Flight From the Absolute: Cynical Observations on the Postmodern West. volume 2

Paul Gosselin

Flight

From the Absolute

Cynical Observations on

the Postmodern West

volume II

S A M I Z D A T

Flight From the Absolute: Cynical Observations on the Postmodern West volume II.

Gosselin, Paul, 1957-

published by Samizdat 2014©

Smashwords Edition

Includes bibliography, index, annex and notes.

ISBN 978-29807774-6-2 (EPUB)

Translated from the French: Fuite de l'Absolu: Observations cyniques sur l'Occident postmoderne. volume II (2009)

Cover: Detail drawn from Dieu créa les cieux et la terre

by Constance Cimon, 2004 - Acrylic on canvas.

Samizdat 2014©

Succursale Jean-Gauvin

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Some may object that we ought not to use the word «myth» at all for our definition goes beyond what many critics have previously described as myths. For those who believe that science employs reason and religion expresses feelings and that these differences can be seen in the construction of rational theories by scientists and in the formulation of irrational myths by theologians, our discovery that scientists also produce myths under our definition is abhorrent. These opponents charge that we have misused ‘myth’ by stretching its scope beyond normal use. In reply, we admit that our definition covers more territory than many, but we claim justification for this extension on the basis of our theory of metaphor. In the examination of religious myths, one can find underlying metaphors, the root-metaphors that were diaphonic and suggestive and then were taken literally to produce myths. In our examination of scientific language, we found a similar use of metaphor; scientists had built theories upon root-metaphors and then had taken these theories to be descriptive of the way the world really is, only later to discover that their theories were inadequate and were replaced by more adequate theories. If one claims that we should not call scientific theories myths because they are based upon reason whereas religious myths are constructed out of the association of ideas, then such a differentiation can only be made in ignorance of the failure of the hypothetical-deductive view of scientific explanation and of the extreme difficulty that philosophers of science have in demonstrating the ‘rationality’ of contemporary scientific theories. Theories are often retained in spite of negative evidence and of known inconsistencies, and sociological factors like the methods by which theories are accepted enter into the judgment about whether a theory is adequate or not. (MacCormac 1976: 131-132)

In moving from experience of social life to conceptualization and intellectual history, I follow the path of anthropologists almost everywhere. Although we take theories into the field with us, these become relevant only if and when they illuminate social reality. Moreover, we tend to find very frequently that it is not a theorist’s whole system which so illuminates, but his scattered ideas, his flashes of insight taken out of systemic context and applied to scattered data. Such ideas have a virtue of their own and may generate new hypotheses. They even show how scattered facts may be systematically connected! Randomly distributed through some monstrous logical system, they resemble nourishing raisins in a cellular mass of inedible dough. The intuitions, not the tissue of logic connecting them, are what tend to survive in the field experience.

(Victor Turner 1974: 23)

Table of Contents

Foreword

1 / Phantom Ethics

Ethical Animals

Drafting the New Catechism

Voices From Under the Rubble

Flight From the Real, Take Two

2 / Essentials

Can We Talk?

A Weary Cosmology

Ruts in the Mind

Beyond Common Sense

Development and Birth

3 / Origin of Modern Man

Elements of Comparison

Trespassing the Critical Threshold

Gut Reactions

Once Upon a Time...

The Quest for Deep Time

4 / The Peter Pan Effect

Overcoming One’s Hang-ups

Indicators of Cultural Penetration

Beyond the Ethnocentric View

Establishing the Cast of Characters

5 / The Quest For Sacred Aura

Deconstructing a Mantra

A Matter of Method

Decrepit Fortress Walls

Lakatos and the Hard Core

An Origins Myth Adrift

Accelerated Spin

Kurt’s Ambivalence

6 / The Popper Affair

Mea Culpa

An Outsider Above Suspicion

Evasive Action

Mythologics

The Inquisition Gets a Makeover

Setting Up The Target

The French

7 / Conclusion

8 / Annex: What is a Creationist?

9 / Bibliography

10 / The Origins Debate: A Bibliographic Overview

The Creationists

Creationist Science Journals

Intelligent Design

Independent Critics

11 / Acknowledgements

12 / Technical Considerations

13 / Index

Foreword

The previous volume of this work examined the assertion that postmodernism is actually an invisible religion, a religion in fundamental denial of its own religious nature. One trait contributing to this invisibility is the postmodern rejection of any social/political utopia or explicit creed.

The twentieth century saw the climax of the modern religion, followed by the slow erosion of its influence. The American novelist Kurt Vonnegut provides an entertaining case study of a modern individual’s ideologico-religious conversion/drift into postmodernism. In a collection of articles published under the title Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons, Vonnegut gives us a remarkable thumbnail sketch of the evolution of his view of life and provides a good example of a wider shift in beliefs during the twentieth century resulting in the challenge of the Enlightenment’s legacy by a new belief system. Vonnegut relates that in his youth he had been an optimist, believing in Progress, confident that science would lead to Nirvana. He believed that scientists would soon find out how everything worked and would eventually make everything go better. He had expected that before he was twenty-one, a scientist would have taken a photo of God which would be subsequently published in the Popular Mechanics magazine. All the great mysteries of life would be solved. But this initial optimism was laid low by the harsh realities of war and everyday life and led to pessimism and a deep questioning of Enlightenment dogma. As it turned out, in his twenty-first year Vonnegut witnessed the firebombing and annihilation of Dresden[1] in Germany during World War II. He notes with irony that his generation witnessed scientific truth being dropped on Hiroshima. Vonnegut confesses, in a speech at a high school graduation, that as a result of these events he then had an intimate conversation with himself and provides us with a glimpse (1975: 162):

Hey, Corporal Vonnegut, I said to myself, maybe you were wrong to be an optimist. Maybe pessimism is the thing. I have been a consistent pessimist ever since, with a few exceptions. In order to persuade my wife to marry me, of course, I had to promise her that the future would be heavenly. And then I had to lie about the future again every time I thought she should have a baby. And then I had to lie to her again every time she threatened to leave me because I was too pessimistic. I saved our marriage many times by exclaiming, Wait!; Wait! I see light at the end of the tunnel at last! And I wish I could bring light to your tunnels today. My wife begged me to bring you light, but there is no light. Everything is going to become unimaginably worse, and never get better again. If I lied to you about that, you would sense that I’d lied to you, and that would be another cause for gloom. We have enough causes for gloom.

(1975: 163-64) I know that millions of dollars have been spent to produce this splendid graduating class, and that the main hope of your teachers was, once they got through with you, that you would no longer be superstitious. I’m sorry I have to undo that now. I beg you to believe in the most ridiculous superstition[2] of all: that humanity is at the center of the universe, the fulfiller or the frustrator of the grandest dreams of God Almighty. If you can believe that, and make others believe it, then there might be hope for us. Human beings might stop treating each other like garbage, might begin to treasure and protect each other instead. Then it might be all right to have babies again. Many of you will have babies anyway, if you’re anything like me. To quote the poet Schiller: Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain. About astrology and palmistry: They are good because they make people feel vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

Seeing the supreme Truth of Science laid low, Vonnegut[3] therefore turned to the postmodern religion. The door is now open to mysticism and even the occult.[4] And if the Enlightenment pre-empted the old Christian horror of superstition, postmoderns are not encumbered by such scruples. In the twentieth century, one encounters thinkers, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, who were both precursors of postmodernism while remaining closely committed to a materialist cosmology. Existentialism can be seen as a precursor of postmodernism with its relativization of modern collective ideologies as well as in the central place it gives to the individual and his subjectivity. Existentialism remains firmly rooted in modern (materialist) cosmology, but represents nonetheless the birth pangs of something new. Thenceforth, the process of breaking away from ideologies devoted to the establishment of collective utopias[5] is initiated, those ideologies that so dominated the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. Later on, hippies and the Me generation pursued this shift away from dominant social post-war ideologies (capitalism vs. Communism) in their protests against the Vietnam War (Hell no, we won’t go! [Gotta look out for Number One…]).

It should be noted that the postmodern phenomenon discussed here is much wider and deeper than the university and academic scene, the world of thinkers. Postmodern intellectuals are only one expression of postmodernism and are not the ultimate source of this cultural current. If postmodern symbols and rhetoric have managed to impact pop culture this is indicative of a broad response to the modern view. Intellectuals aren’t the only ones to have found the modern belief system deficient and to have attempted to find something else, some other way to figure out life. It is no coincidence then to find postmodern presuppositions widely disseminated by the arts and pop culture. While still crediting intellectuals as the source of all wisdom, the French sociologist François Cusset notes (2005: 12, 13):

One finds French theory[6] in neighbourhood, ethnic or even sexual activism, in novels or even in mainstream movies, and of course in the world of constantly mutating art forms. [...] Experimental music by DJ Spooky quotes Gilles Deleuze on his album covers, but develops his own theory of the musical object; or between the Baudrillardian hypothesis of the simulation of the real and the copy with no original and the basic argument put forward by the three episodes of the Matrix, the Wachowski brothers’ film (1999), which is of course less Baudrillardian as it picks up on common issues, using the specific resources and narrative techniques of cinema.*

One issue that sociologists sometimes focus on regarding the Révolution Tranquille[7] which took place in Quebec in the 1960-1970s is the old Church-State relationship, which had existed since the founding of New France (somewhat reworked after the British conquest in 1759), and which was discarded by twentieth-century modern elites. Previously the Catholic Church had owned and run all health-care and most education in the province as well as having great influence in politics. The Révolution Tranquille is generally considered as an administrative revolution, that is to say involving a non-violent transfer of powers within Quebec’s major social institutions (such as education and health care) from the Catholic Church to the State (and the rising liberal elites). But this is only one side of the issue and in this process, the secular State (if not the political system as a whole) has subsequently replaced the Catholic Church in ideologico-religious terms as well. Despite the changeover to the modern view, the centralized Catholic model, which for generations of French-speakers had been a central fact of life, has remained an unquestioned social pattern for the ideological management of the masses in most secular French-speaking societies.[8]

In France, of course, this transfer of powers occurred nearly two centuries earlier (and much more violently), during the French Revolution and later on at other critical moments such as the battle over the establishment of secular public schools in the early twentieth century. In both cases, the State took over, in ideologico-religious terms, the central role once played by the Catholic Church. These considerations also provide an explanation, in the author’s view, of the gravitation, in French-speaking societies with a Catholic tradition, towards la pensée unique, that is, mainstream intellectual conformism dictated by a prestigious hierarchical elite. It is therefore a religious tradition dominated by the equation: one territory/society = one religion/church.[9] This ideological framework can also be linked with recent anti-cult laws in France, which merely repeat the old Catholic pattern of exclusion (e.g., the Catholic attitude towards the Protestant Huguenots).

In this tradition, alternative ideologico-religious discourse is always viewed as unsettling. Despite the great value placed on critical thinking in French-speaking societies, the French have always liked their intellectual or moral authorities haloed with the highest scientific or academic prestige and whose learned discourse, coming from on high, reveals, to the mere mortals below, how to think or behave. Could it be that, among the French, intellectuals, the Académie française or the CNRS[10] have replaced the synods and holy conclaves[11] of past centuries? It should be noted that the transition from the old Judeo-Christian cosmology to the modern belief system has also been marked by a transition in language. Previously, the term for a belief system was the word religion. In the modern context, the term ideology is used, indicating a transition to a belief system based on a materialist cosmology. Considered from an anthropological point of view, it is actually irrelevant whether a cosmology is deistic, Lamarckian or Darwinian. The fundamental issue is the cosmology’s explanatory function.

I have been criticized for presenting in the previous volume, a somewhat negative or selfish view of the scientist’s role. No doubt such views are scandalous as they call into question the modern image of the scientist as holy man. Basically, we claim no more than that the scientist is confronted, like all other men, with human reality in all its ambiguity and contradictions. Is it scandalous to suggest that the scientist is in fact an ordinary human with ordinary personal desires and needs? Indeed, we must understand that the image of the scientist as a holy man is an ideological product derived from the Enlightenment, as it sought to establish its seat of authority, its aura or sacredness.

That said, the fact remains that many scientists do still identify with the ethical and intellectual ideals of the eighteenth-century pioneers of science. The search for objectivity and truth remains a powerful motivating concept, present in the professional practice of the scientist and from researchers methodical labours and ethical commitments, many useful discoveries emerge in technology as well as in medicine, to the benefit of humanity. Raising the issue of science’s ideological role in the modern and postmodern context no doubt carries a hint of scandal, but in the author’s opinion, this simple fact needs to be slowly digested in order to sort things out. It is not a matter of despising the work and contribution of scientists to civilization, but it is necessary, in my opinion, to take a step back from scientism,[12] which is ubiquitous in the French-speaking world and has deeply influenced rest of the Western world as well.

Among the French, in political, cultural and intellectual terms the Enlightenment had an extraordinarily deep impact. In these societies, the social prestige attributed to science took on mythic proportions. In this context, any serious questioning of scientism will inevitably be rejected and subject to constraints and taboos, as this would raise numerous ideological and religious issues. Many will persist in rejecting the idea that science now plays an ideological function in the West. The common-sense view tells us science is neutral, objective and pure. It is therefore one hundred per cent empirical, with no links to (or contamination by) religion or metaphysics. This view is widespread and perhaps acceptable only regarding scientific methodology, but patently false if the foundations of science itself are examined. As discussed in the following pages (chapter 5 in particular), science as a method cannot deny its link with metaphysics and cosmology, since it is based on a number of assumptions, a cosmology, that is, a particular worldview. But many scientists find this basic observation disturbing, as they are not trained as philosophers, but rather as technicians,[13] whose prime concern is to apply a method designed to expand our knowledge of the physical and biological world around us (and to obtain practical results thereby, if not new technology). As a result, when it is suggested that their method is based on certain metaphysical presuppositions, presuppositions that are linked to cosmology, this takes most scientists out of their comfort zone, and challenges their public self-image as purely empirical and rational beings, dealing only in facts...

In developing our arguments, our intent is not to deny the ethical or moral concerns of scientists. The real question is: What is the postmodern scientists’ reference point when resolving these issues? What is their benchmark for assessing good or evil in a particular situation? Which ideologico-religious system will serve as a benchmark for their ethical stance? Ethics doesn’t just appear, like the magician’s rabbit drawn out of a hat, but is always linked in logical terms to a particular cosmology. For the sake of argument, we may assume that scientists are well intended for the most part, and that in general the likelihood that (ecological or medical) disasters should occur is limited. But in biotechnology, there is reason to believe that the story is different, since in this field there is no established ethical tradition. One might say it’s the Wild West... especially when laboratories may be opened in countries where political interests or the economic interests of the international market are the only law.[14]

In the West, scientific and medical research was first developed in the context of the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition.[15] This tradition still retains some influence due to social and institutional inertia, but since the late nineteenth century, this heritage has been greatly eroded and marginalized in many areas[16] and one must ask which ideologico-religious system will replace it to become the dominant influence among scientists and bioethics committees. These are not abstract questions. The French biologist Pierre-Paul Grassé highlights below what happens when scientific elites overwhelmingly adopt a fashionable ideology (1980: 44):

After the triumph of National Socialism, German science gave massive, unconditional support to the Führer. Anthropologists, geneticists, economists and lawyers zealously began to serve their new master. [In a footnote [2] Grassé adds]: Support for their Führer among German intellectuals[17] was massive. In the 1933 referendum, statements by professors from many universities (not all) were combined in one volume. Among the authors of these texts, can be found the name of the famous philosopher, Martin Heidegger, which is both surprising, given the idealism permeating his work and revealing of the mind-set that gave Hitler victory.*

But we should not be too surprised by such an outcome. Scientists remain ordinary human beings. They too must answer the big questions of life and can in no case avoid commitment to an ideologico-religious system. The only question is: Which one will they choose?[18] If we accept that ideas have consequences, then the choice of an ideologico-religious system must be carefully weighed both by the individual and by society. Another issue is that even in the case of researchers identifying in some way with Christianity[19] (or any other monotheistic religion), one must take into consideration the fact that in the postmodern context, Christianity is typically relegated to the ghetto of one’s private life and will have little or no significant influence on one’s professional or public life where the postmodern worldview rules supreme. This differs radically from scientists who lived and did research before Enlightenment influence had totally penetrated the institution of Science.

In the first volume of this essay, we noted that the heart of the postmodern religion is the individual and his/her autonomy.[20] It is conceivable that the capitalist system (derived from variations of the English Enlightenment) may have contributed in some ways to the emergence of postmodernism, as from an economic point of view it is useful (and profitable) for the capitalist system to isolate individuals as consumers. The logic of self-fulfilment has its uses not only in psychological, but also in economic terms.

To understand the approach adopted in the following pages, reading the first volume of this essay will obviously be useful, but if for some reason this were to be impossible then here is a nutshell view of ground covered so far. This series of essays addresses a fundamental question: What is a worldview, an ideology or a religion? Religion is viewed here primarily as a system of beliefs developed to give meaning to human existence in intellectual as well as in moral, aesthetic and emotional terms. Initially, a worldview involves a cosmology, that is to say a set of presuppositions about the world order or how the world works. Cosmology provides the conceptual framework within which human existence is worked out or, in other words, the stage on which the theatre of life is performed. Cosmology often, but not always, takes the form of an origins myth. Simply expressed, we can say that cosmology provides a box in which human existence is played out and made sense of. A materialist cosmology for example offers a rather small box, while the various theistic cosmologies offer boxes with additional dimensions and categories of beings and levels of existence unknown in a materialistic cosmology. The cosmology’s main function then is to establish the limits of the thinkable. It provides many elements that may be used to answer the big questions of human existence, particularly the source of human alienation. Cosmology then provides a basis for, and foreshadows morality and even eschatology, which appear at later stages in the development of a mature worldview.

A worldview, or ideologico-religious system,[21] finds its basis in its cosmology. It involves the attempt to explain human alienation and includes strategies that help to mitigate or remedy (in some sense) the human condition. These strategies are designed to reach a final resolution which may take various forms such as Progress, the return of the Messiah, Nirvana, the New Jerusalem, the unification of Islamic nations under one caliph, the five Hindu heavens, the classless society, or cyberspace. The various strategies addressing human alienation proposed by differing worldviews clearly cannot be understood without reference to their own cosmologies. Given such considerations we assume here that religion is an attempt to impose order, to make sense of or give meaning to the world around us. Whether a religion does or does not refer to the supernatural to accomplish this is irrelevant. A materialist cosmology may serve to develop an ideologico-religious cosmology just as well as another referring to the supernatural.

The modern ideologico-religious system is the mature offspring of the Enlightenment and was the dominant worldview in the twentieth-century West. Initially it pushed aside traditional religions [Christianity in particular] claiming that from now on science would be the true and sole source of knowledge and salvation. If in times past ecclesiastical hierarchy or the Bible was viewed as the guarantor of truth, since the Enlightenment science has taken on this role. Moderns regard empirical data and Reason as forming the foundation of any knowledge worth mentioning. To ensure the logical consistency of this belief system, it was necessary, even inevitable, to develop an origins myth wrapped in the prestige of science. Although a materialist worldview has become dominant in the West since the early twentieth century, nonetheless several concepts drawn from the Judeo-Christian heritage were left undisturbed in the West’s cultural closet. For example, the Christian concept that the passage of time has meaning (History) was maintained but, in the modern context, this was called Progress. Initially a theological concept, this was reformulated in materialistic terms. In its most optimistic phases, it was claimed that scientists, educators and technologists would lead us to an era of prosperity and peace on earth, where technology would work wonders, dispelling disease and pushing back the conventional limits of human existence. But since Auschwitz, the H-bomb, the reappearance of conquered diseases such as tuberculosis, GMOs and various environmental problems related to industrial development, we are less trusting of such claims. In practical terms, politics was now viewed as a critical issue, at the heart of all things, that is to say that many moderns viewed salvation as primarily political and often taking the shape of social terra-forming projects such as capitalism or communism.

Postmoderns have pursued the ideologico-religious offloading process initiated by moderns. Other elements of the Judeo-Christian heritage such as Christian views of sexuality, the concept of universal (unilinear/noncyclical) History,[22] law, man’s place in nature were eroded and marginalized via a long covert process. Furthermore, in response to the modern worldview, postmoderns reject any political project with universal claims. Cultural relativism eliminates any moral or political universals. Democracy becomes little more than a quaint Western trait. Even scientific knowledge is called into question by some postmoderns, as is the concept of Progress.[23] Postmoderns deny the universality of this concept considering it no more than a metanarrative, a Western myth.

Postmodernism is in part a reaction to the monotony of the modern worldview’s rationalism, its optimism and naive faith in technology, in progress and the belief that science provides universal knowledge. Some fled the monotony of modern Reason,[24] seeking refuge in the irrational, the occult and even drugs. Although Timothy Leary’s psychedelic utopia was short lived, the attraction of the occult and of dimensions beyond the material world has since grown in the West. If postmoderns have abandoned the grand social revolutions and the great political utopias of the early twentieth century, postmoderns do retain a form of salvation, a Holy Grail, in various forms of sexual liberation/jihad. While reason and truth were the heart of modernism, there is reason to believe that desire is the quintessence of the postmodern belief system. Postmoderns reject the notion that there may be a truth outside of one’s self. It accepts no constraints and insists on one’s discovery and creation of autonomous values. Although postmodernism seems to be the largely dominant ideologico-religious system in the twenty-first century, it does have a weakness. Since the concept of self-fulfilment is at the heart of this belief system, its strong position in the West may be linked to the, thus far, prevailing economic prosperity. It is therefore conceivable that a major economic crisis could greatly reduce its influence. Hard to tell. In any case, the West will certainly be put to the test in the twenty-first century as it finds itself caught between the growing ideological power of the Islamic world and growing Asian technological, economic and military power. What effect will these factors have on the West’s sacred fetish, its standard of living? As the purported Chinese curse goes: May you live in interesting times.

Notes

[1] - It has since been claimed that this attack was uncalled for from a military point of view, as it appears Dresden did not have any valuable industrial or military targets.

[2] - Vonnegut's choice of words is odd. Why use this particular term superstition (as opposed to a rationally-derived view), unless Vonnegut had figured out that the concept of the supreme value of human life has no real support in a Darwinian/materialist cosmology?

[3] - Though some may be tempted to look with disdain on Vonnegut’s reaction to Enlightenment discourse by dismissing it as an immature artist’s gut reflex, but this view seems to be shared, in broad terms, by Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) a renowned scientist and pioneering researcher in wave mechanics. Schrödinger offered the following comments (1964: 93):

The scientific picture of the world around me is very deficient. It gives me a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but is ghastly silent about all that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell a word about the sensation of red and blue, bitter and sweet, feelings of delight and sorrow. It knows nothing of beauty and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.

[4] - In Social Anthropology, the work of Carlos Castaneda, published in the 70s and 80s, comes to mind. Castaneda’s books relate his experiences with the Yaqui shaman Don Juan, and may be considered not only participant-observation, but propaganda as well...

[5] - The French Universalis encyclopaedia notes (2002, v. 8):

In modern industrial societies, political propaganda underwent a deep change with the advent of totalitarian regimes. Since then it has broken away from traditional means of persuasion to become a highly rationalized technique, as its area of influence is seen as circumscribed. The subject’s identification with the system in power is constantly being sought by stirring up loyalty and emotional contagion. Argument and discussion are typically subordinate to the need to create a collective fascination with the leader.*

[6] - This alludes to versions of postmodernism promoted by French intellectuals.

[7] - Though this was a critical time in Quebec history there were events leading up to it, currents of thought that nourished it, which had simmered for a long time before bearing fruit. LR notes on this subject (2006):

The erosion of the Catholic Church’s influence in Quebec seems to have been gradual. In fact, it seems that aggressive actions had been attempted after the mid-1850s in French Canada, just before the rise of Ultramontanism. Proponents of French secular nationalism, however, never gave up and found refuge in circles of power, remaining discreet during periods when the Catholic clergy had most influence. The conferences and private clubs of the intellectual elite at that time could not compete with the Sunday Mass propaganda which reached people all year long. One had to get people out of the churches, and strangely..., this was accomplished by the ritual of watching TV offered by the new clergy of the media. Moreover, the influence of religious education of the people and the elite was another serious problem. The Quiet Revolution generation had been educated, with a certain sophistication, by an army of nuns and priests, gaining a solid background in philosophy and science (the clergy being closely linked to the founding of many Science departments in Quebec universities). The generation of idealists coming out of universities after World War II (individuals such as René Levesque, Pierre Trudeau, Marchand, Pelletier, Vallières, Laurin, Parizeau, Bourassa, who later became political leaders on the provincial scene) had to be seduced. And this occurred, in some cases with the clergy’s complicity, some of them seeking a broadening of consciousness. In addition forced conscription in the First and Second World Wars had come as a shock for French Canadians who had been literally betrayed by the highest levels by Catholic clergy while many ordinary priests had assured them the Church would support their opposition to forced conscription. Bitterness set in and was revived and strengthened when bloody labour conflicts broke out during the 1950s. Bishops banned priests favourable to the strikers and abandoned them. The rise of materialistic or anti-Christian ideologies continued in the background and influenced an intelligentsia that had only to bide its time, as did the signatories of the Refus global (or Total Refusal) manifesto of 1948.*

[8] - Such a situation brings to mind an astute comment made by Alexis de Tocqueville (1835/1838, vol. I, ch. IX, sect. iv):

Every religion is to be found in juxtaposition to a political opinion which is connected with it by affinity. If the human mind be left to follow its own bent, it will regulate the temporal and spiritual institutions of society upon one uniform principle; and man will endeavor, if I may use the expression, to harmonize the state in which he lives upon earth with the state which he believes to await him in heaven.

[9] - In the case of Christianity this is an old tradition going back to the Edict of Milan issued by Constantine (313 AD). This view was formally expressed in 1555 at the Peace of Augsburg (following the formula: Cujus regio, ejus religio or one realm, one religion). After the Reformation, this tradition slowly eroded, particularly with the arrival of the Anabaptists in the sixteenth century who rejected the concept of a state religion and the right of the State to interfere in the life of the Church (a common state of affairs at the time). It should be noted that in the ancient world, the equation one state/society/nation = one religion was the norm. In the Islamic world, this equation is very important, a sought-after ideal in fact. In the case of Christianity, this equation should be considered a mutation, but with Islam, it is part of the original religious DNA, as the Prophet himself sanctioned it.

[10] - Such a claim would not shock a modern thinker such as Richard Lewontin, who speaks his mind more plainly than most. Discussing the legitimizing role played in the West by religious authorities of the past, Lewontin explains how scientific elites have since taken over this religious role (1992: 8-9):

But this description also fits science and has made it possible for science to replace religion as the chief legitimating force in modern society. Science claims a method that is objective and nonpolitical, true for all time. Scientists truly believe that except for the unwanted intrusions of ignorant politicians, science is above the political fray. … Not only the methods and institutions of science are said to be above ordinary human relations but, of course, the product of science is claimed to be a kind of universal truth. The secrets of nature are unlocked. Once the truth about nature is revealed, one must accept the facts of life. When science speaks, let no dog bark. No one except an expert can understand what scientists say and do, and we require the mediation of special people — science journalists, for example, or professors who speak on the radio — to explain the mysteries of nature because otherwise there is nothing but undecipherable formulas.

[11] - Regarding the Académie française, similarities may be found in details such as the long and splendid ceremonial robes worn by members at formal functions. Is it a coincidence, moreover, that this institution was founded by a clergyman (that is, by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635)?

[12] - The term scientism refers to the Enlightenment belief system and involves the concept that only science is a creditable source of Truth and will lead us to Progress (a materialistic paradise). Scientism claims not only that science is useful for exploring the empirical world and providing information about this world, but that it leads to TRUTH and that it is the only source of TRUTH. In Science is a Sacred Cow the British chemist Anthony Standen made the following observations (1950: 176-177)

But although in theory physicists realize that their conclusions are ... not certainly true, this ... does not really sink into their consciousness. Nearly all the time ... they ... act as if Science were indisputably True, and what’s more, as if only science were true.... Any information obtained otherwise than by the scientific method, although it may be true, the scientists will call unscientific, using this word as a smear word, by bringing in the connotation from its original [Greek] meaning, to imply that the information is false, or at any rate slightly phony.

[13] - Though among the sciences, theoretical physics comes closest to philosophy, Albert Einstein himself said (in Cohen1955: 72) that ...today physicists are almost all philosophers, although they are apt to be bad philosophers. Karl Popper, in an essay on his view of philosophy, offered comments which also apply to science (1977: 137-138):

All men and all women are philosophers. If they are not conscious of having philosophical problems, they have, at any rate, philosophical prejudices. Most of these are theories which they take for granted: they have absorbed them from their intellectual environment or from tradition. Since few of these theories are consciously held, they are prejudices in the sense that they are held without critical examination, even though they may be of great importance for the practical actions of people, and for their whole life.

Typically scientists are trained to ignore philosophical issues (as science programs in universities rarely have required philosophy of science courses) whereas 16th and 17th century scientists were acutely aware of their importance. If works such as Stanley Jaki’s Creation and Science or Reijer Hooykaas’ Religion and the Rise of Modern Science were required reading for science undergrads, the Enlightenment view of the neutral scientist would fall by the wayside.

[14] - It will be interesting to see what the Chinese will do in coming years given the dominant cosmology there and the massive amounts of money poured into research. They will certainly push hard and also push the ethical limits.

[15] - This brings to mind the central concept of man as a specific entity. In her essay Primal Myths, Professor of Religious Studies Barbara Sproul notes in this respect (1979: 1):

[Myths] organize the way we perceive facts and understand ourselves and the world. Whether we adhere to them consciously or not, they remain pervasively influential. Think of the power of the first myth of Genesis (1-2:3) in the Old Testament. While the scientific claims it incorporates, so obviously at odds with modern ones, may be rejected, what about the myth itself? Most Westerners, whether or not they are practicing Jews or Christians, still show themselves to be the heirs of this tradition by holding to the view that people are sacred, the creatures of God. Declared unbelievers often dispense with the frankly religious language of this assertion by renouncing God, yet even they still cherish the consequence of the myth’s claim and affirm that people have inalienable rights (as if they were created by God). And, further, consider the beliefs that human beings are superior to all other creatures and are properly set above the rest of the physical world by intelligence and spirit with the obligation to govern it — these beliefs are still current and very powerful. … But the power of a specific myth is not as important to realize as the power of myth itself. Indeed, each of the claims made by the first Genesis myth has been attacked from some quarter. What is essential to understand is that they have been challenged not by new facts but by new attitudes toward facts; they have been challenged by new myths.

That said, it is worth noting that when examining a society or culture, perfect/total ideological integration is never attained. There always is competition between, and an overlap of, cosmologies, ideologico-religious systems, some rising in influence and others in decline, but nevertheless leaving behind cultural residues. This more or less coherent mixture of influences forms what Michel Foucault called the episteme or Marc Augé, the ideo-logic. Even in the West of past centuries, the so-called Christian West, one should not assume the unquestioned dominance of the Judeo-Christian cosmology, as on many levels (sexuality, science and philosophy), the West long accepted and harboured concepts from Greek cosmology (particularly neo-platonic, Aristotelian or Gnostic) which cohabited with the Judeo-Christian cosmology. The Christian West? The expression is often bandied about, but one should first check to see if this mythical beast actually ever existed..

[16] - Issues such as abortion or euthanasia come to mind.

[17] - And this was true not only of Germans, as French historian Lawrence Olivier in his book on Nazi archaeology in Western Europe (In Folio 2007), describes the support given by many French archaeologists to Nazi ideology before WWII. Olivier cites the case of the French pre-historian, Jean-Jacques Thomasset who in 1942 gave a pro Nazi speech before the SS Science Institute (SS-Ahnenerbe). Heinrich Himmler himself had invited Thomasset.

[18] - Or in the syncretistic context we find ourselves, the question may be: which ones (religions, plural)?

[19] - Most twenty-first century Christians would consider the influence of their religion in the workplace to be limited to a few moral qualms about dishonest or cruel behaviour. Few would consider thinking about what a truly Christian perspective on their professional practices would be. Ultimately, the end result is very similar to the typical Canadian politician’s perspective who, when asked about his position on the abortion issue, replied: Personally I’m against it, but... In the postmodern context, there are many pressures to relegate religion (especially Christianity) to one’s private life in order to avoid confrontations with the postmodern religion now dominating the public square. Only a few idiots, like creationists or anti-abortion activists, still seriously dare to question the marginalization of the Christian worldview to one’s private life.

[20] - Note that this obviously applies to postmodern propaganda if taken at face value. On the other hand, if one examines the social consequences of this discourse, this changes everything. In practical terms, the typical educated Westerner has no reference point outside the postmodern system. It follows that the individual has no basis from which to offer a fundamental criticism. Postmodern elites are free to invent and change the rules at will. The individual’s absolute autonomy is in fact a wonderful illusion, but in marketing terms such claims have their uses...

[21] - We quite deliberately confuse here the concepts of ideology and religion in order to point out that the most important feature of such a system is not its reference (or absence of reference) to the supernatural or the divine, but fundamentally proposing a framework giving meaning to human existence. Should anyone be surprised to discover that the term ideology was coined by the French Free-Mason Antoine Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836)? Destutt de Tracy formed a group called the Idéologues which included intellectuals such as Cabanis, Volney, Garat and Daunou and, later, influenced Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. It should be obvious by now that those who carefully distinguish between the concepts of ideology and religion do so for their own ideologico-religious reasons… Of course separating these concepts is quite useful as it shields one's beliefs from inappropriate comparisons and revealing critiques.

[22] - In this regard, see the book by Keith Windschuttle (2000) The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists are Murdering Our Past. (Encounter Books). Michel Foucault offers a postmodern view (1969/1989: 9):

Thus, in place of the continuous chronology of reason, which was invariably traced back to some inaccessible origin, there have appeared scales that are sometimes very brief, distinct from one another, irreducible to a single law, scales that bear a type of history particular to each one, and which cannot be reduced to the general model of a consciousness that acquires, progresses, and remembers.

[23] - This is also the case in biology where Stephen Jay Gould rejected the concept of progress and stated that evolution has no particular goals to attain (such as man). Chance alone explains the existence of Homo sapiens, which happens to be dominant on planet Earth at this point. If one were to rewind the VHS tape of time and press play, in Gould’s view it is entirely possible that reptiles would be dominant rather than us...

[24] - Just try reading any of the mind-numbing nineteenth-century classics such as The Origin of the Species or Das Kapital. Not just browsing a few pages, but actually reading one from cover to cover...

1 / Phantom Ethics

When Darwin deduced the theory of natural selection to explain the adaptations in which he had previously seen the handiwork of God, he knew that he was committing cultural murder. He understood immediately that if natural selection explained adaptations, and evolution by descent were true, then the argument from design was dead and all that went with it, namely the existence of a personal god, free will, life after death, immutable moral laws,[1] and ultimate meaning in life. The immediate reactions to Darwin’s On the Origin of Species exhibit, in addition to favorable and admiring responses from a relatively few scientists, an understandable fear and disgust that has never disappeared from Western culture. (Provine 1990: 23)

As political philosophy derives its sanction from ethics, and ethics from the truth of religion, it is only by returning to the eternal source of truth that we can hope for any social organization which will not, to its ultimate destruction, ignore some essential aspect of reality. (T. S. Eliot 1940: 50)

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions. (A. Solzhenitsyn 1973: 173)

In the (supposedly amoral) context of the materialistic cosmology postulated by modern or postmodern religions, devotees of these belief systems are occasionally accused of being lawless, deprived of all moral sentiment. Is this charge legitimate?

Not at all! In fact there is much evidence that moderns and postmoderns have an abundance of moral sentiment. Their rhetoric is overflowing with moral precepts and remarks on behaviour or attitudes they find offensive. So what’s the matter? To understand the current situation, it may be instructive to look at a parallel in human physiology. There is an anatomical phenomenon called phantom pain. This condition affects individuals having undergone limb amputation following an accident or illness. In some cases the limb has been amputated for some time and the wound has completely healed, yet the individual still feels phantom sensations in the amputated limb, as if the amputation had never occurred. At times individuals may experience very real sensations of cold, heat or itching. Despite the reality of these sensations, the truth is that the limb in question has been amputated and no longer exists. Subjectively, the patient still feels it despite its absence. The sensation (of still having a limb) has no basis in reality.

Postmoderns are subject to a similar phenomenon. They rarely recognize the incoherence between their moral sentiments and their own worldview, when viewed in the context of the cosmology that provides its basis. Postmoderns retain an idiosyncrasy characteristic of Homo sapiens everywhere, that is being strongly motivated to see themselves viewed by others as moral persons. This of course is a separate issue, that is to say separate from the question of what kind of an ethical system can one logically erect on the foundation of the dominant materialist cosmology. As we shall see in the following pages, the materialist cosmology, which provides the basis for both the modern and postmodern ideologico-religious systems, is a rather dubious foundation for an ethical system, that is, if you are looking for logical coherence. Of course, some moderns/materialists[2] are aware of the modern cosmology’s moral vacuum, but such considerations are rather efficiently and quickly swept under the rug. In everyday life, modern moral reflexes are in fact maintained by childhood training, the ultimately arbitrary influence of vestigial artefacts of pre-modern morality, as well as diverse forms of cultural inertia[3] (of which some may be institutional and others informal[4]), but nonetheless the vital link, the causal link, has in fact been severed. While in the nineteenth century, Dostoyevsky stated if God is dead, all is permitted! it must be pointed out that what all actually meant had not yet been defined. Since Dostoyevsky made this statement many others influenced by modern cosmology such as Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler and Mao have come along and taken upon themselves to fill in the blanks in that regard.[5] The postmodern belief system sets up the individual as its only truth and tends to send any discussion about morals into the realm of the irrational and the subjective. When views on morals or ethics are then found to be in conflict, each party tends to perceive the opposing party’s arguments not as more or less true, but as propaganda promoting certain values and/or (individual or corporate) interests that need deconstructing. This destroys rational discussion and leads inevitably to reactions such as I like or don’t like this or that.[6] End of discussion...

In the propaganda games where moral discussion is played out, T. H. Nichols notes (2003: 18) that cultural inertia plays an important role in the West as most people who claim that morality is innate generally have been raised in a culture historically influenced by the Judeo-Christian worldview. People maintain so-called moral behaviour so long as the personal cost for this behaviour is not too high and does not adversely affect one’s career, health or standard of living. It may be useful to defer to a Nazi concentration camp survivor such as Elie Wiesel to help us understand the malleability of human moral sense and the limits of its innate character (1965/2011: 4):

Spring 1945: emerging from the nightmare, the world discovers the camps, the death factories. The senseless horror, the debasement: the absolute reign of evil. Victory tastes of ashes. Yes, it is possible to defile life and creation and feel no remorse. To tend one’s garden and water one’s flowers but two steps away from barbed wire. [7] To experiment with monstrous mutations and still believe in the soul and immortality. To go on vacation, be enthralled by the beauty of a landscape, make children laugh — and still fulfill regularly, day in and day out, the duties of a killer. There was, then, a technique, a science of murder, complete with specialized laboratories, business meetings and progress charts. Those engaged in its practice did not belong to a gutter society of misfits, nor could they be dismissed as just a collection of rabble. Many held degrees in philosophy, sociology, biology, general medicine, psychiatry and the fine arts. There were lawyers among them. And — unthinkable but true — theologians. And aristocrats.

Such meditations are all the more striking coming from an Auschwitz survivor.[8] It is clear that human moral sense seems to imply an expectation, almost universal among humans, that other humans should comply with certain rules of behaviour. When these expectations are not met, individuals feel entitled to cry foul! I’ve been wronged! Animals on the other hand seem to have no such concerns or expectations. However if one accepts the assertion that humans have a duty to follow certain rules, this assertion must be justified. Where exactly do we get these rules? What is their basis? In postmodern culture it appears that the values and altruistic behaviour, associated with the Judeo-Christian worldview, remain only as vestigial cultural artefacts, subject to slow erosion that will eventually annihilate or pervert them. In times of crisis, this process may be greatly accelerated, as was the case in Nazi Germany or the USSR. The Holocaust and Gulag eloquently expressed the modern religion’s contempt for human dignity and the individual. Individuals have value only if they meet certain criteria...

When the previously accepted basis for morality has been abandoned, one must then consider the possibility that the West’s hard-won legal heritage of human rights may be seriously threatened. Though many may consider such an outcome unthinkable, the logical consequences of certain ideas must not be left unexamined. Despite the trappings of civilization, what is left in the West to prevent the return of slavery,[9] for example, which, of course, would no longer be linked to race or skin colour, but perhaps to genetic criteria? Who then will end up being our postmodern elites’ Untermenschen, their sub-humans? In China, harvesting organs from executed prisoners and selling them on the global human organ market[10] is already common practice. In the third world, it is not unusual for the poor to be exploited and used to feed the same organ trade. In the West, many propose that medical research be done on human embryos [harvesting stem cells]. The next question is of course: Why not extend this practice to human clones? What cultural resources are left in the West to hinder an expansion of such practices if postmodern elites decide to approve and market them?

If economic considerations are viewed as absolute, abolishing the human status of a class of individuals becomes entirely conceivable, a simple matter of marketing and judicial decree. Among others, the work of Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton, opens the door to such an outcome. If in the modern age, man was the measure of all things, in the postmodern era this status stands on shaky ground and may be abruptly overthrown.[11] The time may soon come when our legal system will have to choose between human rights and animal rights. If Greenpeace faces off with Amnesty International, who (or what) will have the last word? Who will win out? How will the verdict be determined? Is it possible that gaining access (or not) to victim status in the media may be a determining factor? As on many other points, Blaise Pascal analyzed with great clarity (and fierce irony) the paradox of human nature (1670/2003: 111):

It is dangerous to make man see too clearly his equality with the brutes [animals] without showing him his greatness. It is also dangerous to make him see his greatness too clearly, apart from his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both. But it is very advantageous to show him both. Man must not think that he is on a level either with the brutes or with the angels, nor must he be ignorant of both sides of his nature; but he must know both. ... If he exalts himself, I humble him; if he humbles himself, I exalt him; and I always contradict him, till he understands that he is an incomprehensible monster.

On a more humorous note, Pascal adds (1670/2003: 107-108):

Glory.— The brutes do not admire each other. A horse does not admire his companion. Not that there is no rivalry between them in a race, but that is of no consequence; for, when in the stable, the heaviest and most ill-formed does not give up his oats to another, as men would have others do to them. Their virtue is satisfied with itself. … And those who must despise men, and put them on a level with the brutes, yet wish to be admired and believed by men, and contradict themselves by their own feelings; their nature, which is stronger than all, convincing them of the greatness of man more forcibly than reason convinces them of their baseness.

Of course, fallen man is a paradox, both in his thinking and his behaviour. But following the materialist worldview’s logic, which so dominated the twentieth century, if human beings can claim no special status, why not treat them like machines? When a machine is worn out and no longer performs satisfactorily or has been superseded by improved technology, no one has any qualms about disconnecting and discarding it? Long before Darwin or the eugenicists, the Marquis de Sade, had fully grasped and coherently explained such matters[12] (1795/1965: 332):

Let us deign for a moment to illumine our spirit by philosophy’s sacred flame; what other than Nature’s voice suggests to us personal hatreds, revenges, wars, in a word, all those causes of perpetual murder?[13] Now, if she incites us to murderous acts, she has need of them; that once grasped, how may we suppose ourselves guilty in her regard when we do nothing more than obey her intentions? But that is more than what is needed to convince any enlightened reader that for murder ever to be an outrage to Nature is impossible.

In the evolutionary cosmological context, it must be understood that ultimately the only real moral absolute left is mere survival. Everything else is secondary, nonessential. There is reason to believe, as mentioned in Volume I of this study, that Stephen Jay Gould had clearly perceived this fact, since in ethical terms he ended up proposing the NOMA concept, that is to say an ethical system that is not based on the evolutionary cosmology. Implicitly recognizing the failure of the modern cosmology, the NOMA concept calls for a peaceful cohabitation between the materialist (so-called scientific) cosmology and traditional morality (religion), the latter compensating for the former’s obvious defects regarding ethics.

As we consider postmodern ethical discourse, we must go beyond emotional gut-reactions or postmodern propaganda to examine it in the context of its cosmology, i. e., postmodern cosmology. The critical question is: Is this discourse fully coherent with the cosmology on which it is based? Further considerations, frankly, are of small importance. Typically, these matters are rarely discussed by Western elites for fear of causing confusion or uncertainty in the masses. Moreover, when postmodern media present us with victims of this or that injustice, the fact of labelling a particular group as victimized is not a neutral act. In truth, such judgment-calls are opportunities for packaging postmodern ethics and dogma. When postmoderns take offence at the destruction of Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan by Muslim zealots, is this reaction consistent with their own cosmological system? How is it that the postmodern believes himself warranted in imposing his own beliefs on Muslims if indeed everyone has their own truth?

As mentioned previously in the foreword, ethics do not appear out of nowhere, like the magician’s rabbit. It is always linked to cosmology (beliefs regarding origins). That said, this statement must be qualified in the case of some of the world religions. In general terms, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, for example, share the same cosmology, but their ethical systems differ in many regards. This demonstrates that though cosmology is fundamental, it is not the only factor influencing ethics. In the case of the three religions of the book (and even in others), the pronouncements and behaviour of the religion’s founder play a role almost as important as cosmology for the development of ethics in these religions. The decisive ethical role played by characters such as Moses, Jesus or Mohammed demonstrates this. But in the case of belief systems where the founder’s role is less significant or even absent, as is the case with the postmodern religion, examining the link between ethics and cosmology then becomes critical in understanding the moral/ethical discourse that is developed on this basis.

Ethical Animals

(…) what motive is to impel the Conditioners to scorn delights and live laborious days in order that we, and posterity, may have what we like? Their duty? But that is only the Tao, which they may decide to impose on us, but which cannot be valid for them. If they accept it, then they are no longer the makers of conscience but still its subjects, and their final conquest over Nature has not really happened. The preservation of the species? But why should the species be preserved? One of the questions before them is whether this feeling for posterity (they know well how it is produced)