In Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov the inquisitor says that man is weak, confused and incapable of bearing the burden that was the gift of freedom. This was gift that Christ's rejection of the Devil's temptations gave man. He continues blaming Christ for the necessity of a church hierarchy. This structure being created by man to supply what his conscience needs: the mystery of divine miracles and the righteousness of absolute authority. This hierarchy naturally needs men for its implementation and maintenance. They then become prisoners of the system, created due to Christ's gift of freedom and through the nature of their tasks are unable to enjoy the fruits that failing to properly use that freedom can bring.
Why this discussion, and why now? In Dostoevsky's setting, the above was a reaction to the dividing issue at the time that being the idea of the state and the role of religion. In recent years that issue which had seemed settled to many, has reawakened in issues ranging from Intelligent Design to Supreme Court nominations to city hall displays to how we greet each other on the street. Rectors and laic alike become prisoners, the Laic due to their failings and Rectors due to their pity for the laity.
There was a general feeling in Dostoevsky's day much like there is today. There was a desire from the people for security paralleled with a want of freedom. The Inquisitor suggests that these are contradictory and probably undoable.
He may have been right. Thomas Paine in Common Sense wrote that because man was unable to abide the rules necessary to live with the Creator’s freedom, security was necessary. That security must come from a man made institution, government. The Founders then correctly realized that the two while necessary, must not intrude on each other’s space. Security then became the province of the government and the conscience and morals for the governed fell to religious institutions, if those governed chose to have it so. Our leaders for the most part have correctly kept their religious beliefs and tenets to themselves. For to do other wise, would be to invite the conundrum that is the relationship between conscience and toleration.
Conscience may be defined as a self-consciousness concerning morals. A conscience implies individualism and these individual choices quite naturally require a belief in the correctness of toleration. Toleration requires at the very least, a dulling of the sharp edges that a correct self-consciousness concerning morals requires. Toleration requires work and an ability to see the pluralist larger whole. It demands an ability to comfortably live with rationalization. And rationalization cannot live with the absolute correctness of moral authority. As the individual conscience becomes honed the judgment of human beliefs and behavior becomes sharper including their own. Originally feeding from "love the sinner hate the sin" it morphs into, tolerate the sinner, hate the sin and finally to banish, exclude and persecute the evil. This faith now visceral, buttressed through intellectualization, strikes out like a she-bear protecting her young. Seeing anything unknown as a threat to her young, her reaction becomes primal. Toleration is the last thing on her mind. She seeks to destroy the unknown without thought, simply because to exist, the unknown would threaten the cubs.
While this sounds harsh, to me it is not inaccurate. Put another way, heresy places in danger, innocents. And like a cancer which must be cut out--eradicated lest it spread, so must so must the heretics be destroyed. In an earlier time wrong doers were said to be seduced by the Devil and needed to be rescued from his torment. Today, those who would dare question or denounce a lie or fraud are similarly persecuted for the good of the cause and the Devil escapes culpability.
This vitriolic reaction is defended by saying that the progress of social change hence the good of the state, as they see it, must depend upon the aggressive promotion of the right ideas, theirs.
These ideas, the political musings, of the unelected are nothing more than holy writs in the manner of their presentation. Sanctified by the whittling away of tolerance under the guise of democracy, these writs are presented as bills, ordinances and other such proposed legislative efforts all designed to effect the promotion of their ideas neatly wrapped in a security system to protect the nation’s cubs. The question is then begged, how can a nation formerly permeated by liberal and scientific thought come to adopt a method once reserved for and justified by a supernatural religion?
The answer is that diversity of opinion makes some folks uncomfortable; it threatens their beliefs and mocks their opinions. As this discontent foments, a group coalesces, pulled together by the gravity of their own fear. Their dust cloud condenses into a force that opposes pluralism in the name of some absolute as moral or national unity. This opposition to freedom of thought must of course be tolerated because of that very thought. This general lack of direction will be remedied by a dictator or like minded oligarchy.
Wf9 comments on Toleration And Morals Can They Coexist?
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Your comments on toleration are also troubling me. You say "Toleration requires at the very least, a dulling of the sharp edges that a correct self-consciousness concerning morals requires. Toleration requires work and an ability to see the pluralist larger whole. It demands an ability to comfortably live with rationalization."
I see religious beliefs, firm, black/white w/o variation to be the more stressed in its apprehension of the world - for it requires a willed blinding of the self to the realities around it, a dulling of the conflicts that inherantly exist between any scripture and the real world. That, to me, is the larger rationalization by far.
To stand clear of scripture, to say "I see, I hold all of these conflicts w/i my heart in their wholeness, I accept that the right in this instance is damaging in that instance" that is far less an act of rationalization OR of dulling of the reality than a simple adherance to formula.
The old truth: Murder is wrong. If you could have killed Hitler before he killed so many, that would be what? An act of mercy or of terror? An act of outrage or an act of kindness? To say you may not kill and leave it in god's hands begs the issue: perhaps you are there as god's instrument. dangerous concepts, not to be bandied about lightly, but true dilemna and the absolute antithesis of the dulling power of rationality that you refer to.
Happy New Year, WF; I look forward to reading more excellent articles such as this.
as for our current situation. i think we have regressed to an age of paranoia rather than embracing the sense of pronoia we are capable of. we seem to be missing out on the fundamental goodness of existence pronoia can bring us.
as vonnegut would say, we are all the victims of a series of accidents. i may have accidently stumbled upon my new years resolution; embrace pronoia!
Because we are real and it isn't, we have the power to escape the illusion, to cross over into a realm where the truth is evident. There's a catch, however: as we exist in this realm of truth, we cannot have any effect on the illusion (since from the standpoint of the realm of truth, the illusion does not exist). The only way to liberate the world from its illusory existence is from within the illusion.
But if we enter into the illusion, do we not surrender ourselves to it? How could we liberate the world from the illusion, if we ourselves are its prisoners? The truth is that since we are real and the illusion is not, it does not, in essence, have any power over us. There's another catch, however: while the illusion is not real, its effect on us -- how we think about it, feel about it, believe in it -- is real (since we are real).
What all this means is that in order to liberate the world, we need to be both within it and outside of it at the same time. A part of ourselves (let's call it our "body") enters into the illusion and plays by its rules, battling it from within. Another part of ourselves (let's call it our "soul") remains aloof from it. The two selves are deeply connected -- they are, in fact, two faces of the same self. If the self that is acting within the illusion succumbs to it, this not only affects the self that's within the illusion, but also the "real" self that remains outside of it. Conversely, the self that remains outside of the illusion empowers the self that's within the illusion to resist it, and ultimately defeat it.
So the success of the mission depends on the two selves remaining in communication with each other, attuned to each other. When the communication and cohesion are absolute -- when the body looks at the world and sees right through the illusion as utterly as the soul does -- no worldly force can have any power over it. Nothing can prevent it from exposing the fallacy of the illusion and liberating the entire world.
Didn't you see this in a movie somewhere?
"These ideas, the political musings, of the unelected". Unfortunately, many of the elected share this same goal, or, they just use the others beliefs in order to prod, scare, intimidate and control. To gain their own position and power. I think this is very evident if one truly stands back and observes the current administration, not from the prospective of the left or the right, but from the point of view that one knows what is truth, and what is the right thing to do. (and I am not just picking on the Bush administration, for I also think each preceeding administration could use examination under the same microscope). I really can not remember any other President, nor their supporters, who used religion as much nor as often as this current group, and they seem to be always trying to say "my way or the highway". Too bad. They appear to me to be trying all the time to devide the people of this country, to be devisive on issues while claiming that they are doing just the opposite. I guess when you practice talking out of both sides of your mouth for as long as they have, it just becomes a habit.