Civilization and Its Discontents

By Andrew Brown
The Guardian, July 10, 2009

Edited by Andy Ross

I have been reading Sigmund Freud's Civilization and its Discontents. His attack on religion states very clearly one of the central New Atheist rhetorical moves. This is to define religion as the belief system of ignorant fools: "The common man cannot imagine this Providence otherwise than in the figure of an enormously exalted father. Only such a being can understand the needs of the children of men and be softened by their prayers and placated by the signs of their remorse."

Having set up a system in which only fools could believe, he then points out that only fools could believe in it: "The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able rise above this view of life." Yet this, he says, is "the only religion which ought to bear that name."

Why? I really don't see this. Intelligent, cultured and brave believers do pose a real problem for atheists, but it's not one we honorably solve by simply denying their existence. Freud goes on to dismiss anyone with the brains to see that a God who is merely an enormously exalted father can't be worth worshipping on the grounds that they are not getting real religion at all: "One would like to mix among the ranks of the believers in order to meet these philosophers, who think they can rescue the God of religion by replacing him by an impersonal, shadowy and abstract principle, and to address them with the warning words: 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain!' "

If we start from the premise that religion is a purely human activity, then it can only sensibly be defined as what believers do and think. That includes the clever and philosophically literate ones. If Freud was wrong about everything else, why assume he was right about religion?
 

In Search of Civilization

By Noel Malcolm
The Daily Telegraph, July 12, 2009

Edited by Andy Ross

John Armstrong's In Search of Civilization examines an idea that is easier to recognize than define. Civilization, it seems, means a high level of material culture.

Stripping the values out of the concept of civilization may make it easier to sell, but then it can no longer do what it once did. Civilization used to mean not just material prosperity and advanced social organization, but also a set of values, involving both art and life.

John Armstrong believes passionately in that traditional concept of civilization. Scottish born and Oxford trained, he is now Philosopher-in-Residence at the Melbourne Business School. He has some fine turns of phrase, his aesthetic sense seems strong and reliable, and he pays special attention to civilized behavior at the ordinary level of sharing a meal or cultivating a friendship.

Armstrong's account of what is truly civilized is much richer than the value-free version currently on offer in the sociology textbooks. True civilization, he says, requires a combination of the material and the spiritual. Only then can we raise our lives to the level of higher things.

One of his basic ideas is that the civilizing process involves taking a simple human activity and endowing it with extra significances, such as the transformation of the simple act of tea drinking into the Japanese tea ceremony. An activity is civilized, Armstrong says, when it "becomes a vehicle for other values and purposes". But what matters, surely, is whether those values are civilized or brutal, which leaves us exactly where we were.

Armstrong's favorite approach is to say that the civilizing process involves improving "the quality of our relationships". So it follows, he says, that "we need to find people and objects with which we can develop more rewarding relationships". But to say that something is better because I can have a more rewarding relationship with it is just a roundabout way of saying that it is better because it is better.

Mabe the only way to learn why and how civilized values matter is to live among civilized people and become one yourself.
 

The Art of Being Civilized

By Alain de Botton
The Observer, June 28, 2009

Edited by Andy Ross

John Armstrong, a Melbourne-based British philosopher, is out to lead philosophy back to its task of helping us to live wisely and well.

Armstrong acknowledges that the concept of civilization has run into a good deal of trouble. But he insists that we must relearn to fill the word with the positive associations it once carried. He is conservative in the best sense. He dares to suggest that a truly civilized world will be one devoted to truth, beauty and goodness. The central complaint Armstrong levels at the world is that we have become rich but not wise.

Armstrong goes on to articulate the qualities of his ideal world: architecture should be reformed, so that it promotes a vision of a balanced, noble life. In the psychological realm, Armstrong suggests that we take on the task of trying to become spiritually more developed. From an entirely secular point of view, he urges us to take an interest in developing our souls.

Armstrong is especially interested in money. One might expect him to come out strongly against commercial society, but he has the good sense and bravery to defend capitalism. He sees money as nothing other than a great opportunity, nothing but pure potential. He wants to reform not the market, but the soul of the consumer.

The job of improving our desires leads Armstrong to propose that we must reform academia so it can much more effectively compete with unhelpful notions propagated through society. He calls for "a broad social framework that could encourage people to be reasonable, patient, witty, mature, refined, courageous and self-controlled".

Armstrong isn't keen to identify bizarre examples of civilization. The point is to analyze the philosophical grounds for the greatness of previous examples. Throughout, Armstrong has the virtue of being able to make the things he likes sound appealing.

His book is itself a work of the very sort of civilization it argues for, a call to change our world for the better.
 

AR  I feel some sympathy with Armstrong's project. Roger Scruton would certainly approve.