Showing posts with label positivism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label positivism. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Our Modern World

 

 




This month's Comment comes from the June 13 reading, p. 186

XIII

June 13,  Modernism


There is a belief by some that a very distinctive deterioration of Western thinking happened at the end of the Middle Ages and accelerated into the Industrial Age. Then things just got worse until the late 20th Century when people began to question the idea of institutional science and progress and took a renewed interest in the spiritual perspective.

Comment

In 2008 I wrote an essay* about modernism and its effect on our culture. It is still very appropriate today.  (Explainer is highlighted)


WHAT IS MODERNISM?

Without a doubt the most powerful political and social ideology of the past century is something few people have considered. A cluster of dogma has sprung up around the philosophy of positivism, the belief that nothing exists except that which can be measured. From this starting point we have witnessed the rise of positivist science, philosophical reductionism, consumerism and a cultural appendage; modernism. As the director of The Institute for Perennial Studies in the late 1980’s I found that we spent a lot of time researching and critiquing modernist systems as well as examining alternatives. If we learned anything from the experience it is that the negative effects of modernism are ubiquitous. As a belief system it infects all of our thinking. Allow me to share some of our findings regarding modernism and its attendant systems; positivism, an aggressive new materialism, and consumerism.

The first and most noticeable trait of any modernist system is its claim to be "new". Newness is unique to this belief system and is characterized by a cult like following of pundits and pollsters who are always trying to divine the latest trends and impulses for the purpose of forecasting. Newness is celebrated as a sacrament and is its own proof of superiority. The act of being "first" has become an obsession. Post-modernism, advanced modernism, progress, etc., have all laid claim to the mantle "new" at one time or another. Modernism consistently defines its enemies as "undemocratic". Whether it is Kropotkin and Lenin espousing various forms of scientific socialism as an escape from the Old (elitist) Order, the Northeastern establishment promoting corporate liberalism ("free trade") in the new cyberspace of Wall Street, or Coca-Cola selling the universal soft drink to the "new global marketplace", the underlying argument is always the same. We have the wave of the future at our disposal and if you don't get on the bandwagon you are resisting "democratic inevitability".

Permutations of modernism are always heralded by a shower of statistics and other mathematical gadgets. Proving that the tide is running in a certain direction with various empirical methods is an absolute necessity for the modernist. Reliance on measuring social trends is the foundation of political science and public relations.

Modernism eventually fall victim to its own poison. The idea that modernism is itself new is a fallacy. History is filled with secular prophets declaring a "new dawn" or a "new era". Not only in the Christian Bible but in the scriptures of all spiritual traditions there are admonitions against people relying too heavily on their own creations. Babylon fell while lusting after temporal rewards. Jesus reminded us that he was “the beginning and the end” saying that time as well as Creation is the domain of God and “newness” is that suspicious property of Man. The Prajna Paramitas warn the Buddhist not to trust the material world of ever changing “aggregates”.

The Sacred writings of antiquity are replete with similar caveats against newness turning instead to the eternal world within. Allied as it is with the materialist pantheon of science and positivism the present incarnation of modernism is particularly dangerous and pervasive but little changed from past manifestations.

In our research we came to the conclusion that modernism was not the leading edge of an evolutionary continuum rather it is a veneer. In the case of its present likeness the veneer is uniquely corrosive and seeks to dissolve, absorb, or ultimately erase everything that has come before it. Natural resources, indigenous cultures, traditional values, and even history itself is a target for the modernist. Yet, the real sadness is that society has bought into a fad and in the last analysis "new" is predictably ephemeral.


*https://dsreif.blogspot.com/2008/12/modernism.html


This month's Illustration

Marriage (June)

Often producing blooms every day enhancing its reputation for nurturing and regeneration the lily has a feminine or yin aspect. The Moon is also a ethereal feminine symbol traditionally associated with the goddess Selena. The Sun is usually a male symbol whose hard edged energy is soften and reflected in the glow of the Moon making this a grand celestial marriage.

"Marriage" can be purchased HERE  


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Saturday, December 21, 2019

Europe Reconsiders Jacob Boehme


"Strasbourg Inspiration" 


There are some very interesting development regarding Jacob Boehme coming from Europe. Below is an excerpt from an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine about the recent interest in Boehme. For my part I am not so interested in the clinical recitations of the various new finding from antique book shelves. Rather it is the effect after nearly 400 years since the death of the venerable Mr. Boehme that his spirit continues to exert on people. It is the quantum mysterium which captures my reverence.



In den Osten kommt das Licht [To the East Comes the Light]
Von REINER SCHWEINFURTH (International Jacob Boehme Society)
Frankfurter Allgemeine 19Aug2019

“...In addition, the first biographer of Boehme, his confidant Abraham von Franckenberg(1593-1652), published his life report here for the first time. Now a text comparison possible with the saved handwritten manuscripts, which were preserved by the upper class in Silesia. The unrefined edition is accompanied by margin notes from the editors, whoseevaluation promises previously unknown information.

All contributions to the conference in Gotha confirmed the growing international interest in Jacob Boehme the “Philosophicus Teutonicus”. Around the research center led by Martin Mulsow
the Boehme expert Lucinda Martin has created a network. In the Research library at Gotha are about 10, 000 manuscript records, many from the seventeenth century, not yet cataloged.

One of the attractions of exploring Bohemia is the discovery of the far-reaching, often subversive
ties that were already formed during his lifetime, then after his death in 1624, throughout Protestant Europe. His manuscripts were a precious commodity and many trustees profited. The pious and irrational diction of his writings remains a nuisance to positivistic-materialistic minds. Until
today.But after secularization, at least in this country, no one need fear, to be put in prison for spreading Bohemian ideas, for centuries this was different...”
* * *

I want to point out a few items in Mr Schweinfurth’s insightful essay“The pious and irrational diction of his writings remains a nuisance to positivistic/materialistic minds.” This is a very interesting sentence. Allowing for the translation and the cultural difference between the American and German audience the use of the term “...pious and irrational diction...” may be off putting to some as it may seem condescending. I don’t think it is meant that way. I believe this is the way European scholars viewed spiritual philosophy in the recent past where anything “religious” or Christian is often regarded as quaint or intellectually suspect. I think Mr Schweinfurth is attempting to bridge a generational gap here. When writing for an audience who is still mired in European anti-Christian thought where condescension is baked into the cake, Mr. Schweinfurth skillfully sidesteps existing bias but continues to move forward.

Who could blame Europeans for holding rather negative views about Christianity after centuries of war often blamed on religion when economic and territorial motives were the real causes. Between the often oppressive legacy of Roman Catholicism and the neo-Marxist pretensions espoused by John Barth (and others) it is little wonder that religious philosophy is suspected of duplicity. Boehme offers an escape from the doctrines of the past.

It is important to point out that Mr. Schweinfurth continues by emphasizing that “...positivistic-materialistic minds...” may find Boehme difficult due to the “nuisance” of troublesome abstract ideas involved in his writings and advanced concepts often out of reach to the modernist worldview. I believe Mr Schweinfurth is walking a narrow line while making an important point about Boehme at the same time not opening himself up to partisan criticism. Mr. Schweinfurth offers us this extraordinary thought “...no one need fear, to be put in prison for spreading Bohemian ideas...”. Except in a clinical (or secular) environment whenever controversial spiritual ideas are discussed there seems to be an underlying element of fear just beyond peripheral vision.
DSR

Winter Solstice 2019


(original text)
Hinzu kommt, dass der erste Biograph Böhmes, sein Vertrauter Abraham von Franckenberg
(1593 bis 1652), hier zum ersten Mal seinen Lebensbericht publizierte. Nun ist ein
Textabgleich möglich mit den gesicherten handgeschriebenen Manuskripten, die in der
erweckungswilligen Oberschicht Schlesiens kursierten, gesammelt und teilweise bearbeitet
wurden. Die Karnal-Ausgabe ist mit Marginalien der Herausgeber versehen, deren
Auswertung bisher unbekannte Informationen verspricht.
Alle Beiträge der Tagung in Gotha bestätigten das international wachsende Interesse am
Philosophicus Teutonicus. Rund um das von Martin Mulsow geleitete Forschungszentrum
hat die Böhme-Kennerin Lucinda Martin ein Netzwerk gesponnen. In der
Forschungsbibliothek Gotha sind etwa 10 000 Handschriftensätze, viele aus dem siebzehnten
Jahrhundert, noch gar nicht katalogisiert.
Ein Reiz der Erforschung Böhmes besteht im Aufspüren der weitreichenden, oft subversiv
geknüpften Verbindungen, die sich schon zu seinen Lebzeiten, dann nach seinem Tod 1624,
im ganzen protestantischen Europa nachweisen lassen. Die Manuskripte waren eine kostbare
Ware, von deren Verkauf mancher Treuhänder profitierte. Die fromme und irrationale
Diktion seiner Schriften bleibt für positivistisch-materialistische Gemüter ein Ärgernis. Bis
heute. Doch nach der Säkularisierung muss wenigstens hierzulande niemand mehr fürchten,
wegen Verbreitung Böhmischer Gedanken ins Gefängnis gesteckt zu werden. Über
Jahrhunderte war dies anders.

The entire text is here: https://www.faz.net/-in4-9q0o1



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