HSR, Climate and Comenius
By John Taylor; 2009 May 14, Jamal 17, 166 BE
I just posted on the Badi' blog a video produced by TVO's "Big Ideas" of a lecture by Canada's pre-eminent expert on war and the military, Gwyn Dyer. His talk updates and goes over the ground covered by Inconvenient Truth, right down to Al Gore's optimistic uptick at the end.
Having interviewed scientists around the world for his latest book, Dyer describes how they are all "on the brink of panic" over how much worse our prospects are than they had calculated only a year or two ago, and about how hard it is to communicate this sense to the general public. He explains very clearly and understandably how the broadening of the earth's encircling desert zone, a direct effect of warming, must cause conflict.
Most notably there will be crop loss and mass starvation in India and Pakistan within the next two decades, since these rival nuclear powers depend on the same drying river for sustenance. Warming makes a hot war between them all but inevitable. He warns that unless we make huge changes in our equations very quickly, things look "very bleak indeed." But on the bright side, if we learn how to reverse this warming trend our descendents might be in a position to deal with the looming ice age set to follow on a few centuries or millennia in its wake.
The Badi' blog has been suggesting a way to respond to this challenge. Over the past few years we have been developing the idea of a repeating planning decade, inspired by the Baha'i principles. We also advocate a new, high density architecture based on open systems and promoted by a new democratic world government that would be designed to make the human ecological impact into a positive rather than a negative. Such concerted action should summon the full resources of humanity, scientific, religious and political, to address this looming, climate induced disaster.
As a preparation we have been going through the brilliant, overlooked contribution of John Comenius, going through each of the Baha'i principles in turn. Now we are wrapping up the fourth principle, harmony of science and religion.
Comenius and the Harmony of Science and Religion
Some astronomers and generalistic scientists like James Lovelock have been promoting a unified, holistic view of the nature which they call the anthropic principle. The idea of this is that, to put it simplistically, no matter where you go there you are. Similarly relativity and quantum mechanics see observer and surroundings as directly tied together. Macrocosm and microcosm embrace, the viewer makes the view, and the view conforms to the viewpoint. The root of this goes back a long way, ultimately to the Judaic creation myth where God makes man in His own image. Like a mirror, the human mind takes in the whole view before it and conditions its response. Seen in this generalist way, the planet reacts to and lays the groundwork for life. Life in turn takes its cue from rational beings, that is, the human race. Each mirror reflects and asserts the orientation of the higher form of existence. Our failure to live up to our high station is the underlying reason that this planet is plummeting into climate-induced crises.
John Comenius based his proposed philosophy for all, pansophy, on a similar principle to the anthropic one, which he called "self-centeredness." This principle applies in,
"... true Politics, if we regard man as self-centred, inasmuch as he is Man, and acting in combination with one or more others always mindful of the fact that they are Men, and similarly to true Religion, if we regard God as centred in Himself and in us, and us in Him. How important are Universality, Simplicity, and Agreement here and everywhere!" (Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 13, para 12, pp. 203)
Reason is one and rational agents act as one insofar as they are rational. But reason is a gift of God, given in His image in the mirror of the heart. We start off purifying this image in self with personal investigation, and learn to actively combine the results with others in group action. In other words, every principle is a conjunction of principles one and two, search and oneness. This Comenius terms centeredness on self, both our personal and our collective self. Seen this way, self-centeredness applies to everything.
"The same will apply to true Politics, if we regard man as self-centred, inasmuch as he is Man, and acting in combination with one or more others always mindful of the fact that they are Men, and similarly to true Religion, if we regard God as centred in Himself and in us, and us in Him. How important are Universality, Simplicity, and Agreement here and everywhere!" (Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 13, para 12, pp. 203)
The collective centers itself on the individual, and the individual on service, and from that center comes the three prime colours of all knowledge.
"In every case the basis of this agreement will be the Universal threefold light of Senses, Reason and Divine Revelation, which philosophers, politicians and theologians must equally follow although they will apply it in different ways according to the difference in their objectives." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 10, para 51, pp. 172-173)
These three main fields of human endeavour use our three faculties, mind, hands and heart, that is, science, politics (or work) and faith. Starting with science, its philosophers,
"will be attending to THINGS; so that, if they observe the rule that nothing occurs recklessly in nature and all things observe the reasons for their existence, they will learn to make no mistakes in their own handling of things and will teach others likewise." (Id.)
Since Comenius a split has opened between science and religion, where scientists, wishing to resist all taint of faith, go so far as to deny any purpose at all in nature, especially in higher forms of life, and particularly in the human sphere. This explains why researchers shed the name "natural philosophers" and since the mid-19th Century call themselves scientists. You cannot deny purpose and the unity of existence and still call yourself a philosopher, a lover of wisdom. The denial of purpose not only takes away their qualification as philosophers, it tends to make knowledge irrelevant to social change.
This, as Comenius warned, was a grave mistake. With few qualms, scientists serve military, criminal and corporate ends as often as they do the better interests of humanity. The divorce of scientists from faith and philosophy is, therefore, to the detriment of all.
Next comes the practical world of work, which Comenius calls politics. Everything we do in our career and family life is political, in the sense of carrying out policy, collective plans and purposes. The challenge, Comenius points out, is to make politics self-centered, in other words, oriented to freedom.
"Politicians will be attending to MEN; so that, if they conform to the laws of general human freedom in the same universal light, they will know how to control their fellow-men wisely, and will teach others to do likewise." (172-173)
Just as scientists shy away from their roots in philosophy, politicians in our corrupt modern world flee from any taint of plans or planning. The only way to reverse climate destabilization is for all humans to devise and follow a single plan to take the whole world on a 180 degree turn away from hydrocarbons towards electrification. But that is nowhere near the political horizon. How so? As Dyer points out, any democratic leader who seriously addressed the needs of the hour would be committing political suicide. We talk the talk but refuse the walk. Again, this is a consequence of secularization, which expells God, covenant and the whole idea of a single unified purpose from the common forum. If there is no oneness or purpose in the universe, planning for our common survival seems pointless. The result is quietism and apathy. God says, "Choose life," but our politics is on a slippery slop towards death and extinction. The answer, Comenius says, is a common light.
The third of the three main spheres of human activity is religion, the theoretical, professional study of which is theology. Comenius has this to say about the duties of this discipline,
"Theologians will be looking towards GOD through the same universal light which shines over all men, and will see that all things are truly subject to His command, but especially the human will which is His own image." (172-173)
In other words, experts in religion need to appreciate that theirs is the same light that shines on all, specialists and non-specialists alike. "All are God's servants" Enlightenment shines our of invisible, inaccessible deeps within the heart. The truth of each and all works itself out through willed, freely offered service.
Like scientists and politicians, theologians today tend to deny this common purpose, this solid ground upon which human freedom walks. Instead, they encourage imitation in their followers. They shuffle off their responsibility to the One by clinging to outer forms of scriptural teaching. This is perhaps the gravest atrocity of all. As Baha'u'llah, calling the founders of religions "letters of unity," points out in the Iqan, as leaders of religion,
"have literally interpreted the Word of God, and the sayings and traditions of the Letters of Unity, ...they have therefore deprived themselves and all their people of the bountiful showers of the grace and mercies of God." (Baha'u'llah, Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 81)
If the spirit rather than the letter of the law of freedom in faith, that is, truth seeking, were put first in all religions, everything would change and we would have power to change everything for the better. If the Founders of religion were used together as letters in a single alphabet, the result would be a common writing, allowing a partnership between the learned in religion with the learned in science and policy. They would work together in a common task of making knowledge available to all who seek it. As Comenius says,
"Let our Philosophy be simplified, provided that it satisfies moderate minds and circumstances. Let our Religion be simplified, provided that it satisfies God, the source of simplicity, and men of upright conscience. Let our Political System be simplified, provided that it serves its purpose of peacefulness in human affairs." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 10, para 3, p. 152)
This project of simplification would permit anybody to enter the inner sanctum of the learned. Everybody would be a philosopher, a politician and a theologian. Specialist knowledge would be public property and serve liberal ends for the first time in history. This power of the people to go into ivory towers Comenius calls "pansophy," or universal philosophy. He compares its universal abilities to a skeleton key,
"What is the difference between Philosophy and Pansophy? Surely it is that between the part and the whole; just as if one man who lived in a castle had separate keys for each of the rooms, and another had only a single key which opened them all." (anorthosia, Ch. 11, para 22, pp. 184-185)
Pansophy would allow universal participation in the huge project of minding our planet. That is the most important thing. All would apply knowledge together not only for progress but in order to gain more knowledge in turn.
"They may also be assisted by the highest towers on the mountaintops, and the deepest underground mines in the valleys below, so that we have exact knowledge of the wisdom of our Creator in the physical world." (Panorthosia, Ch. 11, para 12, p. 179)
This combined religious and scientific enquiry seems to presage the later invention of satellites. More amazing, the following proposed project, if it had been followed might have pushed forward the all-important discovery of our ability to alter the planet's climate by decades, or even centuries.
"The way to do this is by observing different climates of the world (and different regions with the same climate) in the same and the opposite hemisphere, first, the weather conditions (winds, rainfall, tides etc.), then their animal and vegetable resources --for the purpose of seeing whether the immediate cause of these can be reasonably traced to the constellations, and if so, how, or if in fact there are particular causes prevailing." (Idem.)
It is probably true that Comenius had a proof or refutation of astrology in mind here, but his general point, that we all should strive to observe the world as closely as possible in order to discern within it some kind of wise law or purpose is undiminished. Wisdom, be it scientific, political or religious, has a common,
No comments:
Post a Comment