We see Gemainshaft compared to Gesellshaft, which is roughly community versus society. We see discussions of alienation, the lack of a sense of place, and the lack of a sense of purpose.
These, in my view, are not problems to be DESCRIBED, but rather SOLVED. They are practical, logistical problems, and there is zero doubt in my mind they have solutions. I have provided solutions in many ways on many levels.
The problem with our universities is they continue to embody the fundamental split in Western tradition between body and mind. The work that academics do involves writing books. Even if it involves watching somebody or something for some period of time, the ultimate outcome is a big pile of words.
In religious studies, which is my field, there is a common tendency to overvalue the beliefs of a group of people, and to undervalue the praxis, because the beliefs can be analyzed and manipulated in the abstract more easily, since they are already ideas. Praxis–by which I mean ritual in its broadest form–has to be DONE to be properly understood. You have to sit in their shoes, smoke their weed, get naked and dirty, to understand them.
But even if you do this, it still gets expressed descriptively. There are not anthropologists coming back and saying “we should try this here”, by and large. They are not trying to figure out how to improve the ritual element of our socity, how to reintroduce one that is vital, real, energizing, harmonizing.
That, however, is what they SHOULD be doing, as that would actually be useful.
Can we not grant that social harmony and individual happiness are not strictly a matter of dopamine receptors, and brain chemistry? Can we not grant that culture can both hinder and further human happiness? And having granted this, can we not grant that it ought to be the role of people who study culture to make SUGGESTIONS? To add ideas?
Could you imagine a university in which emotional development was a core focus? Why not? Why not make personal development as important–more important–than reading Chaucer, or studying European history?
For myself, I have worked out a reasonably good model that I think will work. It has content; it has ideas; it is does not consist exclusively in what it is not (which is the case for moral relativists and postmodernists).
I would like to see the mainstreaming of Holotropic Breathwork and Kum Nye, as expressed within a philosophical framework like that I created in my essay on Goodness. You need a base belief structure–what I suggest are three absolute principles that can be deployed in innumerable ways–an individual practice, and a communalizing (I may have just invented that word, but if so it needed to be invented) ritual.
We all need ways of calming ourselves down and of promoting positive emotions. Kum Nye does this.
We need some set of principles that does not change with the wind. My three principles do this.
And we need both connection with others, and occasional craziness in our lives, ideally shared craziness. Holotropic Breathwork does this.
In my dreams–and everything of course may fall apart completely, as I assume I am on multiple lists, and can imagine many ways I may die–we build temples where groups of people can meet and both meditate in groups, and do the Breathwork. And there is no reason people could not give lectures on useful topics.
As I have shared, I think it would be useful and interesting to create a social structure parallel to the family structure which complements and supplements it, in which groups of 20 or so people develop long term bonds through repeatedly doing the Breathwork together. Shared trauma and wild experience builds strong bonds, and seeing each other weekly or so over years, while sharing those experiences, would build bonds perhaps better than those forged in war.
I’m thinking perhaps one Holotropic Breathwork session a month, and shared Kum Nye perhaps twice a week. Over time, you could go to any of these people with any problem you have, and receive genuine presence, genuine caring.
And we build millions of these groups, the world over. I have zero desire to tell anyone how to live their lives, other than that I would encourage them to value their lives and pursue their own vision of happiness. But the very lack of specificity would allow local cultural preferences to be maintained and perhaps even enriched. I want more diversity in the world not less, and there is no reason this would be inconsistent with peace.
We can build global peace and prosperity. It is possible. And we can do it gradually, and pleasantly.
All of the supposed “utopian” dreams of emotionally disturbed people contain nothing but their own desire to commit suicide, and their vain and psychotic need to make the world join them.
We have choices. We all have choices.