More on the issue of our Happy Talk society. This taken from something I wrote 6 years ago in Planet Titanic: --------------- The coming volumes [this refers to future writings of mine] will document a solemn reality that professional skeptics continue to deny while pointing to the ‘endless’ ingenuity of the human mind and man’s capacity and drive to surmount all obstacles. Many are charmed and comforted by such positive assertions: yet, I continue to avow that such mindless positivism avails no one. It is time to cast aside the banal positivism of contemporary neo‐positivist philosophies, such that only serve to support the iron clad hold of the dominant elites and their preferred socio‐economic system and to underwrite their mordant attempts to mock historical context, rationality, and even common sense and to turn compelling critique and contradiction into validation. In a similar vein, in her cogent work on the life and philosophy of Siddharta Gotama, Karen Armstrong points to the RADICAL CHALLENGE that the BUDDHA poses to a post‐modern world steeped in the “creeping new orthodoxy” of “positive thinking.” She points to an increasingly INSISTENT OPTIMISM which, at its worst, “allows us to bury our heads in the sand, deny the ubiquity of pain in ourselves and others, and to immure ourselves in a state of deliberate heartlessness to ensure our emotional survival,” like terrified children in a world in which, no matter how grim the reality, “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day.” She rightly contends that the BUDDHA would NEVER HAVE ACCEPTED such a COLD, CRUEL AND CALLOUS APPROACH TO LIFE because “the spiritual life cannot begin until people allow themselves to be invaded by the reality of suffering, realize how fully it permeates our whole experience, and FEEL THE PAIN of all other beings, even those whom we do not find congenial.” As long as we continue to LIVE IN DENIAL, “closing our minds and hearts to the universal pain, which surrounds us on all sides” Armstrong insists, “we remain locked in an undeveloped, [INFANTILE and DELUDED] version of ourselves, incapable of growth and spiritual insight,” incapable of seeing and reacting to the world as it really is. Luckily for mankind, it is not a question of whether modern man can, or should, aspire to the degree of “gentleness, fairness, equanimity, impartiality and serenity acquired by the Buddha.” Our near‐term task is far more practical, and far more easily achievable, than that—notwithstanding that we may still fail! We may not aspire to live the life of the Buddha but we can aspire to face up to reality. Therefore, I see no reason to dilute the truth as a prerequisite to entering into a dialogue with people who simply will not accede to a new reality . . . however painful it may be. It has become increasingly clear to me over recent years that it is too late to pursue ‘consensus’ and partake in unending loops of debate that merely play into the hands of those seeking to maintain the status quo and hinder any chance of meaningful action, any opportunity for meaningful change. Nonetheless, I vow not to close my mind to counter‐arguments—indeed, my intellectual curiosity demands nothing less: more importantly, my dedication to the final cause demands nothing less. What’s more, given the prevailing ‘global mindset’ in this the Late Capitalist era, the mindset which favors individualism, consumption and the accumulation of material wealth to a degree that has led to a pretentious, and socially crippling, moral disengagement—and this is a principal curse of our wretched one‐dimensional spiritual dystopia—any solution proposed today that is based upon a broad consensus must prove worthless. Moral disengagement is the comforting order of the day, allowing those of us who disproportionately benefit from social and economic inequity to justify their actions by uncoupling and unburdening themselves from the rational constraints of disciplined self‐censure. So, let me tell you, with resounding and unapologetic clarity . . . moral thought, moral reasoning, and moral intentions, however ‘heartfelt’, are no surrogate for actual moral conduct.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 15:54:35 +0000
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