26 January 2008
A major survey initiated by one of our big newspapers and answered by 15,000 Victorians highlights a basic but growing concern in the state with vicious behaviour or our lack of social cohesion - a concern unlikely to be confined to Victoria.
Around 1 in 5, or 20 per cent, of respondents stated that they had been a victim of crime in the past one year. About 70 per cent stated that they had witnessed drunken violence in the past year. Additionally, 42 per cent of respondents noted that they do not possess confidence in the Victorian police force (which was revealed as being corrupt at almost the highest level towards the end of last year).
Reflecting upon the decay of social bonds, A baker's assistant and clubber of 10 years from Highett stated in his survey "You would always see a random punch-on or whatever, but now it seems like its every week".
We argue, and not because we have an axe to grind but because we believe it is the subtle though admittedly hazy truth that will assist meaningful debate, that we need to assign the correct verbal label to the cause of the growing unrest: poor social design. Make no mistake, in all ages and at all times societies operate under certain prevailing and often unspoken 'codes of conduct' or philosophies which organise people in a certain manor and direct their thinking to various degrees. To various degrees these philosophies spring naturally from the society as a whole or are imposed externally by a particular group. This is not some paranoid hippy belief but one echoed by many great philosophers and social thinkers for over a century. 'Politically correct' ways of thinking are visible examples of such a phenomenon.
But how could the current social design and modern social philosophies be causing increased social unrest of the most insignificant and aggressive sort? Well our society is geared almost exclusively in modern times towards 'the economy', producing developments which when dissected and analysed could plausibly be said to lead to natural human and thus social dissatisfaction:
The population has been progressively increased for the past number of decades, sprawling increased numbers of human beings and suburbs across the map, congesting roads, coasts and cities to an often offensive degree. Ethnic groups which developed over thousands of years much more independently respective to modern globalised populations have been suddenly squashed together over the past few decades to the dreamy sentiment of 'it all works out, we're all the same, we want the same things, we buy the same things'. We champion an indifferent and base individualism: geared not towards using one's brain independently of the social mass but towards belonging to nothing more than our every whim and desire, promoting a disappointing consumer culture to the more perceptive sorts and also one where if someone feels like kicking the passer-by on the street into unconscious submission with his group of friends, he will. Also, we parrot 'democracy' and 'freedom' when in fact, due to the burgeoning size of the machine that is modern society and the domination enjoyed by the above mentioned ways of thinking, a lone individual has almost no hope of influencing things to any meaningful degree. Perhaps, in addition to the unrest, it comes as no wonder that we are often called a nation of alcoholics.
07 January 2008
I am able to sympathise with the radical atheist position. At first I was attracted to it primarily because I perceived it as sharing my view of religion as pure stupidity and denial of death. For an intelligent person it is easy to form this view especially in western countries where religion has become a way of conveniently ignoring reality, replacing it with a simplistic, moral, black and white world where following some basic rules assures immortality and eternal happiness. Radical atheists see this part of religion, but unfortunately overlook the more complex and beautiful aspects.
When I first began to realise that A.N.U.S. was not as anti-religious as I had originally thought I was not angry, but rather curious. I knew that these were people with knowledge that quite probably went beyond my own, leading me to believe that if they were not radical atheists, then they probably knew something about religion that I did not. Soon after this I read the Bhagavad-Gita, an important Hindu scripture, and was able to see that the ideas communicated were very similar to the philosophy of A.N.U.S. It promoted a transcendental worldview where the individual overcame their ego in favour of finding their place within a cosmic order. This gave them purpose and hope where before had been meaninglessness. With this in mind I noticed that other religious scriptures seemed to contain similar ideas, although they were more obscured in some than others.
At first the individual was isolated within themselves; their lives only had subjective meaning, revolving mostly around their ego and emotions. When they began to understand their relative insignificance they had an inner crisis. Eventually they realised that the only way to overcome this existential void was to align themselves with an order that was higher than their own existence. By doing this they took part in the eternal and transcendent cosmic cycle, contributing to the rhythm of nature and satisfying their existential need by breaking down the boundary between the individual and transcendent reality. In this way they became immortal because they were no longer just an individual, but part of something which could not be effected by physical events.
The physical application of this transcendent ideal is culture. Through culture each individual is given a place that reflects their character. This opposes the modern doctrine of individualism which teaches that inequality is immoral and that each individual should strive only to satisfy their most basic physical desires. Confining each individual to a life of meaningless consumerism and impersonal, boring work not only fails to satisfy the individual existentially, it creates an unstable society that can be destroyed by even the slightest of challenges, because it has no binding element allowing it to act with unity in a time of crisis. Religion allows for a society to partake in transcendence and in doing so unifies it culturally. Modern Christianity seeks only to push the individual further in to the world of subjective self; this is utterly contrary to the original purpose of religion.
This new found meaning in religion did not blind me to the fact that many modern manifestations of Christianity are a sham; but I realised that the problem lay not in the religion itself, but in the fact that it had become subject to the will of the crowd. Much like modern politics, modern religion caters for the lowest common denominator and nothing else. That is why the modern brands of Christianity preached are often so simplistic and also self-orientated, because the people who now define it only want what is easy and pleasing at the time.
The radical atheist movement, led by those such as Richard Dawkins, is yet another modern movement that becomes obsessed with a problem that in itself is not huge, and loses its holistic focus. Much like the neo-Nazis with their fear of non-whites, and Christians with their fear of death, the radical atheists are essentially a negative movement which only tries to eliminate a problem, without offering a genuine solution. These negative movements are doomed to failure because they create an entire ideology out of one aspect of reality, and in doing so lose focus on everything else.
The solution is to perceive the cause of these problems and more importantly, how the process that brings them about can be replaced by a more natural one. Only a positive, holistic view that unites all aspects of society, including religion can stem the tide of modern decadence, or rampant and accelerating individualism. Rather than destroy religion we should concentrate on restoring its inner meaning, that of transcendence; individuals aligning themselves with a higher order of things.
By Moses
hink of it all - of the life that is! Study your friends and foes!
Study the past! And answer this: "Are these times better than those?" The life-long quarrel, the paltry spite, the sting of your poisoned pride! No matter who fell it were better to fight as they did when the world was wide.