NOTE: This post is being written prior to delivery of the new and posthumous ‘My Life Among the Deathworks’. See review by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn.
What I here report offers a contrasting view to the Teilhardian. Personally, I take no sides, seeing the possible validity of both views and believing in a benign destiny for all, though how soon this is arrived at must depend on our own efforts and use of reason.
Rieff calls our times the age of therapeutic man.
The two previous ages have been the age of fate and, following this, the age of faith. In the former, man’s actions were governed by the mythic whims of the gods, in the latter by the moral code of Judeo-Christianity. In each case these views were the common backdrop of human life rather than the conscious decision of any single person.
In this third age we have been released by Freud and his followers from all superstition and are now well into an era which seeks only personal happiness. This unfettered pursuit, as we see, can lead only to a descent into barren nihilism. Our backdrop is now ‘I will do as I please’. ... click "Read More"
If we recognize any veracity in Rieff's views and are serious, really serious, about the signs of the times we live in and the direction in which they are taking us, we would stop for a few moments, take careful stock, and seek to map out the steps that must be taken to halt the drift, fast becoming a race, towards cultural annihilation.
Long ago we deserted any sense of common purpose, and yet we continue to act as though we can just move along our disparate roads without this ending, sooner or later, in the dispersal of our society.
We bow to no commonly respected authority. We adhere to no commonly agreed moral code. We agree on no common aim beyond individual happiness and mere survival. In short, we no longer have what Reiff called ‘a sense of the sacred’ and, due to this, no acceptance of any mutual interdictory restraints. This is by no means freedom but the ultimate license and the final step of a journey into chaos. ‘We now make art’ says Rieff, by way of example, ‘not to contact the transcendent, but to alleviate boredom’.
Rieff, insofar as I have understood him, and I have only just met his ideas, advocates no solution to the (more than just academic) problem we face, certainly not a return to previous beliefs - he apparently hated nostalgia. Myself, I can vaguely visualize a new path which would at least recognize a ‘sacred framework’ for society. How to ensure its take up is another subject for discussion.
I wish I could see the School acting with any firm conviction in this area.
11 comments:
SOM said:
"In this third age we have been released by Freud and his followers from all superstition and are now well into an era which seeks only personal happiness. This unfettered pursuit, as we see, can lead only to a descent into barren nihilism. Our backdrop is now ‘I will do as I please’."
Although in many respects I could not disagree with many of the symptoms of our current age described here, I am interested in the prevailing view in the school towards psychology which I think is summed up in the phrase ‘Freud and his followers’ used above. I remember many years ago someone in the school saying to me, “there are two people the school doesn’t approve of; Marx and Freud.” Disregarding for the moment the relative merits of these thinkers, it seemed to me at this point that I had been confronted with a force of unreason in the school. Elsewhere, in some economics material was the phrase, “Marx was wrong”. No argument. No reasoned refutation. Simply a dogmatic statement that one was expected to agree with. Even if our view was sympathetic it would give no reasoned basis to be able to dialogue with a Marxist or a Freudian, because the whole subject is kept in a packing crate in Room 101, labelled “Subjects we’re not allowed to talk about”.
The statement ‘Freud and his followers’ just indicates unexamined prejudice as far as I’m concerned. This seems to be the old-school SES equation:
All psychology = Freud.
In truth, even Freud’s contemporaries didn’t agree with him:
“It is true that I fight Freud's psychology, because of its dogmatic claim to sole validity.”
~ Jung
Roberto Assagioli , another contemporary of Freud, developed his Psychosynthesis theory (here described on Wikipedia):
“Assagioli maintained that just as there was a lower unconscious, there was also a superconscious. He describes this as a realm of the psyche which contains our deepest potential, the source of the unfolding pattern of our unique human path of development.”
(arguably the very realm of revelation argued for elsewhere)
I‘m not defending psychology. I think it is still a primitive science. But what is ironical here is :
a) these thinkers were unusual in their defending ‘sense of the sacred’ in opposition to Freud
b) that the approach of the Pathwork website, recommended by SOM in a previous post, is not radically different from Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis, of which I have some personal experience. In fact I’m absolutely flabbergasted to hear an old-school type (no offence intended) recommend a website that uses the phrase ‘inner-child’. Wonders will never cease.
SOM said:
"We bow to no commonly respected authority. We adhere to no commonly agreed moral code. We agree on no common aim beyond individual happiness and mere survival."
Who are ‘we’ in this regard? Liberals? Atheists? Jews? Christians? Muslims? Western middle-class pseudo-advaitins? Who is the ‘commonly respected authority’ going to be for all these? Surely, since the invention of the printing press, the internet, immigration, scientific challenges of religious authority – we can no longer just raise children as, say, Christian, in isolation? If the idea were to have one consistent traditional ‘system’ that never changed then the influence of ‘Eastern’ ideas on the West was a terrible thing as it could only undermine these traditions. But if we can take a longer view, is it not inevitable that the influx of these ideas will lead to temporary dissolution, followed, if we are hopeful, by a more profound understanding? No one could possibly stop this process now anwyay, so why fight it? We cannot possibly go back.
Clearly all this is rather disorienting to the ‘average man’ who probably believes that science has proved religion to be a bunch of childish beliefs and hence acts, as you say, as though survival and pursuit of pleasure were all. But surely, at some point, he has to ‘know’ through his own reasoning, experience and his disillusionment with an ultimately unsatisfying hedonistic lifestyle? Knowing for yourself, through your own direct experience is arguably what Jung was on about with ‘individuation’. Not the masses blindly following an ‘authority’. Not the denial of the individual for the sake of ‘the state’ or other ‘organisation’. But each knowing for himself. I suspect many of us will take a somewhat circuitous route to arrive at this but it seems to me that the age of unquestioning obedience, for better or worse, has passed.
~~~
"There was once a student who never became a mathematician because he blindly believed the answers he found at the back of his math textbook - and, ironically, the answers were correct."
~ Anthony de Mello
~~~
Doing the sums is a messy process and every man alive is engaged in this. We need to help him where he is, through our everyday interactions, not give him the ‘answers’. The only people listening to scholars are other scholars.
I agree with Kapila's take, on the whole. One thing about the School that makes it unattractive is its negativity towards the present. Rieff appears to fall into the same bracket.
‘We now make art’ says Rieff, by way of example, ‘not to contact the transcendent, but to alleviate boredom’.
This is the voice of someone (Rieff) who hates art. I know a lot of artists (recreational and full-time) and the alleviation of boredom is not their principal motivation. There may be no discernible pattern or shape to contemporary art - it may, in fact, be in a mess - but no-one with any feeling for art or artists could say such a thing. Art has been buggered up by bad philosophy, but the artists keep trying.
I note, too, that the School has so far failed to support the arts, except administratively or financially. We have not provided inspiration, and have often got in the way of the artistic impulse.
Things at present are about as bad or good as they were in the 18th Century. Then, we got Methodism. I think that probably we do need another Methodism - a popular revival of spirituality and discipline for ordinary people. Maybe that is what is behind the rise in evangelical Christianity and Islam.
The middle classes can take care of themselves, and they do. Again - the School needs to break out of its ghetto and speak to ordinary, poorly educated people. Of which there are many, given the UK education system that was traditionally designed to fail 80% at 16. Other countries keep everyone in education to 18 and later - they're not more intelligent in Germany, are they?
Rieff sounds like an old-style elitist. Nothing wrong with that, so long as the aim of the elite is to disseminate virtues, values and material goods to all. But if the desire is to pull up the drawbridge, as it so often is, it becomes tribal.
Kevin said:
"Rieff sounds like an old-style elitist. Nothing wrong with that, so long as the aim of the elite is to disseminate virtues, values and material goods to all."
I agree that it is good that some are setting the standard of virtue, sticking to principle and communicating this. But to carry the de Mello analogy further: setting a high pass mark for the maths exam might cause the bright ones to try harder. Conversely, the less bright ones might see it as an impossible goal and give up completely. This is why I think the intention should be to help each take the next step, from wherever they are. Otherwise:
- the bright ones may become elitist, judgmental, and self-righteous
- the less bright give themselves up as hopeless failures
- the cheats learn the answers at the back, without having gone through the hard work of doing the sums
I think we need to understand the psychology of this. Setting unattainable standards in the age we live in doesn't seem terribly reasonable? Each just needs to discover their next step and take it. And service is to help people see this and do this. Not draw some arbitrary line and consider everyone above it one of the 'chosen ones', and everyone below it 'the damned'. I do not, and never have, wanted to belong to some 'sect'.
Footnote:
I just overheard one of my colleagues today on the phone hiring two cellos and a violin for his daughters. He’s not middle class, neither was he influenced by SES. He’s just an ordinary man with a desk job in a large company, endeavouring to bring some good influences to his family.
Someone has been in touch to say that this blog is interesting, but a bit off-puttingly brain-oriented. Maybe we need to be looking at ourselves in this regard?
OK, maybe I need to. ;-)
Dear Kapila,
Thank you for your quick response.
What I said about ‘Freud and his followers etc.’ was not meant to be an exposition of my own ideas, nor the School’s (for which I DO NOT , repeat DO NOT) speak, but part of a resume of Philip Rieff’s ideas. As for his qualification to speak, he was one of the foremost Freud scholars of his day and, in fact, editor of Freud’s papers, no less.
Rejection of Marx and Freud does not necessarily imply ‘a force of unreason’ if you know why you are rejecting them. Nonetheless, I agree that mere repetition of others’ rejections is unreasonable, reprehensible and common in the School.
I would love to have a meal with you to discuss why I think these thinkers are highly dangerous, but it would not be the School speaking, only myself after decades of private thought on the matter.
There are indeed aspects for which we should be very grateful to Freud, mainly, I believe, the discovery that human beings, far from being the reasonable, self-controlled agents they think themselves to be, are much of the time controlled by subconscious forces they know practically nothing of. I do not think that the School has even begun to recognize this fact, but that’s another story.
I really do object to being labelled an ‘old-school type’. I disagree with many of the School’s ways and many of the conclusions and practices of its founder.
The respect I have for some of the School’s approaches I retain after comprehensive independent evaluation, and does not, as far as I can help, derive from blind acceptance and unexamined obedience. I have an equally great respect for the website you mention and I am therefore interested in what you say about Assaglioli, another reason why it would be good to meet and discuss all this.
When I refer to ‘We bow… We adhere… We agree…’ I speak of modern, Western, fragmenting society of which we are all a part, for better or for worse.
I look forward to the ‘more profound understanding’ you say you are ‘hopeful’ about. One of the points I was trying to make was that hope is not enough on its own and that we should try to be clear as to what is needed in practical terms to help bring such a desirable thing to pass.
Finally, I thought I had made it clear that going back is not an option, at least not for Rieff, of whose ideas my post was meant to be an initial and summary exploration.
Kevin said:
"Someone has been in touch to say that this blog is interesting, but a bit off-puttingly brain-oriented. Maybe we need to be looking at ourselves in this regard?"
It's a bit difficult to play with clay or do Tai-Chi on a blog though... : )
Seriously though, why not invite this person to blog something from a different perspective? Don't blame the brain-ers. Make your own voice heard.
SOM said:
“Rejection of Marx and Freud does not necessarily imply ‘a force of unreason’ if you know why you are rejecting them.”
I didn’t and wouldn’t necessarily disagree with this. But like you, I believe Freud understood something important, even though his extrapolations were false. The point was the one you picked up on, that repetition without understanding isn’t helpful. In fact, repetition without understanding is, no doubt, the force that turns a living religion into the empty superstitions that Freud and others were so critical of.
SOM said:
“I really do object to being labelled an ‘old-school type’. I disagree with many of the School’s ways and many of the conclusions and practices of its founder. “
I didn’t mean to imply unquestioning obedience in this regard, only that it was unusual, given your conservative views in many areas, that you would endorse Pathwork and it’s therapeutic approach. I had clearly misunderstood the basis of your stance on psychology which you have clarified in your response. But the Rieff phrase ‘therapeutic man’ still seems to me somewhat derogatory. How does this fit with something like Pathwork? For me, the task of a ‘spiritual psychology’ is to bring the superstitions, subconscious mechanisms etc into the light, and transcend them. Does not therapy imply to restore one to health and wholeness? Is this bad?
SOM said:
“I look forward to the ‘more profound understanding’ you say you are ‘hopeful’ about. One of the points I was trying to make was that hope is not enough on its own and that we should try to be clear as to what is needed in practical terms to help bring such a desirable thing to pass.”
This brings up a recurring thought about individual vs universal responsibility. If we start to examine the universal issues it becomes frighteningly complex. If we take Freud again, I agree that he was ‘wrong’ if taken in isolation, but who’s to say whether it is part of the ‘plan’ that religious superstition needed challenging at this point in time? I would not usually accuse myself of ‘naïve’ hope. Quite the opposite. Nor am I suggesting, ‘do nothing’. I suggested that each of us needs to practise within our respective circles and that this will have more effect than moralising preachers who no-one in this age is going to listen to anyway, unless they are already converted.
I think many are overwhelmed by the world situation, like the complexities and bleak prospects surrounding the Iraq crisis. If I start worrying about this, which I do, I can’t see a way through it. So I do place ‘hope’ in a higher intelligence. I realise this isn’t a popular view amongst those committed to practical action but there was a Sri Ramana excerpt where someone asked him about world events. His response was to the effect of, “Do you think that the One who created the world made no provision for its protection?”. Perhaps individual vs universal responsibility is a topic for another post? I haven’t yet fully resolved this.
Hey, Jeremiah and other minor prophets -- I reckoned that with a bit of encouragement from Jesus, I'm living in the age of love -- which doesn't seem to worry its head too much about past and future...
I even detect it among quite a few of my mates in the School these days. Have I missed something ?
Right on, Anon (and where have I heard that voice before?)
Have to say I have some sympathy for SOM's last post. I also think Freud and Marx are wrong. It's just that when you passionately advance someone else's ideas, people will associate you with them.
Entertaining as this is, could we get back to this, some time soon: "A place to meet for honest and positive dialogue about the School, and about the Teaching it exists to offer. Stop, listen, respond and participate. A principal reference point is the words of His Holiness Sri Shantananda Sarasvati."
Kevin,
Re: Getting back on target: perhaps I'm wrong but I took SOM's latest posts as a refutation of the "Whole Men Move Together" post? i.e, if we accept Sack’s ‘Dignity of Difference’ hypothesis we will be over-run by the RCCs and fundamentalist Islam. Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps he isn’t. Is it unreasonable to dialogue on this?
I also don't see this exchange as entirely irrelevant to aims of the blog, namely in questioning the school's historical presentation of Marx and Freud; and SOM's points about how the school engages with the world, or not. I'm not sure why this should be considered 'off-topic' ?
Far be it from me to tell people off for wandering off the point
...
er, what was I saying again?
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