My younger brother sees himself as a realist, and interprets things in terms of "how things are." Thus his take on economic systems: "all of nature is telling us that survival is a struggle. It is the natural way of things. Capitalism is not an ideology but a reflection of reality that was made into an ideology. Like it or not, it is so successful because it reflects reality. Socialism and communism or anything like them are doomed to failure. They are ideas that run contrary to reality..." or something like that, and he does have a point. We learned in school that this was called the "social Darwinist argument" and was to be seen as an excuse for capitalists. Obviously, not everyone agrees on my brother's philosophy.
But it does point to something embedded in nature. I was up at the cabin in the UP these last 5 days, and it left me with the glory of middle fall - changing trees, declining tourist numbers, NO bugs, crisp weather - wonderful. One day as I drove to the hardware store to set myself up for more maintenance work, I stopped at a popular site to view the falls. There, a flight of ominously steep wooden stairs takes one down, down, down, until one is near the bottom of the falls and able to see the wonders of its torrent. It had rained a lot, and the water was roiling, almost deafening, but the trees above were peaceful and bright, and these lulled me into starring at a spot on the falls where the water hit rock and sprayed high into the air. With little thought, it struck me that this would happen again and again for hundreds or thousands of years, as it already had done for thousands of years. And yet, I could see that the water did not spray into the air in exactly the same way in each second that I saw it. In fact, I realized, the water NEVER sprayed into the air in exactly the same way, nor would it ever. On the gross scale (forget about the molecular scale), this is because the conditions are never exactly the same, second by second. The water levels rise or fall at every instant, the number of grains of sand in the rocks change with every second, the temperature changes, logs fall into the flow...and so on. Never a moment alike, every second, for thousands of years, forever.
In the human world, we have a natural tendency to moralize things, to see in imperfection a fault, even though it might also be seen as a reflection of nature. We are never behaviorally consistent because the world is not - even though we see such inconsistency as flighty, as weakness. We see balance as good, even though the world is always, at least slightly, off-balance. Even little imbalances lead, eventually, to big things - just as the slow wobble of the earth leads to momentous changes in seasons. Imbalance, "imperfection," also leads to ageing and death - it is built into the system and absolutely necessary for the continuation of life. In fact, life IS imbalance, IS imperfection, and because of this always leads to death, even the "death" of mountains and seas. This is the way the world is, like it or not.
Imbalance gives life art, passion, beauty in change, but also all those things we dislike - from death to, perhaps, unjust societies and economic systems. And it is easy to see how clinging to perfection, to balance, is, in the end, a losing idea. Still, we have a notion of perfection and life everlasting (as well as perfect equality), somehow implanted in our imperfect minds and codified in our social morality. One wonders, then, not only how we got the idea of perfection, but how we have an idea of moral perfection in an imperfect world. Is our idea of "original sin" merely a reflection of nature's imperfections, or Is the natural world a reflection of original sin? Is the Fall of humankind an abstract comparison to an ideal of perfection that never was, or did The Fall make us imperfect, so that lions would no longer sleep with the lambs, but would instead eat them (and humans would no longer live in peace, but struggle and fight and kill each other)?
It has long seemed to me that "reality" might just be a reflection of our moral state - that imperfection in nature is a reflection of our inner moral failing. Thus, the tenaciousness of the trap: dog-eat-dog is all around us, so what can we do? Anything apart from this way of life, of nature, seems so unreal, that when we are asked to strengthen our unseen souls for an unseen ideal, we shrink back. There is no doubt as to why becoming morally perfect in our world is so hard, but which came first? The imperfect natural world, or imperfect Man? Which is really the real?
In imperfection comes beauty - the changing leaves, the surprise of water that never falls exactly the same. But with it also comes suffering. Does the beauty we see, just as the love that we sometimes hold in ourselves, reflect a deeper perfection beyond, or are such things only anomalies, abstractions? One might think that there will never be an answer to these questions, but maybe not: a social scientist might say "love" is what we need as social animals to raise our families, but what of beauty? Why is beauty? For me, that is the most obvious hint that something is wrong with our purely naturalistic models. While it is true that as long as we are imperfect, no models based on perfection will work, beauty and the awe and, yes, sadness, that it brings just might be the reminder that something, or everything, is beyond what it seems to be. It might just be that the old timers were right: that the outer world is not only a reflection of the source of creation, but also a reflection - and a test - of what we have created within ourselves, the two dancing in an interplay that gives us beauty itself, as well as a true direction. FK
But it does point to something embedded in nature. I was up at the cabin in the UP these last 5 days, and it left me with the glory of middle fall - changing trees, declining tourist numbers, NO bugs, crisp weather - wonderful. One day as I drove to the hardware store to set myself up for more maintenance work, I stopped at a popular site to view the falls. There, a flight of ominously steep wooden stairs takes one down, down, down, until one is near the bottom of the falls and able to see the wonders of its torrent. It had rained a lot, and the water was roiling, almost deafening, but the trees above were peaceful and bright, and these lulled me into starring at a spot on the falls where the water hit rock and sprayed high into the air. With little thought, it struck me that this would happen again and again for hundreds or thousands of years, as it already had done for thousands of years. And yet, I could see that the water did not spray into the air in exactly the same way in each second that I saw it. In fact, I realized, the water NEVER sprayed into the air in exactly the same way, nor would it ever. On the gross scale (forget about the molecular scale), this is because the conditions are never exactly the same, second by second. The water levels rise or fall at every instant, the number of grains of sand in the rocks change with every second, the temperature changes, logs fall into the flow...and so on. Never a moment alike, every second, for thousands of years, forever.
In the human world, we have a natural tendency to moralize things, to see in imperfection a fault, even though it might also be seen as a reflection of nature. We are never behaviorally consistent because the world is not - even though we see such inconsistency as flighty, as weakness. We see balance as good, even though the world is always, at least slightly, off-balance. Even little imbalances lead, eventually, to big things - just as the slow wobble of the earth leads to momentous changes in seasons. Imbalance, "imperfection," also leads to ageing and death - it is built into the system and absolutely necessary for the continuation of life. In fact, life IS imbalance, IS imperfection, and because of this always leads to death, even the "death" of mountains and seas. This is the way the world is, like it or not.
Imbalance gives life art, passion, beauty in change, but also all those things we dislike - from death to, perhaps, unjust societies and economic systems. And it is easy to see how clinging to perfection, to balance, is, in the end, a losing idea. Still, we have a notion of perfection and life everlasting (as well as perfect equality), somehow implanted in our imperfect minds and codified in our social morality. One wonders, then, not only how we got the idea of perfection, but how we have an idea of moral perfection in an imperfect world. Is our idea of "original sin" merely a reflection of nature's imperfections, or Is the natural world a reflection of original sin? Is the Fall of humankind an abstract comparison to an ideal of perfection that never was, or did The Fall make us imperfect, so that lions would no longer sleep with the lambs, but would instead eat them (and humans would no longer live in peace, but struggle and fight and kill each other)?
It has long seemed to me that "reality" might just be a reflection of our moral state - that imperfection in nature is a reflection of our inner moral failing. Thus, the tenaciousness of the trap: dog-eat-dog is all around us, so what can we do? Anything apart from this way of life, of nature, seems so unreal, that when we are asked to strengthen our unseen souls for an unseen ideal, we shrink back. There is no doubt as to why becoming morally perfect in our world is so hard, but which came first? The imperfect natural world, or imperfect Man? Which is really the real?
In imperfection comes beauty - the changing leaves, the surprise of water that never falls exactly the same. But with it also comes suffering. Does the beauty we see, just as the love that we sometimes hold in ourselves, reflect a deeper perfection beyond, or are such things only anomalies, abstractions? One might think that there will never be an answer to these questions, but maybe not: a social scientist might say "love" is what we need as social animals to raise our families, but what of beauty? Why is beauty? For me, that is the most obvious hint that something is wrong with our purely naturalistic models. While it is true that as long as we are imperfect, no models based on perfection will work, beauty and the awe and, yes, sadness, that it brings just might be the reminder that something, or everything, is beyond what it seems to be. It might just be that the old timers were right: that the outer world is not only a reflection of the source of creation, but also a reflection - and a test - of what we have created within ourselves, the two dancing in an interplay that gives us beauty itself, as well as a true direction. FK
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