Thomas Merton & Chuang Tzu (2)

 "Personalism and individualism must not be confused. Personalism gives priority to the person and not the individual self. To give priority to the person means respecting the unique and inalienable value of the other person, as well as one's own, for a respect that is centered only on one's individual self to the exclusion of others proves itself to be fraudulent." (The Way..., p. 17)

I hope, in my life and work, to cultivate a culture of personalism with those I am given to know. It is a big ask, work for a lifetime (and then some!), and strongly counter to the prevailing forces of our time, magnified as they are by (anti-)social media.

1. Fearful conformism

If it really comes down to “me vs. everyone else”, then the two prevailing options that have manifested themselves so robustly really are the fruit of this tree - individualism. The first, selfishness, is the driving force of our [By “our” I refer to contemporary America. Yes, it is a gross generalisation. But it is also plainly present and “infects” a wide swath of our society.] politics, our economics, our religious practice, our foreign policy, our cult of “celebrity”, our willingness to embrace all kinds of contrary-to-fact ideas because they appeal to the self as singular and unique, worthy of indulgence and adoration.

The second, fearful conformism, is a particular problem among the young. Seeking a stable identity, they latch onto what their peers have collectively come to proclaim is the “good of the day” with as much fundamentalism as they ascribe to and denounce in their elders.

It is ironic, then, that at the heart of this individualism lies such a corrosive collectivity. We are angry and resentful because we have been influenced or told to be so by the angry and resentful social environment we immerse ourselves in.

The culture mirrors the politics which mirrors the culture. It is so very ugly, poisonous, and dehumanising. And then we think that pursuing artificial intelligence and genetic manipulation to create “better” (And no one is thinking this through, either. Where are the social philosophers and ethicists to think deeply and debate the nature of this “improvement”?) versions of ourselves either biologically or virtually is going to solve anything. It is indeed fraudulent.

A part of the cure doubtless involves a (re-)embrace of personalism. A few year ago, I read a book by Susanne Antonetta titled “A Mind Apart: Travels in a Neurodiverse World”. She has bipolar disorder and is friendly with a group of folks who have various mental health issues. She worries, as do I, that something unique and valuable will be lost to the world if medical science and treatments are eventually able to eradicate any such phenomena before they have a chance to appear in people.

    “Anyway, I have bipolar disorder and have to tolerate lots of odd, unruly things happening in my head....But with the challenges come the gifts. And the sense, often raised by my correspondents, that the word cure is the wrong word, and that we must begin to respect the mental processes of the individual, think in terms of helping to get the gifts to emerge while the challenges become as manageable as they can. We need to develop new terms of value and of tolerance, especially as medical work in the alteration of the gene makes possible the eradication of our kind.” (Antonetta, A Mind Apart, pp. 3, 9)

In like manner, there are over 6000 extant languages spoken on earth today. A statistic posted on NationalGeographic.com says that one language “dies” every 14 days. And with it, something of the culture, the history, the way of perceiving things, dies with it. That is a great tragedy.

I was going to continue on with two other subheadings: “the tyranny of the immediate” and “the abjuration of responsibility” both of which are symptoms of the above discussion and are exacerbated by our uncritical embrace of social “networking”, but I think I'll stop here with a simple clarion call to embrace a life of personalism, to reject the “vanilla-isation” (though I don't accept the pejorative of “vanilla” as a synonym for plain, basic, or uninteresting as I think it has a marvelous aroma and flavour...but I digress) of discourse, of humanity and to embrace the authenticity of those who don't fit in. Please don't try to advise or, God forbid(!), “fix” us. Just be okay with our existence and know that we are doing our best with what we have to work with and we would wish the same for you.

Thomas Merton & Chuang Tzu (1)

By way of preface to my ongoing remarks in this series, this is in no way any sort of “formal” engagement with Merton's text. Rather is it my engagement with some of the “nuggets” found in the text itself in a way that may only tangentially relate to the wider context in which they are given. This is, rather, some of the operative “background noise” present when I read the text.

[Sidenote: As has become apparent, I will owe a significant debt to the writing of Fr. Stephen Freeman here. His work, both on his blog “Glory to God for all things” and in his book “Everwhere Present”, has had a significant impact on my thinking and helped to clarify certain theological “issues” in a way that is both intellectually cogent and emotionally satisfactory.]

And so we begin...

"The fashion of Zen in certain western circles fits into the rather confused pattern of spiritual revolution and renewal. It represents a certain understandable dissatisfaction with conventional spiritual patterns and with ethical and religious formalism. It is a symptom of western man's desperate need to recover spontaneity and depth in a world which his technological skill has made rigid, artificial, and spiritually void. But in its association with the need to recover authentic sense experience, western Zen has become identified with a spirit of improvisation and experimentation-with a sort of moral anarchy that forgets how much tough discipline and what severe traditional mores are presupposed by the Zen of China and Japan." (The Way..., p. 16)

1. Dissatisfaction

I live with this daily. Some of it comes from within myself, much of it from outside. But it will not do to simply rehash a set of grievances after the manner of social media. Rather does it become a question of discerning what I can change or manage (very few things and in a very limited manner) and what I cannot (most things and all people). That is the reality of being human, of being finite, necessarily limited. Look, after all, at the destruction that is wrought by our limited power. Imagine if we had more, and that that "more" was not just a product of our delusion but a fact. Thank God for our limitedness.

"If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness." (2 Cor. 11:30 _ NASB)

Fr. Stephen Freeman, a veritable gold mine of quotable material, says this in an article titled The Power in Thought – It's Not What You Think: "The simple fact is that we do not know how to manage the world. We do not know what constitutes a good outcome. We do not have the knowledge to see the future, to understand and comprehend the collateral damage of our management. The only guarantee of the outcome of history (and our lives) is the goodwill of God....In the words of St. Maximus the Confessor: He who understands the mystery of the Cross and the Tomb knows the meaning of all things." (blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/ 2018/04/16/the-power-in-thought-its-not-what-you-think/)

2. The Technological void

The advent of computer technology and digitisation has made information more widely and readily available than ever. If I need something for academic research or teaching purposes, I no longer have to trek to the library, sort through the card catalogue, speak with the reference desk, and search through a book or periodical for what I need. It is all available through my computer and/or "smart" phone in the comfort of my home. In fact, such a routine as I describe, well within my own living memory and experience (and I'm not that old!) seems almost unthinkably quaint and inefficient.

And perhaps it is inefficient. But at what cost have we traded inefficiency for perpetual availability? The student has a myriad of distractions constantly at his or her fingertips. The office worker is always just a text message away. There is no longer a sense of the "end" of the workday. And there has been a "flattening" of the discernment of what is true, what is genuinely contributive to knowledge and experience, and what is merely a load of tosh generated by the emotive "wisdom" of the collective. Do we really now need Youtube and discussion fora to tell us what to think and how to react to our lived experience? Can we not even use the bathroom or walk down the sidewalk to the grocery store without the crutch of the smartphone?

There is currently no sign of stopping such "progress" either. Our humanity will continue to be degraded (it is an ontological crisis, which requires an ontological solution), we will attempt to incorporate ourselves further and further into our virtual "idols" and to anesthetise the institutional chaos, which we have created, with money, prescription drugs, wars, greed, useless politicking. 

God save us from ourselves!

Again, from Fr. Stephen: "Christ is far more than a good man who set an example, and more than a victim of social wrong-doing. The Christian story is far richer. The nature of sin is death, not mere social oppression. Death reigns over us and holds us in bondage to its movement away from God. It certainly manifests itself in various forms of evil-doing. But it also has a cosmic sway in the movement of all things towards death, destruction, and decay. Our problem is not our morality: it is ontological, rooted in our alienation from being, truth, and beauty – from God Himself. Broken communion leads to death. Immorality, in all its forms, is but a symptom." (blogs.ancientfaith.com/ glory2godforallthings/2020/11/15/the-gospel-of-progress-and-the-new-jerusalem/)

3. Authentic sense experience and self-discipline

Yes, I realise the great irony (in light of the foregoing) that I have conceived and posted these words with an electronic device on a digital medium. But these are simply convenient tools for me. When I have finished I will sip my tea, pick up a good book, and later take a walk in a park. Technology can be useful, but it can also be destructive and manipulative (which is what its creators are counting on – how else can they get you to believe that you need a new phone every year and that you should gladly pay $1000 for it!).

So I am advocating here for a renewal of sensory experience, a greater appreciation of the real world (there is nothing like the smell of fresh flowers, the feeling of the sun's warmth, the sights and sounds of the beach, a nice glass of wine and a good conversation with a friend about meaningful things), and a re-engagement with our humanity. This will take some conscientious practice. And then, when the virtual world collapses in on itself, you won't be so caught off guard and realise that life goes on without your ipad! To that end, I also recommend “Culture Care” by Makoto Fujimura.

Still alive...

Due to the press of business, posting here has been rather sparse for a while. In fact, traffic to this blog has always been minimal. I suppose that is the result when it isn't widely known, the topics are/have been rather esoteric, and the author is himself rather eccentric(?). But I find that processing through writing and editing helps to clarify my thoughts so if this is only helpful for me, so be it. 

By way of renewal then, I have begun reading Thomas Merton's (another eccentric, not always understood or valued by the ecclesiastical establishment - I have always been drawn to such people, they are after my own heart) The Way of Chuang Tzu and shall offer commentary on both Merton's introduction as well as the poetry in the book (that he has translated from other translations). I offer here Merton's own justification for my interest in his work: "I simply like Chuang Tzu because he is what he is and I feel no need to justify this liking to myself or to anyone else. He is far too great to need any apologies from me. If St. Augustine could read Plotinus, if St. Thomas could read Aristotle and Averroes (both of them certainly a long way further from Christianity than Chuang Tzu ever was!), and if Teilhard de Chardin could make copious use of Marx and Engels in his synthesis, I think I may be pardoned for consorting with a Chinese recluse who shares the climate and peace of my own kind of solitude, and who is my own kind of person." (The Way..., pp. 10-11) 

My next post will begin the dive into the Introduction. Stay tuned...