Its questioning spirit, its search for truth leads it beyond its own capabilities

Gagdad Bob said... 9/20/2008 11:59:00 AM Yes, Aurobindo would say -- according to wiki -- that

“the individualistic age of human society comes as a result of the corruption and failure of the conventional, as a revolt against the reign of the petrified typal figure.” He illustrates the occurrence of this stage in Europe beginning with its revolt of reason against the Church and fixed authority and its continuation and blossoming with the growth of scientific inquiry. Through science, a new basis of principles and laws could be discovered and established that were open to scrutiny and logical analysis and reasoning. There were also established the democratic ideals that all individuals had the right to develop to the full stature of their capabilities, and that the individual was not simply a social unit with a social function, but also had unique individual needs, possibilities, and tendencies which should be allowed freedom and opportunity for development. As a part of the revolt against traditional authority, there developed in some regions another intellectual philosophy and political movement, apparently in contradiction to individualism, of the supremacy of the society as a whole over the individual. Sri Aurobindo also analyses the strengths and limitations of this viewpoint, and its relations and opposition to the democratic ideal."

Gagdad Bob said... 9/20/2008 12:01:00 PM BUT:

"The individualistic age culminates in a new intellectual foundation and development in all the spheres of life, but this rational view of the world and the self can only go so far, it cannot reach into the depths of the being. Nevertheless, its questioning spirit, its search for truth leads it beyond its own capabilities, leads it to search for a deeper foundation and a more complete understanding of the mysteries and subtleties of self and world. The subjective age begins when society begins to search for the deeper truths of its existence below the surfaces which the reason has explored and explained in an ordered, but limited sense."

julie said... 9/20/2008 12:19:00 PM

Yep, I definitely have to agree with Aurobindo, then. Especially given that, in a society such as Perry idealizes, I probably literally could not exist. That's one of those sticking points where people who rail against the fruits of modern Western (and specifically American) culture tend to lose me. You just can't make me believe that all the things which led to me and millions of other impossible (at any other time and place in the entire history of mankind) Americans being conceived and surviving to a healthy adulthood (there to become extreme seekers after Truth, Beauty and Goodness in an equally impossible manner) are intrinsically wrong.