The Spirituality of Awe (Revised Edition): Challenges to the Robotic Revolution by Kirk Schneider

Author:Kirk Schneider [Schneider, Kirk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Professors Press
Published: 2019-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

How an Awe-Based Society Might Look: The Depth Approach to Transhumanism

While there are many forms of society that have been forged throughout history, rare indeed is the attempt to structure them as “awe-based.” For example, we have seen societies based on religious and political ideology—e.g., Christianity and Islam, communism and capitalism, and also societies based on utopian ideals such as transcendentalism, cooperative farming and environmentalism. But how many, particularly large-scale societies, have been formed around the humility, wonder and sense of adventure toward living? How many have prized the commingling of thrill and anxiety for living, or for the capacity to be deeply moved as the cornerstones of their world views?

I think we’d have to acknowledge, very few. And yet this is precisely the kind of society, and world, I believe that we will need to pursue if we are to avoid a transhumanist apocalypse. And we will need to pursue it on a formidable scale.

The reformation of childrearing, the work setting, the religious and spiritual settings, and governance, are fundamental starting points in the reorientation to an awe-based world. The equally large issue however is who or what is going to guide us in this reformation and counterbalance, and how will that guidance begin?

One prospect that has empirical support is a depth psychological approach. By “depth psychological approach” I mean the intimate, “experience-near” understanding of subliminal and symbolic consciousness and its practical applications. This approach is informed by a variety of fields in the social sciences, the arts and the humanities, but is probably best understood as a holistic approach to life.[56] Such an approach has many personal and social advantages that are just now emerging into the mainstream consciousness. One of the primary advantages is that it specializes in the cultivation of relationships, and in particular, relationships that support, that hold contrasts and contradictions, and that sensitively challenge as situations demand. To this extent, depth psychology, particularly through it’s chief therapeutic tool of presence, appreciates the paradoxes of living, the great vulnerabilities as well as possibilities for living, and the potential for a sense of awe toward all creation.

Further, it is important to note that this depth perspective overlaps with, but also significantly differs from, conventional psychological approaches. For example, whereas depth psychology stresses experiential engagement—that is, the immediate, affective, kinesthetic, and profound—in confronting personal and social conflicts, conventional psychology stresses more cerebral, technical engagement with such conflicts (e.g., the difference between learning about change mechanisms of depression, and the felt discovery of how depression transforms). Moreover, whereas the conventional approach is more external, mathematically measurable, and based on aggregated research, the depth approach is more internal, qualitatively describable, and based on the intimate experience of individuals. Finally, while the conventional approach advocates the reconditioning of overt and measurable symptoms, such as improvements in positive self-talk, eating and sleeping, the depth approach fosters the self-discovered contexts underlying the symptoms such as the enlargement of one’s identity, the enhancement of one’s capacity for choice and the reconnection with a bigger picture of living.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.