Whither the West?

Tag: global civilization

  • Stories and Truth – a Rivalry?

    I recently engaged in the following conversation about the nature of stories and truth. Others’ comments in quotes, mine unquoted. All have been edited for readability and style.

    “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”

    I strongly dislike this idea. Reality is enchanting and amazing. Things happen in history and real life that would seem utterly contrived and  unbelievable if written down. If one can’t tell a good story without bending the truth, then maybe one is just bad at telling stories.

    Facts happen once and are gone. Sharing it or writing it down completely changes what happened. The storyteller or writer chooses what to convey. So reality may be amazing, but cannot be shared in its full splendor.

    I do not agree that just because reality may be ephemeral that we should not attempt to hold ourselves to it as much as possible. Of course our forms of communication limit how much of reality or of lived events can be conveyed, but I eschew the notion that since absolute truth is not possible that we should fully abandon its pursuit.

    Adherence to facts and truth is the goal in serious journalism, but even there the journalist is limited by their subjectivity. And when the facts don’t fit the narrative it’s usually a lot more common to change the facts to fit the narrative. But the same is true of readers, who bring their own subjectivity to the reading experience. In other words, since words carry meaning, we can never have an objective recounting of the truth.

    I agree and I take these points seriously. However, there’s a postmodern idea that says that since we can never truly reach truth and objectivity, it’s pointless to try and we should indulge in subjectivity, letting one person’s biased and subjective views counter another person’s biased and subjective views. I find this unworkable and self-defeating, because why would we engage in the process of meaning-making at all if it’s ultimately impossible to arrive at an understanding of another person’s thoughts and experiences?

    I propose, rather, a neomodernist framework: we take in stride the postmodernist criticism that objective truth is an unreachable ideal, but as with any ideal we follow it as best we can. We also elevate other interpretations that aim for the same ideal and strive for critical awareness of our own biases and preconceptions, and from those triangulate what the ideal “objective truth” might be, even if it is unattainable.

    And more consequentially, we must have a shared epistemological system in order to maintain or construct a shared global culture and civilization. If every person has their own epistemological system, then the world contains more than 7 billion different cultures and civilizations, rendering a true shared human community an impossible dream. It should not be an impossible dream. It should be the goal we work toward every day.

  • Vespertine Dreams

    The Bible begins in the Garden of Eden which has become a moral allegory for millions. Plato famously invented the continent of Atlantis to demonstrate his ideas. Thomas Moore had his Utopia. Philosophers throughout the ages have invented States of Nature, various Paradises, their fictional worlds in which they posited ideal systems and via which they constructed their worldviews.

    The fictional world via which I most shaped my worldview was Star Trek.

    Growing up, I was undoubtedly deeply influenced by the vision laid out in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the corresponding films, in which Humanity had reached what is known as a post-scarcity society: a level of technological productivity in which all needs can be provided for and competition – be it economic or military – was rendered unnecessary. Along with this economic abundance came a democratic-socialist system of sociopolitical organization, with sufficient welfare systems and healthcare, and in which scientific advancement was undertaken not for private profit but for the collective good.

    I took this vision as my own ideal of what the future of humanity should look like. However, this was obviously a fiction, very greatly divorced from the way the world worked today. The questions that arose, therefore, were: in what ways was this vision achievable? In what ways would it have to be altered?

    More specifically, this is a society in which some of the ideas of Western society are taken to an extreme: science and logic are given pride of place, religion has all but disappeared save for private affairs, all individuals are subject to rule of law, and people of all races and genders are treated as equals. Though many people may see these institutions as the logical termination of our current “scarcity” era of human history, it is important not to become trapped in a teleological fallacy. These values are not universal ideals. These ideals are the hallmark of Western Civilization.

    Western ideas of liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state, often have little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist, or Orthodox culture” (Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations”, 1993, p. 40).

    As I understood it, the vision presented in Star Trek was closest to being achieved, in the early 21st century, in the European Union. In the EU, war had been all but abandoned as a tool of national policy. Religion was kept far from politics

    For me, a young liberal growing up in Bush-era middle America, this idea of Europe offered me a vision of society free from everything I hated about the United States: its self-exaltation, its bellicose policies, the rampant capitalism, the overbearing influence of religion on national life.

    As I grew up, however, I began to see that Europe was sleepwalking off a cliff. Western Civilization was not alone in the world, and it had no unchallenged right to lead the future of humanity. The philosophical changes that had led to a softening of military policies and an embrace of comfortable social policies in Europe had blunted any desire to carry a torch or wave the banner of a civilization. The projection of civilizational ideals abroad meant little if not backed with the ability to project civilizational force abroad. Though Europe was closest to achieving the Trekian dream, the road it had followed was a dead-end given geopolitical realities.