{"id":9651,"date":"2018-05-22T10:26:49","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T15:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=9651"},"modified":"2018-05-22T10:26:49","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T15:26:49","slug":"pointing-to-omega","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2018\/05\/22\/pointing-to-omega\/","title":{"rendered":"Pointing to Omega?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, so I watched Harry and Meghan’s royal wedding (not so much intentionally as to enjoy the loving company of my co-habitants) and was impressed by the tension between Bishop Michael Curry’s sermonizing<\/a> on love and the dour and perplexed faces of many of the royal-loving Brits in the audience. Diana Evans’ Guardian piece<\/a> gets at that tension very nicely.<\/p>\n

I also caught the references in Curry’s speech to Jesuit paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin, whose work has been creeping into mainstream Catholic views about humanity and ecology, and whose views undergird — with significant critical rethinking — the views of ecotheologian Thomas Berry. (Berry should be familiar to most readers of Immanence: see, e.g., here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>. In fact, his term “Ecozoic” figures in the tag line to my EcoCulture Lab — oh, and by the way, welcome, readers, to the EcoCulture Lab<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Now, in a stunning article on Religion Dispatches<\/a>, Notre Dame theology and history of science graduate John Slattery claims that Teilhard was not only forward-thinking in his embrace of evolutionary theory, but was also disappointingly retrograde in his embrace of eugenics and blatant racism. My initial thought while reading Slattery’s piece was that this might be the overenthusiasm of a youthful and disillusioned follower (the author); but reading it, and the extensive quotes from Teilhard’s writing, convinced me otherwise.<\/p>\n

Two complementary upshots of the article are captured in the following two quotes:<\/p>\n

But first, let\u2019s be clear: before World War II, much of the Western World was, what most of us would now regard as openly racist. Anti-Semitism, anti-blackness, anti-immigration, anti-disability, and misogyny dominated the populations of the United States and Europe. Leaders in science and industry coupled such racism with Darwin\u2019s conception of evolutionary progress to produce horrific decades of enforced eugenic practices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, finding racism in the views of white folks who lived before WW2 is all too easy, and for the most part not very helpful. (Think of the arguments about whether\u00a0John Muir<\/a>,\u00a0Karl Marx,<\/a>\u00a0or take-your-pick-of-any-pre-WW2-white-intellectual was a racist.) As for eugenics, that’s perhaps even easier to find among white intellectuals of the early twentieth century. (My own campus<\/a> has been rocked by that debate.)<\/p>\n

But when it comes to specifics, as Slattery shows:<\/p>\n

Sadly, it also seems indisputable that the mature formulations of some of Teilhard\u2019s most famous ideas\u2014e.g., the Noosphere, the Omega Point, the divinization of the species\u2014rest upon philosophies infused with conceptions of eugenics, racial superiority, sterilization, and limitless science.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Teilhard’s most original contribution was to create an experimental hybrid of Christian theology and evolutionary metaphysics, captured best in the idea that the universe, led by some of its members, was evolving toward something, and that that something could be equated with God, with Divine Love, or something like that (Jesus, the “Omega Point,” et al.).<\/p>\n

Non-Christians could easily substitute some proper nouns to make for a more palatable rendition of that same general idea (which resonates, for instance, with variations of Advaita Vedanta). Teilhard’s connections to the crucible of late nineteenth and early twentieth century evolutionary spiritualisms should be fairly evident — think, at one end of the spectrum, of the scientific metaphysics of Vernadsky and Le Roy, co-originators with Teilhard of the concept of the Noosphere<\/a>, and at another end, of the Theosophy of Blavatsky, Leadbeater, and Besant, the Anthroposophy of Steiner, the evolutionary philosophy of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, and the other esoteric<\/a>–metaphysical<\/a>-evolutionist mixes that gave rise to modern yoga<\/a>, the New Age, and all that.<\/p>\n

The sticky, icky question within Teilhard’s evolutionism revolves around that phrase I’ve added to the middle of that one-sentence summary: “led by some of its members.” (It’s my phrase, but Slattery shows that it’s apt.) Led by which<\/em> members? Who says? Why even\u00a0led<\/em>\u00a0(by anything\/anyone specific) at all? Isn’t that just a wishful projection of ourselves, those who would like to think of themselves as leading the cosmic way (which for white folks at a certain point in time seemed to be precisely they, and for post-racists but not post-anthropocentrists would still be humans<\/em> leading the way across the universe)?<\/p>\n

Curry’s use of Teilhard for the narrative of love fueling the universe made me think of how interesting it would have been for him to have cited Peirce or Whitehead instead. Peirce, as\u00a0I’ve written,<\/a>\u00a0had a similar view of the universe as evolving toward something,<\/em> but it wasn’t entirely clear what was leading that evolution (except for\u00a0love itself<\/a>), what was following in that path, how long it would take, or that it was necessarily even correlated with humanity whether in whole (anthropocentrically) or in part (ethnocentrically). His thinking on all of that was somewhat underdeveloped, but in its relationship to his metaphysical categories I find it provocative and somewhat compelling. In particular, I like the way it balances out the cataphatic, or affirmative (saying something positive about what is<\/em> positive in the universe’s genesis or development), and the apophatic, or negating (humbly affirming our incapacity to know<\/em> or to\u00a0state<\/em> anything about any of it).<\/p>\n

Or between hope and realism. (I hope — realistically or otherwise? — that I address that balance fairly well in my forthcoming book<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, so I watched Harry and Meghan’s royal wedding (not so much intentionally as to enjoy the loving company of my co-habitants) and was impressed by the tension between Bishop Michael Curry’s sermonizing on love and the dour and perplexed faces of many of the royal-loving Brits in the audience. Diana Evans’ Guardian piece gets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691847],"tags":[455067,218,25051,455177,455174,455172,455173,16870,31348,455176,455171,16871,284,423],"class_list":["post-9651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-spirituality","tag-anti-racism","tag-christianity","tag-cosmology","tag-eucocentrism","tag-eugenics","tag-evolution","tag-evolutionary-theory","tag-peirce","tag-racism","tag-spiritual-evolution","tag-teilhard-de-chardin","tag-theology","tag-thomas-berry","tag-whitehead"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-2vF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1082,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/02\/thomas-berry-passes-away\/","url_meta":{"origin":9651,"position":0},"title":"Thomas Berry passes away","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The tributes are starting to come in for Thomas Berry, Catholic ecotheologian (or \"geologian,\" as he sometimes referred to himself), scholar, and spiritual\/deep ecological visionary, who passed away at age 94 yesterday. Berry is best known for books including The Dream of the Earth, The Universe Story (with physicist Brian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ThomasBerry.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2009\/06\/ThomasBerry.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8311,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/06\/18\/the-many-ecologies-of-laudato-si\/","url_meta":{"origin":9651,"position":1},"title":"The many ecologies of Laudato Si","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that Laudato Si, the Papal Encyclical \"On Care for Our Common Home,\" is available for all to read, the punditocracy can debate it to their hearts' content. As the most far-reaching statement by the single largest (relatively united) religious denomination\u00a0on the planet, it is likely to have an immense\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1083,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/03\/berrys-creative-dynamic-universe\/","url_meta":{"origin":9651,"position":2},"title":"Berry’s creative, dynamic universe","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Another Thomas Berry quote worth spending a bit of time with: \"Acceptance of the challenging aspect of the natural world is a primary condition for creative intimacy with the natural world. Without this opaque or even threatening aspect of the universe we would lose our greatest source of creative energy.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5737,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/04\/29\/whiteheads-return-ecologys-boon\/","url_meta":{"origin":9651,"position":3},"title":"Whitehead’s return, ecology’s boon","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Ultimately, the thinking of speculative pragmatism that is activist philosophy belongs to nature. Its aesthetico-politics compose a nature philosophy. The occurrent arts in which it exhibits itself are politics of nature. \"The one-word summary of its relational-qualitative goings on: ecology. Activist philosophy concerns the ecology of powers of existence. Becomings\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2012\/04\/flock1-275x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1359,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/10\/26\/the-house-of-cards-house-of-cards\/","url_meta":{"origin":9651,"position":4},"title":"the “house of cards” house of cards","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"October 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"For all my skepticism toward most \"climate skepticism,\" I find the case of Judith Curry very interesting. This recent post at her blog Climate Etc. repeatedly resorts to metaphors like \"'Alice down the rabbit hole' moments\" and \"bucket[s] of cold water being poured over my head\" to describe her experiences\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"house-of-cards.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/10\/house-of-cards.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1366,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/11\/05\/process-relational-theory-primer\/","url_meta":{"origin":9651,"position":5},"title":"Process-relational theory primer","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the tasks of this blog, since its inception in late 2008, has been to articulate a theoretical-philosophical perspective that I have come to call \u201cprocess-relational.\u201d This is a theoretical paradigm and an ontology that takes the basic nature of the world to be that of relational process: that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9651"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9655,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9651\/revisions\/9655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}