The champions of culture (people with a claim on truth) have claimed or at least provided some insights to what we should make about life. Some of these ideas have formed individuals, and cultures and the history of the world. Our cultural moment is a cocktail of different ideas from these various champions. The best way to understand and critic our cultural moment, is to analyse the validity of the ideas that form it. The way to do this exercise, is to let the burden of proof fall on the champions themselves. But before we do that, let’s analyse the reason why we are compelled to buying the ideas of the champions of culture? What is so special about the specific champions of culture, why are their ideas attractive?
Embedded in our essence is a search for wholeness. Something in our psyche speaks loudly, that we are missing something. There is an innate thirst that drives us insane, requiring quenching. This insatiable thirst beckons us towards something we have never seen before, but of which we have a blurred vision. C.S. Lewis puts it this way (paraphrasing): ‘If I am hungry, I know I need food; if I am tired, I know I need to rest; but if I have a desire in me that nothing in this world can satisfy, then perhaps I was made for another world.’ I have to say that there might have been a specific thing Lewis was pointing at, but I bet whatever it was or is, can be described as good or as goodness itself. Perhaps moments of frustration (that is if frustration itself has not turned into ugliness) or dissatisfaction (before it has become greedy) with the world or even ourselves are signals that something is not aligned with goodness in our world, and in us.
Understanding this deficit in us, different champions provide an array of solutions that can be grouped into two categories. For, instance, there are those that propose that we should take it upon ourselves to quench the insatiable thirsty by defining goodness on our own terms. This proposal can take various forms on a spectrum, ranging from complete obliteration of the desire (numbing ourselves) to crowding it out with anything that makes us happy, another desire perhaps that is within our grasps or attainable. The proposal is appealing as it puts us back at the helm, where we are in control, and “free” to choose whatever our heart desires, after all, it is our poets that say, “the heart wants what it wants”. The other group points us towards something transcendent, this group asserts that the solution is not with us neither is it in us (at least in our current predicament), for there is no perfect goodness in us. The argument is that if we cannot produce perfect goodness (again, it is our poets that say “to human is to error”) or have not seen the end result of a utopia, how can we define goodness or a utopia, let alone how to get there? I would argue that, not only is the first proposal lazy and shallow thinking, but also it is delusional- basically lying to ourselves, since we do not know the true nature of perfect goodness. Our attempt to define or pursue goodness on our own term is foiled by the exact attempt. The second proposal invites us into unfamiliar territory that requires us to relinquish our control; to dive into the unknown for we really do not know anything about that realm. The biggest hurdle with this, is finding a guide who will lead us there, and messing up on this will not be different with the first proposal, as we will also become delusional. So, the question is, how do we find the perfect guide that will lead us there? As I hinted earlier, the best way to do this is to let burden of proof fall on the guide.