Moving beyond pessimism

It seems that more and more religious people are seeking intensely for answers to the serious social ailments of today's world, from philosophical, scientific, social, and political perspectives, not just religious ones. Their willingness to be true to this search, although it may cause them pain and suffering, contrasts sharply with the new-age brand of “feel-good spirituality” that is so prevalent today. It reflects an awareness that true spiritual development can be an anguishing, painful process, including ambiguity, stress, frustration, anger, separation from loved ones, difficulty to understand and forgive, etc. After all, it is not how we FEEL that determines our level of spirituality, but rather to what extent our ACTIONS are sincerely consistent with the best fruits of our search, wherever it has lead us so far in our lives.

In the world around them, they see class conflicts, hegemony, manipulation, monopolies, imperialism, cultural degradation, unjust invasions, and exploitative, cruel and neglectful relationships. These social ills may be due in part to the destructive attitudes of certain individuals, but they also –especially– reflect deep flaws in the way present-day society is structured. Their realization of this echoes Bahá’u’lláh's lament that “the signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appears to be lamentably defective,” already in the mid-19th century –some 150 years ago– how much more today!

These ills will not be best served by thickening the walls of nationalism, but rather through the establishment of a world-wide federation of nations, complete with legislative, executive and judicial powers. However, I do agree that Marx, and subsequent authors who followed his basic framework, have developed useful models that can help us better understand the dynamics of the “prevailing order” and why it is currently falling into “convulsions and chaos”. In addition to Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony, which our text mentions in passing, there are other fine notions such as dependency theory and its core – periphery relationships.

Of course, like all models and categories of analysis, these are imperfect simplifications of a highly complex world, and have relative degrees of explanatory value. However, we cannot easily brush them aside just because we do not like the lamp from which their light shines! Rather, we need to strive to understand their underlying concepts and assumptions, reinterpret them in the light of a mutualistic worldview, and seek out their implications for our overriding goal of contributing to the construction of a new world civilization.

They can fully relate to those who respond with feelings of frustration and anger. When we were children, we saw those around us as acting out of good faith, with our best interests at heart. As we grow up, we tended to cling to this image, because it made us feel comfortable and made the world a more livable place. However, for many a time comes when that illusion is shattered into a thousand pieces, and they begin to see the world as a dangerous place full of people seeking to take unfair advantage of them. It hurts to be deprived of the childish faith in that idyllic world and be thrown into such an unjust, insecure, fearful place. Fear engenders anger, which leads to frustration and hopelessness. This fear, anger, frustration, and despair are like holes in our souls through which our creative energies leak out uselessly and are lost forever.

The Bahá'í writings speak of two kinds of purity: one due to immaturity and the other achieved through maturation. In order to go from one to the other, one must know impurity, struggle with it and overcome it. Similarly, a positive outlook on life can be a result of immaturity or maturity. In order to go from one to the other we must know what it means to have a negative outlook on life, struggle with it and overcome it. As we continue maturing beyond the initial disappointment, we begin to discover and treasure small but significant signs of true hope for the world and its inhabitants. As we continue on this path, we will eventually find in our hearts the desire to dedicate our time and energy to fanning those tiny sparks of hope into a flame, cultivating those seeds of goodness until they grow and bear fruit.

More and more people share the hope to overcome this dilemma and achieve higher goals. We can reach that stage of service, first through a process of questioning traditional mental models and replacing them with a new conceptual framework, and then by acquiring the capabilities needed to put it into practice. May we then find it in ourselves to arise with determination to channel our leaking energies towards concrete lines of action that will contribute – in a large or small way – to building the new world that millions of people just like us are freely expending their energies and very lives to achieve.