9. The world is disenchanted
The beginning of wisdom in any human activity is a certain reverence for the primordial mystery of existence.’
Thomas Berry — The Dream of the Earth
The main split in this work is between Eros and Agapé. It should be clear by now that the balance between these two is out of kilter. Nevertheless, both are needed. The dividing line in this work is therefore something of an arbitrary one. Whilst it is stressed that the economy of descendancy needs more attention, Eros still requires its rightful place. Ken Wilber speaks of the balance between the two:
‘…Phobos is Eros without Agapé (transcendence without embrace, negation without preservation).
‘And Phobos drives the mere Ascenders.
‘In their frantic wish for an “other world”, their ascending Eros strivings, otherwise appropriate, are shot through with Phobos, with ascetic repression, with a denial, a fear and a hatred of anything “this-worldly”, a denial of vital life, of sexuality, of sensuality, of nature, of body (and always of women).
‘…Thanatos, on the other hand is Descent divorced from Ascent…
‘…Thanatos is Agapé without Eros.
‘And Thanatos drives the mere Descenders.’
Ken Wilber — Sex, Ecology, Spirituality
In Chapter 1 we mentioned the ‘disqualified universe’ - a view of the world that is stripped of all value judgements. Wikipedia defines it thus:
‘…disenchantment… is the cultural rationalisation and devaluation of mysticism apparent in modern society. The concept was borrowed from Friedrich Schiller by Max Weber to describe the character of modernised, bureaucratic, secularised western society, where scientific understanding is more highly valued than belief and where processes are orientated towards rational goals as opposed to traditional society, where for Weber “the world remains a great enchanted garden.”’
(Wikipedia quotes from Max Weber — The Sociology of Religion)
But the disenchanted world is in fact just a pretence. Values still lurk just beneath the surface in both individuals and in culture generally and have an even more insidious grip for going unacknowledged. There is a rejection of things that suggest some kind of value — at odds with an apparent acceptance of all values that we might assume should be the stance of a tolerant society. At the same time, Western culture also seems to embrace truth as an ultimate value and quite readily speculates on truth as being transcendent. Mathematical ‘forms’ are regarded as somehow pre-existent or transcendent and yet such a notion would be rejected wholesale if it were suggested for beauty. Only the religious perhaps maintain a belief in transcendent goodness.
Modernism and post-modernism sit awkwardly side by side therefore and present us with a double standard of truth. Modernism still clings to a transcendent truth of science and mathematics and yet at the same time argues for relativity in all other aspects of truth. We can somehow have a personal subjective truth that is okay for us so long as it does not overlap any scientific truth. Likewise, goodness and beauty are seen as subjective, but there is a rejection of strongly-held values as well as a rejection of beauty for its own sake that might be expressed in sensuality. There is a common disregard for the ‘sensualist’ in art, perhaps exemplified by criticisms of neo-classicism. This seems strange and contradictory in an intellectual environment that usually purports to be post-modern. A broader aesthetic that might find expression in a bohemian or decadent lifestyle may also be questioned.
We only have the liberty of such ambivalence because of centuries of struggle in the West. Modernism has fought to separate science, art and theology as well as promote democracy and equality. Church, State, Monarchy and the Law can all act independently. This permits us the freedom to express whatever we like in words and pictures without fear of being branded either a traitor or a blasphemer or both. The Monarchy cannot stand above the Law. The Church can hold theological and moral precepts of its own, but cannot enforce them via the State — and so on. Perhaps most of us do not stop to think what a privilege this situation is and how genuinely unique in terms of the history of human civilisations and cultures. There are still relatively few countries in the world where such freedom is even understood, let alone permitted. However, those hard-won freedoms of Western culture come with a heavy price. We are rudderless and ambivalent as a society, and often in denial.
What are we to make of this? Thomas Moore reminds us of the overarching wildness and mystery from which we have come:
‘Mystery is not a vague unknown; it is a specific unknowable… Contemporary western life is often split into frenetic passions and emotions that break out destructively in city streets and in family homes, and an endless supply of explanations, interpretation, and solutions is offered. What is missing here is the soul, evoked by an archetypal imagination in which the passions and the imagination combine in an alchemy that generates our humanity.’
Thomas Moore — The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life
As Moore suggests, this lack of soulfulness and the ambiguity is made manifest by peculiarities in our culture. On the surface, everything is very ordered, clean, tidy and efficient, but underneath all is not so well. On occasion, ‘chaos’ breaks out. There are substitute gratifications such as material wealth and power. There is an obsession with the image of death, but a denial of death itself. There is an obsession with the image of the body, but a denial of the body itself. There is an obsessional belief in individual freedom, but we protect that freedom with the threat of extreme violence. There is an obsession with sport, an obsession with celebrity, a compulsion toward status, a compulsion toward fixing trivial problems whilst global concerns are ignored or denied. There are outpourings of emotion over relatively inconsequential matters whilst war, famine and pollution continue to wreak havoc. There is a strange ‘shadow life’ of internet trolls, paedophiles, misogynists, racists, homophobics and religious fundamentalists, whilst outwardly society claims to be equal and tolerant. All of this, I suggest, is a clinging to things — both materially, emotionally and subjectively. Clinging onto ‘stuff’. Fear of old age and death. Fear of not looking attractive. Fear of our own bodies. Fear that other lifestyles and other views will force us to re-evaluate our own lives. The holding onto paranoid and aggressive views whilst at the same time maintaining a ‘front’ of reasonableness and tolerance. All of this speaks of a society that is psychotic.
Perhaps there is good reason for people to seek escape in various ways from lives and routines that have become mind-numbingly predictable. But the various forms of ‘escape’ that are sought lack any clear direction. Creativity is frustrated. We have tamed the inner wildness of ourselves, because of our culture’s taming of the outer wildness of nature. So, our efforts at creativity are trivialised. Perhaps then, ‘obscene’ graffiti speaks to us about an eroticism that we fail to give adequate expression to in our culture. Wildness, walled in, will seek whatever means available to find its expression. Wildness is the domain of soul -the adventure of essence in the world. We need to claim this word soul back for ourselves and re-evaluate the place of soul in all aspects of our lives.
Western culture thinks that a subjective, soulful, enchanted view of life is somehow just fanciful and irrelevant. The desire-driven, body-centred, imaginative and creative aspects of our lives – in which we should be taking delight - are denied to us almost from birth by a culture that disparages such things as being superficial, self-indulgent and psychotic. Culture however is in denial of desire. Genuine desire is thwarted and replaced by power over and power under dynamics and the substitute desires of materialism, wealth and status.
What we have identified as the ascendant view of life is seen as the only possible view. This view recognises no boundaries in terms of knowledge of a world that is regarded as solely material and objective. The ascendant view of life also sees no boundary in potential power and control over nature. An economy of descendancy would see the erotic expressed through relationship between embodied persons and between persons and the ecosystem of which we form a part. It would perceive Agapé as the community in which such relationships would be nurtured and sustained. Imagination and creativity would recover proper focus.
