Candles in the Dark: A New Spirit for a Plural World

Chapter 8: Return of the "Native"

CHAPTER 8 RETURN OF THE "NATIVE" Muhammad Suheyl Umar Somewhere, during the course of its historical development, Western thought took a sharp tum in another direction. It branched off as a tangent from the collective heritage of all humanity and claimed the autonomy of reason. It chose to follow that reason alone, unguided by revelation and cut off from the Intellect that was regarded as its transcendent root.! Political and social realms quickly followed suit. Autonomous statecraft and excessive individualism in the social order were the elements that shaped a dominant paradigm that did not prove successfuP A few centuries of unbridled activity led Western philosophy to an impasse.3 Commenting upon the situation, Huston Smith remarked: The deepest reason for the crisis in philosophy is. its realization . that autonomous reason-reason without infusions that both power and vector it-is helpless. By itself, reason can deliver nothing apodictic. Working, as it necessarily must, with variables , variables are all it can come up with. The Enlightenment's 'natural light of reason' turns out to have been a myth. Reason is not itselfa light. It is more than a conductor, for it does more than transmit. It seems to resemble an adapter who makes useful translations but on condition that it is powered by a generator.4 157 MUHAMMAD SUHEYL UMAR The nature and direction of these "infusions""is still being debated.5 A similar awareness could be discerned in the arena of politics, humanities, and social sciences. The impasse, though with different implications, was reached by the parallel paradigm of autonomous politics and social sciences that had refused to accept any "infusion" from a higher domain. This time the need for a revision of the paradigm was felt in the United Nations itself. The awareness materialized in the convening of the World Summit for Social Development, in Copenhagen in March 1995. Issues of poverty, unemployment, alienation, and social disintegration largely dominated the agenda. In order to enrich the controlling discourse and to make it less technocratic and materialistic, the secretariat of the Summit decided to convene a seminar to clarify and highlight the ethical and spiritual dimension of the issues before the Social Summit.6 The views expressed by most of the participants about the present human predicament converged. The opinions about the nature and origin of the "infusions" that could rectify or change it for $e better were, however, divergent. It was similar to the case of philosophy mentioned at the beginning. Some of the participants tried to find an alternative from within the dominant paradigm. Others suggested the possibility of a search for these "infusions" in a different direction whether in different cultures, other civilizations, religious doctrines, or sapiential traditions. The issues discussed were just as important for the contemporary world as they were for the past. This point needs a little elucidation , since we are often unaware that contemporary arguments continue in the same lines as earlier theological debates. Take, for example, the issue of free will and predestination, a central bone of contention among the schools of Kalam. This debate, which has also been important in Christian civilization, lives on in modem secular society, though it is no longer posed in terms of God. For example, many contemporary scholars-biologists, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and political scientists-are actively involved in the discussion of nature versus nurture. The basic question is simple: Does nature determine human development, or can people change themselves substantively by means of training and 158 RETURN OF THE "NATIVE" education? Free will and predestination, like nature and nurture, is merely a convenient way to refer to one of the most basic puzzles of human existence. Professor F. J. Aguilar, one of the participants and a leading authority on organizational analysis, presented his analysis of successful business organizations, saying that one of the fundamental elements of corporate success and business excellence was adoption of ethical limits and rules of behavior. Participants questioned whether these rules and limits were adopted because the time was opportune or if the motive for the choice was supplied by some other set of principles. Here was the age-old debate of sincerity and its opposite: Is honesty, or, for that matter, any other positive attitude , good because it produces tangible results or is it a virtue in itself, with transcendent roots and repercussions beyond the immediate realm of human experience. Gustave Thibon wrote: Cut off from self...