By John Taylor; 2009 June 19, Nur 13, 166 BE
The sixth chapter of Panorthosia is about how to remove barriers to reform. The sub-title sets up the task of "first and foremost ... ridding our minds of stupidity, careless prejudice, and obstinacy." Comenius held that we can remove all three, stupidity, prejudice and obstinacy, by admitting our mistakes and returning to the point where we erred. Last essay, we discussed his ideas on how to apply this "principle of return" to get around obstinacy. Another major barrier to reform is what he calls "stupidity." Stupidity is the result of confusion, which is mostly the effect of disunity.
Like Baha'is, Comenius believed that we should value unity as something divine, as an end in itself. We get past errors by rejecting mere opinion and coming to grips with truth, by going "from conflicting pursuits and fighting" to "love of common welfare to peace and concord." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 6, para 12, p. 102) Like sheep cut off from the flock, we are miserable unless we are aware of the whole human race. To stand alone is not to be in our element. "Let us return, therefore, from confusion through simplicity to unity..." (Ch 6, para 12, p. 102) Recent studies on happiness have confirmed that human happiness cannot come about when we feel alone. Happiness is a product of meaningful connection with others, a sense that we are doing good to those we love. Thus the return is a return to our own justice, the place where we observe and learn how best to serve.
Unfortunately, ignorance is widespread, then as now.
"No one can possibly be unaware of the stupidity of the general public concerning their environment and all that is happening in it. Most people are profoundly ignorant of God, the world, themselves, and everything, and those who know something about them have no more than a superficial knowledge, and do not take trouble to probe them further or to attend to distinctions of true and false, good and evil." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 6, para 4, p. 100)
A natural response is to despair, to give up on humanity and just try to survive on our own. Mixed in with this is simple laziness. It always seems easier just to sit back and accept shadows as reality.
"So long as this indolence fetters the sense of men, it is vain for us to conceive any hope of Universal Reform. For what reform would we expect of the man who is not even aware of corruption and the necessity for reform? But this is the ignorance of the man who does not know the ideal and perfect state of affairs which has been left behind. Therefore if we propose to persuade men to concern themselves with reform, we must first rouse them from their slumber." (Panorthosia, p. 100)
As Comenius put it in an earlier work, "He who knows not that he is ill cannot heal himself." (Great Didactic, quoted in Daniel Murphy Daniel, Comenius, A Critical Reassessment, p. 261) Once we do recognize our need for change, the next step is to increase awareness, and then sort through what this open-mindedness discovers in what we now would call a scientific spirit.
"It is therefore in the common interest to adopt a different attitude, for example,
1. we should all pay more attention to everything, so that each of us is able to apply the test of reason to our doubts and our judgements on every single subject;
2. we should prove all things and hold fast that which is good, which is the advice given by God Himself in I Thessalonians 5:21,
3. whenever it is recognised that we have gone astray, everyone should be ready to exchange error for truth." (Ch. 6, para 7, pp. 101)
This is especially significant when we recall Comenius's position that everything we know arises from the senses, that all knowledge is a projection of what the senses perceive. This was in contrast with Rene Descartes, who held that mind and body are entirely separate, independent entities. On one occasion Comenius met with Descartes personally and discussed this with him. It is interesting that in the study of the brain, their disagreement lives on to this day. Very recent studies have swung the pendulum in Comenius's direction by showing how important physical motions, gesticulations and gesture are to how we all speak, remember and reason.
Unlike later empiricists, though, Comenius saw sense perception not as the be all and end all, but as a tool for getting at the light. Once we all stand in the daylight, everything will change. If we all become receptive to the light our common vision will surely disperse our former darkness and collective ignorance. The method for doing this is,
"By persuading all who have been admitted into God's theatres equipped with eyes, ears, and other senses, to take a lively interest in everything, to review things for themselves and get to know them anew, and so to imbue their minds with universal light. If this desire for mental light is aroused, the first and most obvious obstacle, mental darkness, will at once be removed, and the ways and means of doing so have been investigated in my 'Universal Education'." (Ch. 6, para 4, p. 100)
John Taylor
email: badijet@gmail.com
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