It
is a popular belief in the Western World, in our academic centers, in our books
on “self” that every individual dwells in their own unique “reality,” that each
of us possesses our own distinct “truth,” justifying our adherence to individuated
sets of absolutes.
There
is a school of thought associated with this world-view, in academics it is Logical Positivism, it is the promotion of philosophical relativism.
It
is a problem.
The
school of Logical Positivism gave us the classic philosophical trope:
“If
a tree falls in the woods and there is no-one there to hear it, does it make a
sound?”
Suggesting
that the answer is unknowable, because it is unverifiable.
This
is false: trees do fall in the woods, and when the do they obey the laws of
physics, they make noise. It does not matter if there is a person present to
see it, the tree and the forest are their own witness.
These
positivistic and relativistic notions, come to us out of a worldview known as mind-body-dualism. There are many
philosophical traditions rooted in mind-body-dualism,
most of which do not go so far as to promote the conclusions of the
positivists and the relativists. Nevertheless, the position that the
positivists and the relativists have arrived at is the logical end of dualistic bias.
The
dualistic worldview has been more corrosive and corrupting than any other set
of beliefs that have been disseminated through the world, because it divorces
the individual first from their own self, then from their neighbor and ultimately
the world.
Dualistic
thinking is ancient, it is rooted in preliterate assumptions concerning the
nature of reality. Its primary proponents in the literary tradition of Western
Philosophy are Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, from the 6th through
the 4th century before the common era; followed by Plotinus in the 3rd
century C.E., who was the greatest synthesizer of their thought, and who transmitted
it to the Christianity through the writing of Saint Augustine of Hippo, in the
century C.E..
The
tradition of mind-body-dualism entered the enlightenment, and the so-called age
of reason without challenge into the modern world through the work of Descartes,
Kant and Hume by way of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor of the Church,
the Patron Saint of Philosophy in the 13th century, and through the entire
structure of the Catholic University system.
All
of the aforementioned thinkers were essentially dualists.
As
I have said, dualistic thinking is a problem, not merely because it does not
accurately represent reality, which it purports to do, therefore distorting our
point of view.
Dualistic
thinking is a manifestation of grievous selfishness, self-centeredness, and
this is dangerous.
Dualism
is harbored in our culture by people who do not want to accept responsibility
for themselves or their relationships.
They
fear to be incriminated by their own actions, or to take responsibility for
their faults.
Dualism
establishes the paradigm of “otherness.”
When
we see ourselves as separate from one another, as dwelling in our own unique
reality, as possessing our own unassailable truth, then we do not see others as
a part of ourselves (which all people are, as we are of them), as sharing in
the same experience, we do not see our relationship with them as a part of what
makes us who we are, and this is the cause of great suffering in the world.
When
we separate our experience from the experience of our sisters and brothers we establish
the foundation for indifference and find opportunities to act for what we think
is in our “self-interest,” through the denial of the legitimacy and rights of
the other.
When
we view others as objects, when we view them as competitors rather than
co-operators and co-creators, when we see them as “things” with a destiny that
is different from our own, when we cling to the notion that we have our
reality, our own truth, we systematically invalidate own, and through this
process we justify our crimes against them.
We
victimize them, and ourselves in this way.
When
we are blinded by the illusion of individual reality, then we have destroyed
the basic bond that ties humanity together, and we have obfuscated the bond
that links us to God, the creator of the universe, the sustainer of all that
is.
While
it is true that we each perceive the universe, reality in different ways,
nevertheless, it is the same universe that we are perceiving. The distinctions in
our perceptions only manifest themselves according to the differences in our
points of view.
Our
point of view will always be different, but our common experience will always
be the same.
We
are one.
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