October 23, 2004

Developing a Theory of AWhy War?@

The Traditionalist Religious Outlook

1. The Meaning of Religions: Traditionalists search for the meaning of religions.

As Mircea Eliade expresses it:

AThe scholar has not finished his work when he has reconstructed the history of a religious form or brought out its sociological, economic or political contexts. In addition, he [or she] must understand its meaning.@

[Eliade, Mircea (1907-1986), American historian of religions, The Quest B History and Meaning in Religion (University of Chicago, Chicago, IL), 1969, p. 2; cited pp. 15-16].

Traditionalism addresses itself to the inner meaning of religion through an elucidation of immutable metaphysical and cosmological principles and through a penetration of the forms preserved in each religious tradition. The sources of the traditionalist vision are Revelation, tradition, intellection, realization. It is a theoria which bridges the phenomena and the noumena of religion. It takes us

Afrom the forms to the essences wherein resides the truth of all religions and where alone a religion can really be really understood...@

[Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, Sufi Essays (Allen & Unwin, London, England), 1972, p. 38; cited p. 447].

2. A Common Metaphysical Wisdom: Traditionalists see a metaphysical wisdom at the heart of all religious traditions which, despite variegations in its outward vestments, is always the same (p. 18).

In the words of Ananda Coomaraswamy:

ADiverse cultures are... the dialects of a common spiritual and intellectual language [deriving from] the common metaphysical basis of all religions.@

[Coomaraswamy, Ananda (1877-1947), What is Civilization? And Other Essays (Golgonooza, Ipswich, England), 1989, p. 18; cited p. 16].

The traditionalists are committed to the explication of this sophia perennis, noting that it discloses an axiology, a set of first principles, a Auniversally intelligible language,@ and Aa common universe of discourse@ (pp. 17 and 81).

3. The Preservation of the Traditional Forms: Traditionalists are dedicated to the preservation and illumination of the traditional forms which give each religious heritage its raison d=etre and which also guarantee each religious heritage its formal integrity, thereby ensuring its spiritual efficacy (p. 17).

History of the Traditionalist Perspective

The traditionalist perspective was first publicly articulated soon after 1900 by Rene Guenon. Since that time, a significant traditionalist Aschool@ has emerged with three men acknowledged its pre-eminent exponents:

1. Ananda Coomaraswamy, Anglo-Ceylonese scholar and art historian (1877-1947).

2. Rene Guenon, French metaphysician (1886-1951).

3. Frithjof Schuon, German metaphysician (1907-1998).

Later representatives of this school include:

1. Marco Pallis, Greek, expert on Tibetan Buddhism (1895-1990).

2. Titus Burckhardt, Italian metaphysician (1908-1984).

3. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Iranian, Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., (b. 1933).

All have immersed themselves in both the Occidental and Oriental worlds of Tradition B the meaning of the latter term being as understood in the work of Rene Guenon (pp. 13-14, 16, 17, 139-140, 161-162, 183, 202-208, 210 and 212-214).

Traditionalists and Modernism

1. Rejection of Modernism: The traditionalist=s outlook, based on the wisdom of the ages, is radically at odds with the ethos of modern Western scholarship (p. 17).

Allegiance to the traditionalist position entails, as a necessary corollary, a rejection of modernism, i.e., the ideas, assumptions and attitudes which inform the prevailing worldview amongst the Western intelligentsia B and increasingly, the Western-educated elites of the East (p. 17).

Under the view championed by Guenon, Schuon and Nasr (and others), the traditional worlds of East and West have much more in common than either has with the modern West. Traditional civilizations are essentially religious: culture is the outward expression of religion and its application in all aspects of life (p. 18).

In T. S. Eliot=s phrase:

A[Culture is] the incarnation of religion.@

[Eliot, T. S. (1888-1965), American-British poet, Notes towards the Definition of Culture (Faber & Faber, London, England), 1962, p. 28; cited p. 18].

2. Modernism Defined: By contrast, modernity defines itself by its irreligious temper and its attachment to a rationalistic and materialistic science. The modern worldview is essentially little more than a negation of the traditional outlook, fueled by an ignorance of metaphysical principles and by the disavowal of religious forms (p. 18).

In the words of Frithjof Schuon:

A[The fundamental truths are ever-present but] cannot impose themselves on those unwilling to listen.@

[Schuon, Frithjof, ANo Activity without Truth,@ in Jacob Needleman, Ed., The Sword of Gnosis, (Penguin Books, Baltimore, MD), 1974, pp. 27-39; cited p. 19].

3. Tradition vs. Modernism: The most profound of division, therefore, is not between geographically differentiated areas but between traditional societies on one side B all previous cultures, everywhere B and those of modernity on the other B post-medieval Western Europe and its extensions elsewhere in the world (p. 18).

Ananda Coomaraswamy writes:

A>East and West= imports a cultural rather than a geographical antithesis: an opposition of the traditional or ordinary way of life that survives in the East to the modern and irregular way of life that now prevails in the West. It is because such an opposition could not have been felt before the Renaissance, that we say that the problem is one that presents itself only accidentally in terms of geography. It is one of times much more than places.@

[Coomaraswamy, Ananda, The Bugbear of Literacy (Perennial Books, London, England), 1979, p. 80; cited p. 18].

The Experience of Connectedness

AA fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.@

[Blake, William (1757-1827), English poet and artist; cited p. 395].

ABut there are no others!@

[Reply of D. T. Suzuki when asked, at a conference on Zen, AWhat about society, what about others?@ Pennington, Basil, Thomas Merton, Brother Monk B The Quest for True Freedom (Continuum, New York, N.Y.), 1997, p. 133; cited p. 383].

AFor the sage, each flower is metaphysically a proof of the Infinite.@

[Schuon, Frithjof, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts (Perennial Books, London, England), 1967, p. 10; cited p. 393].

AThe spirit escapes the hold of profane science in an absolute fashion.@

[Schuon, Frithjof, commenting about Apsychologism@ B psychologistic reductionism, the practice of dragging spiritual realities down to the psychological plane. Frithjof Schuon, ANo Activity without Truth,@ in Jacob Needleman, Ed., The Sword of Gnosis, (Penguin Books, Baltimore, MD), 1974, p. 37. Also Frithjof Schuon, Stations of Wisdom (Perennial Books, London, England), no date given, p. 38, reprint of John Murray edition, 1961. And Frithjof Schuon, Light on the Ancient Worlds (Perennial Books, London, England), 1966, p. 34 ff; cited p. 316].

APeople no longer sense the fact that the quantitative richness of a knowledge B any kind of knowledge B necessarily entails an interior impoverishment, unless accompanied by a spiritual science able to maintain balance and re-establish unity.@

[Schuon, Frithjof, In the Tracks of Buddhism (Allen & Unwin, London, England), 1968, p. 41; cited p. 363].

AI could not be leading a religious life unless I identified myself with the whole of mankind, and that I could not do unless I took part in politics. The whole gamut of man=s activities today constitutes an indivisible whole. You cannot divide social, economic, political and purely religious work into watertight compartments.@

[Gandhi, Mohandas (1869-1948), quoted in Thomas Merton, Gandhi on Non-violence (New Directions, New York, N.Y.), 1965, p. 64; cited p. 364].

AZen [demands] the realization of the relation of myself to the Universe.@

[Fromm, Erich (1900-1980), German humanistic psychoanalyst, APsychoanalysis and Zen,@ in Erich Fromm, D. T. Suzuki and Richard De Martino, Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis (Souvenir Press, London, England), 1974, p. 135; cited p. 324].

ACompassion in the world becomes a spontaneous response to the experience of connectedness.@

[Goldstein, Joseph, meditation teacher (p. 283). Quoted in Tony Schwartz, What Really Matters B Searching for Wisdom in America (Bantam Books, New York, N.Y.), 1995, p. 329; cited p. 308].

A[Eastern teachings] emphasize the basic unity of the universe. The highest aim of their followers B whether Hindus, Buddhists or Taoists B is to become aware of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things, to transcend the notion of an individual isolated self and identify themselves with ultimate reality.@

[Capra, Frithjof, The Tao of Physics (Fontana, London, England), 1976, p. 29; cited p. 332].

AThe discoveries of science about the organic interconnections of all things from the atomic nucleus, to the unfathomed psyche of man, to the inconceivable entities of cosmic space... invite us to something greater than the search for additional facts and explanations.@

[Needleman, Jacob, philosopher, psychologist and comparativist rather than physicist (p. 360). Jacob Needleman, A Sense of the Cosmos (Doubleday, New York, N.Y.), 1975, pp. 1-2; cited p. 361].

The Ideological Annexation of Religious Institutions and Teachings

4. The Vatican=s complicity in the genocidal regime of the Nazis.

[Cornwell, John, Hitler=s Pope B The Secret History of Pius XII (Viking, New York, N.Y.), 1999; cited p. 367].

5. Orientalism and Fascism:

a. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish modernist poet, was anti-Semitic (p. 367).

b. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki (1870-1966), Japanese doyen of modern Zen scholars and other apologists for the ANew Buddhism,@ present a Zen jaundiced by the polemics of nihonjinron B a narcissistic, racist, nativist and supremacist theory positing a unique Japanese character and spiritual Aessence.@

[Pp. 61 and 168-169. Sharf, Robert, AThe Zen of Japanese Nationalism,@ in Donald Lopez, Jr., Ed., Curators of the Buddha B The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism (University of Chicago, Chicago, IL), 1995, pp. 107-160; cited p. 365].

c. Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist, evinced some enthusiasm for Nazism in its early years, discerning in it a hope of a spiritual regeneration of Europe. (Later, Jung was implacably opposed to Nazism). There are also more than a few traces of anti-Semitism in his writings.

[Pp. 367-368. Letter from Gershom Scholem to Aniela Jaffe on Jung=s anti-Semitism, in Steven Wasserstrom, Religion after Religion B Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.), 1999, p. 262, fn 72; cited p. 368. Gomez, Luis, AOriental Wisdom and the Cure of Souls B Jung and the Indian East,@ in Donald Lopez, Jr., Ed., Curators of the Buddha B The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism (Chicago University, Chicago, IL), 1995, p. 236, fn20; cited p. 368].

d. Erza Pound (1885-1972), American poet, was anti-Semitic and espoused the ideology of fascism (p. 367).

e. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), German philosopher, publicly and theatrically aligned himself with the Nazi regime in the early 30's, and became an unabashed propagandist for Hitler=s domestic and foreign policies. He was a Nazi informer and betrayed several Jewish friends and colleagues (p. 367).

f. Giuseppe Tucci (1894-1984), Italy=s most illustrious orientalist, supported Mussolini, enjoyed his patronage and became an apologist for the fascist regime. He also nurtured a closer relationship between the fascist regime of his own country and Japan (pp. 52 and 368).

g. Georges Dumezil (1898-1986), French doyen of Indo-European studies, was anti-Semitic and susceptible to the anti-modern appeal of extreme right wing political ideologies (pp. 114 and 367).

h. Julius Evola (1898-1974), Italian painter, philosopher and orientalist, espoused Aspiritualized@ fascism. Evola translated into Italian The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a poisonous anti-Semitic work whose authors include Alfred Rosenberg, the racial ideologue of Nazism (pp. 104 and 367-368).

i. Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), American psychological mythographer, popularizer, was anti-Semitic and susceptible to the anti-modern appeal of extreme right wing political ideologies. Campbell=s work contains a covert strain of anti-Semitism, an attitude more openly expressed in his personal life.

[Pp. 108, 110-111 and 367. Segal, Robert, AJoseph Campbell on Jews and Judaism,@ Religion 22, 1992, pp. 151-170; cited p. 111].

j. Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), American historian of religions, born in Romania, was anti-Semitic and susceptible to the anti-modern appeal of extreme right wing political ideologies. Eliade=s anti-Semitism was often intertwined with a rejection of communism, democracy and materialism (all seen as symptoms of a decadent modernity), and the affirmation of a Romanian identity B racial and political. During the 1930's, Eliade supported anti-Semitic laws and in his writings expressed the need for Aracial detoxification.@ He wrote of Athe noble religious ideals@ and the Avirile vitality@ of the Iron Guard (a fascist organization), and applauded its program of national purification and spiritual regeneration. During the Second World War, Eliade served the pro-Nazi Romanian government as press and propaganda attache in Lisbon. George Steiner has expressed disquiet over the Acentral silence@ about the Holocaust in the voluminous writings of a historian of religions so deeply concerned with the Acultural crisis@ of his times.

(Pp. 114 and 367-370. Steiner, George, AEcstasies, not Arguments,@ Review of Eliade=s Journals in Times Literary Supplement, 4565, 28 September - 4 October, 1990).

Violence donning Spiritual Clothing

In the writings of many of the figures mentioned above, there is a romantic exaltation of an ascesis and an aesthetic of violence presented in terms of Acreative force,@ the Asamurai ethic,@ Aspiritual virility,@ the Awill to power,@ Athe spirit of bushido@ and the like.

Bushido: Japanese, AWay of the warrior.@ Code of honor and conduct of the Japanese nobility. Of ancient origin, it grew out of the old feudal bond that required unwavering loyalty on the part of the vassal. It borrowed heavily from Zen Buddhism and Confucianism. In its fullest expression, the code emphasized loyalty to one= superior, personal honor, and the virtues of austerity, self-sacrifice, and indifference to pain. For the warrior, commerce and the profit motive were to be scorned. The code was first formulated in the Kamakura period (1185-1333) and put into writing in the 16^th century. The term itself, however, did not come into use until the 17^th century. It became the standard of conduct for the Daimyo and Samurai under the Tokugawa shoguns and was taught in state schools as a pre-requisite for government service. After the Meiji restoration (1868), it was the basis for the cult of emperor worship taught until 1945. [Columbia Encyclopedia, 6^th Edition (Columbia University/Gale Group, New York, N.Y.), 2000].

[See Fader, Larry, AArthur Koestler=s Critique of D. T. Suzuki=s Interpretation of Zen@ in The Eastern Buddhist, NS, 13:2, 1980, pp. 46-72; cited p. 370].

The figures mentioned above were also heirs to a continental Romanticism (pp. 370-371). Central to this Romanticism was, in Theodor Adorno=s memorable phrase:

Athe agitator=s dream, a union of the horrible and the wonderful, a delirium of annihilation masked as salvation.@

[Adorno, Theodor (1903-1969), German philosopher, quoted in Steven Wasserstrom, Religion after Religion B Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.), 1999, p. 76; cited p. 370-371].

For many of these, Athe East@ came to symbolize a realm uncontaminated by the corruptions of Europe while fascism seemed to hold out the promise of a Aspiritual regeneration@ (p. 373).

We must recognize the dangers of any scholarship (or religious commitment) which opportunistically allows itself to be turned to inhumane political ends and which thereby compromises its allegiance to the truth (p. 373).

The Environment

1. Gandhi=s Principle of Non-injuriousness: Gandhi=s ahimsa, the principle of non-injuriousness, which has been an elevated ethical principle in all the major Indian traditions, Jain and Buddhist as well as Hindu, is sensed in his commentary on the Hindu tradition of reverencing the cow:

A>Cow Protection= to me is one of the most wonderful phenomena in all human evolution, for it takes the human being beyond his species. The cow to me means the entire sub-human world. Man, through the cow, is enjoined to realize his identity with all that lives... Hindus will be judged not by their correct chanting of sacred texts, not by their pilgrimages, not by their most punctilious observance of Caste rules, but by their ability to protect the cow... >Cow Protection= is the gift of Hinduism to the world, and Hinduism will live so long as there are Hindus to protect the cow.@

[Quote from Gandhi (1869-1948), by Eric Sharpe in ATo Hinduism through Gandhi,@ in The Wisdom of the East (ABC, Sydney, Australia), 1979, pp. 52-63; cited p. 375].

2. The Environmental Crisis: For centuries, a holistic and benevolent understanding of Anature@ and, in parallel with it, the thoughtless and rapacious exploitation of Anature,@ have co-existed. A Promethean science, rooted in materialistic assumptions and procedures, can only exacerbate the problem of the environment B air and water pollution, acid rain, deforestation, desertification and the extinction of species. It will only be when our scientific endeavors are harnessed to the service of the principles and values enshrined in tradition that there may be some small hope that the headlong rush toward wholesale ecological ruination might yet be turned around (pp. 396-397).

The Aenvironmental crisis@ is the symptom of a spiritual malaise. To return to health, we must get to the seat of the disease rather than merely palliating the symptoms:

AThe state of the outer world does not merely correspond to the general state of men=s souls. It also in a sense depends on that state, since man himself is the pontiff of the outer world. Thus, the corruption of man must necessarily affect the whole...@

[Abu Bakr Siraj Ed-Din, The Book of Certainty (Samuel Weiser, New York, N.Y.), 1974, p. 33; cited pp. 417-418].

3. Differing Attitudes toward Nature: One might schematize the contrast between traditional and modern worldviews, and their respective Aattitudes@ to nature as in the following table (p. 417).

AAttitude@ toward Nature

	Traditional Cultures	Modern ACivilization@
Source of Information	Mythological cosmogonies	The geological/historical Arecord@
Tool given Primacy	The spiritual	Science
Element given Primacy	The spiritual	The material
Mode of Learning	Through qualitative, synthetic and holistic sacred sciences	Through quantitative, analytic and fragmentary sciences
Natural Forms seen as	Symbolic and transparent	Mute and opaque
Background Culture	Religious	Secular
Relationship with Nature	Reciprocal and cooperative	Exploitative and combative
Economies	Ecological and Anatural@	Industrial and artificial
Worldview	Sacramental	Profane

The Sanctity of Life

1. The Sacred: Frithjof Schuon writes:

AThat is sacred which (a) is attached to the transcendent order, (b) possesses the character of absolute certainty, and (c) eludes the comprehension of the ordinary human mind... The sacred is the presence of the center in the periphery... The sacred introduces a quality of the absolute into relativities and confers on perishable things a texture of eternity.@

[Schuon, Frithjof, Understanding Islam (Allen & Unwin, London, England), 1976, p. 48; cited p. 404].

2. Expressions of the Sanctity of Life: The sanctity of life is expressed in different ways in the various religious vocabularies. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this principle begins in the affirmation in Genesis that man is made in the image of God B that the human being carries an indelible imprint of the divine. In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, the principle of Amoral solidarity@ of all living forms, is embodied in the traditional Indian value of ahimsa (non-injuriousness) (p. 405).

Thomas Traherne expresses it thus:

AYou never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea

itself floweth in your veins, till you are

clothed with heavens, and crowned with

the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole

heir of the whole world, and more than so,

because men are in it who are every one sole

heirs as well as you.@

[Traherne, Thomas (1636?-1674), English poet, Centuries of Meditation (1908); cited p. 406].

William Blake expresses it this way:

AAll that lives is holy.@

(Blake, William; cited p. 405).

And this way:

ATo see a world in a grain of sand,

And Heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.@

[Blake, William, Auguries of Innocence (1789); cited p. 406].

A Theory of AWhy War?@

1. The Connection:

A Revelation: The connection B the apprehension of the unity of all, of Reality, Truth B is a direct spiritual experience and is the core of all major world religions and traditions. This is Amysticism,@ the esoteric (inner) dimension of all religions and traditions.

An Epiphany: The experience of primordial connectedness comes in the form of an epiphany from the small, Anormal,@ uneventful things of life (a wild flower, a stream) and at any time (walking, gazing at a dish, hearing a child=s voice (see Huston Smith, Forgotten Truth, p. 110).

Morality embodied: For the one who has experienced the connection, it is unthinkable B impossible B to wage war, exploit others or exploit the Aenvironment@ because there is no Aother@ of any type. By killing or exploiting, this person would only harm his/her Self (Spirit). This person is the prophet of the poor, unarmed and exploitable.

Subject to Corruption: Even people with a connection at times can be opportunistically ensnared by socio-economic or political influences and corrupt their message by espousing theories leading to war and even genocide.

When the Connection is not sensed: For minds which have not experienced the connection, religion points in the correct direction by providing a framework, images, myths, symbols, rites and commands. Such a command is AThou shalt not kill!@ This is exoteric (outer) religion. For those minds, exoteric religion is all there is.

It takes All Types to make a World: Throughout the ages, the people with the connection have existed concurrently with the people who do not have it, and the claims of both groups have run in parallel.

Spirituality without the Spirit: ASpirituality@ taken out of its religious context, such as finding spirituality in Nature or the Earth, is idolatry B mistaking a part for the whole (the One) (see p. 416).

Why War?: The answer to the question, AWhy war?@ cannot be understood analytically, rationally, argumentatively B by way of the left hemisphere of the brain. The answer becomes immediately obvious after the experience of connection B a direct, all-at-once experience, having a quality perhaps rendered by the right hemisphere of the brain.

Will the Human Race survive?: In modern times, the issue of war has become one of life and death because the technological power given to us by science, has remained unbalanced by a concurrent increase in sensitivity to our connection with the Infinite and the values it embodies.

AThere never was a war that was not inward@: War and the present state of our environment are symptoms of the spiritual malaise of modern times. The disease is within us, reflected in our behavior. The responsibility for the cure is ours, since no other species lives in both the material and spiritual worlds.

[Pp. 405 and 417. Quote is from Marianne Moore (1887-1972), American poet, cited in Huston Smith, Why Religion..., p. 167].

References

All unidentified page numbers refer to:

Oldmeadow, Harry, Journeys East B 20^th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious Traditions (World Wisdom, Bloomington, IN), 2004.

Referred to in the Section entitled, AA Theory of AWhy War?@:

Smith, Huston

Forgotten Truth B The Common Vision of the World=s Religions (HarperSan Francisco, New York, N.Y.), 1976/1992.

Why Religion matters B The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief (HarperSan Francisco, New York, N.Y.), 2001.

***