According to my observations I can see that for some reason, we like to make tyrants out of stuff; People, ideologies/philosophies, religion and most recently, science. And whatever that tyrant be, it takes over most if not all aspects of the human life; knowledge, culture, thinking and reality.
The two main tyrants in human history are religion and science. Religion was always a part of human reality until the scientific revolution. It affected their way of viewing the world, their way of thinking and of reasoning, of making art and music. It was a tyrant because it was allowed to take over. It can not see beyond itself. As a tyrant, it cannot accept any other tyrants and hence the taking over. And like any 'dictatorship', there are goods and bads. Concerning religion, the good can be summarized in a word: Culture. Even though many pieces of art have nothing to do with religion, but it's the mindset of it that gave rise to this art in the first place. The mindset of fairy tales and imagination and unreality. And also to philosophy, since religion is in most parts subjective rather than objective. And I think this same non objectivity can be viewed as bad since this mindset hinders scientific progress which looks for objective truths.
Now to my main and newest observation and that is the tyranny of Science. As an intellectual, I am a lover of science but I am in no way accepting its ways of replacing everything and mainly culture. I can see science growing and evolving to be the same as religion. Bestowing morals and creeds, arrogance and selfishness. The way that science works by working out the rules of nature as objective reality has much to do with the decline of art, philosophy and overall culture. Paintings are becoming mere measurements. "Philosophy is dead" as said by Stephan Hawking because science effectively killed it. The rise of science is from the main causes of the whole existentialist movement trying to find the way through life with the absence of religion. But I do not see how is that a problem and for this I will quote Charles Darwin on the implications of his theory of evolution on his concept of God: "Science has nothing to do with Christ". Why is it that when people thought of reducing reality to be only materialistic, it would be a good thing? Because it is graspable? Because of their fear of the unknown so they would rather have everything known?
I admire the Islamic middle ages as well as the European enlightenment movement. I can see in them that delicate balance between intellect and spirituality. We need that balance. It is rather sad that we had to sacrifice an entire part of reality by orders of a tyrant. We need spirituality in our lives, and I'm not talking about religious spirituality and its dogmas. Rather overall spirituality and awe. Ironically enough, one can find spirituality even in science. By regaining parts of our lost reality, I would say we would be more and more fully alive. Nietzsche said it, we need to develop both parts of our reality. The Apollonian (the rational) and the Dionysian (the spiritual). We can't just deny one of them. That is not the wiser way to go.
The two main tyrants in human history are religion and science. Religion was always a part of human reality until the scientific revolution. It affected their way of viewing the world, their way of thinking and of reasoning, of making art and music. It was a tyrant because it was allowed to take over. It can not see beyond itself. As a tyrant, it cannot accept any other tyrants and hence the taking over. And like any 'dictatorship', there are goods and bads. Concerning religion, the good can be summarized in a word: Culture. Even though many pieces of art have nothing to do with religion, but it's the mindset of it that gave rise to this art in the first place. The mindset of fairy tales and imagination and unreality. And also to philosophy, since religion is in most parts subjective rather than objective. And I think this same non objectivity can be viewed as bad since this mindset hinders scientific progress which looks for objective truths.
Now to my main and newest observation and that is the tyranny of Science. As an intellectual, I am a lover of science but I am in no way accepting its ways of replacing everything and mainly culture. I can see science growing and evolving to be the same as religion. Bestowing morals and creeds, arrogance and selfishness. The way that science works by working out the rules of nature as objective reality has much to do with the decline of art, philosophy and overall culture. Paintings are becoming mere measurements. "Philosophy is dead" as said by Stephan Hawking because science effectively killed it. The rise of science is from the main causes of the whole existentialist movement trying to find the way through life with the absence of religion. But I do not see how is that a problem and for this I will quote Charles Darwin on the implications of his theory of evolution on his concept of God: "Science has nothing to do with Christ". Why is it that when people thought of reducing reality to be only materialistic, it would be a good thing? Because it is graspable? Because of their fear of the unknown so they would rather have everything known?
I admire the Islamic middle ages as well as the European enlightenment movement. I can see in them that delicate balance between intellect and spirituality. We need that balance. It is rather sad that we had to sacrifice an entire part of reality by orders of a tyrant. We need spirituality in our lives, and I'm not talking about religious spirituality and its dogmas. Rather overall spirituality and awe. Ironically enough, one can find spirituality even in science. By regaining parts of our lost reality, I would say we would be more and more fully alive. Nietzsche said it, we need to develop both parts of our reality. The Apollonian (the rational) and the Dionysian (the spiritual). We can't just deny one of them. That is not the wiser way to go.
