Materialism and its Discontents II

Because of its phalanx of coercive methods, both cruel (e.g. dogmatic scientism and a public educational policy keeping spirituality out of schools in the west, and outright denial of religion in communist regimes) and gentle, (endless entertainment and the burgeoning pharmacology field) the second influence materialism wields over human intelligence is a rampant self-deception throughout all branches of the human sciences about human nature. This allows its believers to live in denial of the life-threatening effects of breathing the noxious “miasma of materialism”. (The Universal House of Justice, Messages 1963 to 1986:590) These fumes, so spiritually toxic, so fetid, foul, and putrid, are so heavy they can explode with a single spark.  Lack of true self-knowledge, yet believing, nonetheless, that one has self-knowledge, is self-deception at its worst.  It deludes the mind into believing the illusion is real.  This self-deception is the origin of most mental illnesses today, generated and given insubstantial form by what the document calls “a groundswell of anxiety and discontent, much of it only dimly conscious of the sense of spiritual emptiness that is producing it.”(One Common Faith: 6) 

We read earlier that Baha’u’llah called the materialist order of His day “lamentably defective.”  The House of Justice elaborated His meaning when they wrote in their 1985 document, The Promise of World Peace: “Flaws in the prevailing order are conspicuous in the inability of sovereign states organized as United Nations to exorcize the spectre of war, the threatened collapse of the international economic order, the spread of anarchy and terrorism, and the intense suffering which these and other afflictions are causing to increasing millions. Indeed, so much have aggression and conflict come to characterize our social, economic and religious systems, that many have succumbed to the view that such behaviour is intrinsic to human nature and therefore ineradicable.”

The Bahá’í International Community at the United Nations, guided by the House, stated in their October 1995 message, Turning Point For All Nations: “With respect to social issues, likewise, grave problems persist. While new levels of consensus have been reached on global programs to promote health, sustainable development and human rights, the situation on the ground in many areas has deteriorated. The alarming spread of militant racialism and religious fanaticism, the cancerous growth of materialism, the epidemic rise of crime and organized criminality, the widespread increase in mindless violence, the ever-deepening disparity between rich and poor, the continuing inequities faced by women, the intergenerational damage caused by the pervasive break-down of family life, the immoral excesses of unbridled capitalism and the growth of political corruption—all speak to this point.” (Baha'i International Community, 1995 Oct, Turning Point For All Nations)

But the House of Justice, again following reasoning that goes back as far as the earliest known statements of any Manifestation of God, explained that these outer and visible flaws flow from a fundamental misconception of human nature as inherently selfish, aggressive and competitive, and it is this false belief that really torpedoes any hope for an enduring improvement of human affairs: “With the entrenchment of this view, a paralyzing contradiction has developed in human affairs. On the one hand, people of all nations proclaim not only their readiness but their longing for peace and harmony, for an end to the harrowing apprehensions tormenting their daily lives. On the other, uncritical assent is given to the proposition that human beings are incorrigibly selfish and aggressive and thus incapable of erecting a social system at once progressive and peaceful, dynamic and harmonious, a system giving free play to individual creativity and initiative but based on co-operation and reciprocity.

As the need for peace becomes more urgent, this fundamental contradiction, which hinders its realization, demands a reassessment of the assumptions upon which the commonly held view of mankind's historical predicament is based. Dispassionately examined, the evidence reveals that such conduct, far from expressing man's true self, represents a distortion of the human spirit.” (The Universal House of Justice, 1985 Oct, The Promise of World Peace)

            Then they state the root of all defects in any system built upon this false belief and paralyzing contradiction: “Most particularly, it is in the glorification of material pursuits, at once the progenitor and common feature of all such ideologies, that we find the roots which nourish the falsehood that human beings are incorrigibly selfish and aggressive. It is here that the ground must be cleared for the building of a new world fit for our descendants.

“That materialistic ideals have, in the light of experience, failed to satisfy the needs of mankind calls for an honest acknowledgement that a fresh effort must now be made to find the solutions to the agonizing problems of the planet. The intolerable conditions pervading society bespeak a common failure of all, a circumstance which tends to incite rather than relieve the entrenchment on every side. Clearly, a common remedial effort is urgently required. It is primarily a matter of attitude.” (The Universal House of Justice, 1985 Oct, The Promise of World Peace)

“The time has come,” the document goes on, “when those who preach the dogmas of materialism, whether of the east or the west, whether of capitalism or socialism, must give account of the moral stewardship they have presumed to exercise. Where is the "new world" promised by these ideologies? Where is the international peace to whose ideals they proclaim their devotion? Where are the breakthroughs into new realms of cultural achievement produced by the aggrandizement of this race, of that nation or of a particular class? Why is the vast majority of the world's peoples sinking ever deeper into hunger and wretchedness when wealth on a scale undreamed of by the Pharaohs, the Caesars, or even the imperialist powers of the nineteenth century is at the disposal of the present arbiters of human affairs?” (The Universal House of Justice, 1985 Oct, The Promise of World Peace)

Whatever benefits the materialist order and era has brought to humanity, and there are both material and intellectual benefits, as the document, One Common Faith, points out: “Clearly, materialism’s error has lain not in the laudable efforts to improve the conditions of life, but in the narrowness of mind and unjustified self-confidence that have defined its mission.” (p.10)

What makes materialism—i.e. the interpretation of reality backed by science, the goals which this interpretation sets, and the social system built upon it—so untenable, so unsteady, so explosive, so chimerical, is that it promises so much but has never had the resources to realize its promise, for it relies solely upon human thought and energy working through material means  It unknowingly subverts its own goals and purposes by this narrowness of vision, lack of moral discipline and denial of greater spiritual powers.  The terrible “agonizing disjunction” coupled with the failure of either aggressive materialism to completely conquer the soul or the use of soporifics of every kind to dull the anxiety has brought humanity into open rebellion against this spiritual tyranny.    

Materialism and its Discontents

To say that materialism is an illusion does not mean that it is without influence or reality.  But these depend upon context of belief.  Europeans, for example, believed that the earth was flat, and lived within that reality for hundreds of years.  But the “real” reality was both different from and larger than the believed one.  Similarly, Newtonian physics was thought to explain all of physics for, roughly, a similar number of years, yet Relativity Theory and Quantum Physics have shown the “truth” of Newtonian physics is limited to ordinary sense experience in a three-dimensional world.  A similar relation of larger reality to smaller one holds between spiritual and material reality.  The power of Divine Revelation to periodically reshape human perception of material, social, and spiritual reality is unmatched.  But human beings can perceive spiritual reality with fidelity only if “the faculty of recognizing the one true God” is in healthy working order.  

Materialism’s power, as I see it, is a kind of febrile deception.  This may seem paradoxical, given that materialism achieved dominance over the minds and hearts of people.  The modern West, with its powerful combination of capitalist production and liberal democratic state, has been the great success story of the last four hundred years.  Others, quite naturally and legitimately, want those same material benefits.  But we should remember two things.  First, while materialism “enervates” and “enfeebles” the spiritual powers of the soul, (e.g. the faculty of recognizing Him), the lower nature and its passions are greatly strengthened. Secondly, materialism arose in Europe as a competing ideology that overpowered religion because religion had become a narrow treadmill of dogmatic assumptions and clamorous exhortations to blind faith in the church and its moribund teachings.  It was riddled with what ‘Abdu’l-Baha often called imitations and superstitions. A weakened spiritual perception, resulting from the loss of truth in religion and the consequent degeneration of the faculty to recognize the Word of God, left the heart, which is, I believe, the faculty that  recognizes God, in search of an object or power to love, for the heart’s nature is to love.  I believe that the heart is that faculty because Baha’u’llah wrote, for example, that “the heart is the throne, in which the Revelation of God the All-Merciful is centered…”( Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah:185)

The primary illusion created by materialism is from the curtained veil it throws up to hide the spirit from view.  It does this through its dogmatic assertion of the needlessness of religion, its lack of acknowledgement of the reality of spirit, its obscuring of the heart’s power to perceive revealed truth, its assertion of the sufficiency of material riches, and the success of physical science to explain the workings of material reality. 

The greatest success of the materialist era has been the creation of vast material wealth, though that wealth is unjustly distributed.  This fact is both undisputed and extremely alluring.  But, it is not materialism that has generated this wealth, but physical science, technology and capitalism, “inventions” of the west, along with democracy.  Materialism, again, is an interpretation of reality, backed by a scientific epistemology that opposes religion’s interpretation.  This interpretation seems to be correct, but that is from the false belief that material reality IS reality, and, because the faculty that directly recognizes spiritual reality has degenerated.  It is like a blind man who denies that color exists, because within the narrow reality of his own experience it does not.

By itself materialism neither justifies nor condemns capitalism, but uses it.  Where materialism directly influences economic arrangements is in the realm of values.  Materialism subverts traditional values honoring fair exchange and price, collective concern, and respect for the natural environment. (I am not arguing that people held to these values, for they obviously didn’t with any strength.  I am only saying that these were values that were supposed to be followed.  Materialists do not hold the values at all.)   Instead, it justifies, rationalizes and legitimates, both in law and mores, unlimited private gain, a self-regulating “free market”, dismisses concerns for future generations, exploits the natural environment, and rationalizes lavish consumer spending.  It turns the market economy into what Karl Polanyi called, in a telling phrase, a “market society”—a society structured upon and operating through not human values but market ones.  Capitalism is simply, in this view, the economic strategy materialism uses to accomplish these short-sighted goals.  And “short-sighted” may be the key term when describing materialism at every level and turn of the mind.  If there is no reality beyond the physical, if life ends in every sense at physical death, then one naturally wants to live as comfortably as possible within the span of one’s life on earth, will work hard to gain those riches, will justify one’s own comfort, will stigmatize those less fortunate as unworthy or just lazy, will hold fast the levers of social and political power to ensure uninterrupted comfort, and will see the friend competitively as a real or potential enemy, all results of a deficient moral code upheld by a good number of self-serving, self-deceptive reasons, such as racial superiority, hardwork, greater natural intelligence, and the like. 

The first and perhaps worst damage that a materialistic interpretation of reality inflicts upon human beings is what the House of Justice calls an “agonizing disjunction between the inner and outer experience”. (One Common Faith: 5) It does this by denying altogether or marginalizing inner spiritual experiences, calling them “nothing but” experiences—all in your head, imaginary, illusory, psychotic, something to be drained from the mind like pus from an infection, so “reality” can be seen.  The disjunction of inner and outer experience creates a false dichotomy in thought, and all such polarities are created to set one pole against another and then to argue one pole away, in this case the spiritual.  It becomes a moral thing.  Rooting out the spiritual becomes a holy war against the enemy who is a friend.  Belief in God itself is a wicked heresy in a godless world hell-bent on its own Inquisition against religion and faith. 

There is no real dichotomy between the spiritual and material aspects of the human being, the latter being the instrument to carry out the commands of the former.  But materialism inverts this relation, calling the instrument the commander and calling the commander a ghost, a specter, unreal, a product of weak minds seeking compensation for failure, an anxiety-fix, wishful thinking, a sheep’s mentality.

But a real dichotomy exists between spirituality, which is progress of any kind in the world of matter, and materialism, which is a cancerous concern for material well-being that denies the spiritual as real.  When materialism and its values are in control then the dominant impulses of the spirit are selfish and avaricious.  The Master stated it best: “(W)hen man does not open his mind and heart to the blessing of the spirit, but turns his soul towards the material side, towards the bodily part of his nature, then is he fallen from his high place and he becomes inferior to the inhabitants of the lower animal kingdom. In this case the man is in a sorry plight! For if the spiritual qualities of the soul, open to the breath of the Divine Spirit, are never used, they become atrophied, enfeebled, and at last incapable; whilst the soul's material qualities alone being exercised, they become terribly powerful—and the unhappy, misguided man, becomes more savage, more unjust, more vile, more cruel, more malevolent than the lower animals themselves. All his aspirations and desires being strengthened by the lower side of the soul's nature, he becomes more and more brutal, until his whole being is in no way superior to that of the beasts that perish. Men such as this, plan to work evil, to hurt and to destroy; they are entirely without the spirit of Divine compassion, for the celestial quality of the soul has been dominated by that of the material. If, on the contrary, the spiritual nature of the soul has been so strengthened that it holds the material side in subjection, then does the man approach the Divine; his humanity becomes so glorified that the virtues of the Celestial Assembly are manifested in him; he radiates the Mercy of God, he stimulates the spiritual progress of mankind, for he becomes a lamp to show light on their path.” (Paris Talks:96)

Materialism: The Dominant World Faith

Likewise didst thou ask whether, in this Bahá'í Dispensation, the spiritual will ultimately prevail. It is certain that spirituality will defeat materialism, that the heavenly will subdue the human, and that through divine education the masses of mankind generally will take great steps forward in all degrees of life—except for those who are blind and deaf and mute and dead.

(Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha:191)

The House of Justice continued to hammer at the theme, adding further definition to the human construct that is materialism.  They wrote in their first year of “civilization torn by strifes and enfeebled by materialism.” (From a letter of the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá'ís of the East and West, December 18, 1963)

The Bahá’í International Community at the United Nations stated in their October 1995 message, Turning Point For All Nations: “With respect to social issues, likewise, grave problems persist. While new levels of consensus have been reached on global programs to promote health, sustainable development and human rights, the situation on the ground in many areas has deteriorated. The alarming spread of militant racialism and religious fanaticism, the cancerous growth of materialism, the epidemic rise of crime and organized criminality, the widespread increase in mindless violence, the ever-deepening disparity between rich and poor, the continuing inequities faced by women, the intergenerational damage caused by the pervasive break-down of family life, the immoral excesses of unbridled capitalism and the growth of political corruption—all speak to this point.”

So pervasive and encompassing did materialism become that the House of Justice stated in the document, One Common Faith: “Early in the twentieth century, a materialistic interpretation of reality had consolidated itself so completely as to become the dominant world faith insofar as the direction of society was concerned.”(p.3)  Its domination over the minds of people was backed by a powerful coercive silencing of competing voices: “Having penetrated and captured all significant centers of power and information at the global level, dogmatic materialism ensured that no competing voices would retain the ability to challenge projects of world wide economic exploitation.” (p.5)

In several messages since then to the Bahá’í world the House of Justice briefly calls attention to the deterioration of  political life that continues unabated from the deficient moral code that “governs” materialism:  “That political life everywhere has continued to deteriorate at an alarming rate in the intervening years, as the very conception of statesmanship has been drained of meaning, as policies have come to serve the economic interests of the few in the name of progress, as hypocrisy has been allowed to undermine the operation of social and economic structures, is evident.” (Letter to Conference of Continental Boards of Counsellors, 28 December 2010.)

On the destructive effect that materialism exerts upon the young, the House wrote: “What needs to be appreciated in this respect is the extent to which young minds are affected by the choices parents make for their own lives, when, no matter how unintentionally, no matter how innocently—its admiration for power, its adoration of status, its love of luxuries, its attachment to frivolous pursuits, its glorification of violence, and its obsession with self-gratification.  It must be realized that the isolation and despair from which so many suffer are products of an environment ruled by an all-pervasive materialism.” (Letter to Conference of Counsellors 28 December 2010)

Yet, when there is a real struggle for change: “No matter how captivating the spectacle of the people’s fervor for change, it must be remembered that there are interests which manipulate the course of events.  And, so long as the remedy prescribed by the Divine Physician is not administered, the tribulations of this age will persist and deepen.  An attentive observer of the times will readily recognize the accelerated disintegration, fitful but relentless, of a world order lamentably defective.” (Ridvan 2011)

Though materialism is a world-devouring flame, the ash from its burning creates another response: “Passivity is bred by the forces of society today.  A desire to be entertained is nurtured from childhood, with increasing efficiency, cultivating generations willing to be led by whoever proves skilful at appealing to superficial emotions.” (Ridvan 2010)

And in a recent message addressed to Bahá’í youth in Iran: “We live in an age when the role of religion in shaping human thought and in guiding individual and collective conduct is increasingly discounted. In societies that have bowed to the dictates of materialism, organized religion is seeing the sphere of its influence contract, becoming confined mostly to the realm of personal experience. Not infrequently the laws of religion are regarded as arbitrary rules blindly obeyed by those incapable of independent thought or as a prudish and outdated code of conduct hypocritically imposed upon others by advocates who, themselves, fail to live up to its demands. Morality is being redefined in such societies, and materialistic assumptions, values, and practices pertaining to the nature of humankind and its economic and social life are taking on the status of unassailable truth.

Indeed, the expenditure of enormous energy and vast amounts of resources in an attempt to bend truth to conform to personal desire is now a feature of many contemporary societies. The result is a culture that distorts human nature and purpose, trapping human beings in pursuit of idle fancies and vain imaginings and turning them into pliable objects in the hands of the powerful. Yet, the happiness and well-being of humanity depend upon the opposite: cultivating human character and social order in conformity with reality. Divine teachings shed light on reality, enabling every soul to investigate it properly and to acquire, through the exercise of personal discipline, those attributes that are to distinguish the human being. "Man should know his own self", Bahá'u'lláh states, "and recognize that which leadeth unto loftiness or lowliness, glory or abasement, wealth or poverty." (Challenges for Bahá'í Youth in a Western Way of Life by Universal House of Justice 2013-04-19)

I have dwelt at some length upon the imagery of materialism in the Bahá’í Writings to emphasize the point that materialism, because it is an entire order of life, thought and belief, is an interpretation of reality in all its manifold facets: a hydra-headed beast with many aspects.  In its late stages, i.e. since the mid nineteenth century, it is a “devouring flame” associated both with “hell made to blaze”, the release of “the forces of dissension”, with “tumult” and “commotion”.  It is a “sea” in which humanity is submerged and drowning, a veil that obscures spiritual reality and clouds perception.  It is “crass” “relentless”, “all-pervasive” and “rampant”, growing like a cancer, “a cesspool” “pervading all departments of life” and it enervates and enfeebles the higher powers of the soul which then allows the “baser forces of human nature” to be unbridled.  This ugly growth had, according to the House of Justice, consolidated itself so completely by the early twentieth century as to become “the dominant world faith insofar as the direction of society was concerned.”  Materialism is also associated with modernity, both as a social structure and a faith.  It originated in the “west” but spread to all parts of the globe.

Humanity is in the grip of this dangerous illusion, and many blame “the West” for their troubles.  Though originators, chief proponents and main exporters of materialism, the West is not to blame for others binding themselves with the chains of the same illusion.  People choose their reality, if they have the power to do so, or it is chosen for them, as is the case with most people.  No culture was able to prevent the Trojan horse of materialism from entering its gates and insidiously subverting its traditional values and goals.  But that says more about the feeble defenses of traditional culture than it does about the great strength of the truth of materialism.  Yet, from a spiritual perspective, materialism is an illusion, a smoke and mirrors fog of flaming desires and enchanting allurements, a blinding dust storm of contending intellectual passions and fruitless wars.  Humanity is now in open revolt against it.

Next post will begin an examination of some of the facets of that revolt.

The Revolt Against Materialism: The Guardian Speaks

Likewise didst thou ask whether, in this Bahá'í Dispensation, the spiritual will ultimately prevail. It is certain that spirituality will defeat materialism, that the heavenly will subdue the human, and that through divine education the masses of mankind generally will take great steps forward in all degrees of life—except for those who are blind and deaf and mute and dead.

(Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha:191)

I am continuing to review quotes from the Bahá’í Writings on materialism.  This post focuses upon statements from Shoghi Effendi.

The Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith wrote often, also in vibrant and virulent language, denouncing materialism and its attendant evils. 

Early in his Guardianship he warned: “What can control youth and save it from the pitfalls of the crass materialism of the age is the power of a genuine, constructive and living Faith such as the one revealed to the world by Bahá'u'lláh. Religion, as in the past is still the world's sole hope, but not that form of religion which our ecclesiastical leaders strive vainly to preach. Divorced from true religion, morals lose their effectiveness and cease to guide and control man's individual and social life. But when true religion is combined with true ethics, then moral progress becomes a possibility and not a mere ideal.

"The need of our modern youth is for such a type of ethics founded on pure religious faith. Not until these two are rightly combined and brought into full action can there be any hope for the future of the race." (From a letter Written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer, April 17, 1926,)

 “America”, he wrote in his 1938 letter, The Advent of Divine Justice, was “immersed in a sea of materialism, a prey to one of the most virulent and long-standing forms of racial prejudice, and notorious for its political corruption, lawlessness and laxity in moral standards.” (The Advent of Divine Justice: 19)    Later in that same work he stigmatized America’s materialism as “excessive and enervating.” (The Advent of Divine Justice:29)

A few years later, 1944, he wrote of the fate of religion in a materialist world: “This vital force is dying out, this mighty agency has been scorned, this radiant light obscured, this impregnable stronghold abandoned, this beauteous robe discarded. God Himself has indeed been dethroned from the hearts of men, and an idolatrous world passionately and clamorously hails and worships the false gods which its own idle fancies have fatuously created, and its misguided hands so impiously exalted. The chief idols in the desecrated temple of mankind are none other than the triple gods of Nationalism, Racialism and Communism, at whose altars governments and peoples, whether democratic or totalitarian, at peace or at war, of the East or of the West, Christian or Islamic, are, in various forms and in different degrees, now worshiping. Their high priests are the politicians and the worldly-wise, the so-called sages of the age; their sacrifice, the flesh and blood of the slaughtered multitudes; their incantations outworn shibboleths and insidious and irreverent formulas; their incense, the smoke of anguish that ascends from the lacerated hearts of the bereaved, the maimed, and the homeless.

The theories and policies, so unsound, so pernicious, which deify the state and exalt the nation above mankind, which seek to subordinate the sister races of the world to one single race, which discriminate between the black and the white, and which tolerate the dominance of one privileged class over all others—these are the dark, the false, and  crooked doctrines for which any man or people who believes in them, or acts upon them, must, sooner or later, incur the wrath and chastisement of God.” (The Promised Day is Come:113-114)

Still later, near the end of his Guardianship, he wrote of the “cesspool of materialism” (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, April 5, 1956)  And later that same year: “.. the condition that the world is in is bringing many issues to a head. It would be perhaps impossible to find a nation or people not in a state of crisis today. The materialism, the lack of true religion and the consequent baser forces in human nature which are being released, have brought the whole world to the brink of probably the greatest crisis it has ever faced or will have to face.” (From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States, July 19, 1956) (Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 131)

In the 1950’s again about America, he wrote that: “pervading all departments of life—an evil which the nation, and indeed all those within the capitalist system, though to a lesser degree, share with that state and its satellites regarded as the sworn enemies of that system—is the crass materialism, which lays excessive and ever-increasing emphasis on material well-being, forgetful of those things of the spirit on which alone a sure and stable foundation can be laid for human society.” (Citadel of Faith:124)

In another missive, he wrote that the spirit of the Faith was necessary for “combatting the evil forces which a relentless and all-pervasive materialism, the cancerous growth of militant racialism, political corruption, unbridled capitalism, wide-spread lawlessness and gross immorality, are, alas, unleashing, with ominous swiftness, amongst various classes of the society to which the members of this community belong.” (Citadel of Faith:154)

In 1953 he wrote to an international conference in Kampala, Uganda warning that “…the evils of a gross, a rampant and cancerous materialism” were “undermining the fabric of human society alike in the East and in the West, eating into the vitals of the conflicting peoples and races inhabiting the American, the European and the Asiatic continents, and alas threatening to engulf in one common catastrophic convulsion the generality of mankind.” (Shoghi Effendi, Messages to the Baha'i World 1950-1957, p. 135—February 1953)
Next post will conclude the review of references from the Baha'i Writings on materialism by presenting statements from the Universal House of Justice.