But clearly the discontent is there. The most immediate evidence is on the surface level of politics, where both the political right and left are invested in quasi-populist upheavals against perceived "establishments". Maybe the evidence least noticed, but at the deepest level, is in demographics, where for the last half century or so, birth rates have fallen below replacement levels, and well below in the more "developed" or modern nations. And in between, there are vague but troubling signs of what might be called "spiritual" restlessness, not to say malaise -- a flourishing of conspiracy mongers, fundamentalisms, sects, prophets, fanatics, and a variety of ersatz religion-substitutes, complete with with warriors, saints and sinners.
It's not a recent discontent either -- you can see it expressed in Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach", for example, in 1867, and for that matter in much of the whole Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment. And that suggests we need to look back at what brought the so-called "modern world" into being in the first place. As Pinker notes, the Enlightenment exalted reason and science, and that influence has continued ever since -- few would doubt that the legacy is at the basis of the spectacular progress over the last two centuries, in scientific knowledge, technological advance, and material plenty. But all of that is so evident that it can obscure a cost that's more subtle, yet still deep and persistent.
In fact, though, we don't have to look that far to see it. The very virtues of science -- rational, empirical investigation that defined truth and "enlightenment" -- were corrosive to a cultural structure that had been central to the life of every other human society in history (or prehistory) -- namely religion, and its associated institutions. In itself, that's an old story, of the "war" between religion and science, but the side effects of that pseudo-war haven't been quite as apparent. One such effect is the attempt to find a replacement for the cultural capstone traditionally supplied by religion and its associated institution the Church -- and from the end of the Enlightenment proper, in the French Revolution, a prominent candidate for such a replacement has been politics and its associated institution the State.
This attempt has had, at best, a checkered history. On the one hand, there are the liberal democracies, based upon ideals arising directly out of the Enlightenment; on the other, there are the examples of totalitarianism from the last century, in the equally disastrous forms of communism and fascism. Totalitarianism, in whatever form, arose out of a desire to remake human-kind root and branch, with the terrible results of history. But the problem with liberal democracy, with its civic ethos, was that it was simply too thin by itself to really substitute for the deep imaginative roots with which religion, with its myths, rituals, communal gatherings and celebrations, and the like, was able to bind together a culture. So, though liberal democracy won the struggles of the past century, the aftermath has only exposed again lack of a capstone that religion had always provided for cultural formations.
What are the options, then, for the individual in the face of the modern world's discontents? Some suggestions:
What are the options, then, for the individual in the face of the modern world's discontents? Some suggestions:
- Immerse oneself in practical life,and ignore nagging questions of meaning, purpose, value, etc.
- Adopt a heroic atheism, asserting individual answers to questions of meaning, etc.
- Revert to traditional religion, in opposition to modern erosions of such beliefs.
- Seek alternative or substitute religions, whether in politics, New Age spirituality, or other.
- Consider the possibility of a cultural capstone other than religion, as it's usually conceived.
May 28/20
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