21 Lessons for the 21st Century(95)
Eight centuries before the French air force bombed Islamic State strongholds in Syria and Iraq, another French army invaded the Middle East, in what is known to posterity as ‘the Seventh Crusade’. Led by the saintly King Louis IX, the crusaders hoped to conquer the Nile Valley and turn Egypt into a Christian bulwark. However, they were defeated at the Battle of Mansoura and most of the crusaders were taken captive. A crusader knight, Jean de Joinville, later wrote in his memoirs that when the battle was lost and they decided to surrender, one of his men said that ‘I cannot agree with this decision. What I advise is that we should all let ourselves be slain, for thus we shall go to paradise.’ Joinville comments dryly that ‘none of us heeded his advice’.19
Joinville does not explain why they refused. After all, these were men who left their comfortable chateaux in France for a long and perilous adventure in the Middle East largely because they believed the promise of eternal salvation. Why, then, when they were but a moment away from the everlasting bliss of paradise, did they prefer Muslim captivity instead? Apparently, though the crusaders fervently believed in salvation and paradise, at the moment of truth they opted to hedge their bets.
The supermarket at Elsinore
Throughout history almost all humans believed in several stories at the same time, and were never absolutely convinced of the truth of any one of them. This uncertainty rattled most religions, which therefore considered faith to be a cardinal virtue and doubt to be among the worst sins possible. As if there was something intrinsically good about believing things without evidence. With the rise of modern culture, however, the tables were turned. Faith looked increasingly like mental slavery, while doubt came to be seen as a precondition for freedom.
Sometime between 1599 and 1602, William Shakespeare wrote his version of The Lion King, better known as Hamlet. Yet unlike Simba, Hamlet doesn’t complete the Circle of Life. He remains sceptical and ambivalent to the very end, never discovering what life is all about, and never making up his mind whether it is better to be or not to be. In this, Hamlet is the paradigmatic modern hero. Modernity didn’t reject the plethora of stories it inherited from the past. Instead, it opened a supermarket for them. The modern human is free to sample them all, choosing and combining whatever fits his or her taste.
Some people cannot stand so much freedom and uncertainty. Modern totalitarian movements such as fascism reacted violently to the supermarket of doubtful ideas, and outdid even traditional religions in demanding absolute faith in a single story. Most modern people, however, took a liking to the supermarket. What do you do when you don’t know what life is all about and which story to believe? You sanctify the very ability to choose. You forever stand there in the supermarket aisle, with the power and freedom to choose whatever you like, examining the products laid out before you, and … freeze that frame, cut, The End. Run credits.
According to liberal mythology, if you stand long enough in that big supermarket, sooner or later you will experience the liberal epiphany, and you will realise the true meaning of life. All the stories on the supermarket shelves are fakes. The meaning of life isn’t a ready-made product. There is no divine script, and nothing outside me can give meaning to my life. It is I who imbue everything with meaning through my free choices and through my own feelings.
In the fantasy film Willow – a run-of-the-mill George Lucas fairy tale – the eponymous hero is an ordinary dwarf who dreams of becoming a great sorcerer and mastering the secrets of existence. One day such a sorcerer passes through the dwarf village in search of an apprentice. Willow and two other hopeful dwarves present themselves, and the sorcerer gives the aspirants a simple test. He extends his right hand, spreads his fingers, and asks in a Yoda-like voice: ‘The power to control the world, is in which finger?’ Each of the three dwarves picks a finger – but they all pick the wrong one. Nevertheless, the sorcerer notices something about Willow, and later asks him ‘When I held up my fingers, what was your first impulse?’ ‘Well, it was stupid,’ says Willow in embarrassment, ‘to pick my own finger.’ ‘Aha!’ exclaims the sorcerer in triumph, ‘That was the correct answer! You lack faith in yourself.’ Liberal mythology never tires of repeating this lesson.
It is our own human fingers that wrote the Bible, the Quran and the Vedas, and it is our minds that give these stories power. They are no doubt beautiful stories, but their beauty is strictly in the eyes of the beholder. Jerusalem, Mecca, Varanasi and Bodh Gaya are sacred places, but only because of the feelings humans experience when they go there. In itself, the universe is only a meaningless hodge-podge of atoms. Nothing is beautiful, sacred or sexy – but human feelings make it so. It is only human feelings that make a red apple seductive and a turd disgusting. Take away human feelings, and you are left with a bunch of molecules.
We hope to find meaning by fitting ourselves into some ready-made story about the universe, but according to the liberal interpretation of the world, the truth is exactly the opposite. The universe does not give me meaning. I give meaning to the universe. This is my cosmic vocation. I have no fixed destiny or dharma. If I find myself in Simba’s or Arjuna’s shoes, I can choose to fight for the crown of a kingdom, but I don’t have to. I can just as well join a wandering circus, go to Broadway to sing in a musical, or move to Silicon Valley and launch a start-up. I am free to create my own dharma.
Thus, like all other cosmic stories, the liberal story too starts with a creation narrative. It says that the creation occurs every moment, and I am the creator. What then is the aim of my life? To create meaning by feeling, by thinking, by desiring, and by inventing. Anything that limits the human liberty to feel, to think, to desire and to invent, limits the meaning of the universe. Hence liberty from such limitations is the supreme ideal.