I really like this comment left by Jacob on my recent post about psychoactive plants. In part of it, he says:
I know a lot of rationalists think their view-point requires a certain bravery, “To face this vast uncaring abyss… to make our own light in the dark!â€, or whatever, but isn’t it so much more frightening to try and contend with a living universe? One that does respond to your presence, in ways you can’t always predict?
This is a really great topic, I think. It touches on this idea that certain beliefs or worldviews are somehow “braver” than others. I have seen this sort of thing a lot in debates, where people call one another’s ideas about the world cowardly. What that really even means though is itself a good topic for debate…
And I especially agree with Jacob that rationalists, materialists, postmodernists, atheists and existentialists seem to be especially fond of championing this notion that we are all alone in the universe, that nothing means anything and that we must go our own way or embrace essential nothingness. But how “brave” is that viewpoint really? Is it “braver” to go out and live by yourself in the desert in search of spiritual perfection, or is it more challenging to find a way to co-exist in a neighborhood of people and an ecosystem of countless other types of conscious entities? Which one is harder, which one is braver?
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12 Comments
More importantly, which one can provide tangible results in this lifetime?
I’d argue that the latter, “[finding] a way to co-exist in a neighborhood of people and an ecosystem of countless other types of conscious entities” is the most pragmatic, collectively as well as individually.
My question for you: in whose interest is it to promote the “brave” view of an uncaring abyss?
I was just talking to another ‘conscious being’ how I tire of endless debate between believers and non-believers. Agitated being creates beliefs, beliefs create endless contradictions- so I do not blame rationalists for being skeptical or by feeling overwhelmed by all the negative forces and energy in the world. They just haven’t learned meditation or the ability to ‘go plop’.
‘Be poetic not philosophical’- I remember the time I had exact beliefs about God, or when my state of mind was in the existential abyss, not fun but I found my way out. And it takes responsibility and an effort to feel connected to the world outside one’s narrow ego.
The rational world is superficial– rationalists are too busy being rational they take out their internet connection to the divine, sacred, mystical, timeless etc. Religious people are too busy with conceptions that obscure their vision.
Does the old Zen saying go ‘if you want to see the truth stop having opinions’? Well, in my opinion I say it is not important to try be anything. If the Tao is an infinite pond of reality, life, spirit, energy than Alan Watts was right when he translated
“The old pond,
A frog jumps in:.
Plop!”
Anthropology seems to show that we are, as the saying goes, social animals. It’s the shaman’s job to wander off into the wilderness and bridge that gap between non-human nature and the community. And the traditional shaman’s vocation isn’t one that people “choose” because it’s easier, more glamorous or fun. They are “chosen” because it’s difficult, dangerous and hard.
Looking at current western culture, it seems like the desert vs. community dichotomy isn’t so clear. We clearly prefer a no-man’s land between actual living community and actual isolation and confrontation with nature. Modern cities exemplify this: the classic boxed-off alienation in the midst of higher densities of neighbours than have ever existed!
I guess the desert image isn’t the best one to represent the existentialist idea: I associate it with someone actually contacting living nature alone, which isn’t existentialist or rationalist at all. I think a lot of people see spending time utterly alone in the middle of nowhere kind of trivial, but when it comes to it they find the experience scary. I do! I think someone who doesn’t feel that awe and fear when alone with nature has shut down somewhere along the line. I’m not saying it’s a purely fearful experience, just that there’s a kind of fear (which is healthy to feel, I think) which only really opens up under these conditions.
That said, I often find confronting that easier than confronting messy relationships with people
Some people are the other way around. So maybe the question of “bravery” has to be seen in relation to personal temperament - if it’s even a useful question.
“Nuh uh, rationalists! My way of thinking is way braver than your way of thinking!”
Sorry, that was a silly reading.
In all seriousness, which of your examples is actually meant to refer to the cruel, stubborn ‘rationalist, materialist, atheist’ camp? I would imagine that believing you have only a short lifespan, or that your existence is limited to this worldly experience, would push you into embracing community in order to take full advantage of the benefits of this life. If you believe you have to make your own purpose, or that you cannot hope for a better life once you’ve died, or whatever the counter-argument de jour is… well, you can either be depressed about it, or you can accept it and move on.
Some people do become depressed, resentful, and just cannot accept that belief has value for them. There could be any number of reasons for that.
Is atheism brave? It’s just a lack of belief in an alternative theory of the Universe. One might just as well suppose that disbelieving in special relativity, or disbelieving in evolution, makes you somehow braver than someone who believes in those theories.
If someone calls themselves or their beliefs brave, are they’re just giving themselves that label to improve their view of themselves or their beliefs? Does it help to coax others into believing the belief they are arguing for is better, stronger, faster? Perhaps. It appears to be an effective tactic, as there are no doubt many people who think themselves less brave, or even cowardly, for disagreeing with whatever position is labeled “brave.”
So… uh… Rather than just go on and on, I’ll quote Gnomely:
If “Bravery” is just a label we give to those things we believe to be higher and better than other things, then we could argue in circles all day and night about who or what is braver, but I don’t see that it is a useful debate to have.
(Not that it wouldn’t be interesting to watch, and maybe that’s all that matters.)
(Misattributing quotes is bad form. Sorry, I was citing Gyrus, not Gnomely.)
beliefs are wonderful, if not ephemeral things. plop!
and i don` t think the abyss is uncaring either………….
Albert Camus, in his Myth of Sisyphus, made an absurdist or existential stance in face of his sense that all is bleakly meaningless. If the abyss is uncaring, then all the more reason for man to carry on bravely, pushing that stone back up the hill, even though it will only roll down again forever.
I feel this discussion is one on which we inevitably agree, in the sense that regardless of our beliefs, each of us faces the same actual external world, whose slope and gravitational force leads us to old age, disease and death.
There is the possibility that our mental content will make things harder for us than they need be, and in some cases hasten our demise. Belief in itself is a trivial part of mental content - or is it? Beliefs can kill. Absence of beliefs is probably safer.
I try and keep my mental furniture free of dogmas, superstitions, unproved theories and so on. But still I have an ineradicable faith in something harmonious and purposeful and beautiful, which I can invoke and with which I can live in harmony. It’s subtle and it does not differentiate me from Camus, who probably felt the same. And it is too formless to be discussed.
To Gnomely: you mentioned an old Zen saying. It’s by Hui-Neng, a Zen Patriarch, and in the translation I prefer, and keep as the by-line to my blog, it’s:
I find this view incredibly boring.
It’s all up to us.
Me too. I can’t decide if I think any of these beliefs are “braver” than others, but I can definitely say certain of them don’t interest me very much