A Cure for Modern Anxiety: Keeping a Fresh Understanding of Ourselves

Traditionalist criticisms of modern philosophies and the current condition of the modern thinker have often been a bit misguided. Maybe it’s just that modern philosophies tend to carry an air of arrogance about them. Or maybe traditionalists cling to their heritage so much that they refuse to accept the fact that traditions are bound to unfold new values, or newly articulated values anyway. It will be some time for traditionalists to truly grasp the significance of this shift that follows many post-enlightenment tendencies, this idea that man must continuously reflect upon his own rational activity and find direction for himself through his own individual means of reason and personal virtue. We should not have a problem with this simple approach, because it is truly a wonderful gift of modern thought, that man discovered something about his own obligation to find an identity for himself, and that a preconceived notion is never a good one until it is first criticized and disassembled. In this sense, our battles are not with the new upcoming consumers of materialism or the modern existentialists or the new pseudo-Christian movements, but those who do not seek to offer these new groups a clear identity which helps the adherents to understand themselves and enter rational dialogue with the rest of the world.

Nowadays, we hardly attempt reform of the inherited traditions our intellectual forefathers provide us. Instead, we are incessantly seeking to overthrow them. I suppose some of this tendency has to do with our various notions of reform, and much reform has evolved into a form of revolution. I think much of this was true of the Protestant Reformation. Although, I am becoming less convinced that the Reformation was such a pivotally destructive moment in history, I am becoming more convinced that it concluded in nothing less than a revolt against a tradition under the guise of “reforming” tradition. I remember reading a book by Albert Wolters concerning the Protestant notion of reform, and his argument was a plausible one, as far as the definition of what reform should look like. Yet, a revolutionary marking point within the Protestant Reformation turned the entire direction of modern thought on its head by its inevitable conclusion that man’s narrative of himself is one which resolves into the slogan, “Here I stand”. I came across a book written by various Catholic converts who cleverly entitled their book “Their We stood, and Here We Stand.” The shift after the Reformation was from “We” to “I”, but I still suppose this new approach was not such a bad one… The difficulty is finding a consistent identity once we attempt to define ourselves outside arbitrarily adopted norms. The Reformation did not cause such a loss in this sense, because it was precisely Catholic theology of the time that bred this mentality… I suppose such an event was bound to happen, and it was already so that many under the headship of the Church were as apathetic and negligent as the masses are today. And that is another tragedy concerning mankind; most men will always be primarily unreflective and disengaged from intellectual concerns in comparison to the academics who feed them the notions they subscribe to everyday. Luther only gave the masses a new and fresh option. He gave them another opportunity to choose a different context and identity for themselves. And of course they took it. Schismatics always run out of an institution’s doors with at least a handful of followers. Their virtues stand in stark contrast to their previous contemporaries and attract the attention of many minds with good intentions.

That’s how we learn from our past. We must give careful attention to how we develop within our own identified narratives. The criticism should not target the modern schismatic but the way we allow ourselves to breed the schismatic in the first place. Schisms designate a break or inconsistency in the narrative, an immoral character or an inconsistency in the ideals, consequently breeding confusion and revolt. We also fail to provide the option of a new value to unfold before us when we cease to keep our ideas alive and dialogical. This was the Catholic mistake within the 16th century. A big mistake was arbitrary censorship in the Church’s desperate attempt to hold on to her own identity. Although she eventually recollected herself, she suffered many wounds and her foundation was shaken all the way from her marble floors on up to her highest steeples.

So where should the criticism of modern philosophies now lie? It lies within the mentality of much modern academia to offer no consistency of identity and no end that defines what man is and what he should aspire to. Modern thinkers seek to continue to give man an opportunity to continuously break from his inherited identity, but to the point of confusion, if he is not careful. These thinkers offer no guidance in this sense, and it is, perhaps, one value many could adopt from the new materialists, like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, who offer a new materialistic way of life for young and directionless atheists and non-religious. Yet the new materialists are not without their problems either. They resort to the same mistake of too many institutions which seem to lose a foothold or suffer from insecurity; they threaten their followers with the belief that opposing ideas (primarily religious ones) must be excluded from healthy consideration. What will eventually result is mistrust in their fathers who are supposed to guide them toward enlightenment. I personally would predict a significant revolutionary shift in the frame of mind of their current young followers, if they continue to censor these religious reflections. When a tradition loses its rational and dialogical articulation of itself, it resorts to emotive force in hope of resisting breakdown in its system. We must clearly understand our ends, and we must always give answers to the big question we humans too often love to ask, “Why?” When those questions are neglected, we suffer a crisis. Consequently, the dialogues flourishing within our own communities transform into monologues, where certain notions are excluded from reasonable consideration.

Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes of modern thought is to assume that we can operate without subscribing to a system, but it is impossible for us to avoid confusion and anxiety when we do not submit to a consistent system which makes sense to us. When we are always questioning and never giving answers, or when we are never questioning and always giving answers, we lose that necessary binary structure to human inquiry, which must engage questions and attempt to offer clear and consistent answers. No idea is dead until it passes from sensible dialogue. When an idea is prematurely declared dead, we suffer another breakdown and a new directionless generation.

Philosophers, Duchamp, and the “Indie Artist"

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra and some of his other now canonized works, Friedrich Nietzsche often wrote of the philosopher's obligation to “go under” for the sake of man to “go over”. Surrounded by a poetic context of ambiguities, I always had difficulty understanding what the old man meant by this prescription for his modern man. As I grow more and more and develop within this modern social system, however, I begin to see the meaning of these words more clearly.

Nietzsche was a nobody, an eccentric and crippled old man, although quiet and cordial. His night life consisted of nothing much more than sitting in his attic and straining his failing eyes to read his own ramblings poured out on a stack of stale papers. Although pretentiously addressed to the modern age, his writings and essays were intended for nobody. Much of his works were only later to be discovered and published arguably against his will by the only person he ever acknowledged to truly know him, his most beloved sister.

And what is strikingly fascinating about this reclusive man, whose most definitive social context probably consisted of his very own fantasies he autonomously constructed for himself, was that he gave modern man something much more than modern man ever gave to him. This certainly is very distinct about Nietzsche’s gift to our modern age. Yet, what is more distinct is his shaping of the new identity of the philosopher and modern artist. Giving man a pattern and an image to replicate was nothing much different than philosophers before him, but the nature of his self-prescribed task was certainly much different.

Whenever I reflect on Nietzsche’s above words, I can not but think of the general sacrifice philosophers make for every age, and especially this one, when philosophers largely go unrecognized and unappreciated. At least for our time, there will never be another celebrity like Hume or Kant. The intellectual celebrity is now the physicist, biologist, politician, or the psychologist.

So I think of Marcel Duchamp and immediately reflect on his piece, Fountain. For Duchamp’s world, and even the Society of Independent Artists, this work was nothing more than a urinal plopped down in the middle of an art gallery. Yet, we can not now avoid associating this piece with initial rejection, only to be followed up by universal recognition in years to come. Again, it is the same way with various experimental music artists who sometimes carry that title: “Indie”. When I now think of Nietzsche, I am tempted to bring in a primary task recognized in both the contemporary Indie artist and Marcel Duchamp. From separate angles and utilizing different language-games, all three of these aesthetic figures contribute to the formation of the ambiguous and abstract identity of modern man. The very hopeful and now greatly needed task of these aesthetes is to offer a new possible doorway, a pond of disparate and fragmented tunes, colors, and values, only to be recognized or rejected… And that is why it is a sacrifice. I think of the work of experimental bands like Radiohead, Animal Collective, or the Pixies… Such bands have all offered a pond of abstractions and something terrifying but original to the music scene, often to be criticized or receive, at best, a pat on the head by mainstream critics. Their job is to off-set the pattern, in the desperate hope of setting a new one. The difference between such pioneers as these and some figures such as Coldplay or Dave Matthews is that such artists have rested on the pioneering sacrifice of the more obscure and experimental bands. The former sacrifice is the trial and error for the latter’s recognition as art.

It is this element that Nietzsche, Duchamp, and the experimental artist share. They do not serve the audience but the voice which will be recognized by the audience, and, occasionally, they themselves will be the object of recognition. Nietzsche seemed to imply that original thought would require a deposit of that thinker’s identity; the pioneer of the age submerges himself in a sea of ambiguity. The potential tragedy is that he may not emerge. His baptism is determined by his surroundings. The philosopher offers a concept or maybe a few concepts, only to be adopted or trampled and never be discovered again. This is his “going under” only to hope that man will “go over”.

Wittgenstein wrote that man is an endless resource for possible values and intended ends. More particularly, it is the rejected philosopher and artist who offer this resource. It is up to the rest of mankind to choose what characteristics and values to draw from these resources. And it is not that such men and voices who choose to replicate and embody these characteristics are scum; it is only that they are in a different kind of work. For the philosopher, his voice becomes the theologian and scientist who consume and re-package his ideas for the world. For the Indie music artist, it is the “pop” or “mainstream” artists, as almost every modern artist seems currently to relate to Duchamp.

There is probably not a single philosophy student unfamiliar with that obnoxious question: “and what are you gonna do with THAT degree??” But if it were not for the philosopher’s general apathy in desiring to answer that question, we would not be studying philosophy. The philosopher’s job is much less trivial than gathering an audience or making a recognized living for himself. His job is to sacrifice his thoughts, which are everything to him; they are, essentially, his identity. And that is his intimidating and sometimes despairing task. Modern thinkers and artists are often too heavily criticized as arrogant or too abstract, but they are sometimes perceived this way because they do not work within the patterns set for them. They work to define those patterns. Nietzsche defined modern man. Duchamp defined the modern artist. Their deposit is their sacrifice, and their exposure to ridicule is their gamble.

A brief thought on words and the Word

The uniqueness of words has been a topic of particular interest with me lately. Not too long ago I spoke with some Christian friends who claimed to not read many other books than Scripture. At that moment, besides being unable to entirely believe their testimony, the nature of script sparked a thought on the human responsibility to read.

The script is special in its own way, in that it pulls us along with it. Script articulates what was previously inarticulate. It clarifies the otherwise ambiguous world around us and interprts the wonder of other objects for the mind to exercise its intelligibility. I find it fascinating that I can not find myself truly "thinking" without conversing, or, at least, without articulating. So if the words of man are culminated in the Word, as St. John and St. Paul tell us again and again, what does this say about our obligation to familiarity with words, with script? If Christ came in any other form (say, an aesthetically pleasing idea) he would be merely an object, nothing more than the inarticulate other... one of Plato's Forms perhaps... But he would not be Revealed in a way that the understanding may grasp Him as the culmination of all written wisdom.