SENIOR Faculty Fellow 2000-01
George Howard (Psychology)
University of Notre Dame
Against the Idols of our Age
I believe that human beings are self-determining, story-telling
active agents [see, for example, Understanding human nature:
An owner's manual]. In this model, humans create themselves,
in part, through the content of the stories that we tell ourselves
as if we could prove the stories were literally true (e.g.,
liberal democracy, free market capitalism, Catholicism, etc.).
In earlier times, the content of human stories tended to
be more religious in nature. Today, however, our worldviews are
often dominated by secular, materialistic, individualistic, consumption-oriented,
and success-seeking construals of the meaning of life. To the extent
that humans believe these stories, so will they tend to create that
sort of a world for themselves. The final step in this nasty self-fulfilling
prophecy is that humans themselves will then be molded by the culture
they create into the types of beings their beliefs predict.
Who will supply the worldviews to replace the idols of our age?
Ecological activists tend to favor nature-centered approaches (e.g.,
American Indian worldviews), the American transcendental tradition
(e.g., Thoreau, Emerson), and various anti-technology perspectives
(e.g., Ellul). However, those worldviews seem far too narrow and
idiosyncratic to form the core of an appropriate belief system for
twenty-first century humans. This is, in part, due to the fact that
they tend to be very anti-scientific, anti-capitalist, and anti-technology
in philosophy. However, I do not see science, capitalism, and technology
receding from human life in the twenty-first century. What other
worldviews might furnish a core for twenty-first century belief?
All the major religious systems seem to recommend lifestyles that
would hearten any ecological activist-lives of moderation, interiority,
and service to the common good. Thus, I propose to study the major
Western and Eastern religious traditions with an eye toward extracting
whatever wisdom they
might offer toward a psychologically-healthy, ecologically-sound
worldview to guide humans in the next century.
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