Philosophy: (4 of 4) readers beware

Perhaps I am a bit out of touch with people these days. My friend Ali, the Beaudrillard fan, tells me that our country is disconnected with its past. My friend Loren, the Marxist, would surely tell me that religion is an opium of the people ( “Die Religion … ist das Opium des Volkes” – Karl Marx), and my own explorations are themselves an attempt to self-medicate myself out of the stark reality which is this world. My old friend Dave, playing Thrasymachus, once declaired that people only support causes that will benefit their interests.

My own fear is that people do read this, or anything I write, and take it as a little bit of self-assurance, such that they may move on in life without the difficult work of self-confrontation, without, to use the Hegelian terminology, discovering the inherent contradictions of their own world-view.

I would so hate to be nothing more than an opium, a diversion from life, an alternative to the difficulty which is modern society. I know I fall into this myself sometimes, drowning in cyber-reality, enjoying the mental-masturbation of theorizing over email and blogs with surely like-minded individuals.

So I must say: DONT read this and smile, thinking that just happiness will alone suffice. Sure it spreads, the world becomes brighter, happier. But all that is as ephemeral as your first kiss: sweet, lovely, warming, fulfilling, but then gone. Every smile can be like that first kiss. But just the same it won’t last unless there is the ‘understanding’ behind it. The understanding is the part that takes work. But it is the part that lasts, even when times are hard, it is there as a light, beckoning from afar, but unmoving and certain. That is work you have to do on your own, in your own life, your own circumstances. No book, or teacher, or anything else can do the work for you. All these can do is point you toward the realization that you must accomplish, or serve as examples. Contemporary culture is too dependent on the other for its food, information, spirituality, etc. We all, individually, must retake what is rightfully ours: the responsibility of achieving goodness, greatness. No more pointing fingers….