Freedom Paradox by Clive Hamilton

I have just finished reading the book “The freedom paradox. Towards a post-secular ethics” by Clive Hamilton.

http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/index.php?page=home

I was interested in this because I have heard Clive Hamilton speaking in the media on topical issues and he seems to be prepared to confront issues that are often ignored.

I think he could be fairly described as a left wing journalist, and he constantly says that he is not religious, but he comes to many of the same conclusions as the churches via the path of humanism and atheist philosophy. This can be a tortuous and hilly path, for example he says that “When Jesus said the meek shall inherit the Earth, he meant that only those who transcend their identification with the ego-self in the phenomenon will find the path to the universal Self in the noumenon.” Having read that, I am grateful that Jesus said what he did, in the way that he did.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that Clive Hamilton deserves respect for his open minded examination of topical issues.

My understanding of his case is that when we look at life today, especially in the West, our material prosperity and the freedom movements of the 60’s and 70’s haven’t delivered the promised satisfying and happy life. We might be free, if we want, to ignore the conventions of the past and institutions like the churches, but many people spend their lives following trends and peer pressure under the disguise of “freedom”. The solution Clive Hamilton offers is to follow the innate moral self, which he describes using the ideas of Kant and Schopenhauer.

The problem he sees is:

 “Although few today feel the need to apologize for their lack of religiosity, it is also broadly acknowledged that the collapse of the authority of the church left most people unsure where to look for moral guidance, except to their equally confused friends. In the new autonomous moral universe individuals would be able to choose their own moral standards, subject only to the constraint that others not be injured. Yet even the ethic of consent – hopelessly inadequate when confronted by predicaments that might involve third parties – cannot help us understand what is in our real interests, those moral interests lying beneath the urge to satisfy immediate desires.” (p.118)

Clive Hamilton believes that a “moral self” can be found without religious faith:

 “When we identify with the universal Self the ‘illusion’ of our independent existence falls away and the personal self merges with the universal Self, which is shared by all. We recognize in another our own inner nature. Abolition of the distinction between subject and object and the participation of self in others give rise to what I call ‘metaphysical empathy’, and it is this that forms the grounds of morality and the basis of the moral self. Methaphysical empathy is the awareness of participation in the being of others that arises from identification of the self with the universal essence.” (p.146)

Nevertheless, he recognizes that churches have provided a direction to the moral self:

 “Despite their institutional failings, the churches were traditionally the repositories of those transcendent elements that remind us of our lives beyond the mundane, of our universal Self and its oneness with the noumenon. Although the authority of the churches as keepers of the transcendent has largely collapsed, the metaphysical ground of their former legitimacy is unchanged. Religious ceremonies such as the Mass still allow some individuals to feel a relationship with something transpersonal. But for most of us the loss of our conviction under the weight of science has closed down our access to the numinous. The modern rational mind’s lack of will to believe denies it knowledge of the stream of meaning that runs beneath to surface of daily life.” (p.227)

My personal opinion from reading this book is that Clive Hamilton understands Kant and Schopenhauer better than Christianity, and “institutional failings” and the “weight of science” are not enough to dismiss the truths of the Church. However, his book is an interesting read, and the product of a person without the prejudices of many “public intellectuals” of today.