Over the past few months I’ve become acutely aware of my relationship to the various forms of media and technology clamoring for my attention. It used to irk me when my more “progressive” friends would seemingly brag about how they didn’t watch (or sometimes even own a) television. My (internal) response was usually “F-you, you f-ing f-hole.” After all, who doesn’t watch a little television every now and again, to wind down? Oh yeah, YOU don’t. I forgot. F- hole.
Of course, these same folks might spend hours on the internet watching YouTube videos, or reading novels or listening to music. Distraction is distraction, and it’s how one relates to various forms of media that determines whether or not it opens one up or shuts one down. I have to admit though, most of the time when I watch television I may as well be shooting crack into my eyeballs. There are exceptions of course, like the entire five seasons of Six Feet Under, but for the most part my relationship to the media is like that of junkie to dealer.
This week has been one of those exceptions, as I’ve enjoyed hours of video from the so-called “New Atheists” (Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens). I was also blown away by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an ex-muslim refugee from Somalia, whose story is as compelling as her stunning beauty. I watched hours and hours of discourse on religion and atheism, all on Google-video or YouTube, and not one moment of it was characterized by the passive trance and drool dripping stupor of my typical viewing experience. On the contrary, I was left inspired and energized, and certainly inclined to think about my own position vis-à-vis matters of faith and reason.
While I’ve championed Sam Harris on this blog before, cheering from the sidelines you might say, I’ve avoided getting too deep into the issues at hand. I’ve enjoyed the various talks and debates vicariously, passively, unclear as to what the implications might be on my own life and process of inquiry. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s point about the implied activism involved in rejecting dogmatism really hit home. Quite often I am dismayed when friends and relatives read a profound book, say they “enjoyed it,” yet seem utterly unaffected by it, uninspired to explore the implications of the new ideas and insights, how they might impact their day to day lives. I’ve been guilty of the same thing myself, many times, and my failure to really explore the implications of the “New Atheist” movement is a prime example.
I am with Sam Harris all the way in rejecting the label “atheist” altogether. In fact, much of the problem with having productive dialogues about such things lies in our sloppy use of language and lazy reliance on unclear terms. The question “Do you believe in God?”, when answered with a simple “yes” or “no”, leads to zero increase in mutual understanding. Like the word “atheist,” such a question is nothing more than a trap, in the form of a conceptual maze, within which true dialogue, true understanding, cannot exist. If I’m against anything it’s these closed thought loops, the displays of distorted and downright piss-poor thinking that characterize much of the discourse about religion and spirituality.
Ranting aside, here’s what I’m thinking at the moment: The only remedy for what ails us all is a radical shift in consciousness. Such shifts are normally understood as “spiritual experiences,” which have typically been explored within the contexts of various religions. Unfortunately, most religious thinking is riddled with dogma and the egregious misuse of reason, thus the spiritual gold is, for the most part, left unmined, too often replaced with either blissful ignorance or dangerously unconscious behavior. Even the word “spiritual” is a hindrance, so I’m going to throw it on the fire next to “atheism.” “Transpersonal” is a much better word, and there is no reason why experiences of self-transcendence cannot be studied and explored within a broadly scientific context, shorn of the superstition and bogus metaphysical deadweight of religion.
Transpersonal Psychology seemed to hold so much promise when it was envisioned by the likes of Abraham Maslow. Like many great ideas of the 1960′s, Transpersonal Psychology has — as far as I can tell — gotten too bogged down in sloppy New Age thinking to significantly impact mainstream academic inquiry. I wonder if it isn’t too late to resuscitate the field, freeing it from the New Age horse-shit so that it might provide a suitable refuge for the clear-minded exploration of our deepest experiences.
I will do some thinking about all this.
cool! i’m glad that you’re delving deeper into the New Atheists. i’ve been doing the some on my blog since they’ve hit the mainstream :)
i like how you’ve brought up Maslow in this discussion. the developmental perspective seem to be missing from the arguments of the New Atheists. it is implied, like when Dawkins say that his goal is to “raise consciousness”, but it is not articulated in a way that could add to their argument of why rationality should be valued above blind faith. i went into this into more detail in my review of Sam Harris’ book the End of Faith. check it out when you get the chance. would love to hear your thoughts on it.
in the meantime, in case you haven’t seen this yet, here are The Four Horsemen duking it out over a few drinks ;)
keep it flowing.
~C
Yeah C, I enjoyed the “Four Horsemen” discussion immensely. Seems like every other day there’s something new to watch from these guys. Harris, to my mind, is the most ballsy of the group. Things seemed to get a little awkward when he brought up his whole “spend a year in a cave” spiel. Hitchens strikes me as somewhat of a blowhard, less attentive as a listener and more in love with the sound of his own voice.
As you have pointed out C, it’s Harris’s insistence that the “spiritual” baby be rescued from the bathwater that provides the opening for Integral thinkers to form an alliance with this important movement. Harris brought this up at the Atheist Conference as well, much to the chagrin of some audience members. One woman questioner bemoaned his slipping into the “supernatural.” What a complete misunderstanding! Which is why I think the word “spiritual” has to go. It clarifies nothing and carries all the liabilities Harris attributes to the term “Atheism.”
I feel, more strongly than ever after watching all these videos, that Wilber will not/can not step into this discussion, due to his anti-dialogical style (I have NEVER heard a true exchange of ideas on Integral Naked — only parroting/promoting of the AQAL model). Furthermore, Wilber is all about “Spirit” and he’s a proponent of the “conveyor belt” approach to transforming religions. If Harris can’t make himself understood by Atheists and secularists regarding such matters, Wilber would be sunk instantly.
So, that’s why I’m thinking about Transpersonal Psychology, which was envisioned as a science, an academic discipline. Unfortunately, the field is hardly recognized outside of Northern California, where it has absorbed and catered to its New Age surroundings. Having lost its most lucid voice (Wilber), I wonder if the project, as envisioned by Maslow, can yet come to fruition?