As Philosophy Goes

My now favorite podcast, Philosophize This! has moved on to Augustine of Hippo. Stephen West treats him as a philosopher (and not as a saint, the podcast being strictly interested in the development of philosophy and not religion). He explains the long and winding route Augustine took to becoming a Christian and his development of a branch of Christian philosophy that heavily influenced the following centuries.

At the beginning of the episode about Augustine, West asks listeners to think about the moment that some people could say they knew their answers. I’m keeping it with “their” answers and not “the” answers, because people have found so many answers.

He’s mostly talking about conversion moments, to Christianity, atheism, Islam etc. “When did you know you had a personal relationship with [God, Allah]” or “When did you become sure that there is no external force to the world, no god or fate.”

Personally, I have a pretty firm (lack) of beliefs, but there was no defining moment. My dad was always a bit wishy-washy, feeling something beautiful and profound in the woods, in nature, that was something close to spiritual but he never would (or probably could) define it.

I think a huge hunk of the world is past that now. We have no beliefs. The religious folks I know consume religion, and show off their beliefs on Facebook and Instagram. Faith meets botox. Everyone showing their best selves, and this includes their best prayer weekend. It’s not just being holier-than-thou, but putting your faith out there to see how many likes it gets.

The thing is, this is nothing new. Everyone always got into trying to believe “better” than everyone else, so they could be the ones judging others and not being judged themselves. Beat ’em to the punch. But since no one was humble and and everyone tried to show themselves to be perfect, it was breeding ground for hypocrisy (how could they think they’re so wonderful when they do x or y…)

It’s better to present yourself as a sinner, a person who tries to be better, and judge no one. This also meets the philosophy that I like from my yoga practice, which says that judging others almost never makes anyone happy. So stop. At most, try to understand why people are behaving a certain way, but without putting a value to it.

So that’s what I’m trying to do at the moment. I’m trying to understand. When I’m frustrated, I think that the world’s gone mad simply because, for a couple of dozen years, we decided that maybe it shouldn’t always be white men in charge. It most often still was, but there was potential for others (women, people of color etc.) to take positions of importance or leadership. It was so horrifying to white men that maybe this is why we’re having such a strong reaction.

But sometimes I can’t get my head around it. I gave up my nationality, but it was like severing a gangrenous limb, and it’s still lying there festering, stinking up my life. I’d like to burn it, or bury it, but I physically just can’t. America is like an obese guy in a two man canoe. He scratches his nose and the whole boat leans to counterbalance him. We try to steer as best we can, but his weight has pushed the other end up in the air. And the thing is, if he moves around too much, we’re all going to sink and drown.

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