The Alienated Soul

art by Frank Kelly Freas

In my last blog, I talked about the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and what it says about the plight of human existence. That is, in our finitude we are insignificant and are denied answers to our questions about the meaning of life. For all we know, we could be pawns in some primordial, metaphysical game--like Job.

Faith, then, is essentially a bone that our creator(s) throws us so that we can find a little comfort in our meaningless and insignificant existence. As if to say, "Here, you can't know the grand scheme of things, you can't have the answers to your questions, so have faith. Come up with a construal of reality that comforts you and believe in that. So while you're insignificant and your life is meaningless, you'll find comfort in your faith."

This, I think, is a weakness in truly believing in a metaphysical realm. Our inability to know anything about the metaphysical realm makes it alienating to us, which is why Hegel spoke of "the alienated soul" or "the unhappy consciousness." The human being projects himself or herself onto the metaphysical blank canvas and conjures up a theology which then alienates the human being.

I think it's alienating because it's clouded with considerable doubt. What is the metaphysical God like? Your guess is as good as mine. God is a blank canvas on which we paint our fears and desires.

But maybe it's not even God beyond our physical realm. Maybe it's like Descarte's example and I'm just a brain in a vat and the "metaphysical realm" is made up of a mad scientist in a laboratory. The ultimate unknowability, the mysterium tremendum, of the metaphysical realm makes it alienating to us. We become lead actors in supporting roles, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Suppose, however, that there isn't a metaphysical realm. Suppose we have no real concrete reason to posit the existence of anything beyond the material world. Then, the unknowable consists of that in the material world which we have not come to know. Instead of a blank canvas on which to paint our elaborate guesses, we would have a world of unmapped territory to explore.

Furthermore, instead of worrying about the goings-on of the metaphysical realm (if it even exists!), we could busy ourselves with cultivating a more harmonious social order here in the material world. Here, again, I am pulling from Hegel, who said that the development of ideas culminates in human freedom, which consists of harmony with the social order.

Does this grant us certainty? Of course not. There could be a metaphysical realm. There could be a God. There could be gods even. It is indeed a faith claim to accept the material world as the full range of reality. But it can be debilitating to preoccupy ourselves with a metaphysical realm that may not actually exist. Which leads me to my next point.

Does this mean we should abandon religion and theology? No, not exactly. Though, it does mean that the purpose of religion should be the material world. The focus of theology should be enabling us to further pursue harmony with the social order. In this vein, I think the Christian idea of the kingdom of God, for example, is quite valuable because it is an idea of the kind of social order we should strive toward. Martin Luther King saw the promised land and all of his efforts were in pursuit of that ideal. Religion and theology can do a lot of good in forming the ideal we are working toward, as well as laying out how we can pursue that ideal.

The danger is that revealed religions can be regressive if they claim too much about the ideal we are pursuing. If you have the picture of what a puzzle is supposed to look like, but it isn't the right picture for the puzzle you're actually working on, you'll be working toward a goal but you won't make much progress. Revealed religions, if they claim too much about how the world should be, may take us afield and inhibit us from progress.

The truly virtuous religions are those that assist in our efforts here on the material world, and don't claim too much or get bogged down by preoccupation with a metaphysical realm.

At least, these are some thoughts I've been having lately.

Lead Actors in Supporting Roles

I'm not much of a Shakespeare person, so when my friend Charity brought the movie Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead over, I wasn't super excited to watch it. I figured, it has good actors in it, so I may enjoy it some. To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. The movie is not only enjoyable and funny, but intellectually stimulating and philosophically brilliant.

The plot is complicated, but suffice it to say that it revolves around Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are supporting characters in Shakespeare's play Hamlet. In the movie, they are the main characters, but their plight is that they are becoming aware of their roles as supporting characters. As supporting characters, they are not the concern of the grand scheme of things, nor do they know what the grand scheme is. They only pick up little bits from their engagements with their surroundings and when their parts of the play actually occur. One humorous example is when they hear talk of how Hamlet has "changed" and "transformed." They repeatedly quote this information later on in the story, but they do not know why it was said in the first place, let alone if it is actually true.

They eventually come to realize their insignificance. One of the ways this happens is through their reflection on death, of which Rosencrantz (?) says, "Out we come, bloodied and squalling, with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, there's only one direction. And time is its only measure." Because we're not in control of our fate, we are insignificant. We are powerless. As Guildenstern (?) says before he dies, "There must have been a moment at the beginning, where we could have said no. Somehow we missed it." He says this because he knows his death was not something he chose, but was orchestrated for him.

The other characters know they are insignificant. The other characters are also privy to the grand scheme (or at least to a good deal more of it than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern). The insignificant supporting characters are left to play their part, up until their unfortunate end. The sad caveat is that they have the same kind of conscious experience as the main characters--the same reason, emotions, etc.--and so they engage their fate with curiosity and try to figure out the meaning of their existence and confront their inevitable death while being too insignificant to be granted any of the answers.

What is brilliant about all of this is that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern seem to represent humanity as whole, their plight representing that of humanity's. We too curiously engage the meaning of life and try to confront our inevitable death. We wonder what the grand scheme is, and what our part is in it. We despair when we realize we are too insignificant to be made privy to the grand scheme. We don't get to know the mystery of reality. We don't have access to absolute truth.

This is the same thing Job learns in the biblical book. At the beginning of the story, we are made aware of the reality: Job is a pawn in a wager between God and the satan. The story then narrows in on Job, who does not know what is going on. His experience leads him to confront the mystery of God. He demands to know the answers to his questions, the reasons for his suffering, the meaning behind his experience. How does God respond? By showing him how insignificant he is. There are things going on that are way beyond Job, of which Job has no knowledge, and his role does not come with ultimate knowledge. Job doesn't have security clearance for that level of information. He is denied access. What is left for Job is to accept his role and make of it what he can.

In my next blog, I want to engage this idea further. I'll lay out why I think it shows that believing in something beyond creates what Hegel called "the alienated soul," or, "the unhappy consciousness." I will then advocate an alternative.

Until then, I hope you enjoy chewing on these ideas as much as I have.