After watching the Bill Moyers special on PBS "Spirit and Nature" Gary asked:
"Can the spiritual ideas and practices of cultures of aboriginal peoples such
as Native North Americans or the First Peoples of other lands which have now
been colonized offer real remedies for what we tend to see as complex
problems."
We have a huge philosophical task ahead of us in order to give most non-native
peoples the ears to hear spiritual ideas, cultural practices or "principled
discourse", language that tries to point out the significance and meaning of
things like the natural world around us. We are so attuned to the notion of
"truth" as correctness that we have lost a more more important sense of Truth
as the presence of significance. Hearing principled discourse, most relegate
what is said to the realm of belief, which are things that some people choose
to pretend are true, but they really are not.
We need an ontological revolution. We need to rethink what kinds of things are
real. For most, the material reality of science is real, but notions of felt
obligation and significance are only individual opinions and not part of a
reality that is accessible, perhaps with great difficulty, by all. In a world
where the only things that count for real are atoms and molecules, where in
this tightly packed material reality is there any room left for a reality that
would serve as the basis for a spiritual relationship with mountains, rivers
and grasslands if these things are only aggregates of atoms and molecules?
This is exactly the philosophical bind that I find my precollege science
students in. Almost all have been touched by nature, but principled discourse,
debate that centers on issues of respect and obligation to the land, doesn't
have the hard headed (and hard hearted) social legitimacy that scientific
discourse has. Consequently, many of the students who care the most about the
environment go on and become good science students, but the values and
experiences that they are serving tend to get treated like friends that they
don't want to be seen in public with. I worry that that in their development
as people, our culture will equip them with sophisticated scientific arguments
that they can bring to bear on behalf of the environment, perhaps exaggerating
risks and exploiting scientific uncertainties in order to protect the land,
but they will be unable to articulate a more fundamental, and in many cases
more persuasive argument based on principled discourse.
Can the spiritual ideas and cultural practices of Native Americans contribute
to an ontological reawakening to realities too long ignored? In Martin
Heideggers book Poetry, Language and Thought there is an essay called What Is
Art? Heidegger suggests that a work of art is something that reveals Truth,
not as correctness but as the presence of significance. Audrey Shenendoah was
a clear example in the Moyer's special of one who has elevated principled
discourse to the level of art, capable of revealing significance, perhaps,
sometimes, even to those who don't have the ears to hear it.
This land of ours is made up of atoms and molecules, but they have come
together in patterns and complexities- montane meadows, free-flowing rivers,
and in my part of the country, oak savannahs, such that thinking about this,
"why are we alive in a world with all of this beauty instead of just sand,
water and a few plants and animals", quickly leads to thanking. (Heidegger has
another essay where he points up the close etymological roots of thinking and
thanking). There is a reality out there deserving our respect. I think the
artful, principled discourse of Native Americans will continue to testify to
that reality and enable others to acknowledge a basis for personal and
collective action that our current culture too often has neither the ears to
hear nor the eyes to see.
Mark Dewart
Indianapolis, Indiana USA