11-27-2017, 03:29 PM
That is a good point, that we need breaks from change. But I do think we live in the age of perpetual revolution. But, within that Revolution, there also needs to be a revolution of respect for tradition and valuing of all of our heritage; a revolution to keep recovering all that is great from the past, as well as perpetually questioning all things and moving beyond current authority. To be always creating the new, and at the same time, revering and building on the old; for as Bergson said, we only know what is new if we know what is old. We know what is coming into being only by contrast to what already is. Only if we remember the past, can we move into something genuinely new. "Progress" has its delusions too.
The Enlightenment is certainly old hat now. And I wonder how much value it really brought us. It's culture has grown stale and too enclosed within reason; too superficial. But it has brought us a lot of good, especially, at least, in the political realm; respect for human rights being top of the list. And it started what we call the modern world, in which more freedom is possible. Where do we go from there, though? Where have we gone? Into many other spaces and ideas, philosophies and approaches in the last 250 years, as we have been given new horizons to explore, both within and beyond the "Western" world or civilization. And we never can explore or build them all; we can never know and create everything. Life is always within mystery, and that's as we would have it.
The Enlightenment is certainly old hat now. And I wonder how much value it really brought us. It's culture has grown stale and too enclosed within reason; too superficial. But it has brought us a lot of good, especially, at least, in the political realm; respect for human rights being top of the list. And it started what we call the modern world, in which more freedom is possible. Where do we go from there, though? Where have we gone? Into many other spaces and ideas, philosophies and approaches in the last 250 years, as we have been given new horizons to explore, both within and beyond the "Western" world or civilization. And we never can explore or build them all; we can never know and create everything. Life is always within mystery, and that's as we would have it.
