in religiösen Äußerungen semantische Gehalte, vielleicht sogar verschwiegene eigene Intuitionen zu entdecken, die sich übersetzen und in eine öffentliche Argumentation einbringen lassen. Wenn alles gut gehen soll, müssen sich also beide Seiten, jeweils aus ihrer Sicht, auf eine Interpretation des Verhältnisses von Glauben und Wissen einlassen, die ihnen ein selbstreflexiv aufgeklärtes Miteinander möglich macht.
Here’s a quick English translation:
Secular citizens who would engage their fellow citizens conditionally, so that the latter cannot be earnestly considered as modern contemporaries [perhaps equals] in light of their religious convictions, descend to the level of a bare modus vivendi, and thereby forsake the recognitive basis of common citizenship. They must not exclude, a fortiori, religious expression of semantic matters, which might even uncover one’s own concealed intuitions, and which translate into civil reasoning. If everything should go well, it must do so for for both sides. Each one must engage in an interpretation of the conditions of faith and knowledge from their respective points of view, which makes a self-reflexive, enlightened cooperation between them possible.
And I like this amazing quote from Habermas (found in the Wikipedia entry). Habermas is an atheist.
Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than a mere precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in the light of the current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk. – “Conversation about God and the World.” Time of transitions. Cambridge: Polity Press 2006, p. 150-151
That’s it for now. Just needed to get some stuff out to relieve my constipation.
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Whoa. Very deep. I encourage you to peruse John Shumaker’s Corruption of Reality for the whys and wherefore’s of “irrational” thought.
Very interesting position - but I think I recommended this before.
Another book to add to my reading list!
Why not another day of spinning out?
After reading a bit about the book:
I can understand the idea that dissociation and distorting reality are evolved coping mechanisms, and that there’s an optimal level that confers benefits.
To make a long story short, several years ago my entire belief system was shattered. Shattered. Piecing together a “new reality” has been challenging, as you might imagine! I no longer have comforting illusions to buffer me. Actually, I’m sure I have a few, but they’re not very effective.
I like to explore some fringy areas, but I can’t seem to jump in all the way. Life is just one big mystery to me
I would be interested in hearing about your reality shattering event. Personally, I am certain my strict adherence to science is another example of dissociative thought.
The book is not nearly what the reviews offer.
Maybe one day I’ll write a book! The short version is that certain circumstances forced me into an in-depth study of Christian doctrines (from various perspectives) and beliefs, as well as research into the historical Jesus. What I found led me out of Christianity and any belief in God or Source. It was an extremely painful journey.
hey, it wasn’t shattering enough, or you would stop with the books already…
Shattered. Disintegrated. Dissolved.
The books help me see what all is out there. I examine ideas and philosophies, and see what good stuff I can glean. Plus, consuming new information is an addiction
hey, take the loooooong view… and consider the whole thing we call “the world” is just a metaphor for what we go through as an individual, the same processes. it is us. we are it. no separation.
Hmmmm…..
So dizzy - need air…
I’m done spinning out. I’m through with hyperventilating over all this stuff.
I’m back to where I started many moons ago. No one freakin’ knows what we want to know!
that’s right, the mind is of no use in knowing reality, or in enlightenment … but one has to arrive to that understanding via the mind
(and just so you know, i am still pissed off about this, i wanted to be one of those cool enlightened guys, knowing what was what)
(even worse, happiness has nothing to do with anything either! the i we think we are can never be happy. that one really pissed me off)
there is nothing to know, nowhere to go, nothing to achieve, nothing to gain … weird, isn’t it. and a big relief. freedom from the search is wonderful.
incidentally, sadhana, spiritual practices, get us only to this same place of knowing than nothing works.
and now we know why they have invented the word “grace”.
enjoy, gregory
gregory, I “think” I’m getting closer to “knowing” what you’re talking about.
Since reading Left in the Dark, I’ve been looking at things very differently. I don’t know if their theories are correct, but it’s an extremely interesting exercise to view everything from the POV that humans evolved to have a damaged and limited left hemisphere, which, for most of us, runs the show. Not a good thing.
Those who gain access to the powerful right hemisphere (through various practices) experience life/reality in an entirely different way. Usually a good thing!
http://you-unplugged.com/blog/2008/05/15/our-biological-fall-from-grace/
In contrast to this POV, many believe that the left hemisphere developed its dominance for “good” reasons. They believe that some how, some way we’re on an evolutionary trajectory for bigger and better things. Some Integralists, for example, hold this view. I don’t.
Grace.
Lana
something to be said for wholeness, sitting, parked right there in the astral equivalent of the corpus callosum, seeing no difference between left and right ….
about atheism … i saved a very simple letter to the editor from someone in chennai to the newspaper the hindu … it is that “atheism is the summum bonum of a spiritual search based on truth and reality … i took it to be going beyond form and arriving at the formless
anyway, sometimes it really is good not to think
Yes, one whole, healthy brain! Imagine what would happen if all humans had one
We are what we are for now. Thinking, feeling, sensing beings with varying levels of thinking, feeling and sensing. I get VERY tired of thinking, that’s for sure.
yeah but .. lol .. what are we? and where is now? we is the whole show, so they say …
thnking might just be what happens when the awareness is unplugged from the whole
get on friendfeed and we will start a consciousness room …
A friend of mine postulates that Gutenberg was the beginning of the end for Catholicism, when it made scripture affordable to be read by the common man, it removed the power of the priesthood.
My friend also believes that Gutenberg’s fixed type face gave an authority to printed text it never held prior to printing, because of the left brain’s likeness for repeatable and precise symbols for language. He further that the right brain, left brain separation in our modern society owes much to recent centuries of mass production of books. If its in print, people tend to believe it.
The oral tradition of telling stories favors the right brain, as does television, and many forms of modern media.
The Internet is a bit of both.
More on this line of thinking when I can locate his original post.
To those that have replied to my earlier posts, I got bogged down in an Facebook discussion with someone who wanted to know how I got from A to C. My mistake was to think I could even begin to convince them of looking at Step B.
God guides all spiritual journey’s, its futile to try speed another’s journey, but sometimes I so wish some people I care about could see what I see.
If there is such a thing as enlightenment, if one attains it, is it a lonely experience?
Hi Bill,
Interesting. The left brain does get a lot of care and feeding!
Could “enlightenment” simply be the emergence of the right brain? Since the vast majority of humans are left-dominated, then yes, becoming enlightened will put you in the minority. But it probably doesn’t feel lonely!
I’ve come to think that our brains serve as much a filtering role as they do a thinking role. I have a “new agey” friend that can see “auras”. I can’t. I asked her what it looks like, she said “on plant leafs its like seeing a double image spaced a little bit”.
Then I remembered taking my afternoon nap when I was 4 or 5 years old in Scottsdale Arizona 45 years ago. Mom always took a nap around 2 PM (she raised six kids) and that quiet time was strictly enforced.
In those moments before falling asleep I’d wonder why the Mulberry tree leaves outside my window had double images in the sunlight. Somewhere along the way, I “learned” leaves didn’t look that way. Now I can’t see plant auras at all.
Then there’s my religious friend. I try to explain a concept but it gets mapped to another meaning and symbol set, and then I remember they’ve been programmed to believe some things and concepts are not real. They aren’t a bad person. I’ve been there, and I didn’t shed such ideas easily. But its such people you wish you could explain somethings to even more, you want to share, to help lighten their load.
one can be lonely, One, no way … who is left to be lonely?
this thing of leading others to a higher pov, at its worse, we get missionaries, and you both could say more ..
the real trick, and how masters function, they see the high self as already realized, and tend to ignore the ignorance, and so when we are around them, and are being truly seen, we do everything to live up to that subtle expectation ..
so see the facebook guy as living up to his highest truth
and how can we say the world is bad, everybody is living in the way they see best to live, so what could be wrong?
enjoy
auras … a lesser siddhi indeed, but they are inside you as you look .. try that out ..
Ya gotta use your right hemisphere to perceive auras (or whatever they are). See? It all boils down to getting the right hemisphere back into the picture
gregory, I figured you’d report that One cannot be lonely.
Here, again, maybe the realized, high self is the suppressed right hemisphere that humans are cut off from and trying to regain access to.
The ancestral memory of our biological beginnings is still there (of living in Paradise). The left brain doesn’t understand what it’s really seeking — the return to that earlier, integrated brain with almost unimaginable power and talents. We get a glimpse of what’s hidden away by observing child geniuses and autistic savants, for example.
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Or it could just be the Chancey Gardener effect. Remember Peter Sellers, in Being There, as the sheltered fool who becomes a Presidential advisor?
Simplicity and obtuseness can be equallly mistaken for wisdom and insight.
Sorry, not meaning to make fun of the enlightened, just poking fun at the image of myself being a master of anything. I’ll go poke my umbrella in the pond now while I walk on water.
Hilarious movie!
I don’t get the whole thing with enlightened masters. I’ve never been drawn to that world. But I do want the bliss.
I hope you decide to read Left in the Dark. I think it truly sheds light on some of our most perplexing issues.