Metabolized “Mendacity”
In yesterday’s blog I referred – without elaboration – to a human need for the source of knowing to be given believable properties. A little abstraction only goes so far. We may call it “the light” or “God” or “inspiration” or a few other less emotion-laden names, but finally – though it may take centuries – any such calling must wear thin. Metaphors must stand for something.
Well, no. That’s not true. A metaphor need stand for nothing if by “nothing” we mean nothing real. We may imagine that something unnamed and apparently unnamable exists, and make up a descriptive word – a metaphor – to stand for that “something.” We can then speak of nothing as if it were something, and be pleased with ourselves that we have so cleverly “figured things out.” We may in fact believe so strongly in the nothing we have given a name to that our entire psychical makeup organizes itself around the figment as if it were the most authentic aspect of our being. Because the reality of our metaphor has remained nameless, it remains also limitless. We can make it mean anything. We can decorate nothingness with so many aesthetic embellishments that it seems more real than reality.
From this view of “creativity” you can perhaps catch a glimpse of the impulse that led the skeptical philosophers of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries to their ultimate heresy. Being relatively bright fellows they could see that the structure of belief erected around the metaphor “God” was almost completely shot through with imaginary properties. Examining those parts they considered genuine, they saw what they believed to be an accumulation of unprovable qualities. They saw the very body of intuitive knowledge Spinoza had described (not too well) in the 17th century, but because this reality could not be demonstrated by the method of induction (it could only be assumed) they treated it as if it were a mere convenience arranged by human minds to make the world seem real. Because they had been conditioned to believe God and his creation were separate beings, and because any semblance of reality he seemed to possess appeared to exist only in the created part, they came to the conclusion that if God were real his existence – like the trustworthiness of intuition – could only be assumed, not proven.
It did not occur to these people to see the relationship of God and intuition as an identity, even though they had Spinoza’s theory to guide them. God was supposed to be outside the world, not real within it. To imagine otherwise was apparently verboten.
I will not go too far into an analysis of the emotional fear for their lives that may have influenced the early skeptics, though it is not difficult to conceive that those fears were real. They had certainly guided Spinoza to withhold the publication of the Ethics and to publish anonymously his Treatise on Theology and Politics. When Kant himself was challenged to defend his own heretical Critique his defense consisted of a claim that the book was so “esoteric” it could not possibly be understood by the common people, a defense no longer true, since the work has been “translated” into plain words by many commentators. Suffice it to say (as they say) that, for self protection, Kant and the early skeptics sought to retain as much of the metaphorical God as could be made consistent with their philosophy.
So, what happens when we take the leap out of the superstitions of the past into reality? To put this question more practically: is it at all possible to transform the minds of the six-billion from their emotional attachment to the comforts of the unreal without risking the complete destruction of civilization as we know it? Can we imagine a movement from a world grounded in other-worldness to a world in which a critical mass of its people trust absolutely the dictates of reason? It is difficult for me to see how this could happen in a world in which our most fundamental reality continues to be spoken of in appealing metaphors. It is difficult for me to imagine that the brightest among us – the so-called intelligentsia – might switch off those of their mental genes that are so compulsively wired to a belief in the unreality of the real. It is difficult for me to imagine that minds completely inured in fantasy can become hard-shell realists.
Any optimism that remains for me traces in large, not so much to the so-called liberal religious movement as to the mindset of those who call themselves infidels, pagans, and atheists. They have made it through the most difficult of the transition, shucking off the more comforting beliefs of the old order. Resigned to a world of nothingness, they are perhaps more amenable to acceptance of Spinoza’s God. We shuck off much more rapidly emotions of sorrow than emotions of joy, and nothingness, meaninglessness, and Godlessness are certainly sorrowful states of being (or so it would seem to me). Failing the imminent transformation of the empty ones, I cannot imagine those filled with joyful error being moved off their “religion,” not without the birth (and crucifixion?) of a new Messiah.
Perhaps – call this a wish, a dream – the Coming is to be heralded by the emergence of a few new shepherds and wise men, people who sense the miracle but, like an humble mouse, are unable themselves to do much more than follow stars and listen to angelic voices, hoping beyond hope that words and ideas can do the work heretofore entrusted to the Creator.
Better yet, call it a prayer.
Well, no. That’s not true. A metaphor need stand for nothing if by “nothing” we mean nothing real. We may imagine that something unnamed and apparently unnamable exists, and make up a descriptive word – a metaphor – to stand for that “something.” We can then speak of nothing as if it were something, and be pleased with ourselves that we have so cleverly “figured things out.” We may in fact believe so strongly in the nothing we have given a name to that our entire psychical makeup organizes itself around the figment as if it were the most authentic aspect of our being. Because the reality of our metaphor has remained nameless, it remains also limitless. We can make it mean anything. We can decorate nothingness with so many aesthetic embellishments that it seems more real than reality.
From this view of “creativity” you can perhaps catch a glimpse of the impulse that led the skeptical philosophers of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries to their ultimate heresy. Being relatively bright fellows they could see that the structure of belief erected around the metaphor “God” was almost completely shot through with imaginary properties. Examining those parts they considered genuine, they saw what they believed to be an accumulation of unprovable qualities. They saw the very body of intuitive knowledge Spinoza had described (not too well) in the 17th century, but because this reality could not be demonstrated by the method of induction (it could only be assumed) they treated it as if it were a mere convenience arranged by human minds to make the world seem real. Because they had been conditioned to believe God and his creation were separate beings, and because any semblance of reality he seemed to possess appeared to exist only in the created part, they came to the conclusion that if God were real his existence – like the trustworthiness of intuition – could only be assumed, not proven.
It did not occur to these people to see the relationship of God and intuition as an identity, even though they had Spinoza’s theory to guide them. God was supposed to be outside the world, not real within it. To imagine otherwise was apparently verboten.
I will not go too far into an analysis of the emotional fear for their lives that may have influenced the early skeptics, though it is not difficult to conceive that those fears were real. They had certainly guided Spinoza to withhold the publication of the Ethics and to publish anonymously his Treatise on Theology and Politics. When Kant himself was challenged to defend his own heretical Critique his defense consisted of a claim that the book was so “esoteric” it could not possibly be understood by the common people, a defense no longer true, since the work has been “translated” into plain words by many commentators. Suffice it to say (as they say) that, for self protection, Kant and the early skeptics sought to retain as much of the metaphorical God as could be made consistent with their philosophy.
So, what happens when we take the leap out of the superstitions of the past into reality? To put this question more practically: is it at all possible to transform the minds of the six-billion from their emotional attachment to the comforts of the unreal without risking the complete destruction of civilization as we know it? Can we imagine a movement from a world grounded in other-worldness to a world in which a critical mass of its people trust absolutely the dictates of reason? It is difficult for me to see how this could happen in a world in which our most fundamental reality continues to be spoken of in appealing metaphors. It is difficult for me to imagine that the brightest among us – the so-called intelligentsia – might switch off those of their mental genes that are so compulsively wired to a belief in the unreality of the real. It is difficult for me to imagine that minds completely inured in fantasy can become hard-shell realists.
Any optimism that remains for me traces in large, not so much to the so-called liberal religious movement as to the mindset of those who call themselves infidels, pagans, and atheists. They have made it through the most difficult of the transition, shucking off the more comforting beliefs of the old order. Resigned to a world of nothingness, they are perhaps more amenable to acceptance of Spinoza’s God. We shuck off much more rapidly emotions of sorrow than emotions of joy, and nothingness, meaninglessness, and Godlessness are certainly sorrowful states of being (or so it would seem to me). Failing the imminent transformation of the empty ones, I cannot imagine those filled with joyful error being moved off their “religion,” not without the birth (and crucifixion?) of a new Messiah.
Perhaps – call this a wish, a dream – the Coming is to be heralded by the emergence of a few new shepherds and wise men, people who sense the miracle but, like an humble mouse, are unable themselves to do much more than follow stars and listen to angelic voices, hoping beyond hope that words and ideas can do the work heretofore entrusted to the Creator.
Better yet, call it a prayer.
posted by Benedict S. at 10:45 AM
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