AN “ENLIGHTENED” PRAGMATISM

 

 

Trust flees when the higher principles of truth, honesty, and integrity are rejected. It had been assumed that pragmatism - a cost/benefit analysis would be enough to sustain their faith.

 

Today’s secularists had promoted faith in an enlightened pragmatism, a far-sighted pragmatism, which would perceive the long-term benefits of this pragmatism. It would look into the future and discern that by pragmatically maintaining the principles of equality, honesty, and human rights, we would all benefit.

 

Perhaps, this might have been true if we were more like robots without fears and desires. However, this faith in pragmatism alone overlooked human nature and the world we occupy, where we must eat and pay our bills. These take precedence over a distant and unfounded faith in “enlightened” pragmatism, and its focus on the future.

 

These immediate considerations quickly convert pragmatic idealists, who carry “No Justice, No Peace” placards, into realists who have children to feed and eventually begin to see that their comrades are no better than those they had sought to re-educate, and even worse!

 

In other cases, a stubborn confirmation bias continues to triumph over truth and the evidence to the contrary. This common bias insists that there is no need for God. Pragmatic Naturalism can provide what is necessary, even for morality and human well-being, despite the millions it exterminates.

 

Atheist, humanist, and author of the Humanist Manifesto II, Paul Kurtz, affirmed that pragmatism (not God’s moral principles) is the only possible justification for morality:

 

·       How are these principles [of equality, freedom, honesty, morality, etc.] to be justified? They are not derived from a divine or natural law nor do they have a special metaphysical [beyond the material world] status. They are rules offered to govern how we shall behave. They can be justified only by reference to their results [benefits]. (Preamble)

 

However, humanity demands immediate benefits, not the promised benefits of an unsubstantiated and unpromising faith. Consequently, few professionals are willing to risk their careers to oppose the present idiocy that sexual identity is simply a matter of choice and not genetics and biology.

 

“Enlightened” pragmatism allows little room for freedom, truth, and reality. It is a faith without a foundation. Consequently, it must be maintained by intimidation and coercion, the legacy of all communistic states.

 

When we reject the God of the Bible, we reap mental incoherence:

 

·       For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! (Romans 1:21-25)

 

When the Truth of Creator is not our #1 passion, the vacuum demands filling, even by the untruths of self-deception.

Humanity: Knowing who we are is Knowing how to Live

It should be obvious that if we are to live the good and maximally beneficial life, we have to know who we are and what we need. Without this knowledge, we do not know how to take care of ourselves. 

However, others deny such a thing as “human nature.” Eric Fromm wrote this about Karl Marx:

•  Marx did not believe, as do many contemporary sociologists and psychologists, that there is no such thing as the nature of man; that man at birth is like a blank sheet of paper, on which the culture writes its text. https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch04.htm 

According to Marx and his followers, humanity is nothing more than a byproduct of the economic system. Historian Robert Royal wrote:

• The materialist view of the person – combined with the notion that humans, as material beings, can be reshaped into the New Man of the Communist dream merely by a change of their social conditions, a view still widespread today – is a falsehood that inevitably leads to awful consequences… By most credible estimates, Communist countries killed about a hundred million people in the twentieth century. (The God that did not Fail, 247)

In contrast with the materialistic view of humanity, the better we understand humanity, the better we can serve them. It’s like taking care of anything. If we don’t understand our car, we will destroy it. We have to know that the gas goes in the gas tank, and the water goes into the radiator and not into the gas tank. We also need to know where to find the gas pedal and where to find the brakes.

If we don’t understand our car, we will destroy it. We have to know that the gas goes in the gas tank, and the water goes into the radiator and not into the gas tank. We also need to know where to find the gas pedal and where to find the brakes.

Knowledge is necessary for the care of anything, even our clothing and the kitchen stove. This is uncontroversial! However, when it comes to understanding humanity and human nature, this understanding is often overlooked, as if there is no human nature at all.

Strangely, we do not forget that our cat, parakeet, and goldfish have their own nature and therefore require care in accordance with their nature. We do not throw our parakeet in the fish's bow; nor do we place our fish in a bird cage. Each creature has its own optimal environment.

However, we show even less attention to our human nature, assuming that our individual differences represent the totality of who we are.

We encounter one example of this disregard for human nature in the last place that we should expect it – in the study of clinical psychology. This study has been dominated by a preoccupation with the pathological, the human differences, not the commonalities.

Myopically, to determine what is pathological, clinical psych has adopted a medical model. According to this model, the pathological is what causes pain or symptomology like sores or swelling. However, when we apply this model to psychology, whatever causes long-term pain, discomfort, or interferes with personal fulfillment is considered pathological. Consequently, the optimal human state is to be pain-free, without unpleasant symptoms, and to be maximally fulfilled or happy. For most psychotherapists, the goal is to reduce unwanted symptomology. (Just look at how they advertise their services!)

However, there is much the matter with this analysis. Pain is also a good thing. It tells us when we have to remove our hand from a hot stove. Likewise, guilt tells us that we might be doing something wrong. To be without pain-receptors is to be a leper. To be without a conscience and guilt feelings is to be a sociopath. Pain is often necessary!

This raises the questions, “What is our common human nature? What is normalcy (if there is such a thing)? And how do we live in accordance with our human nature?” Failing to answer these questions makes it impossible to talk about pathology. Is it pathological to have a sensitive conscience? To not feel bad in the context of injustice? To be concerned about what others think of us? To live our lives for our family at the expense of our own fulfillment?

In comparison, medical issues are relatively simple. Sickness is something that interferes with our maximal physical functioning. But what does it mean to be mentally sick? In order to answer this question, we need to understand what it means to be mentally healthy – something psychology knows little about.

At a secular discussion group, one participant stated that our purpose is to “glorify humanity.” Central to this glorification is our freedom of thought to question everything without any limitations, moral or otherwise.

While I agree with many aspects of this assertion, I think that we need to further explore what it means to be “free.” Is freedom the absence of limitations or rules, as many are prone to believe today? Just try to play chess with complete freedom to move our pieces any way so want and at any time. Complete freedom represents chaos and a meaningless, unsatisfying game of chess.

Complete freedom can also represent supreme bondage. Take the goldfish in his very limiting fishbowl. He eyeballs the great world outside of his bowl and concludes, “I need to be free of the limitations of this bowl.” With a great effort, he jumps out of his bowl, flapping helplessly on the floor below. 

The goldfish had maximized his freedom within the limitations of water. Perhaps we too need to learn about our human limitations and to live in accordance with them. Perhaps, as with any other creature, we were created for a specific environment or set of lifestyles that maximize our freedom and well-being.

Let me suggest two sets of limitations within which we should live – what we believe/think and how we act.

WHAT WE BELIEVE/THINK

Thinking accurately is essential. Our thinking must be limited by the truth or wisdom. Our thought processes largely determine if we are going to navigate successfully through life. If we are not accessing and responding to accurate data, we will cash our car. As we drive, we need to know precisely where the other cars are. Anything less will produce catastrophe.

Does this insight also pertain to the gushier aspects of our lives? Definitely! If I think that my mailman is canvassing my house in order to find the right occasion to kill me, this will adversely affect my feelings towards him and my behavior.

More to the point, I used to think that others didn’t like me and was convinced that, in order for them to like me, I had to become a different person. Such a belief was not only inaccurate, it was also costly, alienating me from myself and from others.

Everyone has their areas of blindness. One dear friend believed that most women were terribly attracted to him, even those who told him “no!” His blindness in this area proved costly, including several arrests.

Blindness is always associated with crashes, costs, and even arrests. This means that maturity and growth must entail growth in understanding the truth – seeing reality as it is. This realization suggests that we are constrained by the truth of reality. While we are free to create our own reality, to can only be done at the price of a costly collision with reality.

This same principle applies to human nature. We might decide that we are free to recreate ourselves – and to a certain extent, we can do so – but there are human constraints to which we must adhere.

HOW WE BEHAVE MORALLY

In another way, we are constrained by our human nature. It seems apparent that our human nature is also a moral nature. If we live contrary to our moral nature, we will  crash. Of course, we can choose to live in conflict with our moral nature, but only at great cost to ourselves.

A friend had recently confided that, as a young man, he had become the “mascot” of some mafia-type guys. My friend now calls them “monsters.” They had everything – power, money, respect, women – but they were miserable. There was no joy in their lives. Why not? They were living in opposition to their moral nature. They knew better, but they rejected this knowledge.

Meanwhile, many studies have shown that the most satisfied people are those who live according to what they know within themselves. They know that being other-centered is right, and they live that way.

When I live selfishly, I feel most uncomfortable. However, when I center myself on the needs of others, I experience the greatest joy and peace.

What then does it mean to be free, and how do we maximize our freedom? When we live in accordance with the truth, whether external or internal! This means living in accordance with the limitations of our human nature.

CAN A PILL BE INVENTED THAT WILL ALLOW US TO LIVE FREE FROM OUR CONSTRAINING NATURE?

A pill will not enable us to circumvent reality, no more than an anti-anxiety drug will enable us to drive blindfolded.

Even more to the point, why would anyone want to circumvent reality? Only a superficial view of reality would cause us to ask such a question. Some believe that reality is nothing but change. In this case, human nature and moral reality is nothing to be reckoned with. Better to be a trend-setter!

However, if human nature is such by the design of a superior Intelligence who has created us with a moral nature to understand Him and to enter into a loving and eternal relationship with Him, our nature is to be cherished and not changed.

Yes, we are glorious, but how so? As we walk in sync with Reality – our Creator - first in belief and then in action!

Understanding Humanity and Utopia: The Great Divide

The way we conceive humanity and our problems determines the nature of our solutions. Gandhi disdained technology and thought that the return to the simple life would solve many of our problems:

• Gandhi’s idea that technology was evil and that a simple, natural life was morally superior came from British idealists like John Ruskin. Sensitive people like him had become critical of England’s Industrial Revolution because of the exploitation, oppression, and other evils associated with its “dark satanic mills.” Mahatma Gandhi brought this opposition to technology to India. (Vishal Mangalwadi, The Book that Made your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization,111)

Shakti Gawain, author of Creative Visualizations, taught that our problems arose from alienation from the inner self. Therefore, her answer consisted of learning to trust the “truth” we find within:

• “When we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead for external authority, validation, and the approval of others, we give our personal power away…Every time you don’t trust yourself and don’t follow your inner truth, you decreased your aliveness and your body will reflect this with a loss of vitality, numbness, pain, and eventually physical disease.” 

Meanwhile, Joseph Stalin was convinced that attaining paradise was a matter of changing the environment – the State and its economy:

• Whatever is the mode of production of a society, such in the main is the society itself, its ideas, and theories, its political views and institutions. Or, to put it more crudely, whatever is man’s manner of life, such is his manner of thought.

Similarly, The Humanist Manifesto II asserts that “Using technology wisely” can produce the “abundant and meaningful life”:

• “Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life-span, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.” 

Many other utopian schemes rely upon the removal of the repressive or capitalistic elements. The Occupy Wall Street movement seemed to suggest that if we could simply remove the capitalist oppressors - the top one percent – we could have a better world. Other movements placed their hopes on the elimination of those deemed evil or less evolved.

Interestingly, all of these “solutions” have one thing in common – a belief in the essential goodness of humanity, or at least of their particular group, and the superficiality of our problems. Those who believe that humanity has been corrupted by society, also believe that humanity can be easily reformed by a radical change of society.

When we believe that our problems are superficial, we will generate constant flow of utopian dreams. Such dreams are usually revolutionary. They are not content to merely improve the present system but to remove it.

When confronted with the horrors of National Socialism, Communism, and ISIS – and various other utopian movements, each promising to create a better world – the “believer” will insist that these are mere aberrations, easily corrected by the right people and re-education programs. Such hope is inevitably based upon a benign assessment of humanity.

However, what if the genocides, rapes, and abductions are the result of deeper problems that social changes will not touch? What if we are not controlled by rational argumentation or the means of production but by baser instincts?

And here is related consideration. What if there is a human nature that requires a certain kind of care? Then we have to ask the question: “Is this nature best served by sexual liberation? Communism? Finding one’s own truth? Psychotropic drugs?”

This is the Mason-Dixon Line – the great polarizing divide. It depends on our understanding of humanity. How fluid and remedial is our nature? The progressive answers, “very fluid and remedial.” The conservative answers very differently, and these answers determine how readily we will pursue radical change.

The Bible testifies of the pervasive sinfulness of humanity.  According to Jesus, we are normally addicted to darkness, the denial of the truth (John 3:19-20). The veracity of His assessment is evident at every turn. One Sabbath, Jesus healed a man with a “shriveled hand.” Instead of praising God at this miraculous deed:

• The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus. (Luke 6:11)

This same hatred of the Light of God is ubiquitously evident. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after four days in the grave:

• Some of [those who saw the miracle] went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. (John 11:46-48) 

They were unwilling to consider the implications of this great miracle. Instead, they plotted together to kill Jesus and eliminate His unbearable Light.

Jesus even prophesied that the enemies of the Light would not only eliminate Him but also those associated with Him, all the while convincing themselves that they were performing a virtuous act:

• They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. (John 16:2) 

According to the Bible, human perversity is so deep-seated that it requires radical surgery. We must be changed from above. In light of this understanding, utopianism is sheer fantasy, like building a mansion on a cesspool.

We are that cesspool. This is a truth that I had denied, disguised, and suppressed for years. It was just too unsettling! However, through the assurance of my Savior’s love and forgiveness, He granted me the courage to face the disorienting Light, and the closer I came to it, the more I was enabled to see the ugliness within.

Fire can either consume us or free us from our bonds. Rather than psychologically crippling me, the Light freed me. I no longer have to hide and put on a facade. I can non-defensively bask in the truth, knowing that my worth is unassailably buried in His love and care.

This does not represent a rejection of social change, but instead a recognition of our human limitations.