A Quest for Meaning
Why Does Our Moral Compass Swing About So Violently?
With the world in turmoil and widespread confusion about our values and beliefs, it seems that our moral compass is no longer pointing towards a spiritual North Pole but just swinging about violently and uncontrolled. Many of us are lost as to what values and beliefs we can still hold on to and pass on to our children. As a parent and a teacher, I experience first hand how the value confusion of our day is deeply affecting the younger generations. One of the most important things we can do for them is to teach them our core values, but of course this means we first need to work out what is actually causing the confusion in the first place.
As a philosopher I approach this question through the study of the history of ideas, trying to figure out how we got to where we are and where we should go from here. This means that I am looking for the big picture, seeking to find patterns throughout historical universal ideas and then bring some order into the chaos of modernity. A pattern some scholars have pointed out is that, over the past centuries, humanity — and Western civilisation specifically — experienced a loss of moral innocence as ancient and medieval views of the world have been overthrown. This loss of moral innocence is a direct cause of the confusion and disagreements about values we struggle with today. In addition to this, they also claim that the current clash of cultures beleaguering our world, might suggest we are entering a new Axial Period.
A New Axial Period
The original Axial Period was named by existential philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) and refers to an era of spiritual awakening throughout many of the world’s major civilizations in the period 800-300 BCE. Developing independently of one and other, the religious and philosophical ideas conceived during this time, have guided the human race ever since. In China for example, the Axial Period was the age of Confucius and Laozi, founders of the major philosophical systems (Confucianism and Daoism) that have had an significant influence on Chinese culture up to the present day. In India around that same time, the cathartic Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita were written, and it saw the rise of Buddhism and Jainism. Further to the west, in Persia, modern-day Iran, the prophet Zarathustra was spreading his message while in Israel it was the time of the transformative prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Book of Job. Finally, it was the period in which Western civilisation originated in Ancient Greece and saw the rise of the philosophical giants Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Our modern era, or “modernity” is considered to be on the brink of a new Axial Period as modern science, technology, global capitalism and especially the information revolution pose a threat to the religious and philosophical teachings of the original Axial Period which have guided us so far. Wherever the global culture of modernity has spread, it threatens traditional values, religious beliefs and lifestyles. People’s ways of life are under threat and from this we can conclude that the two main causes for the current confusion about values and beliefs are pluralism and uncertainty.
Pluralism here refers to the fact that we live in a world of opposing voices, philosophies, religions and conflicting points of view on fundamental matters. This, of course, has always been the case, but with the post-World War II resurgence of globalization and the transformation of the world into a “global village” with the advent of the Internet, these conflicts are now affecting us on a personal level. Whereas it used to be possible to basically ignore conflicting lifestyles and simply adhere to your own values and beliefs, now these are continuously challenged by a cacophony of contrasting points of view which have become impossible to ignore. This then leads to the second cause for our confusion, uncertainty.
As finite creatures, we see our world from a point of view limited by our culture and history. The deeper philosophical issue here is that in a world of contrasting points of view it is difficult to show which point of view is right and which is wrong. To argue, for example, that your value or belief is subjectively right and others wrong you have to present evidence, but that evidence will have to be gathered and interpreted from your own point of view to make sense. When it comes to values and believes, the evidence from one point of view will inherently be unacceptable from another point of view and vice versa. The troubling circularity of defending a point of view from that point of view will inescapably lead to confusion and uncertainty about what is right and wrong.
Now that the causes of the confusion about values and beliefs have been identified, we should explore the prospects for renewing the ancient quest for wisdom and meaning in our modern age. We should bring together the wisdom embodied in the philosophical and traditions of the past, stretching back to the Axial Period, and engage in a discussion about the social and moral issues of today that are the consequences of modern pluralism and lie at the heart of the current confusion and disagreements about our values.
An Attitude of Openness Towards Pluralism and Uncertainty
The most common reaction to pluralism and uncertainty in modern-day societies is to take a stance of openness or tolerance to opposing points of view. This is because of the widely held belief that judgements about good and evil, right or wrong, are personal matters and should not be imposed on others against their will. “Evil takes root,” the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky once said, “when one man thinks he’s superior to another,” and history clearly shows us that that the deeds of those who believed they had the correct view and the right to impose this on others have led to some horrifying situations.
An argument can be made that this kind of tolerant openness is really just indifference, a belief that no point of view is any better than any other, rendering all valueless. If all other points of view were to be accepted without any critical thoughts, this would indeed be true. However, if we accept these other points of view with the aim to learn their truths as perceived from every different perspective involved in the issue, we might rise above our own limited perspectives and discover some universal truths. In other words, openness properly conceived is a search for the objective truth about values, not passive indifference.
An openness towards other points of view does not mean we should indiscriminately respect all points of view equally. There are cases in which the moral sphere, the situation in which every way of life can be respected, breaks down. Take for example a robbery. If you were to witness a robbery, it would be impossible for you to respect the points of view of both the robber and the victim. In this case the assailant has broken the moral sphere by breaking the law and thus his or her point of view is not worthy of your respect.
For centuries, the approach to finding absolute values has been to take one point of view and argue it was right and all others wrong. In our modern globalised world, this approach has lead to the issues of pluralism and uncertainty and so we should retrieve the ancient quest for wisdom and look for an alternative. An attitude of openness might very well be this alternative as it takes the conditions of pluralism and uncertainty serious. When we are uncertain which of the many point of view is the right one, we should find out what is perceived as true from each and every point of view, not just our own. This way we will learn that some are more and some less worthy of our respect and lift ourselves from the burden of having to prove our own point of view right and all the others wrong.
How do we know which points of view are less worthy of our respect without just judging them from our own point of view? Look at what kind of actions they invoke. In the words of the ancient Chinese sage Confucius, “Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you” (Analects 15:23)
[T]here you are.
This essay is inspired by a lecture series by Dr Robert H. Kane of the University of Texas at Austin.
