As the 21st century moves to its second quarter we might hope for a world where problems are solved faster, and new technologies and new ways of relating put a lid on the arrival of new problems. Unfortunately it’s not so. A quick environmental scan shows that we’re in need of a refreshment of our prevailing values and the way they are applied.
Life these days is tough. We might be able to live longer, do and have more things and so on, but we’re much less secure than we should be. We’re also much less happy and less confident about the future. Human society is old enough to do better.
Open mind, open heart
There is wisdom and knowledge all over the globe that we can learn from and use. We humans have a habit of thinking that only the thinking from our neck of the woods is correct, but we’re starting to find out that this isn’t so. Indigenous societies, for example, know far more about nature than those from other parts of the world. And Eastern religion and philosophy have teachings that the West needs to adopt. Buddhism in particular has already made its presence felt, but there is far more than this, if only we can be more open.
So we need to be open minded. But also we need to open our hearts. We all exist, we are all basically the same, so why put up barriers all the time? Goodwill never hurts.
Why we exist
Why we even exist is anyone’s guess. Truth is, we’re too small to know, we human beings. Perhaps the one thing we can say with confidence is that we’re here to keep the whole show going. In doing so, we also try to make it better; for human nature always wants things to be better. So we’re here to create - to make things and to improve.
Our many failures
Overall, we’re not very good at what we do, for we keep breaking or degrading our creations. There are all sorts of reasons. We don’t know enough, we don’t have the means to do better, we get bored, we get nervous, we get over-confident, we get greedy – and so on. Despite all the good things we do, sooner or later we spoil everything.
Evil and suffering
Our self-destructiveness is so bad that, over and over again, we’re driven to ask why is it so. Why is there so much wickedness and so much suffering? Related to this are questions like why the innocent suffer. The answers are rarely convincing.
One theory is that so many backward steps keep our overall progress to a level or pace that is bearable, in other words we’re never allowed to get too far ahead of ourselves. This theory can also be used to explain chance, which sometimes works in our favour and other times does not. Chance is like a huge wildcard in the machinery of causation, a part of the overall mystery of existence.
Evil and suffering also have a positive role long-term in that they direct our attention to necessary improvements. The first and second world wars, for example, caused enormous suffering but they were also spurs to a lot of improvement in the direction of peace.
Divine plan?
If we accept that there’s a rough kind of forward movement about existence on this Earth, we might reasonably ask whether there’s some sort of plan. This is one of many things we can’t possibly know. The reason is simple: the part (in this case humankind) can never know the whole. We just have to be realistic enough to accept that this is so. And we should never assume too much, for time and again throughout the history of thought we have been proven wrong.
Mystery
The same can apply to the question of whether we are created or just came from the big bang or some other scientific phenomenon. There are many arguments about the creation of the universe and where everything is going, but no matter how plausible, these arguments are all just supposition. Together, these issues belong in a big basket of mystery. We might, in fact, say that God (or whatever deities we choose) is the great Mystery with a capital M.
God or gods
One way of viewing the Mystery (and there are many others) is the all-embracing genius and motive force responsible for the existence of all that is. We cannot limit it or him or her or them in any way, for this would deny the very nature of divinity which transcends all. We can, however, allow that the divine has different aspects corresponding to different functions of existence. For example, Christians have the Holy Trinity while Hindus have the Trimurti (and other gods).
Gods have little or no value unless they are fully part of our everyday existence. Together they can be seen as the Gold Standard of our aspirations, the constant support, the progenitor and provider of all – the list goes on, driven by human inventiveness. One aspect of the divine that I find helpful is Providence, which I think of as “that which keeps us going and completes us.” Doubters ask where is there evidence for Providence, and I reply that it’s a matter of historical record that, one way or another, people have been and are supported in all sorts of amazing ways, throughout all sorts of difficulties. Collectively these add up to Providence.
Creation
We may think of creation as a huge expansion from something physically small but with infinite possibility to grow. In other words it is a potential that is given a push. Whether the push comes from pressure outside, as in the Bible, or pressure within, as in emanation theory, we cannot know. Maybe both are true.
Creation is not the just the Big Bang, the beginning of life and so on: it is ongoing today. The making of a cup of tea is creation, so too is washing the dishes. Everything that exists is an agent in this cosmic process. We bring things into life, or new life, because we can. The question then is what attitude of mind we have to this core responsibility of our being.
How we should live
Given all that’s been said above, how should we live? We can choose to live for our own pleasure or the pleasure of a small group of associates; maybe too we might dedicate our existence to a cause, like a football club, or a tribe, a nationality, a political movement. We can choose to do whatever is convenient, watching reality TV instead of improving our minds or doing something to help others. We are free to try to make these choices. We can even act to inflict great suffering on others, slowing the positive energy of creation, however the universe moves ahead regardless.
How we should live may be determined by religious or ethical considerations, or self-interest or by a decision to “go with the flow” which most likely will mean going along with nature. Nature has a way of aligning with ethics (or perhaps the reverse is true). It therefore favours whatever brings people or things together. Yet again, kindness and goodwill are in the ascendancy. It is not without good reason that people say love makes the world go round.
Humankind is very diverse, so there is no lack of good ideas on how we should live. The accumulated experience of humankind has brought us to a very advanced state of civilisation. But this achievement is uneven, for there are huge imbalances the world over. Technologies have created something like a global society, but there is precious little in the way of community. The United Nations, once the hallmark of universal goodwill, is now treated with contempt. Refugees are growing in number and still treated like animals. And these are just two examples out of many.
A situation like this is not only unexpected but on a scale that is truly alarming. Even the threat of global warming has been met with massive retreat from responsibility, so that, for all the fine rhetoric about protecting coming generations from catastrophe, catastrophe seems virtually guaranteed. To talk of living in a difficult world seems a massive understatement.
Not surprisingly, difficult times have a way of shaking us up and driving us back to first principles. Indeed, at all times and in every generation, it is entirely appropriate that we ask ourselves why we are here and how we can best manage our lives to meet contemporary challenges. This becomes even more pressing when different types of collapse coincide. In our time, the disintegration of world order – the so-called rules-based order - has been accompanied by a widespread failure in religion. Religion today is so beset by its own problems that the guidance we might have expected it to provide is now much less than it should be.
The incidence of any kind of hardship is perhaps the best starting point for questioning the ways of the world. Why isn’t everything good, why do people do bad things, why do natural disasters happen, why do good people suffer, why are good intentions perverted, is there a guaranteed correction of injustices sometime in the future – and so on. These lead into the even bigger questions like: what’s the point of living, who if anyone runs the show, and how can we keep this someone happy. Then, sniping at us from the sidelines are a further bunch of questions like: how can we know what answer is right, how should we cope with difference and diversity, and how should we respond to challenges which are entirely new and unforeseen by earlier authorities, like the rise of artificial intelligence or the march of global warming?
The article here is short, intended only to give a snapshot of one set of views – those of the philosophy of Creativism. These views were developed within the mainstream of current Western progressive thought, while giving scope for differences that are either local or individual. As we move deeper into modern times we are faced with more ideas on how to live than ever before. It is a challenge. Somewhere in the middle of it all we have to find our own path.