Litany and the Laboratory: Atheistic Cosmologies of Doubt? (I)
Cosmological communities and Self-stylization
An era of spatio-temporal compression experienced through communicative tools have afforded us hitherto unknown connections to others; the metaphysical non-place of a social networking site; instantaneous access to entertainment and live feeds of current events. An innumerable quantity of information on an immense variety of subjects is available to consume via various mediums of expression - be it a youtube video, a tweet or an academical journal. We now live in a world, as Midgley puts it where 'our trade,our investment and our expressions of public opinion do indeed affect all sorts of distant events'(Midgley 2011:11). This new epoch of human experience, somewhat mysterious and intensely shocking due to a seemingly radical and extemporaneous appearance, through a conduit of technology and rapid incrementation of population, has forced a re-conceptualisation of so many facets of social organization and ethical conduct for a connected multifarious world. It is not only creating space for atheist communities, but more importantly to this inquiry, shaping the way we construct self identity:
'stylization in music, in dress, in politics in all aspects of personal and intimate life is part of a drive to give form not only to the self, but to the world, and to the relations with others. It is an obstinate search for a style of existence, a way of being. It accounts, in part, for the massive drive towards authenticity, truth and reality that is observable in so many different domains of life around the globe' (Moore 2011:2).
Thus, religious choice must be seen as intersubjective to extraneous forces hauling at our very concept of self and self-other relationships. Our socio-cultural conditions are unconsciously interwoven with our emotions and dictate the selves we decide to show to the world.
'Our unconscious desires exert a powerful influence on our subjectivities and our behaviour. They also structure the form and expression of our manifest desires...desire is both personal and relational, and as such it is always bound up with self-stylization and self-other relationships: who am I for myself and for others?' (Moore 2011:29)
Therefore, it is as much an unconscious choice to be an atheist through the assimilation of ideas, social influence and mythology (see Midgley 2002,2011 & 1999, Sahlins 1976) as it is a rational rejection of an omnipotent creator or any theistic belief. Atheism is a modern cosmology for specific cultural communities in a new epoch of human history. The supercilious purporters of militant atheism will vanish as this reductionist conception will hopefully be vanquished by the former atrocities associated with it[1] and the reflexivity the social sciences can offer – that in a time of technological, socio-political and cultural change, new cosmologies are bound to develop -a new cosmological phenomenon necessary to order and conceptualise the world amongst a certain cultural group.
Dangers do arise from an analysis like this however, mainly that of a model of self-stylization in western-culture built around a dogmatic conception of an egocentric categorisation of self. One cannot devalue Moore's analysis however as she speaks of the multifarious world of self-other relations built upon emotion, correlating with Hollan's suggestion that 'we begin to examine in greeter detail degrees of egocentricism or sociocentrism, openness or closedness, individulisation or relation, etc., within specific contexts' (Hollan 2010[1992] : 303). The classification of the self, belittles the experiential self somewhat and could lead one down a blind alley in which we only conflate theories of being to accepted categorisations(ibid). Thus, one must try to refrain oneself from attempting a categorical approach to atheistic self-stylization based on dogmatic beliefs in an egocentric western self. One must research thoroughly before coming to the conclusion that atheism is just a form of self-identity that fits into the egocentric model of western identity.
Of Belief
The Interconnectivity of the Verb, the Voice & the Psyche
To say I believe can never be detachable from states of psyche, as Wittgenstein purports in his 'philosophical investigations': '96. “I Believe...” throws light on my state. Inferences about my conduct can be drawn from this utterance. So there is a similarity here to manifestations of emotion, of mood, and so on.(Wittgenstein 2009 [1953]:200e)' through this reasoning one can extrapolate certain fundamental aspects of atheist beliefs; that it is completely interconnected with emotionality, and more importantly, we can see emotionality as being bound to several facets of human experiential existence. The innumerable facets of the human and natural environment are delicately in a state of flux . Through the logic of Wittgenstein and the realisation of the interconnectivity and effect-causality relationships of the interplay of these environments, one can respect that belief in an atheistic mythology permeates unfathomably into the experiential and reflective beings. Guiding his actions and perception of reality a substantial amount. However, for one to end an argument as loosely as this is unforgivable, for one must take into account the notable refutations made against this sort of linguistic reasoning (Gellner 2005 [1959]) as a method in which 'conceptual issues are said to arise in isolation from substantive ones' (ibid, p344). One must also fear there is problem in not appreciating pragmatics. Thus, one must substantiate a claim such as this with evidence of the interconnectivity of the verb, the voice, the symbolic word and emotive activity. An inquiry I fear is to complex to convey succinctly in this article, however it is something I am working on currently and something we already have a vast literature on. (Ingold 2000, Dolar, 2006, Velmans 2009, Lambek 2010 (eds))
The Ambivalent Verb: A socio-cultural specificity?
Belief is also an ambivalent term that can express doubt, it expresses a certain expectation of a phenomenon or experience whilst simultaneously expressing some kind of scepticism (Pouillon 2008[1979]). Pouillon delineates that the western ambivalence of the verb is due to Christian linguistic and conceptual dogmatism born through the conflicts against the many other faiths it has encountered, and it's ingrained ideology against false idols: 'He must simultaneously assume both his affirmation and the challenge to it, [science, other faiths, and the idea of “false gods”] a challenge that belief is, nonetheless supposed to make impossible on its own level...the contradiction is inside his own faith, and that is “to believe”' (ibid, p94). Thus, one can see that western scepticism is ingrained in our very conceptions of the world, scientific scepticism and belief in atheistic cosmologies could be born from the one thing it stands against. If one reversed the positions of an Atheist and Christian, one would find the same dogmatic attacks against the ideas of false idols and ideology. Anyone who has witnessed Dawkins' scathing and crepuscular attacks on religion has heard him preach about the worship of false idols, as proven by his Darwinian mythology. The paradoxical nature of “to believe” is embedded within our own socio-cultural and historical conceptions, thus we see that scientific scepticism is not so removed from Judeo-Christian religious ideology.
By Richard James Marklew
Bibliography
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