Re: Faith and Reason
Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2016 11:00 am
A new presentation of the process of development of faith has recently come to my attention, mostly from Fr. Richard Rohr and his Center for Action and Contemplation, but not entirely.
A quote from Rohr:
We are the thoughtful animal, and we are restless within a specific group context (or at least, some of us are) and we seek to understand the source and true nature of the sense of meaning which we find in a sense of belonging.
The answer, both experientially and philosophically, has turned out to be the universality of responding to the other ***as if they were my self.*** And that leads us to embrace the transcendence.
This is the key to understanding religion, but it does not get us to the key to overcoming the tension between the two functions. I believe that key is found in a different tension: between power motivation, which is really security motivation, on the one hand, and affiliation motivation on the other. This is the y axis to religion's x axis: seemingly orthogonal, but related in non-linear, dynamic ways which provide much of the shape taken by history and politics.
Affiliation and security are fundamentally complementary. In the context of the ancient world this was true in the mutuality necessary to fight wars and defend the people. In more modern times this is even more true as zero-sum perspectives are shown to be fallacious. We live in a world in which mutual destruction is the reductio ad absurdum of the logic of superior violence (Donald Drumph notwithstanding) and even low-level exercises of military power are usually self-defeating as the victory turns out to be so costly in soft power that it is not worth the exercise. Putin may be defined, in historical perspective, by his inability to perceive this, or perhaps his unwillingness to let go of kleptocratic power to respond to it.
However it was not so long ago that security and affiliation were not demonstrably complementary but seemed to compete. The threat of dominance was real, (to be fair it still is, but in obscure ways which are hard to give a persuasive account of), and the psychology and institutions built up in such a world are with us still. In that world, for example, dominance was the means to security. Today it disrupts affiliation without being integral to security at all.
The problem for religion is that the language in which religion has tended to settle is one which only does the job on providing a sense of personal meaning, while drawing energy from security motivation for this part of religious functioning. The individual draws a sense of significance from being an important part of the strength of society's structure, and the power structure returns the favor by enforcing the rules which give significance to personal uprightness. For example I heard a lot of sermons, growing up, about the family being the "basic unit of society," and that certainly makes sense, but it also means that threats to family life are threats to the security of everyone.
Conservative politics drinks deeply from this well, and derives its basic validity from the mutual reinforcement process at its heart. It is by no means unimportant, but it has inherent limitations.
One is an inability to assimilate larger perspectives. Because it draws its validity from a sense of threat, anything which demands a deviation from its orthodoxies is experienced as a threat. So, for example, the idea that we should protect flag-burners because they demonstrate the liberty for which the flag stands is too paradoxical. Undermining group solidarity cannot possibly be what liberty is for, because then liberty will break up the solidarity which makes it possible.
Along the same lines, the business of transcending one's own desire for personal significance is actively resisted by this nexus of conservative energy. To use a bit of imagery, if the enemy loves their children too, then planning to dominate the enemy cannot really be right. In a world in which all the children die if anyone tries to dominate, it is difficult to sustain a sense that the other side is really that much of a threat. Any such perspective in which the essential rightness of "us" is no longer an indispensable part of security must be dismissed, else our personal upright behavior loses the energy behind its cosmic significance.
I take this very seriously, by the way. Public service by the police and by a volunteer military depend on a resistance to cynical accounts of the functioning of power. If they have no sense of ideals they become a threat to all of us.
Most commonly the transition to more transcendent religion comes only as a result of "hitting bottom" with an addictive process, (which de-links conformity from the craving for personal significance), or of a devastating loss, (which cannot be squared with a loving God who gives our life significance in the form of "extra benefit" such as security from harm as reward for being good and being pious). The result of deep loss is at least as likely to be a complete rejection of religion, but it does prompt a healthy share of the religious to go searching for the meaning of meaning.
Why is it so hard to let go of the bond between conformity and security? Partly because the bond is functional. To transcend it requires recognizing its functionality, which disarms the associated anxiety of threatening it, without buying into it as the true source of personal significance.
A careful inquiry into the nature of ethics is likely to displace the personal center-of-the-universe illusion at its heart. Likewise the questioning of triumphalist religious claims to exclusive grasp on religious truth can unravel the link. Those are two big reasons why conservative politics and conservative religion experience higher education as a threat.
But for the transition to become a well-traveled road requires, in my view, a practical account of the functionality of alternative visions of security, visions which put on display the complementarities between security and affiliation motivations in a universalistic context. If we can spell out the ways in which economic growth in other countries increases our long-term opportunities for prosperity and sustainability, for example, we can begin to see how the elevation of China out of poverty has made us better off despite loss of some particular jobs.
We can actually begin to see in practical terms how self-defeating it is to attempt to base prosperity on excluding others from prosperity. This will sever the conformity/security link at the practical end, rather than the spiritual end. When people no longer take a Putin-esque view that their security depends entirely on in-group solidarity they are free to experience a quest for meaning as something besides a threat to the orthodoxy on which "the fabric of society" depends.
Perhaps Drumph will actually help this process along. By putting in place personnel who are paranoid and nativist, those views will face the requirement of accountability, and the weaknesses in that worldview will begin to become evident.
A quote from Rohr:
I think this encapsulates the source of the internal problems in religion very nicely. Note that it is fairly inevitable. "Meaning for the separate self" can come from a sense of belonging, from group solidarity and conformity to group norms, but it leads, as Maslow would observe, to a question as to what "meaning" means.Richard Rohr wrote:Ken Wilber sees religion as having two primary functions. The first is to create “meaning for the separate self.” The second and mature function of religion is to help individuals transcend that very self.
We are the thoughtful animal, and we are restless within a specific group context (or at least, some of us are) and we seek to understand the source and true nature of the sense of meaning which we find in a sense of belonging.
The answer, both experientially and philosophically, has turned out to be the universality of responding to the other ***as if they were my self.*** And that leads us to embrace the transcendence.
This is the key to understanding religion, but it does not get us to the key to overcoming the tension between the two functions. I believe that key is found in a different tension: between power motivation, which is really security motivation, on the one hand, and affiliation motivation on the other. This is the y axis to religion's x axis: seemingly orthogonal, but related in non-linear, dynamic ways which provide much of the shape taken by history and politics.
Affiliation and security are fundamentally complementary. In the context of the ancient world this was true in the mutuality necessary to fight wars and defend the people. In more modern times this is even more true as zero-sum perspectives are shown to be fallacious. We live in a world in which mutual destruction is the reductio ad absurdum of the logic of superior violence (Donald Drumph notwithstanding) and even low-level exercises of military power are usually self-defeating as the victory turns out to be so costly in soft power that it is not worth the exercise. Putin may be defined, in historical perspective, by his inability to perceive this, or perhaps his unwillingness to let go of kleptocratic power to respond to it.
However it was not so long ago that security and affiliation were not demonstrably complementary but seemed to compete. The threat of dominance was real, (to be fair it still is, but in obscure ways which are hard to give a persuasive account of), and the psychology and institutions built up in such a world are with us still. In that world, for example, dominance was the means to security. Today it disrupts affiliation without being integral to security at all.
The problem for religion is that the language in which religion has tended to settle is one which only does the job on providing a sense of personal meaning, while drawing energy from security motivation for this part of religious functioning. The individual draws a sense of significance from being an important part of the strength of society's structure, and the power structure returns the favor by enforcing the rules which give significance to personal uprightness. For example I heard a lot of sermons, growing up, about the family being the "basic unit of society," and that certainly makes sense, but it also means that threats to family life are threats to the security of everyone.
Conservative politics drinks deeply from this well, and derives its basic validity from the mutual reinforcement process at its heart. It is by no means unimportant, but it has inherent limitations.
One is an inability to assimilate larger perspectives. Because it draws its validity from a sense of threat, anything which demands a deviation from its orthodoxies is experienced as a threat. So, for example, the idea that we should protect flag-burners because they demonstrate the liberty for which the flag stands is too paradoxical. Undermining group solidarity cannot possibly be what liberty is for, because then liberty will break up the solidarity which makes it possible.
Along the same lines, the business of transcending one's own desire for personal significance is actively resisted by this nexus of conservative energy. To use a bit of imagery, if the enemy loves their children too, then planning to dominate the enemy cannot really be right. In a world in which all the children die if anyone tries to dominate, it is difficult to sustain a sense that the other side is really that much of a threat. Any such perspective in which the essential rightness of "us" is no longer an indispensable part of security must be dismissed, else our personal upright behavior loses the energy behind its cosmic significance.
I take this very seriously, by the way. Public service by the police and by a volunteer military depend on a resistance to cynical accounts of the functioning of power. If they have no sense of ideals they become a threat to all of us.
Most commonly the transition to more transcendent religion comes only as a result of "hitting bottom" with an addictive process, (which de-links conformity from the craving for personal significance), or of a devastating loss, (which cannot be squared with a loving God who gives our life significance in the form of "extra benefit" such as security from harm as reward for being good and being pious). The result of deep loss is at least as likely to be a complete rejection of religion, but it does prompt a healthy share of the religious to go searching for the meaning of meaning.
Why is it so hard to let go of the bond between conformity and security? Partly because the bond is functional. To transcend it requires recognizing its functionality, which disarms the associated anxiety of threatening it, without buying into it as the true source of personal significance.
A careful inquiry into the nature of ethics is likely to displace the personal center-of-the-universe illusion at its heart. Likewise the questioning of triumphalist religious claims to exclusive grasp on religious truth can unravel the link. Those are two big reasons why conservative politics and conservative religion experience higher education as a threat.
But for the transition to become a well-traveled road requires, in my view, a practical account of the functionality of alternative visions of security, visions which put on display the complementarities between security and affiliation motivations in a universalistic context. If we can spell out the ways in which economic growth in other countries increases our long-term opportunities for prosperity and sustainability, for example, we can begin to see how the elevation of China out of poverty has made us better off despite loss of some particular jobs.
We can actually begin to see in practical terms how self-defeating it is to attempt to base prosperity on excluding others from prosperity. This will sever the conformity/security link at the practical end, rather than the spiritual end. When people no longer take a Putin-esque view that their security depends entirely on in-group solidarity they are free to experience a quest for meaning as something besides a threat to the orthodoxy on which "the fabric of society" depends.
Perhaps Drumph will actually help this process along. By putting in place personnel who are paranoid and nativist, those views will face the requirement of accountability, and the weaknesses in that worldview will begin to become evident.