The need for a new enlightenment

Enough with the pig ignorance, violence and stupidity. Enough with bowing to religious bullies and bigots, racists and sexists. And, most of all, enough limiting ourselves to the narrow confines the past has laid down. The time has come to shake all that off, like the famous workers’ chains, and rise up to the potential that being human offers.

“This Enlightenment,” says Christopher Hitchens, “will not need to depend … on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person.”

With that acknowledgement comes a great responsibility. We are all capable of lifting ourselves above the ash pit and the swill. We have it within us. We live in societies that, increasingly, are tolerant of such revolutionary thinking and a world in which there is a deep need for us to move to the next level.

The inertial forces against this move are many and powerful. But it is time to assure ourselves — as well as our enemies, Bible-bashers and circumcisers of females and warmongers one and all — that we are evolving away from their kind. We need a new enlightenment, and one is approaching.

The hallmarks of this enlightenment are:

Compassion
The one thing the more kindly religious types get right is the need for compassion. While this concept is not unique to religion — or even particularly common among the religious — it is a true sign of having reached a higher state of being. The Buddhists, for example, regard it as one of the qualities of an enlightened being. But we don’t need to follow them to understand why compassion is central to living in an enlightened society of any kind.

Compassion means, simply, thinking of others as if you were them. And not just “thinking” this, but being able to feel what that would be like. If George Bush were able to experience compassion for an Iraqi child whose leg the marines had just shot off, it would be considerably less likely he would send more marines in their wake — and not just understand that child’s pain, but also have true compassion for it.

Compassion is a scarce commodity; not only in global politics, but also in our everyday lives. We are appallingly bad at having compassion for one another — and it is a vital growth point for our species.

Sexual liberation
Thanks to hundreds — if not thousands — of years of sexual repression and oppression, we stand today as a species that is largely unique in our ability to enjoy sex for its own sake (or as an expression of love) and one that has a thoroughly tormented relationship with the act. The Catholics, the Muslims and the Jews, and many other backward religions, must shoulder much of the blame for this. However, the primitive cultures that predated them fare no better when put under the historical microscope.

Let’s face it: it is only now, in no more than the past 50 years, that a true sexual liberation has been possible. Every kind of sexual behaviour is, at worst, tolerated and, at best, celebrated. The growth of homosexuality and bisexuality (and other kinds of sexuality) is a wonderful testament to the opening up of the human sexual spirit. That people have the freedom to explore forms of sexual behaviour that in the past were regarded as sins, illnesses or worse, out in the open, online and off, is a flag over the enlightenment tower.

And it is important to say, here, that this sexual liberation is not the same thing as hedonism. It is, in fact, only important to say this because some right-wing bigot will no doubt want to argue that it is.

Equality
This may seem like a hangover from the last Enlightenment, but we must acknowledge the importance of the march toward equality for all. And equality does not mean that everyone is, by definition, equal. Some people are stupid. Some people are smart. Some people can play the piano and some people can’t.

Equality usually means, as it should, that people have equal rights. Fortunately, as we sit here today, this is a widely accepted principle and one that has swept the world in the form of democracy and bills of rights.

Unfortunately, many people on the face of the Earth have not enjoyed the benefits of this movement. From the poverty-ridden in the Third World to the abused women of the Middle East, equality has a long way to go. But its march is relentless.

Merit
This is, perhaps, my most controversial suggestion. But there can be no going forward without recognising the need to value certain things more than others. We cannot value everything the same. And the worst manifestation of this is the “cultural relativism” that stops our hand from interfering in other people’s religious and ethnic practices, no matter how obscene. That has allowed all kinds of evil and ignorance to take their place alongside genuine knowledge and learning.

A good example is the ratification of “traditional healers” alongside medical doctors in South Africa. This is a complex topic, but to keep it general: How can we accept the idea that a practice rooted in primitive tribalism has as much to add to the healing of, say, cancer, as the profession resulting from hundreds of years of steady, careful research and experimenting?

This is not, of course, to say that nothing which traditional healers do works. But if it does, it does so because it happens to act in the same way that medicine does. Or it has some other perfectly ordinary explanation. It cannot be valued in its own right as an “alternative” because there is, in fact, no alternative. There is one way, and that is the way toward knowledge and understanding. At least in this particular domain.

That is one of many examples. Certain lines of thought, ideas and practices have more value and merit than others. And some are more — dare I say it — true than others. We must discard the nonsense, and embrace the ever-increasing understanding that we are gaining over our lives and our universe.

And this is not an argument simply for science and reason. There are spiritual practices that have more merit than others, and psychological models — and even ways of living. Don’t read me wrong: I am not some cold, left-brainer who is hoping for a world of robots.

Quite the contrary. Post-enlightenment, we will be a world of connected, emotionally intelligent, liberated beings for whom life is richer and sweeter. There are many hurdles along the path.

But it can never be too soon to begin. Help the cause today by stamping out ignorance, bigotry and cruelty. Fight it, because it’s the only fight left that is worth fighting.