Monism

Isaiah Berlin was a 20^th century Russian-Latvian-Jewish polymath, who resided in England, with skills spanning philosophy, naturalism and writing.  He was both a defender and critic of the Enlightenment.  He discussed ‘Monism’ or the idea that one answer existed for a question. 

According to Berlin, ‘Monism’ sat between Einstein’s ‘Relativity’ in which reality does not exist and which as a science and philosophy can be easily eviscerated (see here); and ‘positivism’ or extreme rationalism, the faith and cult that only ‘reason’ matters. His writings and critiques were prescient and are important as Western Civ is confronted by the ‘monism’ of ‘The Science’. Berlin wrote that ‘Monism’ possesses 3 components:

• all questions have one answer,

• there is a method to determine the answer and,

• the answers are all compatible with each other (or make sense in a larger perspective or view). 

Berlin discusses individuals in the context of Monism, citing for example that Plato is a very good ‘Monist’ whilst Machiavelli is not.  This is a heuristic or ordering device for Berlin.  Authors and philosophers can be categorised using ‘Monism’ as a classifier.  Eras as well can be identified as patterns or trends for or against a ‘Monist standard’. We could classify for example the poorly named ‘Reformation’ as a rebellion against monistic Church power; or the current ‘climate rebellion’ against the monism of hydrocarbon-based civilisation and its power structures. 

 

Enlightenment as Faith

Berlin alleged that ‘Monism’ was the default cultural belief within Western civilisation, from Plato to modern philosophies.  The Enlightenment for instance, offers up ‘reason’ (never defined), to be the one true guiding principle in life.  The Enlightenment is a singular example of 'Monism’ and a very appropriate one. Berlin’s point about ‘Monistic’ faith or belief in ‘the one way’ is not as abstruse as it might sound.

The monistic faith of ‘The Enlightenment’ is rarely criticised. This ode to reason as an article of faith was in the main a contrived philosophy, leading to an era littered with propaganda and self-serving declamations. Newton’s medieval ‘giants’ were not only memory-holed but reduced to myth, fable and ignored. Culture and history were erased. Great works of art and architecture debased. Long eras of massive technological, intellectual and social progress foresworn and mocked.

According to ‘The Enlightenment’ hospitals, hospices, eye-glasses, mechanical clocks, blast furnaces, wind mills, steel, libraries, universities, ships, guilds, schools, writing scripts, books, extended trade, money, printing presses, steam engines and the like sprang out of mud or thin air (pace modern physics which believes in virtual positrons appearing and disappearing every second). Debauching the past and being ignorant is unenlightened.

If we take Berlin’s critique of ‘rationality’ at face value there is plenty in the ‘modern world’ which is far from ‘Enlightened’ when one looks at art, entertainment, academia, science, politics, morality or education. What is a woman? What ingredients comprise the mRNA shot? The addiction to ‘science’ or to ‘enlightened reason’ at the expense of everything else which makes life worth living, is simply a cult. It is a religious article of faith that the 17th-19th centuries were ‘Enlightened’. Given that few read or critically assess history or events, it is an easy lie for the great mass to ingest.

Berlin’s critique of ‘The’ ‘Enlightenment’

Berlin would probably agree with much of the above. He criticises the derivative philosophies of The Enlightenment, ‘positivism’ (hyper-rationality) and phenomenalism (physical objects are just things observed by sensory stimuli and are not necessarily real or existing), espoused by Hume, Kant et al, because both are reductive, or can be reduced to an essence and they equate meaning with ‘truth’.  Berlin objected that the Enlightenment was often irreducible and had little connection to physical or objective reality.  The same can be said of ‘science’.

The progenitors of the Enlightenment, namely, Platonism, Aristotelianism, Scholasticism, Cartesianism, Lockean and Humean forms of empiricism, Kantianism, and Hegelianism all reflect Monist tendency. These abstract and often useless intellectualisations end in the Enlightenment and its ‘positivist’ philosophy.  It is obvious to any human who is sentient and upright that much of life and existence has precious little to do with reason.

An average Enlightener

We know that reason is usually optional for many. Take your average white-collar, middle-class man. He will describe himself as a rationalist-humanist, who is against the imposition of religion and has no time for the immaterial. How happy he is in his ‘reason’. He follows ‘science’.

Let us observe the emotional energies invested by this adult man into what must be termed a silly sport like football or something similar. Here we see energy, emotion and dedication. A religious devotion. The man will know everything about ‘his team’. Compare this fanaticism against the limpid, sanguine and apathetic reaction by the same man when he loses his freedom, is locked down, forced to wear a face nappy and is injected with poisons against the unreasonable and non-scientific claim of a flying virus. No energy, no emotion, and no dedication or even interest in what really matters in life. Surveying this very common person and making such comparisons does not inspire much faith in ‘reason’ or critical thinking.

Reduced Freedom

Given human nature, Berlin was convinced that Monism led to a patriarchal political structure, with strictures on human freedom and expression.  These ideas are expressed in ‘The Decline of Utopian Ideas in the West’.  In this work Berlin outlines his view that the Enlightenment Monist theology would lead to a decline in personal liberty, as one form of governance is exalted above all others.  This is basically, ‘what is right for me is right for you’, or in the modern newspeak, ‘what is right for everyone must be right for you’. 

In the modern world if the elite or experts simply ‘know’ what is best and you do not, they have the right to coerce your compliance, because it is in everyone’s ‘best interest’ to do so.  ‘No one is safe until we are all safe’ and other propaganda are simply expressions of this monistic rule. It is entirely a materialist-Darwinian concept, in which humans are not individuals, and do not have God-given rights, but are instead simply material to be shaped, formed, ordered about and regulated.

You obey, therefore you are.

Berlin writes, “In this way, the rationalist argument, with its assumption of the single true solution, has led by steps which, if not logically valid, are historically and psychologically intelligible from an ethical doctrine of individual responsibility and individual self-perfection to an authoritarian State obedient to the directives of an elite of Platonic guardians.”

This is a prescient point. It perfectly describes where Western Civ now finds itself. We are now hostages to the Platonic guardians called ‘The Science’ and its totalitarianism or as some of us call it, Scientism.

‘Science’ as Monistic Truth

We see ‘Monism’ all around us today. We now have ‘The Science’, a cult of abject worship of an undefined philosophy related to technological advancement which has nothing in actual fact to do with science. In reality engineering preceeds theory and is fundamentally at odds with, and unrelated to, abstract mathematics or arcane theories called ‘science’. This truism is utterly lost in today’s worship of technology. Science is now conflated with technology, the two are entirely detached.

In the modern world, ‘Science’ is now the elite guardian of all.  Only ‘The Science’ can be followed, and there is ‘One’ monistic answer.  This Monism is reflected in Corona and endless drugs and vaccines, ‘Climate Change’, Gender fluidity, White racism, and public policy run by ‘experts’, ‘scientists’, and ‘academics who are specialised in the subject area’ and in every imaginable domain.

With monistic Scientism, there is no possibility of dissent.  People are censored, pilloried, fired, bullied, threatened and impugned if they declare ideas or positions contrary to those of the Monist elite.  Freedom, individuality, God-given rights and common sense are now sacrificed to political theology and the Enlightenment credo that there is only ‘One’ answer.

Berlin was in some ways a prophet. He oscillated between supporting ‘Enlightenment’ ideals and being wary of their inevitable outcome in the ‘One theology to rule them all’. Unlike most ‘intellectuals’ Berlin saw the threat darkly, he could not commit himself to a Vico-esque critique of ‘reason’ but he saw well enough where it would end. Even given his equivalency, Berlin is worth a read given the state of our world and the Scientism which abounds.

==End

Liberty, editor Henry Hardy, 2002. A single volume dedicated to Berlin’s views on ‘liberalism’ and freedom.

The Proper Study of Mankind, editor Henry Hardy 2002. A great overview of Vico, Herder and Enlightenment critics. Well worth a read to get ‘another side of the story’ qua the ‘Enlightenment’. Vico and Herder are largely unknown but had great influence as critics of rationalism and ‘positivism’.