Since materialism achieved unchallenged
influence over the lives and thoughts of the leaders of humanity early in the
twentieth-century, any attack against it must, by definition, be in the nature
of a revolt from within—both a product of and, in one sense, a contribution to
what Shoghi Effendi called “the forces of internal disintegration”. Though pitched battles are fought in the
outer world of the kind described by St. Paul as “against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places,” (Ephesians 6:12) outer battles among the members of
society are often reflections of an inner civil war—a war flaring in the space
left by that “agonizing disjunction.”
The essence of the revolt against materialism is not political action,
social upheaval, new economic policy or religious revival, but spiritual
yearning for reunion and connection with God, with oneself, with others, and with
Nature. The reason for the expanding
spiritual insurrection against materialism is that the human soul can no longer
endure a fractious materialism.
As I see it, the revolt from within the “lamentably
defective” order of materialism has three distinct levels to it: from within
the heart of religion; from within the human mind and soul; from within
society. Each level has its particular
purpose. For the most inward and deepest
level of religion the purpose is the renewing of the spirit of religion. At the level of consciousness, the purpose is
the restoring of a spiritual consciousness.
At the social level, the purpose is the reform of society on a spiritual
foundation.
If materialism is a
disintegrating order, then, as revolts, these are integrations and unifying
movements: unifying from the inside out, so to speak, starting at the deepest
level, religion, which influences consciousness whose changes, in turn, agitate
society into change. Though I will discuss
these in order, these revolts are occurring simultaneously. Nonetheless, we should understand: 1) that there
is a priority to them—religion is first; 2) that there is a cumulative effect to
their drive—one builds upon and reinforces the other; so that 3) there is an
acceleration of their disintegrating effects as they move through history till
the present day, and through space as they penetrate more areas of society—for
though they are unifying, they also create disunity. I mean that the spiritual structure of world unity,
brought into the world by the great spiritual Teachers, is now being organically
established and this work actually generates, as one of its effects, dissension,
commotion and tumult as the world tries vainly to assimilate this new
energy and pattern to old ways of thought and action.
To lay out this discussion
it will be necessary to remove many of our received opinions from the social
sciences about the
primary engines of social change characterizing modern history.
The first of these I will examine is the idea of modernity. Putting Revelation as the first and
essential Source of change goes to the heart of any discussion about modernity
and what its proponents say about religion and its role.
There is a good
deal of energetic discussion in academic circles about modernity and the
post-modern world, as brought about by the impact of technology and the
Industrial Revolution, science and the knowledge revolution, a new aesthetic
generating cultural revolutions, or political movements and revolutions, such
as the rise of democracy and the liberal state, or of communism, fascism, and
terrorism. That is because many assume,
quite rightly, that in the last three hundred years the most notable thing
about human beings and the way they live is their ability to produce undreamed
of material wealth. Before the modern
industrial revolution got up any real steam, technology had barely been able to
keep most people just above a subsistence level of life. But the introduction of machines and a
mechanized production process revolutionized human society. Whether that was for good or ill is the crux
of the modernist debate, and post-modern discussion takes its lead, one way or
another, from that same truth. But there
is one constant, one universal, in the whole debate, namely, none attribute the
beginnings of modernity to religion, except negatively.
As I have pointed out, by the early modern era, i.e.
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, materialism was a leading belief among
the learned classes because religion had already become effete and dogmatic,
reacting against powerful forces for change and progress at that time much as
the proponents of the false religion of materialism act today toward those who
would oppose it. Religion began to fall
when it had lost its transcendent purpose and its defeat became certain when it
became enmeshed in the world and encrusted with imitations and hoary
beliefs. It had ceased to progress,
becoming, rather, a shackle on the mind.
Hence, in relation
to “modernity”, religion, as a set of doctrines and structure of authority, has
been portrayed, correctly I believe, as, at best, a purely personal, subjective belief and
preference, and, at worst, out of touch and out of date, irrelevant,
irrational, fighting a rear-guard action, in retreat, or unable to come to
grips with “reality”. Its clamor is the
Neitzschean: “God is dead.” The negative
result, though, is that whole miserable parade of nihilism, despair, hate,
prejudice, tyranny, exploitation, evil and corruption that marches daily through
our news media. If these are modernity, let us get out of it as quickly as possible. But this view of religion is actually a straw man, not the reality.
The Bahá’í Writings
have a very different take on the spirit and form of modernity and thus make a
fundamentally different contribution to any discussion about its cause, nature
and progression. The Bahá’í Writings do
not just place the reality of religion within the discussion, but place it
first and central. Putting religion
there, redefines modernity entirely. ‘Abdu’l-Baha
stated: “This reformation and renewal of the
fundamental reality of religion constitute the true and outworking spirit of
modernism, the unmistakable light of the world, the manifest effulgence of the
Word of God, the divine remedy for all human ailment and the bounty of eternal
life to all mankind.” (The
Promulgation of Universal Peace, 440
If the absence of
true religion is the cause of our sickness, then the renewal and reformation of
it is the cure. We don’t see this, but not because religion is absent from
modernity, but because religion is invisible to it. Or, from the other side, modernity should not
be defined as the absence of religion, but humanity’s blindness to it. The rational,
scientific, material understanding as we know this complex mental structure and
its assumptions about reality systematically shut out the religious view. The anxiety, tyranny, confusion, immorality, despair,
and anarchy appearing more frequently in the world are characteristic of the
final stages of the life of any old, disintegrating organism. For me, what is called the beginning of
modernity is actually the end of antiquity, that world built up from the
Renaissance recovery of Greek and Roman thought. “God
is dead” is not a declaration of the demise of the Deity, but, rather, a
statement about the lifelessness of belief in God. God is dead, long live God. For me, materialism’s death-knell was sounded in
the mid-nineteenth century, even though its greatest heyday was yet to
come. If so, how did we miss it! The
answer, I believe, is the reverse of all that we have learned. This takes us to the core assumptions of materialist
epistemology—what is true knowledge—and I will propose an alternative view, a
sociology of the spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment