Kirkjufellsfoss, Iceland, in a photograph by Martin Jernberg (martinjphoto) that is not only wholly irrelevant to this blog entry but, having been posted on Wikimedia Commons prior to 5 June 2017, appears to remain within the public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here are a trio of passages that I\u2019ve extracted from Huston Smith, Beyond the Post-Modern Mind<\/em>, updated and revised (Wheaton, Illinois; Madras, India; and London, England: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1989):<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Relativism sets out to reduce every kind of absoluteness to a relativity while making an illogical exception for its own case. \u00a0In effect, it declares it to be true that there is no such thing as truth; that it is absolutely true that only the relatively true exists. \u00a0This is like saying that language does not exist, or writing that there is no such thing as script. \u00a0Total relativism is an incoherent position. \u00a0Its absurdity lies in its claim to be unique in escaping, as if by enchantment, from a relativity that is declared alone to be possible.<\/span><\/p>\nRelativism holds that one can never escape human subjectivity. \u00a0If that were true, the statement itself would have no objective value; it would fall by its own verdict. \u00a0It happens, however, that human beings are quite capable of breaking out of subjectivity; were we unable to do so we would not know what subjectivity is. . . .<\/span><\/p>\nIf Freudian psychology declares that rationality is but a hypocritical cloak for repressed, unconscious drives, this statement falls under the same reproach; were Freudianism right on this point it would itself be no more than a front for id-inspired impulses. \u00a0There is no need to run through the variations of relativism that arise from other versions of psychologizing, historicizing, sociologizing, or revolutionizing. \u00a0Suffice it to say that few things are more absurd than to use the mind to accuse the mind, not just of some specific mistake but in its entirety. \u00a0If we are able to doubt, this is because we know its opposite; the very notion of illusion proves our access to reality in some degree. (217-219)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The opposite of the sense of the sacred is not serenity or sobriety. \u00a0It is drabness; taken-for-grantedness. \u00a0Lack of interest. \u00a0The humdrum and prosaic. \u00a0(253)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And, quoting the late Lewis Thomas:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It may turn out that consciousness is a much more generalized mechanism, shared round not only among ourselves but with all the other conjoined things of the biosphere. . . . \u00a0[I]n which case we will find that we have a whole eternity of astonishment stretching out ahead of us. \u00a0(226)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Here are a trio of passages that I\u2019ve extracted from Huston Smith, Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, updated and revised (Wheaton, Illinois; Madras, India; and London, England: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1989): \u00a0 Relativism sets out to reduce every kind of absoluteness to a relativity while making an illogical exception for its own case. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8613,8619,8616,216,240,2791,8610],"class_list":["post-82870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-absolute","tag-absolute-truth","tag-absolutes","tag-consciousness","tag-huston-smith","tag-problem-of-consciousness","tag-relativism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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