Wisdom might be defined as the bringing together of the rational (knowledge) and the irrational or more-than-rational (awe and love and values). Or the bringing together of heart and head.
Psychoanalyst and mystic, Otto Rank, felt that whole civilizations fall–such as the Roman Empire–because they chased after the rational at the expense of the irrational. And chased after a patriarchal agenda (the masculine preference for the rational) at the expense of the feminine (for women are “carriers of the irrational” or more-than-rational)
What experiences are irrational? How about the following: Dreams, music, dance, art, ritual, sex, love-making, babies, laughter, play, massage, drumming, singing, the smells of newly cut grasses, tastes of spicy foods, silence, grief, color, creativity, peace, clowning, nature, wilderness, prayer, fear, animals, angels or spirits, children, beauty, paradox, myth, stories, games, sport (that is not exclusively rational or business driven), campfires, chant, darkness, tenderness, forgiveness, meditation, God, birds, trees, plants, flowers, food. AND “legitimate foolishness,” the folly that accompanies wisdom. Holy folly.
What would life be without these? Where would we derive our values, our reasons for living, our zest for carrying on? Rank observes that the irrational includes the “dynamic forces governing life and human behavior.” In our culture these forces are stigmatized as “irrational.”
We need, says Rank, a whole new civilization—one that includes the irrational. For “human nature is at bottom irrational.” Rank is interested in the ground (Eckhart’s word) of our souls, the truth about what is at the “bottom” (Rank’s word) of our beings. And what most touches us in the depths is the “irrational.”
But because society is rational (or pretends to be) we suffer from its “rational ideology” which is in fact born of an “inhibited negation of life.”
The cure is to be found in this analysis: Instead of an inhibited negation of life, why not a community celebration of life? This celebration of life, this optimism, begins with awe and wonder, with marveling at creation itself.
Let us not forget that Wisdom is feminine. In the Bible and beyond. In Hebrew (Hochmah); in Greek (Sophia); in Latin (sapientia); She is symbolized by Mary and the Black Madonna in Christianity; and in the East too in the person of Kuan Yin and Tara and more. A move to Wisdom is a move beyond Patriarchy. And a move to Wisdom would constitute a whole new civilization, wouldn’t it?
Adapted from Matthew Fox, “Otto Rank as Mystic and Prophet in the Creation Spirituality Tradition,” on MatthewFox.org
Also see Matthew Fox, “”Otto Rank on the Artistic Journey as a Spiritual Journey, the Spiritual Journey as an Artistic Journey,” in Matthew Fox, Wrestling with the Prophet, pp. 199-214.
To read a transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner image: A New Earth. Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
What other examples of the “irrational” can you add to the list in paragraph three? Do you agree that our “irrational” or more- than-rational experiences constitute the “dynamic forces governing life and human behavior”? What follows from that?
Recommended Reading
Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life
In one of his foundational works, Fox engages with some of history’s greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets in profound and hard-hitting essays on such varied topics as Eco-Spirituality, AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, Native American spirituality, Christian mysticism, Art and Spirituality, Art as Meditation, Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism and more.
10 thoughts on “Rank on Wisdom and the Need for a Whole New Civilization”
Matthew, I just wanted to point out that you did a litany today, along the same lines that Henry Miller did in his writing–and he worked with Otto Rank–as you know. And example of what I’m talking about is when you say: “Dreams, music, dance, art, ritual, sex, love-making, babies, laughter, play, massage, drumming, singing, the smells of newly cut grasses, tastes of spicy foods, silence, grief, color, creativity, peace, clowning, nature, wilderness, prayer, fear, animals, angels or spirits, children, beauty, paradox, myth, stories, games, sport (that is not exclusively rational or business driven), campfires, chant, darkness, tenderness, forgiveness, meditation, God, birds, trees, plants, flowers, food. AND “legitimate foolishness,” the folly that accompanies wisdom. Holy folly.” But now on to your questions for today:
1. “What other examples of the ‘irrational’ can you add to the list in paragraph three?” I agree with what you have already written, but only add William Barrett’s book, IRRATIONAL MAN. This book on existentialism introduced me to the philosophy that seems the best fit for me. And one existentialist philosopher who also was influenced by Meister Eckhart was Martin Heidegger (good philosopher, not so good human being).
2. “Do you agree that our ‘irrational’ or more- than-rational experiences constitute the ‘dynamic forces governing life and human behavior’?” I believe our irrational experiences do influence our behavior in a negative way if they are not set within the boundaries of the rational mind. So I see for the need to have both the irrational and rational minds work together. One feels a hunch and the other figures out how to act on it.
3. What follows from that? It’s like they say in Shamanism, “You have to learn how to dance your power animal!”–In other words you need the pure irrational movements, and energy choreographed by the rational mind, so it will look like a thing of beauty.
As Christians we must constantly be asking ourselves, “Are we excluding anything that Christ would include?”
Amen.
Over the past few decades, the US has steadily withdrawn the Arts and Humanities from required curriculum, and during that time the culture has steadily declined in humanitarian sentiment and actions. If we once demanded television programming to include serious art, today people not only tolerate, but feed on so-called “reality” programming (a cynical capitalist production form that reduces audiences to the absolute LOWEST common denominator and saves a lot of money that would be required to use real artists). (Disclaimer: I don’t even own a television but know what’s on it because you can hardly go into any place where one isn’t playing—even an oncology waiting room!)
Art is definitely considered “irrational” and we live daily with the results of its denigration—a population deadened to beauty, community, justice, worship, respect, and all forms of concern for the environment, Nature, or the conditions imposed by ruinous consumerism.
Olive, You write: “Over the past few decades, the US has steadily withdrawn the Arts and Humanities from required curriculum, and during that time the culture has steadily declined in humanitarian sentiment and actions.” I totally agree with this analysis of the situation. I feel that it is terrible that when funds have to be cut in education, it is the arts and humanities are the first to go. The only thing I differ with you on is the idea that calling the arts “irrational” is denigrating. I embrace the word irrational in protest of having an overly rational world where there has to be proof for everything–for instance proof that God even exists, let alone any of one’s other beliefs. And in this time of war, while society believes that there is something wrong with the irrational, behind closed doors politicians and military officers are using their warped reason to plan out and strategize how to kill the most people and destroy the most property. Now tell me what is reason worth here ???
One spiritual teacher recently similarly said part of the reason we’re experiencing turbulence in our modern society is that we’re as individuals and as a society transitioning and evolving ,from ego mind consciousness to heart cosmic consciousness and we know that death and rebirth can be a painful spiritual process in this transformation….
Awe, wonder, gratefulness, and faith itself are irrational. Everything worthwhile is irrational, it seems to me. We fool ourselves that we are rational creatures when so many of our decisions both as individuals and communities are based more on emotions such as fear and/or anger and feelings of deep insecurity. Our systems are perverted and distorted by greed and fear and projections of our darkness onto to “others”. There is a kind of evil rationality about the wish for purity and the way to “ensure” it by the machinations of Hitler and other despots.
Sue, Thank you for and AMEN to your comment. You write however, at the end of your praise of the irrational: “There is a kind of evil rationality about the wish for purity and the way to “ensure” it by the machinations of Hitler and other despots.” And they used reason to strategize how they could pull off the “final solution” and reason to be more efficient in the killing and disposing of human bodies. And Nazis used reason in all of their military operations, and in developing the atomic bomb (which we beat them to). No, both reason and the irrational have their places, so long as their are moral and ethical values behind them. Only then can their fruit be called good…
I find todays DM and the redefining of the meaning of irrational, to be a blessed gift. To perceive the irrational as an expression of the sacred and divine feminine archetype… as a carrier of love, by which we derive awe, wonder, values, and the celebration of life in relationship WITH the creation of the all and the everything… rather than the negation of this… as a movement of the Mother Spirit and Her dynamic forces that govern the heart of humanity with Her wisdom ways… I find to be a healing balm to my heart, as well as liberating to my soul.
The irrational for centuries in patriarchal rational ideological terms, has often been defined in women in a negative, demeaning and sinesterly durogatory manner… such as being emotionally over reactive, prone to hysteria and a kind of heretical maddness, that must be quieted, calmed, and numbed into silence for her own good. Truth be told, these labeled, irrational women for centuries have suffered greatly from this patriarchal so called rational ideology, through being locked and chained in seclusion, boiled in oil, burned at the stake, electricly shocked and medicated with phycotic drugs… horrendous things done to inhibit, oppress, and suppress this irrational and demonic spirit, within women inparticular.
Three things that I can think of to add to the list of irrational experiences already mentioned and redefined within today’s DM… that can indeed release a dynamic force of healing the deep wounding of the heart and liberate the bound, gagged and tied soul of the true irrational Spirit of the sacred and divine feminine within in both women and men within humanity is the transformational art of ceremony, the wisdom of truth within story-telling, and expressive live theater performance… and the creative, unfolding and evolving consciousness that emerges through all three of these.
Jeanette, You write today: “The irrational for centuries in patriarchal rational ideological terms, has often been defined in women in a negative, demeaning and sinisterly derogatory manner… such as being emotionally over reactive, prone to hysteria and a kind of heretical madness, that must be quieted, calmed, and numbed into silence for her own good.” Of course, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And I know what they have done with these irrational women. In the past they burned them and now they medicate them and all manner of terrible things in between. And yes, they even called this irrationality “demon possession.” Then you end on a positive note saying, “the true irrational Spirit of the sacred and divine feminine within in both women and men within humanity is the transformational art of ceremony, the wisdom of truth within story-telling, and expressive live theater performance… and the creative, unfolding and evolving consciousness that emerges through all three of these.” Thank you !!!