Ever since then I have felt a great urge to join a convent but my state in life (married) prevents me from doing so. I realized after a lot of thinking and reading the lives of saints that everyone is called to live a sanctified life and a sanctified life doesn’t mean a life free of worries, troublesome neighbors or illness. There are saints who were kings and queens (St. Louis X, King of France and St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal), as well as soldiers (St. Martin of Tours). Many people think that retiring to a monastery is an escape from what’s bothering them, only to discover that what’s bothering them isn’t external, but internal, and now it’s with them in a tiny cell 24/7.
It’s possible to live in the world and not be OF the world, but one has to be very vigilant. That means no TV, spare use of social media and the Internet, daily examination of conscience, prayer and meditation, and spiritual reading. This is something a lay person can do in addition to fasting and alms giving. It’s nothing new and people who lived before the “age of progress” knew this.
Evie- Thank you for your kind comment. You are absolutely right. Monasticism is closer at least, to the ideal of human life. But that life can be lived in almost any situation. You lay it all out perfectly. I think one thing we will have to work on moving forward is how to live a lay monastic life, preferably in small communities. I hope you will contribute to this project, as you have obviously though a lot about it.
You are also right that monasticism is not an escape. It is a relief from certain kind of external responsibilities so that one can actually direct one's energies within. Anybody who has ever faced towards the inner life knows this is anything but easy. Which is why we tend to avoid it with an impressive kind of diligence which is startling. We have built an entire civilization around such an avoidance. -Jack
p.s. your website looks beautiful. I will get to it as soon as I am able. Thank you for the link.
I’ve never spent any time at a monastery, but I wonder if some of the things you are experiencing there might have some applicability to people’s everyday lives, for instance the structure and rhythms of the monastic pattern of life. I don’t know if that might be something you were considering for a future article. I recall Rod Dreher has a chapter on this in the Benedict Option (based on his visit to the Norcia monastery). In my own life, and that of my family, trying to maintain a sense of unity through a common rhythm of activities and focus has been important, and a stabilizing force against the constant sloshing of liquid modernity, which seems intent on keeping everybody off balance. But it’s a never-ending effort to maintain even the simplest common structures, like mealtimes, prayer, etc.
Peter- I think that is exactly right. It is hardly inconceivable that a lay monastic community could be a way for us to escape the more debilitating aspects of liquid modernity. On the more positive side it could give us the space to attend to what is truly important. It would surely bring new types of problems, but these are problems that humanity has always dealt with. I am pretty sure we are not quite as capable in dealing of social media, isolation, and the barrage of constant information, etc. A lay monasticism, naturally, is something I have been thinking a lot about lately.
The family monastery is the obvious place to start. I do wonder how to scale it up from there. We aren't "zoned" to form our own little villages. There are all sorts of social virtues that our expressive individualism has cast aside. I don't think any of that is insurmountable. The first world is largely zoned for single units. The suburban plan is what I call the architecture of loneliness. There has to be someone out there who has thought this through better than that. Or there should be. -Jack
Jul 14, 2022·edited Jul 14, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy
This is a question that grabs me often too. How can a family live this way also? Lay monasteries might be a way forward. I think the problem for most people (myself included) is not knowing where to start. Do such things exist anywhere?
Paul- I do believe that one of your readers who writes the substack Metanoia in Vermont is the founder of a lay monastic community by that name. I imagine he would have some good, concrete things to say.
Using the Benedictine model there are probably some basics that could apply to a household monasticism and a larger lay monastic community:
1. A vow of stability. Or even if not a vow, the strong intention to put down roots. Following St. Benedict and St. Anthony: "in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it."
2. Some kind of basic rule of appropriate to the situation.
3. A "Divine Office" however abbreviated. Which might mean a set of prayers prayed at various hours of the day. Singing the prayers, if possible, is better.
4. A work schedule. Ora et labora.
5. Time for study.
I think about this a lot. I hope to have the time here to think about it a lot more. This will probably be a reoccurring theme. We can use this technology to help each other figure it out. That is my hope. -Jack
I too have reflected on this topic through my experiences in living in intentional communities, including conversations with some friends (Benedictine monks). I look forward to hearing from you on this.
Elsa- Thank you for being here. I hope you will contribute to working through how to respond to our disordered time.
Many of us are sensing something tectonic has shifted under our feet. It feels ominous. What has been solid for our lifetime now seems shaken and unsteady. Even teetering.
Hi Jack, I appreciate the invitation to this conversation, thank you. I have a baseline stress, uneasiness, humming along constantly on the back burner. I believe you are right about the dark times ahead.
I hope that it is not just a psychological problem and I hope that taking practical action may be the correct response to this anxiety. I love God and I'm ready to meet death, but being still here and alive and with children I want to live out a true response to these crises.
We've looked at a 200 acre farm in Maine and are thinking about taking this practical step. From time to time I think this is so crazy, to uproot our lives and get into a huge new project, based on our beliefs about society and world events. But it is something I would love to do anyway just for the beauty and joy of it. Of course, the physical move is only one small part. And where is the right place to move to? We have pretty much no idea about what it will be like there, though it looks rural and more authentic community. We don't have any clear leading about it but are praying and are wide open.
It is a big old farmhouse with lots of rooms and a huge kitchen.... maybe a place that can be a refuge and host those who need a place in the future.
One more thing. The other morning I read this sermon from my dear George MacDonald. It brings a wonderful, glorious perspective to our lives lived in dark times. If you can put up with the flowery language it is well worth reading:
Clara- What you are moving towards is something beautiful. It is good to do because it is beautiful. I have been meditating a lot on Mt 6. I really have to ask myself how much I believe that if I seek first the kingdom all the rest will be added. It is truly a radical statement, one that is easy to pass over. It is worth digging into more deeply.
With that in mind, to live a life not as beholden to machine is worth the leap. I am speaking to myself in this most of all. But we can encourage each other. Know I am praying for you.
I will try to respond more fully tomorrow. Compline in a few minutes. -Jack
Clara- Perhaps I am being to simplistic. It does seem to come down to the choice of serving God or Mammon. Mammon does provide so much. Do I trust that God will do the same, even if in an entirely different way, and not as predictably, or in any way under my control. This is a radical proposition. I am certainly not in any position to encourage others to do it, when I am hesitating to do so myself.
I share your anxiety about where we are. Though it is yet unclear what my future is in relation to monasticism I am very glad I made this small leap of faith. There were people trying to dissuade me, all with good intentions. Yet, things do look different on this side of the choice. Keep us updated on your decision. -Jack
Hi Jack, as I once replied to you in Paul’s substack, it is of tremendous benefit just to have had a taste of the monastic life; to know, as you say, how things look differently on this side of the choice. Even if you eventually decide not to pursue this path, just that knowledge, that taste, will make a huge difference because your consciousness has been indelibly transformed by it. It may not be a very obvious transformation, you certainly will still be Jack, but your horizon is different. May God and the Angels keep you in their hearts always.
No it is definitely not just a psychological problem. Being more in touch with your humanity, you are just correctly picking up on the vibes. We don’t just know with our senses and our intellect, we know far more truly with our heart, and your heart is telling you loud and clear that things are going way way wrong. Hence that uneasiness humming on the back burner.
I am trying very hard to find my peace in such troubling times. I am slowly finding my way on the spiritual path to a deeper, truer devotion. I want to be of service, to help in any way I can. I don’t see a clear way how to do it yet, so I’ll trust in God. I will work with whatever situation I find myself in, and pray that God will see fit to use me. Mother Theresa had a great saying used by Malcolm Muggeridge as the title for his book - “let us make something beautiful for God today”.
Eriol- You express well and beautifully what we are all struggling to understand. There is much anxiety about how things are going and all we are unable to know. But your question is the same one I ask myself: Lord, what would you have me do? Lacking something more specific, making something beautiful for God is an excellent way to start. Thank you. --Jack.
Jul 14, 2022·edited Jul 14, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy
So Jack - are you in the monastery for good?
Funnily enough, I found myself last month visiting the monasteries of Romania - astonishing places. I was invited in one of them to give a talk about Orthodoxy and technology. I said much the same as you do here. The choice is between the Way - renunciation, askesis, love of created things - or the Machine.
I am just writing an essay touching on the same subjects. In doing so, I found this depressing link:
It makes me think that trying to frame a 'positive transhumanism' is a mistake. I know you're being rhetorical, but I would be careful with your terminology. You're right though that the transhumanist impulse is basically religious - it looks and sounds like a Christian heresy. All the more reason to oppose it.
I hope you are settling well into your new found place.
Given the narrowing of possibilities that the metacrisis will likely force us into, the options for us in the late Anthropocene are among these three:
1. Some technological leap.
2. Extinction.
3. A return to simplicity. What I am calling a New Enlightened Dark Age, or an Age of Theosis.
As for number 1. Given the size of human population, the ever increasing need to grow the economy (to keep it from collapsing) and therefore the necessity to consume everything in sight, the current dispensation cannot be sustained much longer. The logic of the metamachine is to head towards some kind of "singularity" or other. The version of the machine (e.g, the suburban middle class lifestyle) most of us have known and think "normal" likewise cannot be sustained.
But the resetters have no intention to go with number 2 or 3. In their view we are "hackable animals" and can be fundamentally changed--rather, we *need* to be changed. And their logic requires there to be far less of us. Not fewer resetters, of course. But definitely fewer humans (i.e., the rest of us). Those who remain will be something other than humanity as we have known throughout our existence. The resetters see this as a good thing rather than a dystopia.
What does it mean to choose 3. No time like the present to really find out. So it is wise to fathom what that might mean and to start living that way sooner rather than later.
I say this for clarity's sake. I think we are all more or less aware of the options.
Paul- I am certain that this is where I need to be--where God has put me--right now and for the foreseeable future. For this I am truly grateful. Whether or not I am called to be a lifelong monk is another thing. I imagine it as an open door at the end of a long hallway. There are many other doors that come before it. Some may be locked, but some may be open, one of which I am meant to go through. Lay monasticism is what keeps calling to me. We shall see. -Jack
You are probably right, "transhumanism" may be a hopelessly corrupted word. You aren't the only one to say this in the comments here. I am being a bit rhetorical, even provocative. But I am also using it sincerely. I will defend the use, and then probably let it go. No need to pointlessly antagonize my allies!
2. This from The Rape of Man and Nature by Philip Sherrard:
"There is co-operation of the divine and the human, the uncreated and the created. Christ is the perfect man, the complete man, the whole man. But Christ is also God. This to say that, paradox as it may sound, it is God alone who is the perfect man. Only God is completely and utterly human. As we said, in so far as man fails to realize the divine in himself, to that extent he falls short of being completely human. He remains less than human. His human nature is truncated just as the divine nature is truncated and less than divine if it is not humanized. It is not accidental or a cause of surprise that man's attempts to be only human--to fulfil the ideals of the non-religious humanism of the last centuries--results in a dehumanization of both man and of the forms of the society which he has fabricated around himself."
3. I have had pushback with Evangelical friends when I have used theosis or deification. I think it is seen as dangerous because it might imply pantheism or some absorption into divine, i.e., A Supreme Identity. But I am not going to stop using it as it is a perfectly fine word. It does need to clarified. I have even had one friend balk at quoting, "the Kingdom of God is within" (rather than "The Kingdom of God is among us"). As it sounded too "New Agey". Yet I think that knowing the Kingdom is within is central.
4. The choice facing us, i.e., between the Cross and the Machine, is the between a post-Nietzschean technological self-deification and theosis in radical humility and repentance. As Nietzsche himself put it:
“Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING." -Thus Spake Zarathustra.
I reject the first techno-nihilist transhumanism entirely and side completely with the second divine one. My use of the term "transhumanism" is to make the similarities and differences of this conflict clear. Nonetheless I will rethink my use of the term, because maybe it does the opposite of bring clarity.
This is actually very interesting. Maybe an essay explicitly reclaiming this term and rejecting its current misuse could be worth doing. Not that those in monasteries should probably spend much time writing online essays!
That is a good idea. I do have permission from the Abbot to work on the substack. I am under obedience!! (actually I am not, but it is good to have the blessing of the Abbot).
I'm glad to hear all is well Jack and life at the monastery is suiting you.
You've got me pondering the idea of darkness and light and how without one the other cannot exisit; and perhaps that's where progress falls down? It is not natural to live in a way where darkness is denied its place as it is too a part of the whole.
I'm just coming out of the darkness of having covid, an experience that was hard but now I'm feeling grateful for the intelligence my body contains and for the kindness of my family and friends. Even my neighbours showed such kindness which really touched me. If covid hadn't visited us I wouldn't have seen this love.
I'd like to explore these ideas more but alas covid seems to have tired out my brain!....hopefully next time I can contribute something more.
Naomi- I am sorry to hear about having covid. But I am glad you have come through and are well. I wonder if it is our illusion of self-sufficiency that gets deflated when we realize we do need people. And funny thing, we all get great meaning from helping each other. Honestly, in most people I think that desire is just below the surface. Any good reason for it to be brought out, we do. Otherwise, we fear being a bother. So people hunker down.
And yes, it is amazing what are bodies can do when we let them.
But I am glad you experienced some love and kindness from those around you. I hope you are feeling completely back to normal soon. -JXK
I am linking an interview that my husband was watching. I only heard a part, but it was so very fascinating. Mattias Desmet was explaining that industrialization and technology are directly related to loneliness, across cultures. And people are vulnerable to psychological problems because of a low level strain related to not being interconnected. I thought it was just what you are saying above, Jack. Lots of other good discussion in it, too.
There is no doubt in my mind that Mattias Desmet is on to something real, and dangerous. This is going to be something to watch (and pray) for now and in the future. We are so connected that we become isolated. The isolated are ripe for manipulation.
The question is whether or not industrialization and consumerism *necessarily* lead to isolation and social control. Maybe not. But the tendency is so strong it is nearly impossible to stay within its confines and not get drawn into its vortex.
Technology, despite the advertising, can never be neutral. It instantiates a telos. That telos is the will-to-power at a scale that dwarfs our ability to control it. We seek control but end up getting controlled.
The social model becomes a derivative of Newtonian Physics. We are hackable animals, atoms in the void, and the imperative is to systemticallycontrol us for our own good. Hence the Algorithm. Which is implicit from the beginning, no matter what we want to tell ourselves.
This is the trajectory as best I can tell. Those who, with good intentions, think this can be avoided somehow and the telos of technology changed, in my view, are kidding themselves.
Thank you for the link. I intend to slowly watch it over the next week or so. -Jack
Camilla- These are all good questions. I respond more fully to Paul's similar concerns elsewhere in this comment section. I have no intention of being dogmatic over a word. Particularly with those who are my allies on this issue.
I am going to give it some more thought and may revisit this issue more fully in the future. I think it is a discussion worth having and in greater depth. I am pretty certain we won't be allowed to avoid it, so it is best to be clear. I hope you will be part of this discussion. -Jack
P.S. I tend to drag Dante into a lot of things. He might not appreciate that!
I began reading your Substack articles only yesterday and they are some of the most honest pieces I have read. My own story is strange and mysterious.
I came back to the Catholic Church in 2017 after 40 years away because of a miracle:
https://lapsedcatholicreturns.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/a-miracle-brought-me-back-to-the-catholic-church/
Ever since then I have felt a great urge to join a convent but my state in life (married) prevents me from doing so. I realized after a lot of thinking and reading the lives of saints that everyone is called to live a sanctified life and a sanctified life doesn’t mean a life free of worries, troublesome neighbors or illness. There are saints who were kings and queens (St. Louis X, King of France and St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal), as well as soldiers (St. Martin of Tours). Many people think that retiring to a monastery is an escape from what’s bothering them, only to discover that what’s bothering them isn’t external, but internal, and now it’s with them in a tiny cell 24/7.
It’s possible to live in the world and not be OF the world, but one has to be very vigilant. That means no TV, spare use of social media and the Internet, daily examination of conscience, prayer and meditation, and spiritual reading. This is something a lay person can do in addition to fasting and alms giving. It’s nothing new and people who lived before the “age of progress” knew this.
Evie- Thank you for your kind comment. You are absolutely right. Monasticism is closer at least, to the ideal of human life. But that life can be lived in almost any situation. You lay it all out perfectly. I think one thing we will have to work on moving forward is how to live a lay monastic life, preferably in small communities. I hope you will contribute to this project, as you have obviously though a lot about it.
You are also right that monasticism is not an escape. It is a relief from certain kind of external responsibilities so that one can actually direct one's energies within. Anybody who has ever faced towards the inner life knows this is anything but easy. Which is why we tend to avoid it with an impressive kind of diligence which is startling. We have built an entire civilization around such an avoidance. -Jack
p.s. your website looks beautiful. I will get to it as soon as I am able. Thank you for the link.
I’ve never spent any time at a monastery, but I wonder if some of the things you are experiencing there might have some applicability to people’s everyday lives, for instance the structure and rhythms of the monastic pattern of life. I don’t know if that might be something you were considering for a future article. I recall Rod Dreher has a chapter on this in the Benedict Option (based on his visit to the Norcia monastery). In my own life, and that of my family, trying to maintain a sense of unity through a common rhythm of activities and focus has been important, and a stabilizing force against the constant sloshing of liquid modernity, which seems intent on keeping everybody off balance. But it’s a never-ending effort to maintain even the simplest common structures, like mealtimes, prayer, etc.
Peter- I think that is exactly right. It is hardly inconceivable that a lay monastic community could be a way for us to escape the more debilitating aspects of liquid modernity. On the more positive side it could give us the space to attend to what is truly important. It would surely bring new types of problems, but these are problems that humanity has always dealt with. I am pretty sure we are not quite as capable in dealing of social media, isolation, and the barrage of constant information, etc. A lay monasticism, naturally, is something I have been thinking a lot about lately.
The family monastery is the obvious place to start. I do wonder how to scale it up from there. We aren't "zoned" to form our own little villages. There are all sorts of social virtues that our expressive individualism has cast aside. I don't think any of that is insurmountable. The first world is largely zoned for single units. The suburban plan is what I call the architecture of loneliness. There has to be someone out there who has thought this through better than that. Or there should be. -Jack
This is a question that grabs me often too. How can a family live this way also? Lay monasteries might be a way forward. I think the problem for most people (myself included) is not knowing where to start. Do such things exist anywhere?
Paul- I do believe that one of your readers who writes the substack Metanoia in Vermont is the founder of a lay monastic community by that name. I imagine he would have some good, concrete things to say.
https://www.metanoiavt.com/
Using the Benedictine model there are probably some basics that could apply to a household monasticism and a larger lay monastic community:
1. A vow of stability. Or even if not a vow, the strong intention to put down roots. Following St. Benedict and St. Anthony: "in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it."
2. Some kind of basic rule of appropriate to the situation.
3. A "Divine Office" however abbreviated. Which might mean a set of prayers prayed at various hours of the day. Singing the prayers, if possible, is better.
4. A work schedule. Ora et labora.
5. Time for study.
I think about this a lot. I hope to have the time here to think about it a lot more. This will probably be a reoccurring theme. We can use this technology to help each other figure it out. That is my hope. -Jack
I too have reflected on this topic through my experiences in living in intentional communities, including conversations with some friends (Benedictine monks). I look forward to hearing from you on this.
Elsa- Thank you for being here. I hope you will contribute to working through how to respond to our disordered time.
Many of us are sensing something tectonic has shifted under our feet. It feels ominous. What has been solid for our lifetime now seems shaken and unsteady. Even teetering.
How do we respond?
Now is the time to find out. -Jac
Hi Jack, I appreciate the invitation to this conversation, thank you. I have a baseline stress, uneasiness, humming along constantly on the back burner. I believe you are right about the dark times ahead.
I hope that it is not just a psychological problem and I hope that taking practical action may be the correct response to this anxiety. I love God and I'm ready to meet death, but being still here and alive and with children I want to live out a true response to these crises.
We've looked at a 200 acre farm in Maine and are thinking about taking this practical step. From time to time I think this is so crazy, to uproot our lives and get into a huge new project, based on our beliefs about society and world events. But it is something I would love to do anyway just for the beauty and joy of it. Of course, the physical move is only one small part. And where is the right place to move to? We have pretty much no idea about what it will be like there, though it looks rural and more authentic community. We don't have any clear leading about it but are praying and are wide open.
It is a big old farmhouse with lots of rooms and a huge kitchen.... maybe a place that can be a refuge and host those who need a place in the future.
One more thing. The other morning I read this sermon from my dear George MacDonald. It brings a wonderful, glorious perspective to our lives lived in dark times. If you can put up with the flowery language it is well worth reading:
http://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/unspoken-sermons/35/
Clara- What you are moving towards is something beautiful. It is good to do because it is beautiful. I have been meditating a lot on Mt 6. I really have to ask myself how much I believe that if I seek first the kingdom all the rest will be added. It is truly a radical statement, one that is easy to pass over. It is worth digging into more deeply.
With that in mind, to live a life not as beholden to machine is worth the leap. I am speaking to myself in this most of all. But we can encourage each other. Know I am praying for you.
I will try to respond more fully tomorrow. Compline in a few minutes. -Jack
Clara- Perhaps I am being to simplistic. It does seem to come down to the choice of serving God or Mammon. Mammon does provide so much. Do I trust that God will do the same, even if in an entirely different way, and not as predictably, or in any way under my control. This is a radical proposition. I am certainly not in any position to encourage others to do it, when I am hesitating to do so myself.
I share your anxiety about where we are. Though it is yet unclear what my future is in relation to monasticism I am very glad I made this small leap of faith. There were people trying to dissuade me, all with good intentions. Yet, things do look different on this side of the choice. Keep us updated on your decision. -Jack
Hi Jack, as I once replied to you in Paul’s substack, it is of tremendous benefit just to have had a taste of the monastic life; to know, as you say, how things look differently on this side of the choice. Even if you eventually decide not to pursue this path, just that knowledge, that taste, will make a huge difference because your consciousness has been indelibly transformed by it. It may not be a very obvious transformation, you certainly will still be Jack, but your horizon is different. May God and the Angels keep you in their hearts always.
Eriol- Thank you. Your words mean a lot to me. -Jack
No it is definitely not just a psychological problem. Being more in touch with your humanity, you are just correctly picking up on the vibes. We don’t just know with our senses and our intellect, we know far more truly with our heart, and your heart is telling you loud and clear that things are going way way wrong. Hence that uneasiness humming on the back burner.
I am trying very hard to find my peace in such troubling times. I am slowly finding my way on the spiritual path to a deeper, truer devotion. I want to be of service, to help in any way I can. I don’t see a clear way how to do it yet, so I’ll trust in God. I will work with whatever situation I find myself in, and pray that God will see fit to use me. Mother Theresa had a great saying used by Malcolm Muggeridge as the title for his book - “let us make something beautiful for God today”.
Eriol- You express well and beautifully what we are all struggling to understand. There is much anxiety about how things are going and all we are unable to know. But your question is the same one I ask myself: Lord, what would you have me do? Lacking something more specific, making something beautiful for God is an excellent way to start. Thank you. --Jack.
So Jack - are you in the monastery for good?
Funnily enough, I found myself last month visiting the monasteries of Romania - astonishing places. I was invited in one of them to give a talk about Orthodoxy and technology. I said much the same as you do here. The choice is between the Way - renunciation, askesis, love of created things - or the Machine.
I am just writing an essay touching on the same subjects. In doing so, I found this depressing link:
https://www.christiantranshumanism.org/
It makes me think that trying to frame a 'positive transhumanism' is a mistake. I know you're being rhetorical, but I would be careful with your terminology. You're right though that the transhumanist impulse is basically religious - it looks and sounds like a Christian heresy. All the more reason to oppose it.
I hope you are settling well into your new found place.
Given the narrowing of possibilities that the metacrisis will likely force us into, the options for us in the late Anthropocene are among these three:
1. Some technological leap.
2. Extinction.
3. A return to simplicity. What I am calling a New Enlightened Dark Age, or an Age of Theosis.
As for number 1. Given the size of human population, the ever increasing need to grow the economy (to keep it from collapsing) and therefore the necessity to consume everything in sight, the current dispensation cannot be sustained much longer. The logic of the metamachine is to head towards some kind of "singularity" or other. The version of the machine (e.g, the suburban middle class lifestyle) most of us have known and think "normal" likewise cannot be sustained.
But the resetters have no intention to go with number 2 or 3. In their view we are "hackable animals" and can be fundamentally changed--rather, we *need* to be changed. And their logic requires there to be far less of us. Not fewer resetters, of course. But definitely fewer humans (i.e., the rest of us). Those who remain will be something other than humanity as we have known throughout our existence. The resetters see this as a good thing rather than a dystopia.
What does it mean to choose 3. No time like the present to really find out. So it is wise to fathom what that might mean and to start living that way sooner rather than later.
I say this for clarity's sake. I think we are all more or less aware of the options.
Paul- I am certain that this is where I need to be--where God has put me--right now and for the foreseeable future. For this I am truly grateful. Whether or not I am called to be a lifelong monk is another thing. I imagine it as an open door at the end of a long hallway. There are many other doors that come before it. Some may be locked, but some may be open, one of which I am meant to go through. Lay monasticism is what keeps calling to me. We shall see. -Jack
You are probably right, "transhumanism" may be a hopelessly corrupted word. You aren't the only one to say this in the comments here. I am being a bit rhetorical, even provocative. But I am also using it sincerely. I will defend the use, and then probably let it go. No need to pointlessly antagonize my allies!
1. The original coinage is from Dante in Canto 1 of the Paradiso. It sets the agenda, so to speak, of the whole Canticle. https://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/textpopup/par0101.html
It is, in its origins, a Christian term.
2. This from The Rape of Man and Nature by Philip Sherrard:
"There is co-operation of the divine and the human, the uncreated and the created. Christ is the perfect man, the complete man, the whole man. But Christ is also God. This to say that, paradox as it may sound, it is God alone who is the perfect man. Only God is completely and utterly human. As we said, in so far as man fails to realize the divine in himself, to that extent he falls short of being completely human. He remains less than human. His human nature is truncated just as the divine nature is truncated and less than divine if it is not humanized. It is not accidental or a cause of surprise that man's attempts to be only human--to fulfil the ideals of the non-religious humanism of the last centuries--results in a dehumanization of both man and of the forms of the society which he has fabricated around himself."
3. I have had pushback with Evangelical friends when I have used theosis or deification. I think it is seen as dangerous because it might imply pantheism or some absorption into divine, i.e., A Supreme Identity. But I am not going to stop using it as it is a perfectly fine word. It does need to clarified. I have even had one friend balk at quoting, "the Kingdom of God is within" (rather than "The Kingdom of God is among us"). As it sounded too "New Agey". Yet I think that knowing the Kingdom is within is central.
4. The choice facing us, i.e., between the Cross and the Machine, is the between a post-Nietzschean technological self-deification and theosis in radical humility and repentance. As Nietzsche himself put it:
“Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING." -Thus Spake Zarathustra.
I reject the first techno-nihilist transhumanism entirely and side completely with the second divine one. My use of the term "transhumanism" is to make the similarities and differences of this conflict clear. Nonetheless I will rethink my use of the term, because maybe it does the opposite of bring clarity.
Don't worry, I am not antagonised!
This is actually very interesting. Maybe an essay explicitly reclaiming this term and rejecting its current misuse could be worth doing. Not that those in monasteries should probably spend much time writing online essays!
That is a good idea. I do have permission from the Abbot to work on the substack. I am under obedience!! (actually I am not, but it is good to have the blessing of the Abbot).
I'm glad to hear all is well Jack and life at the monastery is suiting you.
You've got me pondering the idea of darkness and light and how without one the other cannot exisit; and perhaps that's where progress falls down? It is not natural to live in a way where darkness is denied its place as it is too a part of the whole.
I'm just coming out of the darkness of having covid, an experience that was hard but now I'm feeling grateful for the intelligence my body contains and for the kindness of my family and friends. Even my neighbours showed such kindness which really touched me. If covid hadn't visited us I wouldn't have seen this love.
I'd like to explore these ideas more but alas covid seems to have tired out my brain!....hopefully next time I can contribute something more.
Naomi- I am sorry to hear about having covid. But I am glad you have come through and are well. I wonder if it is our illusion of self-sufficiency that gets deflated when we realize we do need people. And funny thing, we all get great meaning from helping each other. Honestly, in most people I think that desire is just below the surface. Any good reason for it to be brought out, we do. Otherwise, we fear being a bother. So people hunker down.
And yes, it is amazing what are bodies can do when we let them.
But I am glad you experienced some love and kindness from those around you. I hope you are feeling completely back to normal soon. -JXK
I am linking an interview that my husband was watching. I only heard a part, but it was so very fascinating. Mattias Desmet was explaining that industrialization and technology are directly related to loneliness, across cultures. And people are vulnerable to psychological problems because of a low level strain related to not being interconnected. I thought it was just what you are saying above, Jack. Lots of other good discussion in it, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkBQcIDto7s
There is no doubt in my mind that Mattias Desmet is on to something real, and dangerous. This is going to be something to watch (and pray) for now and in the future. We are so connected that we become isolated. The isolated are ripe for manipulation.
The question is whether or not industrialization and consumerism *necessarily* lead to isolation and social control. Maybe not. But the tendency is so strong it is nearly impossible to stay within its confines and not get drawn into its vortex.
Technology, despite the advertising, can never be neutral. It instantiates a telos. That telos is the will-to-power at a scale that dwarfs our ability to control it. We seek control but end up getting controlled.
The social model becomes a derivative of Newtonian Physics. We are hackable animals, atoms in the void, and the imperative is to systemticallycontrol us for our own good. Hence the Algorithm. Which is implicit from the beginning, no matter what we want to tell ourselves.
This is the trajectory as best I can tell. Those who, with good intentions, think this can be avoided somehow and the telos of technology changed, in my view, are kidding themselves.
Thank you for the link. I intend to slowly watch it over the next week or so. -Jack
You are probably right. Though it was Dante in the Paradiso who coined the term. I am just saying we should take it back.
Camilla- These are all good questions. I respond more fully to Paul's similar concerns elsewhere in this comment section. I have no intention of being dogmatic over a word. Particularly with those who are my allies on this issue.
I am going to give it some more thought and may revisit this issue more fully in the future. I think it is a discussion worth having and in greater depth. I am pretty certain we won't be allowed to avoid it, so it is best to be clear. I hope you will be part of this discussion. -Jack
P.S. I tend to drag Dante into a lot of things. He might not appreciate that!