Poverty of Conventionalism as an allusion to Karl Popper’s poverty of Historicism which he prefaced “In memory of countless men, women and children of all creeds or nations or races who became a victim to the fascist and communist belief in Inexorable Laws of Historical Destiny”, is of the same foundational mindset as this one masterpiece of Popper. His concept of historicism describes how people tend to place the theorems of political science on the same shelf as the laws of physics. Hence, some would say, since astronomy can predict eclipses, why can’t sociology predict a political revolution? This type of reasoning, is what caused fanatics such as Hitler, to believe with absolute certainty that the world is theirs for the taking, a reasoning based on the grounds of some esoteric cosmic law.
In a similar guise, our intent is to provide a solution to the problem of conventionalism. What is conventionalism? In Popper’s case, there is a clear-cut doctrine in political philosophy that he is militating against; ironically enough, history was that which showed us the true poverty of historicism, much to Popper’s satisfaction. The answer to our question is quite simple: it is what modern psychology calls ‘groupthink’, or in more colloquial terms ‘mindless conformity’, an uncritical acceptance of whatever beliefs that are sanctioned by the prevalent prejudices of the community that we are environed in. We hereby solemnly stand by Hume’s exhortation that philosophy, and not superstition is that which will give man meaning in life. Philosophy can be acquired only through one’s independent thought. However the popular prejudice in our society tends to be that, philosophy without religion is not capable of endowing us with meaning in life as it tends to be dearth of spiritual substance. We regard this claim as manifestly untenable and shall argue the thesis that true spirituality is only possible to be attained through philosophical inquiry. Religion without philosophy is therefore barren. No particular philosophy will be propounded in this book, but only an exhortation to philosophize.
Poverty of Conventionalism is an argument in favor of the possibility of acquisition of ‘meaning’ in life without reliance on religious authority. The enterprise of conventional religion is clearly defined and examined in terms of how it impacts the realm of ideas and society by and large.
Works of Spinoza, Hume and Maimonides are critically examined and emended to the end of accomplishing this task. This book includes examinations of many approaches to the task of finding meaning in life, both religious and non-religious.
The chief endeavor of this volume was not to provide a particular philosophy that will guide man to meaning in life, but only to show that meaning in life could be found with no appeal to mysticism or esoteric authority. It is within the power of any individual adept at objective reasoning to discover such a path.
Throughout the centuries, we have noticed that society has been profoundly influenced by a code of ethics that have almost since the beginning of their communities’ history been considered incontrovertible. It is almost as if they were the gift received from the gods, in some cases allegorically, and in other cases, literally. The code of ethics that was presented purported to be unquestionable, as the authority behind it was deemed immutable. We notice that not long after religions have been firmly established in our societies, religious authorities were deified, and people began to associate their gods with their Earthly authorities. Many of those people did not understand why they were living the lives they did, yet few dared to suggest that this should change. It indeed was the case that such lifestyles were justified by authority of those who prescribed them and not through insight. They were imposed upon the people and not elected by them. Moreover, we notice that the religions of our ancestors have played a very significant role in shaping the culture of our present day. As we see that we could discover roots of many of our traditions in the practices of our ancestors. Those practices almost certainly were associated with what today we would be able to call religious practices.
This should serve as an example of how profound of an influence religion can have on our daily lives, and how significant of a factor it has been in shaping the world into what it is. For this reason, it would be a remiss for a philosopher to opt not to take religion in consideration in process of concocting his worldview. He can argue that religions are devoid of insight, as that he may have nothing to learn from them, however it would be foolish of him to ignore their importance in shaping the world into what it has become. If they do not merit intellectual respect, they certainly merit our consideration. For the sake of examination of religions, it would be sound for us to extricate the notion of religion from spirituality. Spirituality in itself is a very mystical notion that few have been able to define clearly; it almost always implies existence of another world. We easily call worldviews that are difficult to see, spiritual, religious. As we have noted earlier, religions in history have been immensely influential, and it is quite clear that spirituality was not the reason why this was so; as renown of Marxism has evinced to us. Upon further investigation into the social appraisal of religiosity we shall notice that spiritually did have an impact in regards to the public acceptance of religion, though it will become clear that many other factors were more salient.
One shall ask, what was the salient factor in crafting religions into what they are today and what accounts for their renown with the public? One could argue that men have a natural drive to obtain power and to maintain it. If we rewind to the time before civilization when men needed to fend for their own survival, power was a necessity; as only the most powerful would be able to ensure their own survival in the dog eat dog world. Thus, here we notice that one needs to establish an environment with a clearly established hierarchy (e.g. religions can offer a political leader an opportunity to accomplish such a task). Later on, after having acquired enough power to survive, men derived a great deal of self-esteem by exercising their power over others. Now, in such a situation, they were interested in power, the purpose of which was no longer to ensure their own survival, but merely for the sake of self-appeasement.