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

Part III: Insights from Art, Language and Literature

PA.rr III 1l'lSlG,rrS faOh\ Aa·r# LAl'lGUAGt# Al'lf) t.rrt RA·rUat 181 INSIGHTS FROM ART, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE Thoughts are the molecules of a society. The emotions they articulate , the attitudes they project, and the desires they embody define the spirit of the time. Thus, it is necessary to reflect on the significance of intellectual and spiritual resources as the essential elements of social change. First, moral and spiritual inclinations and aspirations are inherent in human nature, giving meaning and orientation to human thoughts and actions. Second, individuals, independently or collectively, have the capacity to foster or impede the realization of moral and spiritual values in society. And among them writers and artists have a vital role in building harmonious and vibrant societies . As eloquently stated by George Bernard Shaw in his play Back to Methuselah: "Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable." In his discussion of the Russian intelligentsia, Isaiah Berlin drew attention to this important role of the writer and artist in society. These thinkers held that if one spoke in one instance as an artist and in another as a politician with a different set of values and biases, one spoke falsely, because humankind is an integral soul, not a storehouse of values and ideas that can be selected according to the occasion. Attitudes to life and to art should be identical, and these are ultimately moral attitudes. Writers, poets, and artists are in the first place, human beings and they are directly and continually responsible for all their expressions, whether in novels, poems or paintings, or in private letters, in public'speeches or in conversation. . Introducing the notion of the noosphere to a wider audience, a lay audience, if you like, would promote the sense that preserving human culture should be conducted with the same urgency as preserving the diversity of the biosphere. The noosphere provides a concrete term and a place for the intangibles of human thought. And the noosphere, because it is built around the capacity for self-conscious thought, provides the key to its own survival , a greater awareness of that which it contains. Vyacheslav Ivanov In the early 20th century, the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin and the Russian member of the intelligentsia Vladimir Vernadsky met at the Sorbonne in Paris, where Vernadsky was lecturing. Building on Vernadsky's conception of the biosphere, de Chardin conceived the 183 PART III "noosphere," the thinking layer superimposed on the biosphere. The noosphere is the sphere of mind, conscious invention, and the heartfelt union of souls, for the development of which the most crucial element is the human capacity for self-reflective thought, expressed in art, literature, and music and a myriad of other ways. It encapsulates the moral, intellectual, aes.thetic and spiritual dimensions of society. In his paper on this crucial sphere of human life, Vyacheslav Ivanov, probes the very elements of human thought and their inventions reflected in, for example, the different modes of intercommunication in human society. The greater the number and complexity of modes of expression of ideas and communications, the more substantial is this sphere, the very foundation of the moral, spiritual and intellectual life of the world and essential to the survival of the biosphere. Modern society and globalization have threatened this sphere of life, argues Ivanov. We are concerned today about the protection of the biosphere from the assaults of pollutants. We should be even more concerned about the assault on the sphere of thought, on the nature and richness of ideas, creative imagination, and modes of human communication, which is shrinking as society loses languages·and leaves creative imaginings to electronic devices. Although economic progress contributes to a comfortable existence and sense of security, it does not usually nurture such nonmaterial resoUrces, as for example, the search for harmony, wisdom and beauty, which is essential to coping well with life's personal hardships(...). Without linkages between information, knowledge and wisdom, or between technological change and the flourishing of the individual in nonmaterial ways, modernization mightjust mean seeing the world abstractly, objectively, and generally quantifiably. Science and economy tend to become their own ends, offering humanity the prospect oflife anchored in spiritually donrumt societies where the shoe pinches inordinately. Barbara Sundberg Baudot From a different perspective Barbara Sundberg Baudot addresses issues of the meaning and content of progress that are at the same time relevant...