Religion and Philosophy 3/5

We really must see things in a new light, or at least look at the question of civilizations and cultures through a different window. We would do well to question the values, systems, meanings and hopes that use intrinsically different sets of references (rather than immediately engaging in dialogues that can sometimes confine us with the limits of what we think we know) in order to reach a better understanding of what we have in common and what divides us. We appear to be obsessed with avoiding conflict or, at the opposite extreme, with stoking up conflict for political purposes. Our points of reference are no longer fields of knowledge, of intellectual culture and of mediations about human diversity: we use them to impose our will, to justify (ourselves), to make accusations, to defend ourselves, to regulate, to bring peace and to kill. They tell about ‘oneself’ only through the mediating gaze of the other: outlooks are distorted and quite literally alienated from the outset and by the very nature of the exercise.

And yet spiritualities, religion and philosophy are not dead. Some did express the hope that they would either disappear or be transcended (they hoped that religion would be transcended by philosophy, or that religion and philosophy would be transcended by science, as in the case of the positivist Auguste Comte), but the fact remains that they have a life of their own, that they underlie conceptions of the universe, organize systems of thought, determine relations with reality, with politics and with society, and that they formulate hopes. They have to be taken seriously, whatever we may think of religion or metaphysics, and whatever our political responsibilities may be at the international, national or local level. The men and women of our day, like those of the past, need meaning and not just management.

The disturbing thing is that we are now witnessing a twofold phenomenon. It is not just that the fundamentals of our different philosophies, religions and civilizations are becoming unfamiliar and are being studied less and less, but that we are content with ‘self-evident truths’ that allow us to establish a hierarchy of civilizations or religious that classifies them as ‘progressive’, ‘open’ and ‘modern’, or ‘problematic’, ‘retrograde’ or openly ‘dangerous’. Given that spiritualities, religions and philosophies are neither ‘exact’ nor ‘experimental’ sciences, we supposedly have the right, in this age of scientific and technological revolution, to rely upon a few articles published here and there, on ‘impressions’ of varying accuracy, on old school memories and on truisms reported and repeated on the internet. The surprising and saddening thing about the new atheists from Richard Hawkins and Christopher Hitchens in Great Britain to Sami Harris in the United States or Michel Onfray in France, is that these scientists and thinkers seem to have only a very superficial understanding of the religions they criticize. Whilst they may, like Dawkins and Dennet, be rigorous when it comes to their respective scientific domains, they are real amateurs when it comes to religion. Their generalizations are excessive and their comments on religion sometimes betray a smug arrogance. We also find that the way they describe religions and spiritualities is based upon an implicit hierarchy: Islam is often at the top of their list of dangerous references, followed by Christianity, whereas Judaism and Hinduism are rarely discussed, and Buddhism is of course seen as the least dangerous of all spiritualities. There is a curious similarity between their hierarchy and the popular impressions and feelings that are so influenced by crises and media coverage: these scientists and thinkers are very much ‘of their times’, and far removed from the transhistorical preconditions for rigorous and constructive critical thinking.

And yet we need to engage in an in-depth dialogue about these questions. Idealist and apologetic responses to these criticisms of religion usually display little objectivity, and are badly argued and ‘on the defensive’. They place the emphasis on religions’ higher or humanistic values, or on their human and social importance or usefulness, but their critical remarks are as superficial as those of their critics. They call for dialogue and mutual respect, as though dialogues ‘between’ civilizations, religions and philosophies were enough to justify them or told us anything about them. We need knowledge and intellectual rigour, but we are offered ‘positions’ based upon ‘good intentions’ and hopes. There are contradictory tendencies at work here, and they do not get us out of the vicious circle: there seems to be a new revival of interest in religious, spiritual and philosophical ‘feelings’ at the very time when schools are doing less and less to promote any objective understanding of these subjects (and when these disciplines are regarded as being of secondary importance when it comes to planning a future and thinking of how to make a living).

Any serious consideration of ‘civilizations’ that wishes to avoid ideological manoeuvres and political calculations (and that also keeps its distance from paternalist relations of domination or analyses) requires a commitment to the study of systems of though, metaphysics and different conceptions of man and life. Even before we know how we can enter into a dialogue and what we can agree or differ about, we must study and identify what our different sets of references have to say about meaning, postulates, realm of values and ends. This means reading, studying, knowledge and effort. Reconciliation with thought, the intellect and culture: rigorous critical thought should not just be the servant of productive and efficient sciences and technologies; it should also be the servant of systems of thought, religions and spiritualities. We too are of our times when we accept the existence of a hierarchy of sciences and methodologies when it comes to the rigour of their approach, the coherence of their exposition and their critical thinking. We are in fact seeing some disturbing developments. Intellectual arenas, from schools to academic circles, ought to be able to protect themselves from media coverage and fake ‘obvious facts’, to keep in touch with the population at large and to promote critical and autonomous thinking. All too often, such arenas are themselves greatly influenced by media debates and impassioned controversies, and it is therefore impossible to get away from the clichés and the general mood of hysteria.

Superficiality and idealism are bad advisers at a time when there is a growing lack of self-confidence, when fear of the other is becoming more widespread, and when exclusive and closed identities, distrust and emotional overexposure are everywhere. Wishful thinking, optimistic statements of intent and complacent dialogues will not get us out of this crisis. As we have already said throughout this book, a holistic approach cannot rely upon superficial remarks about different domains of knowledge. We also require both specialists and a dynamic and effective interdisciplinarity. In our era, the ‘universal man’ can no longer be a single individual or a single mind with a global vision. Groups of intellectuals, scholars and scientists should pool their knowledge, resist the majority trend to divide and fragment knowledge and establish critical but profound links between different domains of human activity. Every universe of references, and every civilization, philosophy and religion, needs to forge these internal links. We have already said that the study of philosophies, religions and the arts must adopt a historical and memory-based approach. Their relationship with the modern sciences and applied ethics is a further dimension that we cannot afford to ignore. This brings us back to the idea of reconciliation, but we are now talking about reconciliation within the various domains of the intellectual realm. We have to begin with the simple but profound things that allow us to distinguish between values and norms, the immutable and the historical, and similarities and differences.