Will Humanity Survive Religion?. W. Royce Clark
either understood or postulated. If we have received our idea of humanity being divided in two and are informed that it is done by some invisible deity, we have to wonder whether it corresponds to our other forms of reason or simply fits in the area of “fantasy.” Who and what would have caused such a picture of bifurcation?
To use a musical analogy of the task each person faces in the freedom of himself or herself, as being freedom, as Sartre said, the meaning one desires for the whole will come by selecting the appropriate parts that seem to fit the defined need of that place and time, and different places or times will suggest others as more appropriate. This does not mean that some parts are inherently good or bad per se, but only consonant or dissonant within the precise place they would be set. Just as the composer selects different instruments to supply their parts to the overall meaning, their partial meaning is properly obtained only in relating to the other instruments. Similarly, the individual movements find their meaning only within the totality of temporal movement. More exactly, the dynamics and various timbres find meaning only within process and change and variety only by a continually contrasting relations. Of course, the composer has no way of knowing what kinds of instruments will be available or extant a thousand years down the road, so he must compose for his own particular time rather than attempting to leave a tremendous legacy for future millennia. (I suspect that any of the people who put into written form the documents that were later called “sacred scripture” in any religion would also have become confused, intimidated, and reluctant to solidify in their language something that was going to address human needs three millennia ahead.)
But, back to the idea of contrast, in music, crescendos or diminuendos find their meaning only in relation to or by contrast with softer or louder passages. That is true even on an examination of individual tones by single instruments, as their various timbres and overtones are all blended together by the human mind to give an impression of a single sound. What factors are necessary for any part to be “consonant” within the whole become visible only by contrast or comparison with what might be thought of in a particular cultural style as “dissonance.” Yet no matter how wonderful we think the music is, how familiar we are with certain things such as tonality, timbre, and even different styles, we always understand that these are only parts of the whole picture. They are emulations of cultural forms that are relative, not very old, and simply arrived at by utilizing, modifying, or rejecting earlier forms or devising new forms. Music creates a familiar language, so to speak, and most people can venture only so far into completely unfamiliar territory. But the music speaks for itself; it does not have to be artificially absolutized for us to find its tension and resolutions pleasant and meaningful within our relative cultural awareness—even a temporally great meaning in it—and to be thrilled by its performance.35
I keep using the word “contrast.” Not by accident, since it is also only by sustaining contrasting relationships that a human truly flourishes. This means that the difference of the “others” is not only not objectionable but actually necessary to me for me to grow. In music, even a cadence seems fulfilling only because it further develops a pattern or progression of building tension and finally resolving it, a procedure with which we have become familiar, with certain chords standing in a prescribed contrasting sequential relation to others. This is the case also with all the separate notes, rests, and other small details.
It is a whole—a whole of many types and sizes of functioning and modifying contrasting relationships. And its meaning is found as every contrasting and complementing component relates significantly and properly to the whole process of the living movement, just at the right time, not in some isolated theme, favorite solo passage, nor in its projected end or arrival or terminating point—and it is never an eternally given value within their temporal actualization.36
This process is similar in the human need to find overall meaning in her life. It shows the necessity of contrast by including difference from which confrontation or proximity one derives meaning. Otherwise one fails to develop one’s potential, just as the music fails to “develop” and become interesting. Does one’s mind reach the point at which the person should decline any further different information or contrasting positions or new ideas? Or would that not imply that one is nearly dead though still with a functioning body? Most people fear Alzheimer’s disease for this very reason. But religions’ heteronomy, even when only silently recognized among the “faithful,” has a restricting and deadening effect. This is not to suggest that humans must remain restless and unsatisfied, continually doubting everything, always looking for some new “answer” to life. That is an extreme. But one must be realistic in what kinds of claims one allows ideologies to expect one to accept, especially if similar claims were being made by any competing groups and one’s response to them was that their claims were totally unreasonable.
Muscles, like music, require resistance or tension in order to become strong. Similarly, a person must face his or her opposition or competition to find out whether one is strong enough or only imagined himself so. Does one’s life depend only upon always having good fortune and no setbacks or tragic elements, or does one love life thoroughly enough to will it, no matter what it brings? That was Nietzsche’s question, which is about as far away from “nihilism” as one could get. It is the reason Nietzsche agreed with Jesus that we should “love” our enemies. Nietzsche was saying that we could not be challenged or grow without our enemies or opposition. The different other does not have to be portrayed as a mortal enemy but as different, yet of value, especially the autonomy of every other. One simply cannot will others having their autonomy or own will obliterated or overridden.37 We need not silence their voices but include them, if we want to grow in our thinking. In this way, the “whole” of which we are a “part,” may be continually expanding, enriching our lives mutually.38
The human mind sorts and blends, acts from memories, collects and organizes these otherwise multifarious sights and sounds into a coherent whole. For those who feel that something must be eternal, static, or unchangeable to have meaning, music is the supreme contradiction—but so is human life in general. Here meaning is found only within its temporality!39 Contingency is not a negative but useful reality. It was the intentional or at least subconscious need great “irony theorists” such as Hegel and Heidegger manifest that meant they could not stand the thought of their own thought (and books) being contingent or possibly superseded. They had to lay hold on some “heroic” greater characters, possibly even eternal, Richard Rorty suggests.40 Again, only within its sequential nature, its temporal actualization, can the whole be experienced as much greater than any of its parts or even their sum. When it comes to relations between humans, that latent potential or whole is not simply passive but driven by a genetic code to self-propagate to survive, but on other levels is motivated to reach its potential in tandem with others voluntarily through reflection, mutual trust, and honest dialogue.
Would anyone doubt that? Any person who has ever had a significant positive relationship with another person has experienced the truth of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It is not an exact mathematical equation, since one plus one does not equal three or even two-plus. Many separate humans possibly could exist in isolated form. But then, in that state they would never realize their potential as humans. Humanization demands more. Just as the relation that the words of a sentence maintain with each other determine the meaning rather than the meaning being derivable by their mere co-existence randomly arranged of the separate words or parts,41 in any human composition of parts into a whole—it is the orderly relation a human sustains with others that determines whether he or she finds a better or more meaningful life.42
In trust we commingle the parts. In human relations, it requires mutual trust and mutual decision stemming from equality and independence with a strong awareness of interdependence. In trust, we humans unite to form something new both individually and collectively. The ontological polarity of individual/collective must achieve a symbiotic necessary balance, that is, for the two sides to grow equally in tandem. That seems essential, but it is not easy.
As Nietzsche asked, from what viewpoint can we see the Whole? From what point can we assess all actions in the world, all the causes and effects, and decide, after viewing the whole of the world’s history, which thing is of value and which is not? Not only would we have to see it all from beyond it in