Written by Lancelot Finn (Spring 2002)
I met a monk the other day on Harvard Square. Of course, a lot of people will accost you on Harvard Square, but he seemed especially pleasant, and he wasn't selling anything, so I talked to him. He offered me a free book called "The Quest for Enlightenment." There was a many-armed deity on the cover, but I flipped through the pages saw the name of Origen, a Christian writer, so I was impressed by the fusion of religious traditions. Inter-religious boundaries are drawn too sharply. Then he asked for a donation. I was touched that a stranger was concerned for my soul, so I cheerfully gave him $3, took his card, and got to class late.
Over lunch, I read about enlightenment. We live, said the book, in "the Age of Quarrels and Dissensions." But "Sri Krsna, Supreme Personality of the Godhead… appeared on earth five thousand years ago and gave us the unique philosophy and religious principles of Krsna consciousness… [He] again appeared as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu at the end of the fifteenth century to revive the same Krsna consciousness." The 15th century… mentally, I ran through my Mogul emperors: was that in the reign of Babur? Akbar? I smiled inwardly. Biblical scholars have worked so hard to determine the historicity of Jesus. Was a similar fool's errand trying to verify Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu? The book advocated "chanting of the holy name of Krsna" to purify us from "the dirty things in our heart." The monks' card put the message even more simply: "If you want to be happy, try chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare…" It was a pleasant read, and a reminder that even at the height of our nation's belligerence against "fundamentalism," people seek God's simple truth, and need dogma, faith.
Just as the media wasted no time after September 11 in blaming "Islamic fundamentalism," Bill Clinton, speaking at Harvard in November, drew the battle lines of the war on terror in epistemological terms. Terrorists are "people who think they have the whole truth," straight from God, and that "the world is divided into those who agree with them and those who do not"—infidels, expendable if necessary. In contrast, we see truth as something we must strive for and build—and he finished by adding, "isn't that what this university is all about?" Our foes are medieval, we are the land of tolerance, the republic of reason, the empire of inquiry.
Yet, paradoxically, millions of Americans are fundamentalists too. A few would even describe themselves as fundamentalists, but many others "think they have the whole truth" straight from God, in inerrant sacred texts such as the Bible. I grew up in a fervent fundamentalist sect, the Mormons, who are very definite in asserting that they have a hotline to God, via the Church's president, the "living Prophet." Mormons' certitude is disconcerting to the intelligentsia, but it doesn't prevent them becoming brilliant linguists and scientists, or from penetrating government and academia. Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists flourish in all walks of American life, even at Harvard. If the spirit of inquiry is "what this university is all about," what are they doing here? Well, they are here because Harvard is not only in the business of Truth, with a capital T—which fundamentalists already think they have and don't need to come to Harvard for—but also in the business of truths, with a lower-case t: historical and scientific facts, reading lists, methods, scientific experiments, technical information, etc.
Christianity was the chrysalis from which Western civilization emerged. However, though Christianity still profoundly influences Western art, literature, culture, and social conscience, the Western intellect has long been occupied by Descartes. Descartes made history by doubting everything, even his own existence. He then reassured himself, false alarm, he was right to start with. But posterity has imitated his shattering question rather than his unsatisfying, complacent answer. In the last half-millennium, the Western intellect has pursued the Cartesian project into every field, revolutionizing science, philosophy, history, and religion, leaving no stone unturned, no cherished belief undoubted. The exuberance of Cartesian rationalism still animated Clinton's words of praise for Harvard.
Everyone seems to forget that the Cartesian project failed. Philosophy, birthplace of modern rationalism, has passed into its twilight. Each generation of philosophers whittles away the certainties of the last, and offers fewer of its own. Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and Comte believed they had the truth. Modern philosophy from Wittgenstein to Derrida is a retreat into skepticism, obscurity, and abdication of truth-claims. Descartes doubted all knowledge, and thought he could rebuild it. But neither he nor all the philosophers since have been able to put Humpty together again. Doubt dissolves knowledge and leaves a vacuum of relativism, not only in theory but as a widespread social phenomenon.
How widespread is relativism? My estimate is 10% of the population, but it's hard to say, for relativism can come camouflaged. One friend of mine struck me as a lukewarm Catholic, until she expressed an opinion that "there's no truth, really." As if everyone knew it. Another Catholic friend of mine said that God is "a matter of opinion"—if I thought differently, well, that's "true for you." Now relativism is easy to disprove. The statement "there is no absolute truth" is either absolutely true—but in that case it is false—or it is "true relative to" the person expressing it, in which case it is an empty proposition, which does not even claim to possess any truth-content for the listener. Of course, this argument rarely convinces relativists—why should they submit to logic when they don't believe in truth? Still, it is strange that relativism is so prevalent. Every child who believes the sun is hot, Jesus loves me, or molecules are very very small, believes it as the truth. Somewhere along the way this sound epistemology vanishes. I think the public schools are to blame. Politically correct books and don't-do-drugs and the latest fads in pop psychology get ample attention, while religion and philosophy, which confront the really important questions, are neglected. No wonder students default into relativism.
Yes, relativists are open-minded. The winds of fashion are always blowing ideas in and out of their heads. This is where the danger lies. Insane, deadly ideas—if exciting or beautiful—tend to find fertile soil in minds rotted by relativism. In 19th-century Russia, it was a small minority of "nihilists," their Orthodox faith decimated by exposure Western science, who first succumbed to the utopian fantasies of Bolshevism. In 20th-century Germany it was a creedless drifter, Hitler, who invented Nazism, and other disillusioned lost sheep who followed him.
Actually, bin Laden's motives were not fundamentalist, but irredentist: to liberate Palestine, avenge U.S. persecution of Iraq, and terminate the occupation of Arabia. Yet we evoke the fundamentalist bogeyman, because it seems more appropriate to the magnitude of the horror. Nothing is more alien to the Western intelligentsia than revelation, dogma, faith, so at its door we lay our greatest fears. But at this rate we will never bridge the gulf with dogmatic religion, which is a growing force in the world even though the intelligentsia has assumed for generations that it will fade away. We must listen to claims of God's revelation with less scorn and more curiosity, with an open mind.