Thinking Dies; Evil Wins

The older I get, the more convinced I am that a major key to the horrific ‘success’ of our capitalist world is the death of thinking. As I have suggested here, a major difference between Rudolf Steiner’s esoteric Christianity and the New Age movement is the stress on thinking.

Over 80 years ago, Steiner warned that our culture’s thinking was headed for decay: becoming dull, hypnotised, automatic and mechanical - lifeless. His aspirations to a spiritual culture stressed the need then, to make thinking as lively and as vigorous as possible.

The fact that our thinking has become very drowsy indeed, became even more apparent to me at the point that Benedict XVI ascended the throne of Peter, earlier this year. Throughout the media there were countless references to the idea that Benedict was some sort of fundamentalist. Now, friends, whatever we make of the Holy Father, it is clear to anyone really listening to him and really thinking, that he is NOT a fundamentalist.

Yet not only in the secular mainstream, but also in the growing New Age subculture, such confusion is frequently found. At any rate, twenty years experience in the New Age scene is sufficient to convince me, at least, that this movement is often in the thrall of somnambulent secularist assumptions and that Rudolf Steiner’s call to wakeful, sharp vigorous thinking is badly, badly needed therein.

In the strictest sense of the words of course, Catholicism and Fundamentalism form an oxymoron. The term ‘Fundamentalism’ derives from an American Protestant movement to ‘get back’. 'Get back' that is, in the spirit of the Beatles singing in 1969: ‘Get back to where you started from … get back to where you once belonged’ . ‘Get back’ in this case, to the so-called fundamentals – the teachings of scripture, which are then interpreted in the most literalist way imaginable.

But Catholicism by definition, has nothing to do with such ‘getting back’, in that it has never been interested in reducing Christianity to Luther’s ‘sola scriptura’ – the Bible alone.

Instead, it bases itself firmly on going forward with an **evolving** tradition, a two thousand year tradition of the scriptures, *plus* a long, long line of countless theologians, mystics, philosophers; papal pronouncements; the decisions of Councils, and so on.

Thus the relatively recent teachings of Vatican II (1962-1965) are taken to be inspired by the Holy Spirit and are treated with a seriousness that could not be more contrary to the spirit of the American Protestants, who coined the word ‘fundamentalism’.

To take a more recent example, when John Paul II came out with the most vigorous papal condemnation of the death penalty ever made, the Vatican acknowledged that the Catechism of the Catholic Church would need to be swiftly revised. This is not fundamentalism.

(For the record, John Paul argued that the only possible justification for capital punishment would be if it were otherwise impossible to stop the killer killing again. But in the modern world, such possibilities had been wiped out, and were all but non-existent. He then directed his pontificate in countless ways to challenging capital punishment across the planet. Not only through his teaching, but individually calling on governors and presidents everywhere to lift the orders for executions.)

To return to my theme, it would specious of me to deny that there are many Catholics who do indeed take positions identical to Fundamentalism in spirit, if not specifics. However it boggles the mind, that such a careful, penetrating, profound thinker as Benedict XVI can be associated with suchlike.

When I hear such a thing, it is clear: either people are not listening to the Holy Father - or they are not thinking. The tragedy of the world is that both these things are true: profound thought is neither listened to – it being frequently drowned out by a din of mindless ‘sound-bites’ - nor is it engaged with.

‘Nor is it engaged with’ … in terms of our present consideration, I suggest what is at issue here, is that our culture has reduced our philosophical alternatives to two options: Fundamentalism or Relativism. With nothing in between.

If we are not a relativist, believing that any spiritual truth (that is, any truth beyond logic or empiricism) can be reduced to subjectivity … then we must be - ipso facto - fundamentalist or absolutist. No other position is conceivable. Such is the tragedy that greets us today. In many quarters, at least.

Thus I think it imperative to generate consciousness that an entire universe spans the distance between Relativism and Fundamentalism. And tomorrow, I will make a humble effort to address this. And to continue elaborating what I mean by 'hoodoo magic' and thinking dies; evil wins.