JOURNAL
ISSUE 6
2002/2003
Lennart Nørreklit, Dr.Philos.
NATURALISM
AND SPIRITUALITY ON THE FOUNDATION OF VALUE AND PEACE
Introduction
Does it matter how one understands human beings; how one understands
what they – i.e. we and other human beings - are? If
humans have a fixed and stable nature, then it does not matter.
They will act in accordance with this nature regardless of
how we understand them. If, on the other hand, human beings
have no stable, inborn nature, i.e. if their characters are
at least partly the result of their efforts at understanding
themselves and what type of being they are, then it does matter
how we understand them. Then it is an important question:
How do human beings construct their values? Do they do it
on a purely materialistic basis or on a more spiritual one?
The view that
humans have a given nature is naturalism. It is obvious that
naturalism must be limited. Otherwise, scientific studies
of human beings would be irrelevant for the decisions of practical
life. We must think that it matters how we understand human
beings and what we believe that they are. Our understanding
may not directly determine our behaviour, but it influences
our interpretation of the situation in which we find ourselves
and consequently, influences our interpretation of our actions.
This is part of what makes us human beings. It is a necessary,
at least partly non-naturalist, stance.
If the above is
true, then it also follows that misunderstandings of humanity
or misunderstandings of human ‘nature’ may lead
to unbalanced, excessive or destructive behaviour. Ultimately,
it may cause us to undermine and destroy our values and wage
war instead of creating values and conditions for happiness.
This paper focuses on problems of values and peace due to
unrestricted naturalism.
In modern society,
scientific naturalism is the predominant understanding of
human beings. Scientific naturalism differs from spiritual
forms of naturalism as found in, for instance, pre-scientific
classical philosophies and world views, such as Taoism, or
in some ecological post-modern perceptions. Such forms of
naturalism are disregarded in this paper. Thus, the term naturalism
is used as shorthand for scientific naturalism.
1. Scientific Naturalism
Scientific naturalism
is characterized by the three principles outlined below:
A. Scientific
method
According to scientific naturalism, any explanation must accord
with the principles of scientific method. This means that
descriptions and explanations must refer to the experience
of things present in the immanent intersubjective world. Explanations
must be empirically founded in order to fulfil the methodological
demands for reliability and validity characteristic of scientific
work. No serious objection can be raised to this principle.
The methodological debates concern what counts as scientific
method, and the variety of methods available is increasing.
However, when
we consider the meaning of scientific validity, i.e. what
is meant by the statements reflect reality, then it becomes
evident that the principle of methodological naturalism presupposes
a theory of reality: some ontology which elucidates what it
means to exist or to be real. If no such ontology does exist,
i.e. if the basic concept of reality is fuzzy or missing,
then the methodological claim of validity cannot be fulfilled.
That would invalidate the scientific studies. Thus, an ontology
is in demand. This demand leads to the two additional claims
associated with scientific naturalism.
B. The rejection of reference to a transcendent entity
In naturalism, there is the negative metaphysical claim that
only that which is in the immanent world is supposed to exist.
Naturalism regards any transcendent entity as speculation
and reference to anything transcendent is rejected as being
not explanatory. The claim is ontologically negative. It only
says what does not exist. It provides no information on what
the nature of reality and existence is. Thus, it does not
suffice to establish the basis for analysing validity. Further,
the claim eliminates transcendent entities from explanation
because such entities render explanations mysterious rather
than improve them. In this sense, it is an extension of the
methodological claim mentioned above.
One consequence,
however, is that naturalism rejects the explanations characteristic
of theistic religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism
and also the realistic metaphysics of Hinduism. This is a
major source of conflict between modernity based on scientific
naturalism and non-secular theistic religions as presently
demonstrated by the conflict between modernity and some of
the Islamic movements. Phenomenological religions, such as
found in Buddhism, mysticism, anthropomorphic religions or
in spiritual forms of naturalism such as Taoism, are not hit
by the naturalist rejection of any reference to a transcendent
entity. They do not need to refer to anything transcendent
but, instead, find the spiritual power in an immanent world
or the phenomenological sphere and may consequently attempt
to understand the concept of nature on a spiritual basis.
C. Reductivism
All forms of spiritualism are, however, directly hit by the
third claim of naturalism. This is the ontological claim that
the immanent world has a special character defined by the
basic elements of the natural sciences. All other phenomena
are then reduced to these phenomena. This form of reductivism
thus makes naturalism become a form of atomism. Three such
types of reductivist naturalism may be mentioned, depending
on which type of science is considered basic:
i) Physical naturalism
means that everything in the world is made of matter and operates
in accordance with the principles of cause and effect known
from physics. The concept of physics involved is basically
that of classical physics. It leads to the idea that a person
is a machine, albeit a complicated one, but a machine nonetheless.
ii) Biological
or functional naturalism includes functional aspects of reality
and presents a view of the world as consisting of systems
and organisms. The inspiration comes from biology and is widespread
in the social sciences. This type of naturalism leads to the
idea that a person is an organism, a material biological body.
Not all phenomena are reduced to cause-and-effect relations,
many of them being reduced to systems and functional relations.
Theleological explanations become essential. The whole system
is driven by competition for survival where the ‘environment’
selects the fit and rejects the unfit.
iii) Information-based
naturalism considers the world an information system or at
least holds that it also includes such systems. The information-based
form of naturalism is related to information science and leads
to the idea that the brain of a person is an advanced computer,
in which the brain is the hardware and the learning processes
are the programming tools. The information systems are formal
and logical, and logical analysis is therefore essential.
The process of
reduction is always concerned with eliminating the mental
and spiritual aspects to some of these basic elements in the
world. Mental and spiritual aspects are considered to be nothing
but a material structure – be it described causally,
functionally or in information terms. Any understanding of
complex phenomena is believed to be achieved by reference
to the basic components only: they are the universal elements
of all explanations. The higher states of, e.g. mind, thought
and feelings are simple properties, structures, dispositions
or parts of the lower, elementary form of being. Mind may
be considered brain waves, bodily processes, processes in
the nervous system, etc. By contrast, spirituality does not
accept such reductionism in the analysis of mental life, meaning
and value.
2. Naturalistism
and the destruction of Values
I have qualms
with the reductivism of naturalism, which eliminates any form
of spirituality and, in so doing, eliminates both meaning
and the real value of life, replacing them with primitive
values and a problem-solving behaviour which ultimately becomes
destructive and the cause of conflict.
In the reductive
world of naturalism, there are no values. The world of matter,
the world of atoms, the world of biological functions and
the world of information bits and bytes do not contain any
value; they only contain matter, functions, bits and bytes.
Any atom is an atom and nothing else; any biological function
is a biological function and nothing else; any bit or byte
is a bit or byte and nothing else. Naturalism can do nothing
to avoid value nihilism except to recognise that human beings
– like all other living organisms – actually do
strive to maintain their existence, which requires them to
fulfil their needs. Thus, the maintenance of existence and
consequently, the satisfaction of needs have become the ultimate
‘values’ of naturalism, with these values come
the emphasis on discriminating and selecting the good ones
(i.e. the fit or strong) by competition.
Subjectively,
a person may consider the achievement of pleasure and the
avoidance of pain as the motivating values in life. Although
these motives are subject to considerable variation –
witness, e.g. the existence of masochism – some forms
of naturalism accepts them as goals and broadly interprets
them as the subjective manifestation of the fulfilment of
objective needs.
Capitalist economy,
especially the welfare state, has fully adopted naturalism.
The fundamental goal of the welfare state is the fulfilment
of the needs of the people. A free and unregulated market
economy has no such direct material goal, however. It is driven
by the forces of supply and demand, where demand is assumed
to be the expression of the actors’ interpretation of
their own needs and values. It is central to the functioning
of the capitalist economy that the goods offered are intended
for consumption rather than for long-term use. If the process
of use did not consume the goods, then the economy would slow
down and stop when everybody had the goods necessary to satisfy
their needs. This is, of course, the problem with long-lasting
products. The continual renewal of demand, i.e. the continual
renewal of a person’s state of not being satisfied and
thus in need of new goods, is essential to market economy.
If the demand for a firm’s products is not renewed,
then the firm will cease to exist. On the national level,
society generates the highest possible gross domestic product
(GDP) per capita, by increasing turnover as much as possible,
which is considered the overall political goal of the economy.
The objective of the welfare state, then, in addition to redistributing
the GDP, is to achieve the fulfilment of everybody’s
basic needs.
Firms operating
under market conditions are exposed to competition. Essential
for the winning position is the ability to identify and utilise
free or unused resources available, which is why there is
competition with respect to this ability. Free resources may
either be ones given to us by nature or the energy, skill
and time that people do not spend on productive behaviour.
Thus, both the resources of nature and human resources are
subject to exploitation, and the firm which is best at exploiting
these resources has the competitive advantage. Thus, in order
to produce goods for consumption, the resources of nature
and the energy and time of human beings are exploited as much
as possible in an attempt to achieve the competitive advantages.
The result of
this process is the large amount of goods for consumption
that is supposed to create human welfare. Consumption, however,
is destruction. To consume a product is to destroy it and
make it a pollutant. As is well-known, industrial pollution
has a tendency not to be fully degradable and consequently,
to gradually destroy the structural quality of nature. Water,
air and the soil are resources that become mixed with pollutants
and gradually lose their once distinct magnificent qualities
in a process that, prior to the theory of the big bang, similar
to the heat death of the universe, which, was believed to
be the fate of the universe predicted by the third law of
thermodynamics.
In principle,
a free and unused resource is everything that has a clear
identity in time; it is everything that has an enduring identity,
where ‘enduring’ means not being in a productive
process. It comprises the identifiable structures of nature
as well as the unproductive available time of human beings.
These free resources have to be utilised and thereby destroyed
as much as possible for the firm to be competitive. This is
– paradoxically – to maximize scarcity of resources
in order to create wealth.
In the shape of
the global market economy and welfare states, naturalism installs
a process to minimize, i.e. utilise as much as possible, the
enduring structures of nature as well as human energy and
time, while, concerning output, it creates goods with distinct
identities which have to and do become pollutants as quickly
as possible. The overall process, which we normally consider
positive in that it produces welfare, appears to be a process
increasingly destroying our world and gradually eliminating
people’s personal lives. It does not produce happiness;
it does not even know what happiness is. It does not create
any improvement in the quality of the Earth and people’s
situations on Earth. It improves our technology but, and this
may come as a surprise, neither our spare time nor the resources
available for people to pursue their personal interests and
to care for the people and things they love. On the contrary,
it generates increasing egotism, stress and depression and
thus furthers all kinds of social problems such as alcoholism,
drug abuse, crime and violence. On the international stage,
it enhances the competition for markets and resources, and
people have difficulties developing real values which enable
them to take a moral stand and thus be less influenced by
hostile propaganda spread by their own society against people
from other countries or against such countries.
In sum, naturalism
is concerned with fulfilling human needs. Although this is
in itself positive, it also has negative and dangerous aspects
due to the reductivist perspective of human nature involved.
Fundamentally, naturalism represents no values at all. The
fulfilment of needs is not a value of life but a condition
of life.
Reductivism implies
that our social control systems do not only reduce but also
increase the overall amount of problems, tensions and conflicts
and that they constantly must cover up fires which they themselves
have started. The negative features that create these fires
include:
a the promotion of egotism;
b increasing destruction;
c increasing competition for scarce resources;
d the alienation of people because the features increase social
control and remove the value of their lives; and
e competition and the control of people, which create instability
and risk of conflict and war.
Broadly speaking,
real values which lay the foundation for peace are friendship
amongst people and their governments as well as compassion
for those who face special problems. Friendship aims at mutual
support and help if these are needed. It does not preclude
friendly competition, but it is concerned with the well being
of the other and not only with the well being of one’s
own nation or one’s own group or power structure.
Although a great
deal of compassion is displayed in the international world,
neither compassion nor friendship are values rooted in naturalism.
Naturalistic peace is considered rational if it serves the
interests of the state. This is a question of national egotism.
However, it sometimes appears in the interest of national
egotism to wage a war. From the perspective of naturalism,
friendship is created on the basis of egotistic interests,
i.e. it is not real friendship. World politics would look
very different if political alliances were based on a concern
to create friendship between people and not simply rely on
governments which sometimes have little popular legitimacy.
Clearly, it is important to identify a different basis for
the construction of values than that offered by naturalism.
3. A transcendent foundation of Values
Naturalism rejects
the role and meaning of a transcendent entity. One might therefore
attempt to reintroduce values which enable the creation of
friendship, meaning and peace by leaving naturalism behind
and reintroducing a transcendent entity – be it in the
form of a personal God, as in theistic religions, or of an
absolute principle, as in the Hindu concept of Brahman. The
argument runs as follows: “Since the natural world does
not give us any values, one must use the idea of a transcendent,
supernatural world, to create a value base for human life.”
Here, then, is the source of real values. They are spiritual
and not subject to competition because, unlike the natural
resources necessary for biological life, they are not scarce.
This line of reasoning is inherent in traditional theism and
still widely in use today.
The reasoning,
however, is not valid and leads to problems of its own. History
proves it wrong: the theistic religions compete and throughout
history they have played a central role in legitimising wars
against neighbouring people or others who happened to have
different beliefs. They motivate their adherents by promising
them eternal reward in a wonderful afterlife. This naive process
continues even today, to the amazement of people inclined
towards naturalism.
The problem involved
in the conflict over different interpretations of a transcendent
entity is the lack of a public criterion by which to determine
who or which spiritual leader – whether priest, rabbi,
mullah or guru – expresses the will of that which is
good, i.e. God’s will, and who expresses the will of
that which is evil. They all claim to speak the will of the
good God but, as they contradict each other, some of them
are mistaken – but who? Or are they all mistaken, as
is the claim of naturalism? People need to ask themselves
and their neighbours the following question: “Is our
spiritual leader sometimes speaking with the voice of evil?”
If one believes in the existence of the invisible, transcendent
and all-powerful God, then one had better ascertain that one’s
spiritual leader is not mistaken. That might be the case as
the spiritual leader is a human being and as such may make
mistakes. They may even mistake what is good for what is evil
and what is evil for what is good. What they believe to be
the voice of God may be the voice of an evil demon. As Descartes,
one may easily imagine that a powerful demon, a devil, may
fool a small human being – regardless of whether s/he
is a spiritual leader. Appeal to public scriptures does not
solve the problem either. There are different scriptures,
and they were written and have been interpreted by human beings.
People need to
find a common way of establishing whether a spiritual leader
has been fooled by a bad demon or in some other way and has
therefore come to confuse good and evil. History shows that
spiritual leaders cannot be trusted in matters of peace and
war – then when can they be trusted, if ever?
The criterion
needed cannot be found either in naturalism or in a transcendent
entity since many spiritual leaders disagree so strongly that
they willingly support war and terror to solve the conflict.
In this historic age, a transcendent entity is once again
used to wage war and promote terrorism. As a basis for peace,
appeal to a transcendent entity is not reliable. We must look
for a different basis for our values.
4. Values versus Needs
Values and goods
for consumption are contrary phenomena. For instance, we need
water. We drink it and it is destroyed, transformed to a pollutant,
but we have satisfied our thirst. However, we love the river,
the ocean, the lake. We want to live in close contact with
the water. We want to enjoy the view of it, to smell it, to
swim in it. We do not want to consume, pollute and destroy
it. On the contrary, we want to preserve it. Unlike values,
which we do not want to be destroyed, goods for consumption
have to be destroyed, i.e. consumed; otherwise, they are useless.
Not all products are goods for consumption, however. A good
painting may be enjoyed day after day. We do not want to consume
and destroy it. We may copy or reproduce it so that everybody
may see and enjoy it and nobody needs to fight over it. Similarly,
a good piece of music may be heard over and over again. It
has eternal value. Everybody may play it without it being
consumed and destroyed. The things of value are not meant
for consumption and destruction. Consumption is a means to
preserve life and not the value and goal of life. Human beings
have this double ‘nature’ in their approach to
the world. On the one hand, we have needs that must be satisfied
and which are fulfilled through consumption and destruction.
On the other hand, there is everything which we feel has value
and which we want to protect, strengthen and preserve. The
process of value is the creation of wonderful recurring structures.
The process of consumption is the destruction of structures.
Nothing is more seriously wrong than confusing the satisfaction
of needs with values. It amounts to confusing destruction
with creation, to confusing good and evil.
Now we see why
the continuous efforts to increase GDP per capita are dangerously
crazy. They mistake means for ends. The economy is not an
end in itself; it is a means to an end. The goal is not consumption
and destruction. The goal is the creation and experience of
value. Therefore, the economy should be as small as possible
relative to the values. This means that society must define
a minimalist approach to consumption, a minimalist form of
naturalism in order to support the creation of values. A minimalist
approach reduces destruction and attempts to increase the
time and resources available to human beings to allow them
to pursue real values.
Most values may
be enjoyed repeatedly. We can see the ocean over and over
again, which does not pollute it. We can listen to the same
music again and again, which does not destroy it. We may look
at paintings, laugh at jokes, enjoy the company of others
and so on. Real values are spiritual in nature and not destructive.
They are only to a very limited degree based on exploiting
scarce resources and are thus no reason for conflict. The
‘infinite’ nature of real values, such as the
view of a lake or the value of a good company, gives us happiness
and enables people to inspire each other.
The foundation
of peace work is the cultivation of real and ‘infinite’
values. If the whole focus is on the need for scarce resources
as if they were the end and not some means, then conflict
is always lurking. Focusing on real lasting values makes people
giving rather than demanding. It makes them spiritually satisfied
and happy instead of tense and unbalanced. When concerned
with real values and not value substitutes, people are peaceful
and satisfied because they feel that their lives are filled
with meaning.
Some effects of
minimalist naturalism/consumption are:
a the creation of space for real values, whose nature is spiritual;
b increased preservation of the Earth; and
c diminishing conflicts, which enhances the possibilities
of peace.
5. Love as the foundation of value
Appeal to a transcendent
entity yielding conflicting answers due to the lack of a common
criterion, there must be a principle in this world which can
provide us with guidance as to what is good and what is evil.
The principle, however, cannot be found in the reductions
of naturalism.
When we distinguish
non-arbitrarily between good and evil, we do so for a reason
which explains why this is good or evil. For instance, the
view of the ocean is good because it is beautiful and makes
us feel good. Coffee is good because it tastes and smells
fine. Company is good because we feel good together and have
inspiring conversations; etc. A reason can only function as
a reason if it means something to the person concerned. For
instance, the beauty of the sunset may mean nothing to a blind
person. If the reason is just an external one and not one
that is felt and accepted by the person, then it is no functional
reason at all.
The basic reason
for people to organise their lives is, however, that they
love to live, they love their life. The only reason a person
can have for being and living in this world is that he loves
this world. The reason cannot be that he hates the world or
that he is objectively neutral. But if you love life and being
in this world, then you do have a reason to exist. A weaker
reason for living might be that you like it, possibly, because
it gives you pleasure. This reason does not, however, consider
life an activity but rather something receptive. Thus it may
provide a reason for being here now, but it cannot provide
a reason for living to the end, for structuring life and filling
it with important interconnected activities. This is only
possible where the motive is love. Love unfolds in creative
projects which organise time. This is not the case for pleasure.
In a world where
people cannot believe in any future, where they cannot believe
that their activities make a difference, they cannot form
love projects to organise their lives and giving them meaning.
The role of love is to give life meaning by enabling people
to organise their activities in a way which they feel to be
directly meaningful.
This provides
us with the criterion which we have been looking for, by which
to judge what is good: what is good is based on love; what
is evil is based on anger, hatred, revenge or similarly destructive
motives. We can now discriminate between good and evil authorities
or spiritual leaders: if the authorities or spiritual leaders
preach hatred and destruction, then they represent something
evil. If they preach friendship, love, creativity and care,
then they represent something good. If they preach both, then
they are both, and we should listen only to the good part
of what they preach.
Love is the reason
for living. It provides the motivation for good and loving
things. It is the very opposite of the egotistic motivation
presupposed in naturalism. People want to be with whatever
they love. They do not want to let it disappear or to destroy
it. If people love the Earth, then they will not destroy it.
Acting and living on the basis of love is also the way to
happiness. To be happy is to love what one is doing and happiness
is doing what you love doing. This has nothing to do with
satisfying one’s needs. One may feel in a terrible shape
because one needs a rest, some warmth or shelter but one may,
at the same time, feel happy if that state is the result of
having done things which one has loved doing. Without love,
there can be no happiness. Acting out of love, realizing a
love project cannot be replaced by satisfaction in one way
or another. Satisfaction relates to needs; love and happiness
do not. Therefore, motives such as anger or hatred are often
oppressed forms of depression.
Three Forms of
Love
It is important to distinguish between three forms of love:
existential love, universal love and subjective love.
Existential love
is the primary form, which is the love to be, to be alive
and to exist. This basic feeling or state of mind is the core
of it all. It inspires people and makes them feel happy. It
is a birth gift which provides us with our great appetite
for living and enables us to enjoy what we do and to overcome
any frustrations in our development. Our existential love
is the most important gift we have for other people. It makes
us appear vital and emanate a good mood and warm enthusiastic
feelings. Our existential love, i.e. a loving way of being,
is the primary gift that we have for other people. It is always
good to be with people who love to be. This love is the basis
on which a subject structures his or her world. Any person
whose existential love is in trouble is a depressed person,
a clear sign of depression being the lack of any vital existential
love emanating from that person. The love for existing with
which we are born enables us to find out how the world works
and to create an image of a recurring world in which we may
organise our love projects. Being in this world involves the
two interrelated forms of worldly love. While existential
love has no object, these worldly forms have the other as
their object.
Universal love
is a person’s love for the world. Its object is the
general other, the world. This does not mean that a person
who has universal love necessarily loves each and everybody,
but it means that such a person has a loving approach to the
world as the basis for his interaction with it and is motivated
by positive values. It does not mean that such people will
turn the other cheek but that they will stand firm on the
basis of their love for the world. Universal love makes the
world rich because it is the love of otherness as such and
therefore ensures a general openness to good things in the
world. It may cross cultures and enables people to receive
a wealth of experience.
Subjective love
is a person’s love for the specific other, for specific
people and for things and activities in the world. Subjective
love is mostly what motivates people. It may create the projects
which enable a person to organise a good life. The success
of subjective love is the development and success of the loved
other. In a sense, the success is the independence of the
other from the lover: the success of parental love lies in
the ability of the children to leave home and live their own
lives. The success of a painter lies in the ability of his
paintings to find acceptance in the world with people who
love them. Subjective love cannot easily succeed without universal
love. Love of the world is a condition for taking care of
the things one loves in a way that may lead the other to success.
If a loving person primarily wants to protect from the evil
world what s/he loves, then s/he makes it a problem for the
loved one(s) to acquire the resources from the world necessary
to become strong, successful and independent. If, for instance,
painters hide their paintings, then they may not receive the
feedback necessary to develop them. Similarly, if parents
keep their children away from other children, saying, for
instance, “Do not play with them, they are not good
enough”, then they may render them insecure and make
it difficult for them to become independent.
Love and identity
If one divides the world into us versus them/the others, thus
implying that we are good and the others are not so good or
even evil, then, of course, universal love has come to an
end. One is no longer a citizen of the world but only of a
specific country, religion or gang. Such forms of fundamentalism,
which may be nationalistic, ideological or religious, counteract
universal love. They force people to identify with a group
which defines itself negatively against the others. They may
create a strong sense of belonging but not one of belonging
to this world. The rejection of universal love and the cultivation
of such divisions, which replace it, lay the foundations of
hostility which eventually enable rulers to mobilise their
populations to engage in conflicts and war. The cultivation
of these divisions is often an integral part of education
at school as well as of ongoing public propaganda. The consequence
of this divide is that the character of the structure of love
changes and turns into its own opposite. In principle, worldly
love is directed towards the other. With the divide, however,
the other is suddenly no longer exciting but has become a
hostile or low- ranking entity. Love for the other ends and
can only be replaced by love for the alternative, i.e., for
a person’s self. This creates a closed and narrow mindset
and instils depression because the genuine nature of love
has been abandoned, which makes it impossible to obtain identity
through the other, i.e., for several reasons the subjective
love cannot function. Such depression may even trigger acts
of suicide.
The self-identity of a person stems from his/her love. There
are two forms of identity, the existential identity and the
worldly one. The existential identity stems from existential
love. It gives us a direct sense of being. But, except for
the excitement of existing, it does not provide us with any
clue as to who and what we are because it has no other to
relate to. When you ask yourself: “Who am I?”,
you will most likely think of whoever or whatever you love:
“I am the one who is in love with …, and I like
to do the following things …”. You know that what
you are forced to do does not reveal your nature whereas what
you love doing does. The latter reveals who you are. Thus,
a person defines his/her worldly identity though his love.
Love is identification with the other in a double sense. It
is not only identifying with the other in order to take care
of and understand the other. That is not love but only care
and understanding. Through love, a person defines himself/herself
through the other.
6. Spiritual Life and Peace
Love is the centre
of a spiritual way of living, organising meaning and setting
values. If you live on the basis of love, then you create
a loveable world, a world of friendship and one filled with
high values. You will speak well of your neighbours and you
will be loved yourself. If you live on the basis of hatred
or anger, then you create an angry world filled with hatred
and fights. You may be feared, but you will not be loved.
Love, however,
is subjective. It cannot be commanded and it cannot acknowledge
any authority because it is itself the authority of life.
Loving people who realise all three forms of love can live
with all kinds of neighbours. Universal love is incompatible
with terrorism and the waging of war. If there is a conflict
of interest, loving people can find a solution.
The spiritual
element of love places man in the centre. The centre is not
the formal authority of society; it is neither facts of science
nor the rules of law. It is first and foremost human beings.
Human beings, not unlike worms and butterflies, are wonderful
creatures. So why are people so afraid of not being good enough?
Why must they strive so hard to become acceptable? Placing
human beings in the centre again will give everybody a voice
and respect.
The real values
realised by a person’s love are infinite and cannot
extinguish the candlelight of peace. By contrast, only fear
prevents people motivated by egotism and greed, power or fame
from waging war; so you will always have to watch the power
balance during any cold peace.
Summary and Perspectives
Values are based
on the subjective strive for endurance and recurrence of the
valuable other through which we identity ourselves. We want
to protect and share what we love. We want to experience it
once more and again. It makes us what we are to ourselves.
Satisfaction of needs, on the other hand aims at consumption
and thus destruction, whereas values are to be enjoyed and
not destroyed.
Thus, it is through
love we can realize values. In distinction to the economic
mechanism of consumption, values are not focused on maximizing
destruction and thus do not necessitate conflict over scarce
resources. On the contrary, the ‘infinite’ nature
of values make them shareable and mediators for harmony and
peace.
We need to supplement
scientific naturalism with explanations that concern values.
Such explanations relate to human reason and are therefore
not a question of manipulation but of helping people to become
sovereign in their lives. The reason is the reason why they
live. There is such a reason. It is the most precious we have
to offer, our love.
References
K. E. Lögstrup,:
The ethical Demand ,1971, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
U.S.A
Erich Fromm: The
Art of Loving (1989 Harper Collins Publishers, New York, U.S.A.)
Sören Kierkegaard:
Works of Love, Kierkegaards Writings vol. XVI (1996, Princeton
University Press,
Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.)
Plato: Symposion
in John M. Cooper, ed., Plato: Complete Works (1997 Hackett
Publishing Co.
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.).
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