Neoliberalism is like Proteus but also more fundamentally like King Midas. I remember hearing his story for the first time as a little child and being absolutely enchanted by the idea of being him and turning everything into gold. The end of the story — Midas starving to death because gold cannot be eaten — I dismissed as a strange and unpleasant addiction to it.
Once again, mythology and the sarcasm of the ancients help us see clearly what is in front of us. Money cannot be eaten, and destroying our environment and our relationships in order to make money is not just stupid; it is the most colossal idiocy ever to appear in the universe.
Never in the history of the world have moral values been so despised, unless they can be turned into money as well. The architects of neoliberalism are no fools, however, and since the time of “the moral majority” — a few decades ago — have forged an alliance with people who see themselves as defenders of traditional values, while being in reality completely subservient to the neoliberal devouring of all values, as the recent developments in politics have clearly shown.
In this context, what are our strategies? And how can our strategies be refined, given the quite intelligent evil that we are confronting?
We have spoken of rituals and community building — or rather of community building through ritual — which undoubtedly was an uncommon way to respond to the neoliberal crisis until recently. Matthew Fox has been one of the very few people who could see — decades ago — how ritual was the key to a real social transformation.
But recently we have seen the emergence of ritual ways of thinking and acting in many places. For example, in the chanting that was enacted a few months ago in the streets of Minneapolis — but also in Chicago and elsewhere — as a form of protest against the ICE killings. The power of such chants, in terms of community building, is unrivalled by any sermon or banner on their own.
I am going here to make reference one last time to my new passion, philosopher Byung Chul-Han, who writes:
The erotic resources of culture, those energies which are capable of keeping the community together, inspiring it with plays and feasts, are diminishing day by day. But, without them, we reach the destructive atomization of society. Rites and ceremonies are genuine human actions which can make life appear festive and magical, while their disappearance desecrates life, making it a matter of mere survival. We can expect, therefore, from a re-enchantment of the world the birthing of a curative energy which can effectively oppose collective narcissism.*
The “re-enchantment of the world” is a notion quite germane to Creation Spirituality. It has been circulating as an undercurrent within dominant neoliberalism at least since Morris Berman’s 1981 book The Reenchantment of the World. It has a lot to do with the use of mythology (see the August 5 DM) and ritual (see the July 23, 24, and 25 DMs) to contrast the present disastrous directions of Western society.
However, as we need to be very smart in our prophetic/mystical actions, can we refine this notion in order not just to appear less naive, but to be, in effect, stronger and stronger in our activity and identity? For example, is it true that “the village” is the answer? Han quotes Peter Nadas, who writes that in the village people do not have opinions on this or that, but they retell over and over the Great Story.
Han suggests recreating a society in which people don’t feel pushed to express their personal experiences all the time through social media — the pornography of the soul — as the ritual community is a community of listening and collective belonging, a community in calm harmony with silence. Only where primordial closeness disappears, communication becomes excessive.
Are we reading here about an excessive idealization of the village community, however? How can such a community be embodied in our contexts? These simple questions seem to me the only truly relevant ones in this historical moment.
*Byung-Chul Han, The Disappearance of Ritual: A Topology of the Present.
Banner Image: Sweat lodges dotted Oceti Sakowin campground on Standing Rock Reservation, ND, where more than 100 Native American nations and thousands of international supporters put their bodies on the line in ceremony, prayer, and action in 2016 to protect the water of the Oglala Aquifer and Missouri River from the Dakota Access Pipeline. Photo by Phila Hoopes, used with permission.
Queries for Contemplation
What are your ways of re-enchanting the world?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ
Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug, Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
2 thoughts on “Strategies to Re-Enchant the World”
Re-enchanting the world, to me, starts home with the re-enchantment of daily life. It is not a crusade-like undertaking to change the world, but a recognition of the wisdom of the proverb “let everyone sweep in front of their own door, and the streets will be clean.” Sixteen letters grouped in five little words can re-enchant the world: “Let it begin with me.” Re-en-chanting includes chanting, rain or shine, not as a duty or a performance, but simply because our teachers and siblings the birds, whales, crickets, squirrels, trees, and countless other creatures sing. The question, “is it true that ‘the village’ is the answer?” is resolved when viable re-enchanted villages and communities take shape from single re-enchanted dwellings. “If you build it, he will come” becomes “if you enchant it, it will be built.” In his writings, Matthew Fox presents AWE (another word for enchantment) as a foundation of spiritual life. In English, AWE almost sounds like the onomatopoeia of a gasp of wonderment in front of a rose, the delicate limbs of an insect or a starry night. Neither denial nor delusion, the music played by the band on the deck of the RMS Titanic while the ship was sinking was a also gesture of re-enchantment. So are the songs of the raging grannies: https://raginggrannies.net/
My Faith in the Sacred Presence of Divine Love~Light~Life… and its many manifestations Being within, through, and among Us in All of ongoing Co-Creation/Evolution, including All physical/nonphysical spiritual dimensions/beings, in the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment with-in Our Loving Diverse Oneness….