The Presence of the Past

Crossposted from the blog of Joel Pitney, associate editor of EnlightenNext magazine. I agree. This is my own painful and liberating experience too:

The Presence of the Past

One of the most challenging virtues for any smart, progressive, sophisticated person to cultivate today may be the quality of inspired conviction, or the utopian belief that something radically new and different is possible. In fact, we live at a time when the ideal of living passionately for anything beyond your own personal happiness or maybe that of your family and friends often seems naive, traditional, or even dangerous… and there are a lot of good reasons for this.

But it hasn’t always been this way.

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of research for EnlightenNext magazine into the philosophical and spiritual history of evolutionary spirituality. I’ve read a lot of writings from some serious cats like Henri Bergson, George Bernard Shaw, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce, and even Friedrich Nietzsche, all of who lived during the several-decades-long period between Darwin and the first World War. These guys were completely on fire (check out some quotes from my http://blog.enlightennext.org/?p=2475). They were all expressing a passion for the powerful new insight that the world is changing and evolving—spiritually, biologically, and culturally—and they were trying to create a new worldview based on this vision to replace the old, traditional, mythic worldviews that the western Enlightenment had dissected.

Now, I don’t mean to sound like some kind of retro-romantic, going on about how things used to be oh so much better in the good ol’ days. Granted there are definitely a lot of passionate, sophisticated people on the planet today (just look at those of us who elected Obama to office :)). But the conviction in progress, development, and human evolution that seemed to so pungently fill the air during this time was of a different order. And it has gotten me thinking about just why this sense of pure idealism seems to have faded over the past 100 years, even with all the advancements in technology, culture, and the arts that we’ve experienced.

So what happened between then and now?

read more…

Re: The Presence of the Past

thanks so much, Albert! You give us so very much through this blogs,

Love,

Nicole

Re: The Presence of the Past

     The history of the human race is a series of cycles. The things you have been discussing have been cycled and recycled throughout the history of humanity. World societies have been created / established as a result of such cyles from ancient Egypt through the Greek & Roman societies, The Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason etc. People are constantly striving to be more, do more, create a better world for themselves and others. If this were not so, we would still be living in caves.  

Re: The Presence of the Past

cycles, yes, and yet not circular as we move forward, so one might speak of spirals ascending, no?

hugs,

Nicole

Re: The Presence of the Past

There are regression crashes and shipwrecks too. As German history of 20th century clearly shows. We all can learn from these  dark times, Tomorrow we celebrate 20 years after fall of the wall in Germany.

Freedom alyways needs tough and unshakable determination!

Albert

Re: The Presence of the Past

See also from Tom Steininger:

Integral Conference in Germany about German Shadow

Re: The Presence of the Past

Very thought-provoking blog, Albert. Many thanks!

Love,

Nicole