All Things Shining: A Review
'Every Time I go to town
Someone kicks my dog around...'
In their book, All Things Shining (ATS), by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly, the authors portray the postmodern era as a period where metaphysics engenders an existential nihilism. The book (ATS) is their effort to provide a window or a small crack through which we might escape the nihilistic metaphysics that dominates our age. For literature of this postmodern phenomena they use David Foster Wallace's, Infinite Jest. When I first read, Infinite Jest, I thought it was about a guy like Woody Allen i.e., full of angst about the world and almost totally unable to make a decision and I must admit I have known people like that. In the true Nietzschean view of nihilism, there is no one reason to prefer one answer to any other which frees us to live any life we choose. The problem, as ATS presents it, is that we no longer even want to choose. They think everyone is going around searching for the meaning of life, like Captain Kirk and Mr Spock on some cosmic apocryphal quest. The freedom to choose hinders our relationship with the sacred. Did you get all that? Me neither. I tend to embrace the logic of Thomas Farrell in his review of ATS on Amazon, "Dreyfus and Kelly are secular humanists writing for secular humanists."
Now, does this mean the book is not a worthwhile read? Of course not. ATS simply ignores the fact that a rather large portion of the world ALREADY has the sacred in their lives. However, it is their contention that many of us have difficulty getting in touch with what they refer to as 'the sacred.' The sacred being able to live one's 'life guided by something experienced as beyond oneself.' They credit the explosion of many different religions as a result of religious believers having different answers to the existential questions about how to live our lives. Having questions is not a bad thing, they contend, as long as you have the resources to answer them.
Their narrative uses literature, interpreted expertly, as the mechanism to open the door to the sacred. Sounds like the Dali Lama lighting your way to enlightenment, huh? Or maybe Jesus? Buddha? Mohammed? Most philosophers I have known would not know sic 'em from come here (like most English Professors), however, Dreyfus and Kelly express a love of literature and the ability to draw from it powerful examples of an approach to life that allows us to live more fully by recognizing the sacred in our lives.
"The purpose of life is to be the eyes and ears
and conscience of Creator of the Universe,
you fool."
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
The book does not attempt to answer what our purpose is, but it provides another avenue for getting in touch with the sacred, for those who do not have one. On a scale of 1 to 5, the book is a 5 on content and logic and a 3 on relevancy. Overall, 4 stars is my gift to Dreyfus and Kelly.
Until next time,
I remain,
Just another Semi-secular humanistic Zororastafarian conscious that he is just fartin' around, grasshopper....
