Phenomenology and the Crisis of Civilization

Phenomenology and the Crisis of Civilization

There appears now to be a fork in the road we are traveling; but since, as we have suggested, the present is all we really have, there is not much sense in talking about having passed the point of no return. So, while the culture itself may appear to be locked in a self-inflicted death spiral, each of us still has a choice. Let's briefly consider the options.

On the one hand, we could simply do nothing at all and allow calendrical time, the relentless march of civilized history, to define us and continue its course unabated. In other words, we can maintain our commitment to this ancient trajectory that was set in motion as far back as Sumer, codified later by Aristotle, and more fully articulated in the Enlightenment and beyond; or we can personally choose to minimize or even terminate our participation in the unfolding spectacle, and find a more compelling way of being-in-the-world.

This brings us to the second option - recollection. We can each personally make an effort to recollect that genetic memory trace, recalling from within the hiddenness and forgetfulness of our own isolated egos the "subtle knot" that grounds our primal intertwining with the world-as-lived-by-the-body. In this way we might experience again that feral openness which first made the earthly sensuous and our own sentience possible.

The bigger challenge is for the collective, and the footprint we have made as a civilization. There have been global reverberations from this change of perception and consciousness that were set in motion so many millennia ago. There has been ecological, social, psychological, and economic fallout. How do we find a footpath back from those hypotheses, both social and natural scientific, that have led us to this point and continue to bind us collectively to this spectacle? It seems to me that Merleau-Ponty's reflections, while necessary for understanding the specific gravity of our situated presence, may not be sufficient for overcoming our current dilemma and slowing down or reversing its momentum or its negative effects. But, perhaps with some effort we can yet find something that will at least reduce this cold tyranny of reason and its brainchildren - the syllogism and the modern state.

State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters... State, where the slow suicide of all - is called 'life.' (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The New Idol)

After a ten-year career in academia, Dr. Krolick spent the next twenty years in the executive ranks of several of America's largest international firms. Sandy has spent many years traveling around the world, including parts of Asia, Africa, Western and Eastern Europe. Retiring from business at fifty, he recently returned to the USA with his wife Anna, after teaching for several years in the central Siberian Steppe, at the foot of the Altai mountains in Barnaul, Russia. His latest book, The Recovery of Ecstasy: Notebooks from Siberia, is available at http://www.amazon.com/Recovery-Ecstasy-Notebooks-Siberia/dp/1439227365/?tag=widgetsamazon-20 or visit him @ http://www.kulturcritic.com.

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