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of three gods in one, or their[/glossary_exclude] myth [glossary_exclude]does not have a concept of God at all.rnrnThe narrative truth and the ritual in which it is affirmed have essential functions for a[/glossary_exclude] community, [glossary_exclude]for the individuals within it, and for its[/glossary_exclude] social capital. [glossary_exclude]They embrace its[/glossary_exclude] culture, giving it identity [glossary_exclude]and meaning.rnrnAnd although narrative truth is central to it, religion also inhabits all five forms of truth:rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">u2022 There is[/glossary_exclude] <em>material truth</em> [glossary_exclude]in the historical account, and in at least some of religionu2019s practical and ethical teaching.</p>rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">u2022 The[/glossary_exclude] <em>narrative truth</em> [glossary_exclude]of religion is the allegory, the parable and myth which provide insights and deep sources for reflection.</p>rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">u2022 Religionu2019s[/glossary_exclude] <em>implicit truth</em> [glossary_exclude]is the insight derived from deliberation; it is the guidance, comfort, inspiration and prudence derived by a personu2019s own participation in his or her religion.</p>rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">u2022 The[/glossary_exclude] <em>performative truth</em> [glossary_exclude]of religion lies in its ritual, as in the performance of the Christian Eucharist and other practices of religion which affirm and bring into existence a reality, similar in kind to the reality brought into existence by a[/glossary_exclude] contract.</p>rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">u2022 [glossary_exclude]Religion also involves a[/glossary_exclude] <em>self-denying truth</em>, i[glossary_exclude]n that the commanding authority of a myth is impaired, or even destroyed, when it is described as a myth. The compiler of this Dictionary, as a critic, affirms the truth of this description of religionu2014but, as an observant, he denies it and, instead, enters into the performative truth which gives religion real presence.</p>rn&nbsp;rnrnThere are[/glossary_exclude] paradoxes [glossary_exclude]and shadow-meanings in all of these, especially in narrative truth and self-denying truth.rnrnAlfred North Whitehead, with the sureness of touch of a philosopher of science, captures it:rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realised; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r38/"><sup>R38</sup></a></p>rn<a href="https://leanlogic.online/illustration-credits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img class="wp-image-8824 aligncenter" src="https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/house-1024x987.png" alt="" width="572" height="552" /></a>rnrnReligion, like all other living things, dies if dissected; the dissector kills what he seeks to understand. It exists because it is performed, affirmed and loved. The view that dismisses religion on the grounds that it contains untrue statements is a solecism; a nau00efve failure to understand the significance of religion, the culture which it expresses, and the many natures of[/glossary_exclude] truth. [glossary_exclude]If a common practice celebrates the identifying narrative or[/glossary_exclude] myth [glossary_exclude]of the community, if it is expressed in one or more of the arts, especially music, if there is at least a degree of repetition and constancy in that expression, and if it requires some, or many, members of the community to participate, it is, for <em>Lean Logic</em>, an expression of religion.rnrnIn the process, religion provides meeting places in which people can come together, building and sustaining the friendships of social capital; it is the hub through which[/glossary_exclude] needs [glossary_exclude]are signalled and answered. That can be done in other ways, too, of course: by playing cards, or being a regular at the pub, or being on a committee. But religion can do it in ways which those other meeting places cannot. It enables a lot of people to participate in a collective activity, doing the same thing at the same time, to the same music. Its ritual is, in itself, of no direct practical value, and this makes it especially potent and effective as a statement by participants that they are there as members of the community. In religious observance, friends, neighbours, beloveds and families face the same way; there is shared[/glossary_exclude] presence.rnrn[glossary_exclude]Religion delivers[/glossary_exclude] tradition [glossary_exclude]to us, a present from the past. It brings core values represented in terms of exceptional beauty. The idea that every community, every village, no matter how small, should have, in the middle of it, a building of the greatest beauty they can manage, reaching up into the sky, a place of wonder and reflection, a seedbed of common purpose, made from[/glossary_exclude] gifts [glossary_exclude]of money and labour, coming to terms with the riddles of life and[/glossary_exclude] death, [glossary_exclude]and bringing[/glossary_exclude] private lives [glossary_exclude]and the setting up of[/glossary_exclude] families [glossary_exclude]into the embrace of the communityu2014well, you might think it a ridiculous[/glossary_exclude] utopia [glossary_exclude]if it had not happened.rnrnThe critic will reach for the[/glossary_exclude] Contrarian Fallacy, [glossary_exclude]pointing out that religion can bring strife as well as concord; that there have been many abuses of power; that some expressions of religion misapprehend their own mythsu2014by, for instance, nau00efvely supposing the Creation Story to be fact. Religion, like every other human enterprise, comes with no guarantee of being done well. It can be more drawn to guilt than to joy, to the personal than the collective, to righteous[/glossary_exclude] narcissism than to <em>caritas</em>. [glossary_exclude]Religion can be intolerant, sanctimonious and cruel. But it is hard to think of any political or social order to which those regrettable properties do not apply from time to time. The secular world, too, with chilling good intentions, and at whatever cost in lives and[/glossary_exclude] capital [glossary_exclude]in all its forms, sometimes tries to build a new and secular Jerusalem.rnrnBut look again at what religion <em>can</em> do. Religion is the community speaking. It is culture in the service of the community. It is a framework for integrating <em>caritas</em> into the communityu2019s life and culture; it takes charitable giving beyond the level of personal conscience and integrates it into the way the community sees itself and expresses itself.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r39/"><sup>R39</sup></a>rnrnReligion uses allegory, opening up the[/glossary_exclude] ironic space [glossary_exclude]of questions unsettled, paradoxes unresolved, beauty undescribed. It occupies, with benign myth, the space in the mind which, if vacated, is wide open to takeover by[/glossary_exclude] ideology. Akin to carnival, [glossary_exclude]it provides powerfully[/glossary_exclude] cohesive [glossary_exclude]rituals that give reality to membership of the community; that invite[/glossary_exclude] emotional [glossary_exclude]daring; and that alert the community to[/glossary_exclude] timeu2014[glossary_exclude]to the natural cycles of day and season, as well as to its existence as inheritor from previous generations and benefactor of future generations. The ritual itself is a skilled[/glossary_exclude] practice [glossary_exclude]built on justice, truthfulness and[/glossary_exclude] courage [glossary_exclude]which affirms the identity of the community and builds social capitalu2014it invites[/glossary_exclude] reflection, [glossary_exclude]recruiting the deep intellectual power which is available only to the subconscious mind, and locates the community as particular tou2014and steward ofu2014the[/glossary_exclude] place. [glossary_exclude]It bears the gift of[/glossary_exclude] encounter. [glossary_exclude]In all these ways, religion underpins the[/glossary_exclude] trust a[glossary_exclude]nd permanence which make it possible to sustain[/glossary_exclude] reciprocityu2014[glossary_exclude]the network of interconnected talent and service which makes the local economy real.rnrnUnfortunately, the religions of the world will not, in general, be in good shape for these creative responsibilities. There are four reasons for this:rnrnThe first is that religions have been shattered and depleted by the disintegration of social structure and the loss of social capital which have followed the advance of the[/glossary_exclude] market economy. [glossary_exclude]At the same time, the advance of science and the literal-minded, disenchanted thinking that is widely taken to be the only sort of thinking there is has made it harder to recognise and accept the poetic discourse of religion. Challenged by science, its leaders and ministers quickly surrendered to the idea that scientific, material truth is the only kind of truth there is. Argued on scienceu2019s own terms, the religions that have been exposed to the debate in any serious way have been routed.rnrnSecondly, and for similar reasons, a large part of (at least) the divided and confused Western Christian church, as it developed in the late twentieth century, has gone to great lengths to present the most plain-speaking of interpretations, abandoning the unchanging text needed if people are to have any chance of holding it in the memory. It has scrapped its[/glossary_exclude] liturgies [glossary_exclude]and strained, instead, at spontaneity, and at presenting the simple message of personal salvation in literal terms to be accepted as material truth or rejected as false. When it is presented in those terms, many reasonable people have no choice but to refuse to accept a proposition which they reject as simply nonsense. In this way, the church has thrown out the whole set of[/glossary_exclude] implicit functions, [glossary_exclude]narrative and allegorical truths which are integral to the[/glossary_exclude] artistic [glossary_exclude]and cultural meaning of the community, and which are the essence of religion. Christian religion in the market economy has found itself drawn into the idolatry of reducing complex meaning and the reflective Imitation of Christ to an[/glossary_exclude] iconic [glossary_exclude]Imitation of Marketing, falling for a technique which it can only do with breathless and piteous amateurism, in place of what it used to do with assured and numinous skill.rnrnThirdly, although at present there is a yearning for an expression of other, non-materialistic, non-scientific,[/glossary_exclude] spiritual values, [glossary_exclude]the established churches almost completely fail to benefit from this. They are not on that wavelength and, for much of the spiritual movement in the world of strongly-developed[/glossary_exclude] green [glossary_exclude]awareness, the affirmation of a Christian faith stands at the opposite extreme from what they need. It seems cold and absurd, full of confident reassurance about an afterlife which is not only grossly incredible but an offence to people whose concern is focused on how much longer there is going to be a planet for this life. Established religion, especially the Christian church, seems to be the embodiment of urban, and human-centred, alienation from nature, while green values look for ways to establish some real contact withu2014and come to the defence ofu2014the rural. The childishness of happy-camper services is disempowering; in contrast, the green movementu2019s central purpose is[/glossary_exclude] empowermentu2014[glossary_exclude]to develop its[/glossary_exclude] intelligence [glossary_exclude]and resources, to empower its members to act, having observed for themselves the extent of the ecological[/glossary_exclude] betrayal [glossary_exclude]that has taken place at the command of centralised urban civilisation and its centralised religion since the invention of the plough.rnrnIt is not impossible that the Christian church, after the shock of realising that it is being sidelined in the biggest spiritual renaissance for centuries, could recover its intelligence and a sureness of emotional touch. In fact, many churches are contributing all they can to the greening of faith; for them, environmental awareness is a central[/glossary_exclude] ethic. [glossary_exclude]But turning the churches green is different from getting the Greens to see anything green about them at all, and a benign convergence of the two principles is some distance away. Lean religion, if it happens, will, like lean everything-else, start with the shock of[/glossary_exclude] <em>kaikaku</em>. [glossary_exclude]Maybe that shock, from the churchu2019s point of view, is happening now.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r40/"><sup>R40</sup></a>rnrnThe fourth handicap which religions have to bearu2014as they find themselves with their new society-building and life-saving responsibilitiesu2014is the mixing up of religions which has taken place over the same period. There is no doubt that they have something to learn from each other, gaining insights through their faiths which may not be accessible in any other wayu2014the focus on the family, for instance, and the idea of God as a huge, complex, often difficult personality, are among the ideas which have been developed a long way by Judaism, and Christianity has inherited Judaismu2019s gift for recruiting emotions into the whole of its religious expression. Islam has a text of rock solid beauty and, in Sufism, a philosophy of love. Confucianismu2019s strength lies in the interweaving values of[/glossary_exclude] <em>Tao</em>. [glossary_exclude]Every religion has something to teach; they are each best in some way: the[/glossary_exclude] Lean Economy, [glossary_exclude]which will inherit pluralism, will have to derive advantages from them.rnrnNonetheless, pluralism is a[/glossary_exclude] self-denying truth. [glossary_exclude]It contradicts itself with multiple claims to[/glossary_exclude] authority. [glossary_exclude]If it is spoken too loud, the contradiction is fatal. It has introduced a sense of branding into the matter which, in itself, trivialises religious encounter: it effectively forces people to make an[/glossary_exclude] instrumental [glossary_exclude]choice with the conscious mind, rather than a bit-by-bit discovery of meaning and affection at the level of the subconscious, starting in childhood when the foundations for this facility are laid. As Edmund Burke recognised (though writing in a differentu2014politicalu2014context), the commitments <em>in which one finds</em> oneself have an ability to endure, and a sense of inevitability, which is not necessarily shared by commitments which are <em>chosen</em>:rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Men without their choice derive benefits from that association [with the society in which they find themselves]; without their choice they are subjected to duties in consequence of these benefits; and without their choice they enter into a virtual obligation as binding as any that is actual. Much the strongest moral obligations are such as were never the results of our option.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r43/"><sup>R43</sup></a></p>rn[/glossary_exclude]rnrn&nbsp;rn<table style="width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse;" border="1">rn<tbody>rn<tr>rn<td style="width: 100%;">[glossary_exclude]rn<p style="padding-left: 30px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 24px;">CREATIVE BREAKAGE</span>rnand its benefits</p>rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">u201cTo breaku201d is one of the curious words whose meaning, while clear enough, has a shadow which implies its opposite: the shadow-meaning of u201cto breaku201d is u201cto makeu201d: the light breaks; to break-in a horse, to break a fast, to have a break, to give me a break, to break through, to break the ice, to break a glass as a symbol of marriage, to break bread: the latter is the symbol both of the Christian idea of[/glossary_exclude] sacrifice [glossary_exclude]as the condition for the sublime, and of domestic good[/glossary_exclude] humour [glossary_exclude]and hospitality, the making and sustaining of friendship.</p>rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In a constructive sense, there is a breaking of the will here, a[/glossary_exclude] deference [glossary_exclude]to more powerful circumstance as the starting point for making fresh sense of things. It is often the case that a word or an idea means its opposite, as if deep meaning were not a matter of cracking enough problems but cracking enough jokes. The joker who dreamed up Psalm 84, for example, hinted at a refreshing, thirst-quenching potential in tearsu2014and his metaphor was real enough to drink:</p>rn<p style="padding-left: 60px;">Who going through the vale of misery use it for a well; and the pools are filled with water.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r41/"><sup>R41</sup></a></p>rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">It is with a related sense of double meaningu2014of successfully making a virtue out of viceu2014that breakage merges also with giving. In the Judaic[/glossary_exclude] story, [glossary_exclude]u201ca broken heartu201d is the ultimate gift: u201cSince thou delightest not in burnt offeringsu201d, dreams Psalm 51, I shall have to take the extreme step: u201cA broken and contrite heart O God shalt thou not despise.u201d</p>rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">It is John Donne that says it most directly and intensely:<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r42/"><sup>R42</sup></a></p>rn<p style="padding-left: 90px; text-align: left;">Batter my heart, three-personu2019d God, for yournAs yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;rnThat I may rise and stand, ou2019erthrow me and bendrnYour force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.</p>rn<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Our[/glossary_exclude] political economy [glossary_exclude]will be broken. It may yet, on that account, rise and stand, but that depends on its[/glossary_exclude] resilience.</p>rn</td>rn</tr>rn</tbody>rn</table>rn&nbsp;rnrn[glossary_exclude]There can be no submission or creative breakage (see sidebar) in the context of a conscious[/glossary_exclude] choice [glossary_exclude]between the seductive appeals of competing retailers in the salvation market. Pluralism also means that society itselfu2014and its institutions, such as schoolsu2014dare not favour one story over another, so collective expression of any one religion becomes an offence to the rest: many turns into none.rnrnMaybe that leaves the option of inventing its ownu2014the[/glossary_exclude] common purpose [glossary_exclude]expressed in the example of the Bromley by Bow Centre[/glossary_exclude] (Presence) [glossary_exclude]suggests the possibility of surmounting cultural differenceu2014but any invented hybrid is likely to be raw and literal, lacking the settled subtleties and beauties of religion. Society is thus largely excluded from the benign shared vocabulary of[/glossary_exclude] ceremony, [glossary_exclude]celebration, solidarity, spirit and belief provided by religion; the[/glossary_exclude] political economy, [glossary_exclude]scrubbed clean of allegory, is filled with secular kitsch.rnrnOf course, it is possible for[/glossary_exclude] diverse [glossary_exclude]religions to transcend this pluralism in shared recognition of each otheru2019s faithu2014u201cthe dignity of differenceu201d, as Dr. Jonathan Sacks terms itu2014and this is something in which[/glossary_exclude] art [glossary_exclude]is particularly skilled. Such connection only works if the starting point is a robust loyalty to oneu2019s own[/glossary_exclude] traditionu2014[glossary_exclude]without that, there is nothing to connectu2014but when different traditions do develop their artistic differences to the fullest extent, they may derive an[/glossary_exclude] intuitive sympathy [glossary_exclude]and respect for each other from the experience of their own faith, and find common ground on which they can meet. In such circumstances, secularismu2014confronting religionu2014has nothing to say. You cannot argue with a song.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r44/"><sup>R44</sup></a>rnrnBut there are limits to how much of the dignity of difference can be borne. Local[/glossary_exclude] identity [glossary_exclude]depends on its culture: a divided culture makes a united community harder to achieve, and at a time of stress it may be impossible. Existing religious[/glossary_exclude] loyalties [glossary_exclude]are intense, and this can be expected to fracture some local[/glossary_exclude] communities, [glossary_exclude]with others defining their internal[/glossary_exclude] cohesion [glossary_exclude]in terms of opposition to the rest. Secular attempts to shift these loyalties tend to be savage, and new[/glossary_exclude] ethics [glossary_exclude]which fill the vacuum left by religion are often dangerous. Appropriate responses are discussed in[/glossary_exclude] Multiculturalism, [glossary_exclude]but this is the explosive mixture which many[/glossary_exclude] nations [glossary_exclude]have been diligently building since the mid twentieth century.rn<p style="text-align: center;">u2014</p>rn&nbsp;rnrnNone of this is rational from the point of view of the[/glossary_exclude] market economy, [glossary_exclude]whose instinct for worship is directed to its technology, but the idea that a society can be held together without <em>either</em> an[/glossary_exclude] energy-[glossary_exclude]rich market[/glossary_exclude] <em>or</em> a culture-[glossary_exclude]rich religionu2014that is seriously irrational.rnrnA coherent social order in the future will need a religion; a religion will need a rich cultural inheritance. 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data-rocket-location-hash="c7e6538d524e0ba87baafef4e5a95eb2" id="content"> <div data-rocket-location-hash="7e3cce4e19c8b703f746209996a22459" class="center">  <div class="single_wrap no_sidebar" > <div class="single_post"> <div class="post-1386 glossary type-glossary status-publish hentry" id="post-1386">    <div class="single_post_content has_share_pos_after">    <h1 class="postitle entry-title" >Religion</h1>   <div class="single_metainfo ">  <i class="fa-user"></i> <a class="vcard author post-author" href="https://leanlogic.online/author/matthew/" ><span class='fn author' >David Fleming</span></a>  <i class="fa-comments-o"></i><div class="meta_comm"><a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/religion/#comments">9 Comments</a></div>  <i class="fa-th-list"></i><div class="catag_list" ></div> </div>   <div class="share_foot share_pos_after "> <div class="share_this social_square"> <div class="social_buttons"> <span class="share_label">Share This</span> <div class="lgn_fb"> <a 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href="https://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=https://leanlogic.online/glossary/religion/&title=Religion"><i class="fa fa-stumbleupon"></i></a> </div> <div class="lgn_digg"> <a target="_blank" href="https://www.digg.com/submit?url=https://leanlogic.online/glossary/religion/&amp;title=Religion" title="Digg This"><i class="fa fa-digg"></i></a> </div> <div class="lgn_email"> <a target="_blank" onclick="window.location.href='mailto:?subject='+document.title+'&body='+escape(window.location.href);" title="Email This"><i class="fa fa-envelope-o"></i></a> </div> <div class="lgn_print"> <a target="_blank" onclick="window.print();" title="Print This Page"><i class="fa fa-print"></i></a> </div> </div> </div> </div>   <div class="thn_post_wrap" > <div class="glossary-item-audio"></div><p>Religions are <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Narrative Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Meaning which is contained in myth, art, music and all forms of culture. It applies most directly, however, to storytelling. Narrative is story which may or may not be materially true, but—as is the way with stories—it has a shadow-meaning, ranging from the trivial or obvious to a deep, rich source of a lifetime’s reflection. Narrative, to be distinguished from allegory, works fine just as a story if you don’t want to look for the meaning beneath it; allegory’s purpose is its deeper meaning. You don’t by any means &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; to explore the meaning to enjoy a good narrative, whereas if you stay(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/narrative-truth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">narrative</a> <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A family of connections between statements and meanings.&lt;br /&gt;Truth can take many forms, and here are five of them. &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;1. &lt;em&gt;Material truth&lt;/em&gt; is direct, plain, literal description of situations and events: no greater depth of meaning is intended. It is an account of a reality which is &quot;bounded”—that is, there is no interest for the moment in exploring the deeper implications, insights and echo-meanings. This is the truth which tells you about the route taken by the hot water pipe from the boiler to the bathroom, how to make flatbread, how to photograph otters, what Darwinism is, why a herd of cows’(...)&lt;/p&gt;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/truth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">truths</a> affirmed by <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Ritual</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A performative utterance which makes something happen, points to spiritual depth and complexity, establishes or confirms the identity of a community or institution, and gives recognition to the implicit functions and reciprocal obligations which make up the fabric of social order.&lt;br /&gt;The function of ritual is complex, but it centres on the fundamental matter of existence. Institutions—the communities and social inventions that make a society—have an identity problem. Does an institution actually exist, or is it just a collection of people doing something they happen to want to do today? Does(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/ritual/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">ritual</a>; they variously assert the existence of many gods, one God, a mystical union of three gods in one, or their <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Myth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Among the meanings: &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;1. Ancient legend; story which seems to be as permanent as the landscape with which it is linked, giving it significance and personality.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;2. The narrative underlying a religion; the meeting point between religion and culture.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;3. A story which (the speaker insists) is untrue, though widely held to be true.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;4. Shared common sense, about behaviour and opinion; a society’s idea of normality.&lt;sup&gt;M53&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;5. A nation’s history.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;6. A nation’s popular history.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;7. A nation’s history, revised with malicious intent.&lt;/p&gt; But these are fragmented. The condensed meaning of myth is the(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/myth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>myth</a> does not have a concept of God at all.</p> <p>The narrative truth and the ritual in which it is affirmed have essential functions for a <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Community</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Community can mean many things. One of them refers to common interests—the Morris dancing community, the gay community, the Facebook community. These are reasonable understandings of community, but they fall outside the bounds of this entry, which explores community in the sense of living in the same place.&lt;br /&gt;The character of such communities is varied, and many attempts have been made to devise a frame of reference for making sense of their differences. The best-known way of distinguishing between them was provided by Ferdinand Tönnies, who (in 1887) pointed to the difference between the(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/community/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">community</a>, for the individuals within it, and for its <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Social Capital</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The social capital of a community is its social life—the links of cooperation and friendship between its members. It is the institutions, the common culture and ceremony, the good faith and reciprocal obligations, the civility and citizenship, the play, humour and conversation which make a living community. Social capital is the ecosystem in which a culture lives.&lt;br /&gt;Imagine a society which shares an inheritance of stories and poems which have grown out of its own story and experience; imagine that it consists of neighbourhoods where the adults know each other, where they meet often, where(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/social-capital/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">social capital</a>. They embrace its <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Culture</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The culture of a community is its art, music, dance, skills, traditions, virtues, humour, carnival, conventions and conversation. These give structure and shape to community—like the foundational vertical strands used in basket-making, round which you wind the texture of the basket itself. Culture keeps social capital alive and upright. It is . . . &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;. . . all those habits and customs whereby we identify ourselves as a community instead of as a collection of atomic individuals. And what makes that possible is a sense of shared destiny, shared history, shared home, being together in one(...)&lt;/p&gt;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/culture/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">culture</a>, giving it <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Identity</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The root condition for rational judgment.&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Rational” here has a particular sense: a rational decision is consistent with the individual’s intention, or &lt;em&gt;conatus&lt;/em&gt;—what he is striving to do; what he is about. The intention may be selfish or enlightened; it may be mistaken; it may be altruistic or self-sacrificing: if the person wishes to do something for others without counting the cost, rational behaviour will take steps to do so. What rational decision &lt;em&gt;cannot&lt;/em&gt; do is choose a direction in the absence of context, if the decision-maker has no identity, no intention—no &lt;em&gt;conatus&lt;/em&gt;. Reason can exist(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/identity/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">identity</a> and meaning.</p> <p>And although narrative truth is central to it, religion also inhabits all five forms of truth:</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">• There is <em><a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Material Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A representation of reality which is accurate, or at least intended literally. Material truth is the information you need to have available to you when, for instance, crossing a road, installing a boiler, filling a tooth or building a bridge.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/material-truth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">material truth</a></em> in the historical account, and in at least some of religion’s practical and ethical teaching.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">• The <em><a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Narrative Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Meaning which is contained in myth, art, music and all forms of culture. It applies most directly, however, to storytelling. Narrative is story which may or may not be materially true, but—as is the way with stories—it has a shadow-meaning, ranging from the trivial or obvious to a deep, rich source of a lifetime’s reflection. Narrative, to be distinguished from allegory, works fine just as a story if you don’t want to look for the meaning beneath it; allegory’s purpose is its deeper meaning. You don’t by any means &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; to explore the meaning to enjoy a good narrative, whereas if you stay(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/narrative-truth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">narrative truth</a></em> of religion is the allegory, the parable and myth which provide insights and deep sources for reflection.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">• Religion’s <em><a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Implicit Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The product of reflection, particular to the person. Reflections and loyalties about the same thing may produce different truths — both, or all, true despite contrasts in emphasis and meaning. The differences may be consistent with each other, or they may mature into deep contradictions: &quot;This is my territory”; &quot;The ideal place for our honeymoon would be Scunthorpe”; &quot;We’ve won”. All these are true or untrue, depending on who is speaking.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related entries&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;Material Truth, Truth, Good Shepherd Paradox.</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/implicit-truth-2/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">implicit truth</a></em> is the insight derived from deliberation; it is the guidance, comfort, inspiration and prudence derived by a person’s own participation in his or her religion.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">• The <em><a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Performative Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Meaning that is created by a statement or a symbolic event, or even by a thought. For example, a contract or a commitment between two or more people is brought into being by a deliberately-articulated statement—a performative utterance: &quot;I challenge you”, &quot;I promise”, &quot;we celebrate”, &quot;I do”, &quot;I will”. As the theologian Ian Robinson notes, a change in attitudes can change some things for real—marriage for instance: &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;Mount Everest will remain the same whatever I make of it in my thoughts and emotions, and will not be changed if others make something quite different. Marriage is not(...)&lt;/p&gt;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/performative-truth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">performative truth</a></em> of religion lies in its ritual, as in the performance of the Christian Eucharist and other practices of religion which affirm and bring into existence a reality, similar in kind to the reality brought into existence by a <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Contract</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>An arrangement made between two or more parties, committing them to certain obligations which they are required to fulfil even if, at a later time, they do not want to, or find it difficult to do so.&lt;br /&gt;The contract may be implicit or explicit, but even an implicit contract is likely to be signalled by gesture or ceremony which affirms the contract’s existence. Contract is endorsed by law and custom and recorded in documents and other instruments, and sanctions may be material, but the contract itself has no material expression. You cannot see it. You cannot say where it is. The paper may be(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/contract/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">contract</a>.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">• Religion also involves a <em><a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Self-Denying Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A truth that contradicts itself—which undoes itself as soon as it is spoken. Examples: &quot;The religious belief which unites us so securely is in fact a useful falsehood.” &quot;The reason we have such a loving relationship is that you remind me of my mother.” &quot;We have compulsory games at this school in bitter winter weather because it makes you boys philosophical.” &quot;The Lord Chancellor has announced that the office of Lord Chancellor has been abolished.”&lt;br /&gt;It is a matter of acknowledging the limits of what we can say without destroying the truth in the process: you can kill an insight by analysing(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/self-denying-truth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">self-denying truth</a></em>, in that the commanding authority of a myth is impaired, or even destroyed, when it is described as a myth. The compiler of this Dictionary, as a critic, affirms the truth of this description of religion—but, as an observant, he denies it and, instead, enters into the performative truth which gives religion real presence.</p> <p> </p> <p>There are <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Paradox</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A statement which contradicts itself, or which seems to do so. Example: &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;This sentence is false.&lt;/p&gt; This is called the Liar Paradox; it can make you feel dizzy if you think about it too long, and it is said to have caused the premature death of Philetas of Cos, philosopher, romantic poet and tutor to the young Ptolemy II in the fourth century BC.&lt;sup&gt;P11 &lt;/sup&gt;Paradoxes are extremely important because many of the most interesting truths contain seeming contradictions: as Francis Bacon remarked, &quot;There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”&lt;sup&gt;P12&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A person who is(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/paradox/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">paradoxes</a> and shadow-meanings in all of these, especially in narrative truth and self-denying truth.</p> <p>Alfred North Whitehead, with the sureness of touch of a philosopher of science, captures it:</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realised; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r38/"><sup>R38</sup></a></p> <p><a href="https://leanlogic.online/illustration-credits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="wp-image-8824 aligncenter" src="https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/house-1024x987.png" alt="" width="572" height="552" srcset="https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/house-1024x987.png 1024w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/house-300x289.png 300w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/house-768x740.png 768w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/house-600x578.png 600w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/house-24x24.png 24w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/house.png 1317w" sizes="(max-width: 572px) 100vw, 572px" /></a></p> <p>Religion, like all other living things, dies if dissected; the dissector kills what he seeks to understand. It exists because it is performed, affirmed and loved. The view that dismisses religion on the grounds that it contains untrue statements is a solecism; a naïve failure to understand the significance of religion, the culture which it expresses, and the many natures of <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A family of connections between statements and meanings.&lt;br /&gt;Truth can take many forms, and here are five of them. &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;1. &lt;em&gt;Material truth&lt;/em&gt; is direct, plain, literal description of situations and events: no greater depth of meaning is intended. It is an account of a reality which is &quot;bounded”—that is, there is no interest for the moment in exploring the deeper implications, insights and echo-meanings. This is the truth which tells you about the route taken by the hot water pipe from the boiler to the bathroom, how to make flatbread, how to photograph otters, what Darwinism is, why a herd of cows’(...)&lt;/p&gt;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/truth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">truth</a>. If a common practice celebrates the identifying narrative or <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Myth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Among the meanings: &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;1. Ancient legend; story which seems to be as permanent as the landscape with which it is linked, giving it significance and personality.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;2. The narrative underlying a religion; the meeting point between religion and culture.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;3. A story which (the speaker insists) is untrue, though widely held to be true.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;4. Shared common sense, about behaviour and opinion; a society’s idea of normality.&lt;sup&gt;M53&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;5. A nation’s history.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;6. A nation’s popular history.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;7. A nation’s history, revised with malicious intent.&lt;/p&gt; But these are fragmented. The condensed meaning of myth is the(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/myth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>myth</a> of the community, if it is expressed in one or more of the arts, especially music, if there is at least a degree of repetition and constancy in that expression, and if it requires some, or many, members of the community to participate, it is, for <em>Lean Logic</em>, an expression of religion.</p> <p>In the process, religion provides meeting places in which people can come together, building and sustaining the friendships of social capital; it is the hub through which <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Necessity</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>(1) &quot;The plea for every infringement of human freedom.” (William Pitt, 18 November 1783)&lt;br /&gt;(2) The considered product of reflection.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related entries&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;Distraction, Hyperbole, Needs and Wants.</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/necessity/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">needs</a> are signalled and answered. That can be done in other ways, too, of course: by playing cards, or being a regular at the pub, or being on a committee. But religion can do it in ways which those other meeting places cannot. It enables a lot of people to participate in a collective activity, doing the same thing at the same time, to the same music. Its ritual is, in itself, of no direct practical value, and this makes it especially potent and effective as a statement by participants that they are there as members of the community. In religious observance, friends, neighbours, beloveds and families face the same way; there is shared <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Presence</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Direct participation in community and social enterprise.&lt;br /&gt;For &lt;em&gt;Lean Logic&lt;/em&gt;, a social enterprise is any collective accomplishment, such as organising a festival, maintaining a school, building a community, managing a commons, helping the poor, or supporting charities and local institutions such as meals-on-wheels, churches, choirs, or the Scouts. Presence means being there, making a society, weaving a texture of belonging, motivations and affections. There is no such thing as society without it.&lt;br /&gt;Throughout the modern era, however, presence has been in progressive decline. The loss of this(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/presence/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">presence</a>.</p> <p>Religion delivers <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Tradition</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The standing of tradition at present is low. It is patronised as a theme for tourists; it is the nostalgia of old age, a repudiated symbol of the past, of privilege, of pre-scientific ignorance, inconsistent with the serious business of a competitive economy; an affront to common sense. Not so: tradition is indispensable for a functioning society; it is serious business. It does three vital things:&lt;br /&gt;First, it is the substance of culture. Culture does not necessarily advance in the sense of getting &lt;em&gt;better&lt;/em&gt;; it changes slowly as each creative contribution becomes part of it. As T.S. Eliot(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/tradition/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">tradition</a> to us, a present from the past. It brings core values represented in terms of exceptional beauty. The idea that every community, every village, no matter how small, should have, in the middle of it, a building of the greatest beauty they can manage, reaching up into the sky, a place of wonder and reflection, a seedbed of common purpose, made from <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Gifts</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Assets transferred voluntarily and without payment. &lt;br /&gt;At first sight, &quot;giving” seems to be straightforward: the giver confers the gift freely. And yet, there is in return an unspoken expectation—it cannot be explicit—that he will in due course receive something back. The give-and-take of mutual obligation is so inseparable from the idea of the gift that there turns out to be no such thing as the &quot;free” gift. The very notion of giving implies—or at least affirms an expectation of—receiving. All gifts have strings attached; indeed, the word itself is full of ambiguity: &quot;gift”, with its(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/gifts/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">gifts</a> of money and labour, coming to terms with the riddles of life and <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Death</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The means by which an ecosystem keeps itself alive, selects its fittest, controls its scale, gives peace to the tormented, enables young life, and accumulates a grammar of inherited meaning as generations change places.&lt;br /&gt;A natural system lies in tension between life and death: death is as important to it as life. &lt;em&gt;A lot&lt;/em&gt; of death is a sign of a healthy large population. &lt;em&gt;Too much&lt;/em&gt; death is a sign that it is in danger; it is not coping; its terms of coexistence with its habitat are breaking down. &lt;em&gt;Too little&lt;/em&gt; death is a sign of the population exploding to levels which will destroy it and the(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/death/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">death</a>, and bringing <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Private Sphere</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>See Public Sphere and Private Sphere.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/private-sphere/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">private</a> lives and the setting up of <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Family</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>See Small Group, Reciprocity and Cooperation, Home, Lean Household, Public Sphere and Private Sphere.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/family/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">families</a> into the embrace of the community—well, you might think it a ridiculous <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Utopia</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A place of ideal government, good judgment and a perfectly cared-for ecology.&lt;br /&gt;It is an important idea because it is a way of thinking afresh not only about what society ought to be, but what it will need to be, for it is argued that the world has become too dangerous for anything less than Utopia—as the futurist William Koetke puts it: &quot;Creating a utopian paradise, a new Garden of Eden, is our only hope.”&lt;sup&gt;U32&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Utopias do not have to be realistic to be interesting. They lift the spirits. Here, William Morris is being driven gently—in a carriage with the graceful and pleasant lines of a simple(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/utopia/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">utopia</a> if it had not happened.</p> <p>The critic will reach for the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Contrarian Fallacy, The</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>An argument which dismisses one proposition by emphasising another one. For example, the proposition, &quot;Many London households in the age of Handel achieved a high level of culture and civility” may be disputed on the grounds that &quot;eighteenth century London still had desperate poverty and open sewers.”&lt;br /&gt;The problem is not that the objection is false; it is that it can effectively see off the original statement, which disappears from the discussion, allowing the easy ride of catch-all cynicism to continue uninterrupted. The Contrarian Fallacy—the inverse of the three monkeys who hear no(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/contrarian-fallacy-the/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">Contrarian Fallacy</a>, pointing out that religion can bring strife as well as concord; that there have been many abuses of power; that some expressions of religion misapprehend their own myths—by, for instance, naïvely supposing the Creation Story to be fact. Religion, like every other human enterprise, comes with no guarantee of being done well. It can be more drawn to guilt than to joy, to the personal than the collective, to righteous <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Narcissism</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Love of the self. The person is entranced by his own mental ability and moral standing, to the point of being unable to hear any contrary view. Self-love is noted for its fidelity: &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;The sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye And all my soul and all my every part; And for this sin there is no remedy, It is so grounded inward in my Heart.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 90px;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;William Shakespeare, &lt;/em&gt;Sonnets&lt;em&gt;, 1609.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sup&gt;N24&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Narcissism is the inevitable product of a society which has become so banal that there is all too little, apart from the self, left to love. This is fatal to argument because the person who loves himself has(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/narcissism/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">narcissism</a> than to <em><a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Caritas</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Caring encounter: a principle associated particularly with medieval Christianity, by which a community recognised the duty of care among its extended networks of family relationship and reciprocal obligation. &lt;em&gt;Caritas&lt;/em&gt; is close to charity (meaning 2), except that:&lt;br /&gt;(a) it is the expression of a humane and orderly culture and community, whereas charity has more the sense of an individual act; and&lt;br /&gt;(b) it has no implication that the other person is in trouble or worse-off than you: it is the mutual bond of care between equals that holds the political economy together, giving it the stability it(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/caritas/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">caritas</a></em>. Religion can be intolerant, sanctimonious and cruel. But it is hard to think of any political or social order to which those regrettable properties do not apply from time to time. The secular world, too, with chilling good intentions, and at whatever cost in lives and <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Capital</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Capital (in &lt;em&gt;Lean Logic&lt;/em&gt;) is a particular kind of arrangement of matter, energy and information. The default arrangement of these three elements is disorderly and diffuse — entropic — but sometimes, in the right conditions, they clump together in unlikely and interesting ways; as life, for example.&lt;sup&gt;C8&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The key property for such ‘unlikely arrangements’ to qualify as capital is that of being of instrumental value to something. Something, somewhere finds them useful. This means that arrangements of matter, energy and information may move in and out of being capital, depending on context.&lt;br(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/capital/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">capital</a> in all its forms, sometimes tries to build a new and secular Jerusalem.</p> <p>But look again at what religion <em>can</em> do. Religion is the community speaking. It is culture in the service of the community. It is a framework for integrating <em>caritas</em> into the community’s life and culture; it takes charitable giving beyond the level of personal conscience and integrates it into the way the community sees itself and expresses itself.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r39/"><sup>R39</sup></a></p> <p>Religion uses allegory, opening up the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Ironic Space</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The gap between contradictions—such as the contradiction between what you think about something and the evidence about it, of which you may only recently have become aware. It is a paradox which, if recognised, demands a resolution, but may never get one. It is the obscurity that comes in inherited myth or sacred language, bringing the plain delight and enigma of incomprehension. Or it is a clash between ideas which are consistent within themselves, but not with each other. A momentary loss of bearings gives us the disorientation enjoyed in humour, quickly resolved. But, if the(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/ironic-space/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">ironic space</a> of questions unsettled, paradoxes unresolved, beauty undescribed. It occupies, with benign myth, the space in the mind which, if vacated, is wide open to takeover by <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Ideology</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A single, widely-applicable strategy or idea, typically well-intended, whose scale is too large—or which is being dealt with at too high a level—to permit observable reality and detail. Ideology in the state sector is expressed in: &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;1. large projects, which can be persisted with and given a measure of plausibility due to the massive resources that are invested in them; and&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;2. general principles — the abstract ethic in terms of which the regime defines and justifies itself, and on which it bases its claim to be ethical.&lt;/p&gt; Pragmatic thinking, focused on grounded local observation, is seen(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/ideology/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">ideology</a>. Akin to <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Carnival</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Celebrations of music, dance, torchlight, mime, games, feast and folly have been central to the life of community for all times other than those when the pretensions of large-scale civilisation descended like a frost on public joy.&lt;br /&gt;Carnival is a big word: it spans the buffoonery of the Feasts of Fools, the erotic Saturnalia of Rome, the holy holidays of the Church’s calendar and the agricultural year, and local days of festival in which communities, for most of history, have put down their work and concentrated on enjoying themselves.&lt;br /&gt;The making and sustaining of community requires deep(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/carnival/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">carnival</a>, it provides powerfully <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Cohesion</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Society’s ability to hold itself together over a long period, despite stresses which would otherwise break it apart.&lt;br /&gt;The market economy is an effective system for sustaining social order: the distribution of goods, services and other assets is facilitated by buying and selling, supporting a network of exchange to which everyone has access. But if the flow of income fails, the powerfully-bonding combination of money and self-interest will no longer be available on its present all-embracing scale, and perhaps not at all. It will then be necessary to rely instead on the cohesive properties(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/cohesion/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">cohesive</a> rituals that give reality to membership of the community; that invite <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Emotional Argument, Fallacies of</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>(1) The fallacy that the strong presence of emotion in an argument validates it: the expression of real feeling is taken to show that the person is sincere, so she has to be right.&lt;br /&gt;(2) The fallacy that the strong presence of emotion in an argument invalidates it: the expression of real feeling is taken to show that the person is not being rigorous, so she has to be wrong.&lt;br /&gt;But neither of these are necessarily fallacies. The logician’s view of this is generally austere. Madsen Pirie writes, &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;Emotion . . . motivates us to do things, but reason enables us to calculate what to do.&lt;sup&gt;E94&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Not in(...)&lt;/em&gt;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/emotional-argument-fallacies-of/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">emotional</a> daring; and that alert the community to time—to the natural cycles of day and season, as well as to its existence as inheritor from previous generations and benefactor of future generations. The ritual itself is a skilled <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Practice</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A skill or craft, requiring a lifetime’s learning, and whose tight feedback loops reveal errors quickly.&lt;br /&gt;This is in sharp contrast to activities which are in various ways protected against feedback (e.g., politics, economics). Without quick feedback, actions which will in due course lead to disaster can be assumed (on the ignorance-is-bliss principle) to be successful, and firmly embedded and reinforced in irrational assumptions, appetites, reflexes and emotions which the person assumes to be right.&lt;sup&gt;P76&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The built-in feedback of practice does things. First, it nudges in the direction of the(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/practice/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">practice</a> built on justice, truthfulness and <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Courage</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>See Fortitude, Practice, Virtues, &lt;em&gt;Tao&lt;/em&gt;, Betrayal, Character.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/courage/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">courage</a> which affirms the identity of the community and builds social capital—it invites <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Reflection</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Disengagement, in order to think. It may be brief and urgent: a matter of ducking out of sight for a moment, if there is no other way.&lt;br /&gt;As Richard Chartres reminds us in his reflection on Ash Wednesday, that is what Jesus did, when pressed by an angry crowd—doodling reflectively in the dust before giving us the clincher argument against the witch-hunt and its variants: &quot;He who is without sin: let him cast the first stone.” Chartres summarises: stoop, clarify, connect.&lt;sup&gt;R26&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In less crowded circumstances, reflection is thinking time; there is local self-reliance; a flow of concentration. It is(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/reflection/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">reflection</a>, recruiting the deep intellectual power which is available only to the subconscious mind, and locates the community as particular to—and steward of—the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Place</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Space whose local narrative can still be heard, and could be heard again, given the chance.&lt;br /&gt;Place is the practical, located, tangible, bounded setting which protects us from abstractions, generalities and ideologies and opens the way to thinking as discovery. On this scale, there is elegance, and some relief from the need to be right, for if you are wrong, the small scale of place allows for revision and repair, supported by conversation.&lt;br /&gt;The philosopher David Hume considers the matter: &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;There are in &lt;em&gt;England&lt;/em&gt;, in particular, many honest gentlemen, who being always employ’d in their domestic(...)&lt;/p&gt;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/place/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">place</a>. It bears the gift of <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Encounter</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The act of recognising something—a person, a practice, a system—on its own terms; the particular character and wholeness of the other is acknowledged; judgment and opinion about him/her/it are set in a relevant context, rather than in the context of universal general principle or immoveable mindset.&lt;br /&gt;To acknowledge the wholeness of a system—a woodland, a person, a planet, nature—means being aware that you are in the presence of something which has business and an agenda of its own, and which cannot be tamed by your understanding. To see nature as a whole, as its own self, you need to(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/encounter/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">encounter</a>. In all these ways, religion underpins the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Trust</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Trust is confidence that an obligation, explicit or implied, will be honoured. The motivation for keeping faith in this way is varied. It may be love, or a promise, or commitment to a professional standard, or a matter of going along with the purpose of the institution to which you belong. In &lt;em&gt;Lean Logic&lt;/em&gt;, trust is a condition for the web of reciprocal obligation which builds community, and for the relationship between a nation and its people.&lt;br /&gt;And it is a critical capital asset, distinct from the other forms of capital; it is both producer and product of social capital. It is a necessary(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/trust/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">trust</a> and permanence which make it possible to sustain reciprocity—the network of interconnected talent and service which makes the local economy real.</p> <p>Unfortunately, the religions of the world will not, in general, be in good shape for these creative responsibilities. There are four reasons for this:</p> <p>The first is that religions have been shattered and depleted by the disintegration of social structure and the loss of social capital which have followed the advance of the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Market Economy</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The economic order on which modern society depends.&lt;br /&gt;The &quot;Great Transformation” in politics, economics and society came when the market economy hit its stride in Britain in the late eighteenth century. Before it, cohesion was sustained to a large extent through the social capital of reciprocal obligation, loyalties, authority structures, culture and traditions. &lt;br /&gt;The Great Transformation consisted of their replacement by market exchange, income and price, and by the impersonal principles of economics. Around these, cooperative arrangements can be sustained with little need for a common(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/market-economy/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">market economy</a>. At the same time, the advance of science and the literal-minded, disenchanted thinking that is widely taken to be the only sort of thinking there is has made it harder to recognise and accept the poetic discourse of religion. Challenged by science, its leaders and ministers quickly surrendered to the idea that scientific, material truth is the only kind of truth there is. Argued on science’s own terms, the religions that have been exposed to the debate in any serious way have been routed.</p> <p>Secondly, and for similar reasons, a large part of (at least) the divided and confused Western Christian church, as it developed in the late twentieth century, has gone to great lengths to present the most plain-speaking of interpretations, abandoning the unchanging text needed if people are to have any chance of holding it in the memory. It has scrapped its <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Liturgy</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The form taken by religious observance.&lt;br /&gt;Why should this matter? Well, &lt;em&gt;Lean Logic&lt;/em&gt; argues that the culture of a society and its communities will be central to its existence; that if a culture is affirmed and expressed collectively and regularly, it will have, to some degree, the properties of ritual; and that the cultural framework within which a ritual is performed can be understood as a form of religion. This is clearly a nuanced understanding of religion: it claims that the nature and intensity of the ritual shapes the nature and intensity of the religion which it affirms, ranging, for(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/liturgy/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">liturgies</a> and strained, instead, at spontaneity, and at presenting the simple message of personal salvation in literal terms to be accepted as material truth or rejected as false. When it is presented in those terms, many reasonable people have no choice but to refuse to accept a proposition which they reject as simply nonsense. In this way, the church has thrown out the whole set of <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Implicit Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The product of reflection, particular to the person. Reflections and loyalties about the same thing may produce different truths — both, or all, true despite contrasts in emphasis and meaning. The differences may be consistent with each other, or they may mature into deep contradictions: &quot;This is my territory”; &quot;The ideal place for our honeymoon would be Scunthorpe”; &quot;We’ve won”. All these are true or untrue, depending on who is speaking.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related entries&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;Material Truth, Truth, Good Shepherd Paradox.</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/implicit-truth-2/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">implicit</a> functions, narrative and allegorical truths which are integral to the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Arts</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Explorations of meaning expressed in narrative truth.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related entries&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;Carnival, Culture, Ironic Space, Second Nature.</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/arts/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">artistic</a> and cultural meaning of the community, and which are the essence of religion. Christian religion in the market economy has found itself drawn into the idolatry of reducing complex meaning and the reflective Imitation of Christ to an <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Icon, The</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>An argument summarised in one ready-made idea: a silver bullet, often of the kind which thinks the job is done when it has found someone to blame. Icons are words or phrases which act as a substitute for—or which distract attention from—the argument, crowding out reflection.&lt;br /&gt;Once fixed on the iconic word, the argument is over: &quot;reform”, &quot;diversity”, &quot;competition”, &quot;qualifications”, &quot;level playing field”, &quot;equality”, &quot;transparent”, &quot;fair”, &quot;democratic”, &quot;accessible”, &quot;vibrant”, &quot;modernising”; &lt;em&gt;or &lt;/em&gt;&quot;selfishness”, &quot;greed”, &quot;violence”, &quot;privilege”, &quot;elitist”, &quot;exclusive”, &quot;discriminatory”,(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/icon-the/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">iconic</a> Imitation of Marketing, falling for a technique which it can only do with breathless and piteous amateurism, in place of what it used to do with assured and numinous skill.</p> <p>Thirdly, although at present there is a yearning for an expression of other, non-materialistic, non-scientific, <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Spirit</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>St. Paul promised this: &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;The peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds.&lt;sup&gt;S94&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt; There is a lot there. There is a radiant peace which we do not understand. It exists in the depth of our being. It is the gift of God.&lt;sup&gt;S95&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Properties like these seem to be beyond the competence of &lt;em&gt;Lean Logic&lt;/em&gt;’s dirty-handed, located approach to matters, and beyond the reach of description. They can be danced, perhaps. Made into music.&lt;br /&gt;But not described, because they live below the level of the conscious mind, in the dark territory explored by the German philosopher Johann Friedrich(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/spirit/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">spiritual</a> values, the established churches almost completely fail to benefit from this. They are not on that wavelength and, for much of the spiritual movement in the world of strongly-developed <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Green</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The colour of hope, and of the desire, in response to the grey and brutal surfaces of the industrial city, to recover, protect, affirm, or just be reminded of, the natural world. Political parties which made this their main purpose adopted the name in the 1980s, but the idea, latent since mankind began to live in cities, has been intense since the early days of steam power. Here it is, extravagantly but sharply stated by John Ruskin, reflecting on the question, &quot;What have we done?” &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;Gentlemen of England, if ever you would have your country breathe the pure breath of heaven again, and(...)&lt;/p&gt;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/green/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">green</a> awareness, the affirmation of a Christian faith stands at the opposite extreme from what they need. It seems cold and absurd, full of confident reassurance about an afterlife which is not only grossly incredible but an offence to people whose concern is focused on how much longer there is going to be a planet for this life. Established religion, especially the Christian church, seems to be the embodiment of urban, and human-centred, alienation from nature, while green values look for ways to establish some real contact with—and come to the defence of—the rural. The childishness of happy-camper services is disempowering; in contrast, the green movement’s central purpose is empowerment—to develop its <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Intelligence</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>(1) A public good. The intelligence of at least some people is a vital public good which we cannot do without if there is to be a future for the rest of us. The view of intelligence as a private perk is a measure of failure to recognise society as a connected system, which relies on individual talent as a collective asset. In the market economy, attitudes to intelligence are ambivalent, and mixed in with them is unease about it—as an embarrassment; proof of how far we still fall short of equality of opportunity to fuck up.&lt;br /&gt;(2) A public bad. The presumption is: I am intelligent, therefore(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/intelligence/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">intelligence</a> and resources, to empower its members to act, having observed for themselves the extent of the ecological <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Betrayal</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>If trust exists, the possibility of breaking it—betrayal—exists, too. In a culture which values trust, betrayal is viewed with horror. It opens up the possibility that the friendships, loyalty and trust that hold society together and make it comprehensible are not what they seem. Dante’s &lt;em&gt;Inferno&lt;/em&gt; reserves for traitors the deepest pit of hell.&lt;sup&gt;B8&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Betrayal destroys any &quot;now” in which logic can operate: an enemy has at least the merit of existing in the present; the betrayer derives his value in his new life from what he was, and yet his old life has been repudiated; there is nothing there.(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/betrayal/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">betrayal</a> that has taken place at the command of centralised urban civilisation and its centralised religion since the invention of the plough.</p> <p>It is not impossible that the Christian church, after the shock of realising that it is being sidelined in the biggest spiritual renaissance for centuries, could recover its intelligence and a sureness of emotional touch. In fact, many churches are contributing all they can to the greening of faith; for them, environmental awareness is a central <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Ethics</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>There is a sense in which the core ethic is the one which guides (or would guide, if it were observed) our relationship with the natural environment. There is strict feedback here: if it is not obeyed, it will in due course destroy.&lt;br /&gt;The problem is the time-lag: the payback may be deep in the future, or even unknown to those who are engaged in the choice. Choices made now by you will have consequences after your death, beyond your foresight, in places that you have never visited, for species of which you have no knowledge. And the links between cause and effect may be non-linear, with(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/ethics/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">ethic</a>. But turning the churches green is different from getting the Greens to see anything green about them at all, and a benign convergence of the two principles is some distance away. Lean religion, if it happens, will, like lean everything-else, start with the shock of <em><a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Kaikaku</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A radical break.&lt;br /&gt;For more, see Lean Thinking, Paradigm.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/kaikaku/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">kaikaku</a></em>. Maybe that shock, from the church’s point of view, is happening now.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r40/"><sup>R40</sup></a></p> <p>The fourth handicap which religions have to bear—as they find themselves with their new society-building and life-saving responsibilities—is the mixing up of religions which has taken place over the same period. There is no doubt that they have something to learn from each other, gaining insights through their faiths which may not be accessible in any other way—the focus on the family, for instance, and the idea of God as a huge, complex, often difficult personality, are among the ideas which have been developed a long way by Judaism, and Christianity has inherited Judaism’s gift for recruiting emotions into the whole of its religious expression. Islam has a text of rock solid beauty and, in Sufism, a philosophy of love. Confucianism’s strength lies in the interweaving values of <em><a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Tao</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tao.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;The Way”. A concept of Confucian thought which has something in common with the principles of &lt;em&gt;Lean Logic&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Tao&lt;/em&gt; refers to the ideal way of life, whose key features include the following:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Te&lt;/em&gt; is the virtue—generosity, ritual, humility—which enables a person (originally, the ruler) to tread The Way.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jen&lt;/em&gt;—kindness—is a concern and engagement with all living things (related to &lt;em&gt;caritas&lt;/em&gt; and encounter).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Li&lt;/em&gt; refers to rituals, behaviour and tradition as integral to a person’s participation in the community.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Yi&lt;/em&gt; is the sense of rightness, truthfulness and courage which underpins judgment.&lt;br /&gt;Confucian(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/tao/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>Tao</a></em>. Every religion has something to teach; they are each best in some way: the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Lean Economy, The</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The fabric of the Wheel of Life, supported by richly-developed social capital and culture, organised not around the market, but around the rediscovery of community. It is based on cooperation in a slack economic and social order, building on a panarchy of social groupings, from small groups and household production through the close neighbourhood and parish to the nation. It sustains solutions—lean energy, lean food, lean materials and water, along with lean economics, lean education, lean health, lean law and order, lean defence, religion, carnival and play. Guiding principles include(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/lean-economy/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">Lean Economy</a>, which will inherit pluralism, will have to derive advantages from them.</p> <p>Nonetheless, pluralism is a <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Self-Denying Truth</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A truth that contradicts itself—which undoes itself as soon as it is spoken. Examples: &quot;The religious belief which unites us so securely is in fact a useful falsehood.” &quot;The reason we have such a loving relationship is that you remind me of my mother.” &quot;We have compulsory games at this school in bitter winter weather because it makes you boys philosophical.” &quot;The Lord Chancellor has announced that the office of Lord Chancellor has been abolished.”&lt;br /&gt;It is a matter of acknowledging the limits of what we can say without destroying the truth in the process: you can kill an insight by analysing(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/self-denying-truth/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">self-denying truth</a>. It contradicts itself with multiple claims to <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Authority</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>See Freedom.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/authority/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">authority</a>. If it is spoken too loud, the contradiction is fatal. It has introduced a sense of branding into the matter which, in itself, trivialises religious encounter: it effectively forces people to make an <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Instrumentalism, The Fallacy of</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The perception of a thing or person as useful for your purposes, but otherwise expendable and of little or no account.&lt;br /&gt;It is a form of abstraction, because the victim, forfeiting his, her or its claim to defining properties and characteristics, is recognised only in terms of that usefulness. An image of this is the nude observed coldly, but with interest, by a man in a suit, complete with clipboard, biro, well-filled wallet, mobile phone, calculator . . . The instrumental detachment has the quality of the scavenger, the asset-stripper; the victim is likely to be destroyed in the process,(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/instrumentalism-the-fallacy-of/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">instrumental</a> choice with the conscious mind, rather than a bit-by-bit discovery of meaning and affection at the level of the subconscious, starting in childhood when the foundations for this facility are laid. As Edmund Burke recognised (though writing in a different—political—context), the commitments <em>in which one finds</em> oneself have an ability to endure, and a sense of inevitability, which is not necessarily shared by commitments which are <em>chosen</em>:</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">Men without their choice derive benefits from that association [with the society in which they find themselves]; without their choice they are subjected to duties in consequence of these benefits; and without their choice they enter into a virtual obligation as binding as any that is actual. Much the strongest moral obligations are such as were never the results of our option.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r43/"><sup>R43</sup></a></p> <p></p> <p> </p> <table style="width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse;" border="1"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width: 100%;"></p> <p style="padding-left: 30px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 24px;">CREATIVE BREAKAGE</span><br /> and its benefits</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">“To break” is one of the curious words whose meaning, while clear enough, has a shadow which implies its opposite: the shadow-meaning of “to break” is “to make”: the light breaks; to break-in a horse, to break a fast, to have a break, to give me a break, to break through, to break the ice, to break a glass as a symbol of marriage, to break bread: the latter is the symbol both of the Christian idea of <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Sacrifice-and-Succession</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The succession of life-cycles of the subdivisions, holons or parts of an ecology, whose sequence of death and renewal sustains the longevity of the ecological system as a whole and contributes to its resilience. In this context, death is benign participation, the key enabling condition of resilient, living community.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related entries&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;Carnival, Wheel of Life, Resilience &lt;strong&gt;&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Recovery-Elastic Resilience &lt;strong&gt;&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Sacrifice-and-Succession.</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/sacrifice-and-succession/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">sacrifice</a> as the condition for the sublime, and of domestic good <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Humour</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Sensory delight in paradox.&lt;br /&gt;Humour clears away inhibitions about exploring taboo responses and solutions. It makes it all right to acknowledge a mistake; it supplies the detachment needed to judge one’s own work and improve its quality.&lt;br /&gt;It is a necessary condition for the toleration—as distinct from enforcement—of differences in role, assets and influence within the group. It sustains conversation and underwrites the existence of a group whose members work together and listen to each other; it is a source of shared belonging and mutual recognition: it . . . &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;. . . remains one of the ways(...)&lt;/p&gt;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/humour/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">humour</a> and hospitality, the making and sustaining of friendship.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">In a constructive sense, there is a breaking of the will here, a <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Deference</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>(1) Sycophantic submission to received ideas and admired people.&lt;br /&gt;(2) Recognition of the particular, even though it is uncomfortable or difficult, as a starting point for &lt;em&gt;caritas&lt;/em&gt;, with its caring obligation and engagement, and for encounter, the act of recognising something on its own terms. Deference, or creative deference, accepts the qualities of the subject—a work of art, a tradition, an ecology, a person—despite its dissonance with easy current values.&lt;br /&gt;The two meanings of deference are not complementary, but rather in direct opposition to each other, with the first being so dominant(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/deference/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">deference</a> to more powerful circumstance as the starting point for making fresh sense of things. It is often the case that a word or an idea means its opposite, as if deep meaning were not a matter of cracking enough problems but cracking enough jokes. The joker who dreamed up Psalm 84, for example, hinted at a refreshing, thirst-quenching potential in tears—and his metaphor was real enough to drink:</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Who going through the vale of misery use it for a well; and the pools are filled with water.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r41/"><sup>R41</sup></a></p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">It is with a related sense of double meaning—of successfully making a virtue out of vice—that breakage merges also with giving. In the Judaic <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Story</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>See Narrative Truth.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/story/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">story</a>, “a broken heart” is the ultimate gift: “Since thou delightest not in burnt offerings”, dreams Psalm 51, I shall have to take the extreme step: “A broken and contrite heart O God shalt thou not despise.”</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">It is John Donne that says it most directly and intensely:<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r42/"><sup>R42</sup></a></p> <p style="padding-left: 90px; text-align: left;">Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you<br /> As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;<br /> That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me and bend<br /> Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">Our <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Political Economy</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Society in the broad sense. Despite many differences of emphasis, economics was once understood in this way, as including the whole range of society, politics and economy.&lt;br /&gt;That understanding held in the period roughly between the publication of a coherent theory of value (based on labour) by Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, and the launch in 1891 of the narrower interpretation of &quot;positive economics” by John Neville Keynes (1852–1949). Before that period, economics had been discussed as a question of moral philosophy; after it, economics became(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/political-economy/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">political economy</a> will be broken. It may yet, on that account, rise and stand, but that depends on its <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Resilience</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The ability of a system to cope with shock.&lt;br /&gt;That will do, perhaps, as a short definition. But this is a case where we need to know more, so here is a more considered way of looking at it. Resilience is . . . &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks.&lt;sup&gt;R45&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt; There is nothing wrong with that except that it can still leave you wondering what resilience is really about, so here is another way of coming at it. Think of a shallow lake whose water is kept clear by the(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/resilience/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">resilience</a>. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p> </p> <p>There can be no submission or creative breakage (see sidebar) in the context of a conscious <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Choice, The Fallacy of</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The assumption that we do what we choose.&lt;br /&gt;It sometimes happens that a well-intentioned friend or relation takes it as an assumption that the things you do in your life reflect choices that you have made. After all, if you hadn’t chosen them, you wouldn’t be doing them, would you? But it may not be as simple as that. You may find yourself committed, for instance, to your local Transition initiative, or to any of the things you do as a citizen, because you believe that it has to be done, whether or not you have time for it and really enjoy doing that sort of thing more than, for instance,(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/choice/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">choice</a> between the seductive appeals of competing retailers in the salvation market. Pluralism also means that society itself—and its institutions, such as schools—dare not favour one story over another, so collective expression of any one religion becomes an offence to the rest: many turns into none.</p> <p>Maybe that leaves the option of inventing its own—the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Common Purpose</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Common purpose is a shared intention to achieve a shared goal, where collective aims are advanced by the individual purpose, and individual aims are advanced by the collective purpose.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related entries&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;Common Capability, Emergence, Presence, TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas).</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/common-purpose/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">common purpose</a> expressed in the example of the Bromley by Bow Centre (<a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Presence</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Direct participation in community and social enterprise.&lt;br /&gt;For &lt;em&gt;Lean Logic&lt;/em&gt;, a social enterprise is any collective accomplishment, such as organising a festival, maintaining a school, building a community, managing a commons, helping the poor, or supporting charities and local institutions such as meals-on-wheels, churches, choirs, or the Scouts. Presence means being there, making a society, weaving a texture of belonging, motivations and affections. There is no such thing as society without it.&lt;br /&gt;Throughout the modern era, however, presence has been in progressive decline. The loss of this(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/presence/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">Presence</a>) suggests the possibility of surmounting cultural difference—but any invented hybrid is likely to be raw and literal, lacking the settled subtleties and beauties of religion. Society is thus largely excluded from the benign shared vocabulary of <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Ceremony</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A form of ritual, typically formal and on a relatively large scale. It affirms, or can affirm, an implicit contract of membership between a community and its members.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related entries&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;Culture, Carnival, Religion.</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/ceremony/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">ceremony</a>, celebration, solidarity, spirit and belief provided by religion; the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Political Economy</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Society in the broad sense. Despite many differences of emphasis, economics was once understood in this way, as including the whole range of society, politics and economy.&lt;br /&gt;That understanding held in the period roughly between the publication of a coherent theory of value (based on labour) by Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, and the launch in 1891 of the narrower interpretation of &quot;positive economics” by John Neville Keynes (1852–1949). Before that period, economics had been discussed as a question of moral philosophy; after it, economics became(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/political-economy/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">political economy</a>, scrubbed clean of allegory, is filled with secular kitsch.</p> <p>Of course, it is possible for <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Diversity</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Variations between the parts of a system.&lt;br /&gt;We can think of diversity as coming in two important forms:&lt;br /&gt;First, there is strong diversity (or ‘structural diversity’). This is the diversity of the parts which carry out specialist roles within a complex system, such as the radically different—but strongly-connected—organs within the body of an animal.&lt;br /&gt;Secondly, there is the weak diversity (or ‘textural diversity’) within a modular system. Its parts are similar to each other and only loosely interdependent, but the small variations may still be necessary for it to function.&lt;br /&gt;Examples of weak(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/diversity/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">diverse</a> religions to transcend this pluralism in shared recognition of each other’s faith—“the dignity of difference”, as Dr. Jonathan Sacks terms it—and this is something in which <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Arts</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Explorations of meaning expressed in narrative truth.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related entries&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;Carnival, Culture, Ironic Space, Second Nature.</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/arts/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>art</a> is particularly skilled. Such connection only works if the starting point is a robust loyalty to one’s own tradition—without that, there is nothing to connect—but when different traditions do develop their artistic differences to the fullest extent, they may derive an <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Intuition</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The ability to understand, or respond accurately to, a complex issue without consciously thinking it through and knowing the reasons. The mind gets to the point without knowing why. Many skills, such as playing the piano, drawing, or quickly judging the veracity of a stranger, can only be performed if they are embedded in parts of the brain which get things done without having to consult the conscious mind. But you need to do a lot of work to get there. Antonio Damasio explains, &lt;p style=&quot;padding-left: 30px;&quot;&gt;The quality of one’s intuition depends on how well we have reasoned in the past; on how well we have(...)&lt;/p&gt;</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/intuition/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">intuitive</a> sympathy and respect for each other from the experience of their own faith, and find common ground on which they can meet. In such circumstances, secularism—confronting religion—has nothing to say. You cannot argue with a song.<a href="https://leanlogic.online/footnote/r44/"><sup>R44</sup></a></p> <p>But there are limits to how much of the dignity of difference can be borne. Local <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Identity</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The root condition for rational judgment.&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Rational” here has a particular sense: a rational decision is consistent with the individual’s intention, or &lt;em&gt;conatus&lt;/em&gt;—what he is striving to do; what he is about. The intention may be selfish or enlightened; it may be mistaken; it may be altruistic or self-sacrificing: if the person wishes to do something for others without counting the cost, rational behaviour will take steps to do so. What rational decision &lt;em&gt;cannot&lt;/em&gt; do is choose a direction in the absence of context, if the decision-maker has no identity, no intention—no &lt;em&gt;conatus&lt;/em&gt;. Reason can exist(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/identity/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">identity</a> depends on its culture: a divided culture makes a united community harder to achieve, and at a time of stress it may be impossible. Existing religious <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Loyalty</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Obligation, recognised and acted upon to promote the interests of a person or a group, even though there is no evident advantage in doing so. The important word here is &quot;evident”: loyalty may involve short-term trouble or regret, but you may be able to influence the situation and make an investment—of thought, emotion, work or money—with better long-term results than you could have got from an early exit.&lt;br /&gt;&nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related entries&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;Lean Economics, Trust, Humility.</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/loyalty/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">loyalties</a> are intense, and this can be expected to fracture some local <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Community</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Community can mean many things. One of them refers to common interests—the Morris dancing community, the gay community, the Facebook community. These are reasonable understandings of community, but they fall outside the bounds of this entry, which explores community in the sense of living in the same place.&lt;br /&gt;The character of such communities is varied, and many attempts have been made to devise a frame of reference for making sense of their differences. The best-known way of distinguishing between them was provided by Ferdinand Tönnies, who (in 1887) pointed to the difference between the(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/community/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">communities</a>, with others defining their internal <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Cohesion</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Society’s ability to hold itself together over a long period, despite stresses which would otherwise break it apart.&lt;br /&gt;The market economy is an effective system for sustaining social order: the distribution of goods, services and other assets is facilitated by buying and selling, supporting a network of exchange to which everyone has access. But if the flow of income fails, the powerfully-bonding combination of money and self-interest will no longer be available on its present all-embracing scale, and perhaps not at all. It will then be necessary to rely instead on the cohesive properties(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/cohesion/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">cohesion</a> in terms of opposition to the rest. Secular attempts to shift these loyalties tend to be savage, and new <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Ethics</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>There is a sense in which the core ethic is the one which guides (or would guide, if it were observed) our relationship with the natural environment. There is strict feedback here: if it is not obeyed, it will in due course destroy.&lt;br /&gt;The problem is the time-lag: the payback may be deep in the future, or even unknown to those who are engaged in the choice. Choices made now by you will have consequences after your death, beyond your foresight, in places that you have never visited, for species of which you have no knowledge. And the links between cause and effect may be non-linear, with(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/ethics/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">ethics</a> which fill the vacuum left by religion are often dangerous. Appropriate responses are discussed in <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Multiculturalism</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>This is usually taken to mean the coexistence of diverse cultures and their corresponding religions within a single community. &lt;em&gt;Lean Logic&lt;/em&gt; argues that, in the future, the central uniting property of a society will be its culture. There is no doubt that, in order to accomplish this, the culture will need to be well-developed and strong, attracting consensus in the public sphere rather than being simply a matter of private preference. It would seem to follow that culture can only do this work of sustaining unity if the culture concerned is a single, common culture, for which there is(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/multiculturalism/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">Multiculturalism</a>, but this is the explosive mixture which many <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Nation</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>A state which is defined by its own territorial boundaries, whose people recognise that definition, and which has sovereign power over its affairs. Smaller territorial identities within the larger territory are part of the modular, diverse composition of the nation as a complex system; they are not inconsistent with it.&lt;sup&gt;N31&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the scale of the nation, reciprocity is generally assumed to be &quot;negative”—you get only what you pay for—but the strangeness of other people is mitigated. They speak the same language, are subject to the same laws, are aware of the same debates; they have some of the(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/nation/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">nations</a> have been diligently building since the mid twentieth century.</p> <p style="text-align: center;">—</p> <p> </p> <p>None of this is rational from the point of view of the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Market Economy</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The economic order on which modern society depends.&lt;br /&gt;The &quot;Great Transformation” in politics, economics and society came when the market economy hit its stride in Britain in the late eighteenth century. Before it, cohesion was sustained to a large extent through the social capital of reciprocal obligation, loyalties, authority structures, culture and traditions. &lt;br /&gt;The Great Transformation consisted of their replacement by market exchange, income and price, and by the impersonal principles of economics. Around these, cooperative arrangements can be sustained with little need for a common(...)</div>" href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/market-economy/" data-mobile-support="0" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex="0" role="link">market economy</a>, whose instinct for worship is directed to its technology, but the idea that a society can be held together without <em>either</em> an energy-rich market <em>or</em> a culture-rich religion—that is seriously irrational.</p> <p>A coherent social order in the future will need a religion; a religion will need a rich cultural inheritance. It will give culture a real job to do, something to participate in, and not simply to be watched: something to give your heart to, to give you the moral strength you need to keep going because there is no big Something in the sky who is going to do it for you.</p> <p> </p> <a href="https://leanlogic.online/list-of-entries/">« Back to List of Entries</a> </div> <div style="clear:both"></div> <div class="thn_post_wrap wp_link_pages"> </div>   <div class="post_foot"> <div class="post_meta"> </div> </div>  </div>  </div>  <div class="author_box "> <div class="author_avatar"> <img width="100" height="100" src="https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/david-fleming-100x100.png" class="avatar avatar-100 photo" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/david-fleming-100x100.png 100w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/david-fleming-150x150.png 150w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/david-fleming.png 205w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /> </div> <div class="author_inner"> <h5>David Fleming</h5> <div class="athor_desc"> Dr David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was a cultural historian and economist, based in London, England. He was among the first to reveal the possibility of peak oil's approach and invented the influential TEQs scheme, designed to address this and climate change. He was also a pioneer of post-growth economics, and a significant figure in the development of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement and the New Economics Foundation, as well as a Chairman of the Soil Association. His wide-ranging independent analysis culminated in two critically acclaimed books, 'Lean Logic' and 'Surviving the Future', published posthumously in 2016. These in turn inspired the 2020 launches of both BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's feature film about Fleming's perspective and legacy - 'The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?' - and Sterling College's unique 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time' online courses. For more information on all of the above, including Lean Logic, click the little globe below! </div> <div class="athor_social"> <a class="auth_website" href="https://www.flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/books/" target="_blank"><i class="fa-globe"></i></a> </div> </div> </div>     <div class="comments_template ">   <h3 id="comments"> 9 Responses to “<a>Religion</a>” </h3>   <ul class="commentlist">  <li class="comment byuser comment-author-shaun even thread-even depth-1" id="li-comment-351"> <div id="comment-351" class="comment-body"> <div class="comm_edit"></div> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <div class="avatar"><img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=30&d=retro&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=60&d=retro&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-30 photo' height='30' width='30' loading='lazy' decoding='async'/></div> <div class="comm_auth">Catherine Johnstone</div> <a class="comm_date"><i class="fa-clock-o"></i>5 years ago</a> <div class="comm_reply"> <i class="fa-reply"></i> <a rel="nofollow" class="comment-reply-login" href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">Log in to Reply</a> </div> </div> <div class="org_comment"><p>Is it really seriously irrational?</p> <p> To start at the end: DF asserts that it is seriously irrational to think that a society can be held together without either an energy rich market economy or a culture rich religion.</p> <p> Why is it seriously irrational? DF tells us what religion is for…place for people to come togther, sustaining friendshps, collective activitity with routines of time and place, core values represented with beauty (art, architecture, music. Can’t these elements be supplied to or created for a community through its culture without the defining religious element of narrative truth?</p> <p> “Religion occupies with benign myth the space in the mind which if vacated is wide open to takeover by ideology”</p> <p> I don’t think the myths of Christianity are benign. One man came to save us all… from what? Our sins….we are all sinners…pain and a tortured death on our behalf as one of central icons… the birth of the lovely, special baby…three months later (in our calendar and a child’s mind) he’s on the cross…the inherent patriarchy of Christianity…God as ‘he’…..the Lord and Father of Mankind ….it was Eve who took the apple and God gave Adam the job of ruling over her…</p> <p> So, despite loving much of the trappings of Christianity (its art, architecture, music etc), and the teachings of Jesus as they are imparted to us, I have a real problem with the idea that all will be well for communities that find themselves in the Christian tradition. Its non-benign and patriarchal narrative myths will always mean that it can readily be interpreted in ways that cause personal, interpersonal and intercultural difficulties.</p> <p> What if….we were to have a spirituality grounded in respect for each other, respect for nature, an understanding of its systems and cycles, a deep ecology which sees humanity as just one small but very powerful element of Gaia, and that asserts our obligation and responsibility to do no harm to Earth’s ecology because it has intrinsic value in its own right, not just because we need it.</p> <p> What if that spirituality encouraged us to look to and learn from great thinkers, visionaries, leaders, writers, doers, traditions, cultures, religions from ancient societies up to modern times, regardless of the culture they were grounded in and religion the individuals adhered to (or may even have founded, whether deliberately or not)?</p> <p> What if that spirituality also borrowed truly benign narratives from religions, cultures and spiritual traditions, past and present, but presented them as stories only, to be understood as such, and to be used to enrich the culture. We would not need to ‘favour one story over another’, or to see them as ‘competing retailers in the salvation market’. That this would constitute a self denying truth wouldn’t matter if we were not looking to religion as our authority. </p> <p> What if that spirituality were entwined with art, culture, carnival, celebration, traditions of the place, and from outside of the place, and which could also be borrowed from past or present religions and traditions?</p> <p> Would all this be enough to create the sense of cohesion, caring and common ground necessary for a supportive, trusting, community? Would we really need a narrative that too many people take literally and which would be fraught with dangers? </p> </div> </div> <ul class="children"> <li class="comment byuser comment-author-shaun odd alt depth-2" id="li-comment-352"> <div id="comment-352" class="comment-body"> <div class="comm_edit"></div> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <div class="avatar"><img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=30&d=retro&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=60&d=retro&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-30 photo' height='30' width='30' loading='lazy' decoding='async'/></div> <div class="comm_auth"><a href="http://www.darkoptimism.org/" class="url" rel="ugc external nofollow">Shaun Chamberlin</a></div> <a class="comm_date"><i class="fa-clock-o"></i>5 years ago</a> <div class="comm_reply"> <i class="fa-reply"></i> <a rel="nofollow" class="comment-reply-login" href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">Log in to Reply</a> </div> </div> <div class="org_comment"><p>Hey Cath, thanks for this fantastic offering, and as editor of <em>Lean Logic</em> I’m pretty sure DF would have wholeheartedly agreed with much, if not all, that you write. I shall endeavour to explain that opinion!</p> <p>As I read it, what he is calling “seriously irrational” is the idea that as the energy-rich market breaks down, we can do without taking <em>culture</em> a whole lot more seriously again.</p> <p>The word ‘religion’ is obviously a controversial one (they don’t come much more controversial!) but, as he explains, his own unique definition of ‘religion’ is wide enough to encompass all sorts of things that aren’t usually considered religious, but which <em>are</em> about his life’s work – how to hold a society together to avoid the opening up the kind of cultural fault lines that history warns of.</p> <p>His starting point is that that aim is going to be a lot harder as the climacteric unfolds – whatever the local traditions – so, given that context, he wants to explore every possible avenue at our disposal towards that end, including the significance of ‘religion’ (so defined).</p> <p>He certainly didn’t think that that needed to be Christian, but where you <em>maybe</em> differ is that he did see ‘<a href="https://leanlogic.online/narrative-truth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">narrative truth</a>‘ – i.e. storytelling – as being necessarily at the very heart of such culture. Note though that he’s talking about ‘narrative truth’, <em>not</em> about literal narratives or historical claims, both of which he instead places in the category of <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/material-truth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">material truths</a> (i.e. factual claims that are true or false, as opposed to the narrative truth of stories, with all the shadow-meanings, ambiguities and invitations to <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/reflection/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reflection</a> they can bring).</p> <p>I too have longstanding issues with the inherent patriarchy in taking the classic family of <em>father, mother, child</em> and turning it into a Holy Trinity of <em>father, son, ghost</em>, but that’s another story…</p> <p>Certainly David himself clearly wasn’t comfortable with many elements of modern Christianity, as he makes abundantly clear, decrying for example its “confident reassurance about an afterlife which is not only grossly incredible but an offence to people whose concern is focused on how much longer there is going to be a planet for this life” and its “embodiment of urban, and human-centred, alienation from nature”.</p> <p>Nonetheless he equally clearly derived <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/implicit-truth-2/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">implicit truth</a> from its parables, teachings, art etc (i.e. its storytelling). As I mentioned in the webinar, I think his entry on <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/ironic-space/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ironic Space</a> offers some clues here, but I won’t presume to speak for him further on such matters, since he doesn’t offer much defence of Christian narratives in his work. Rather he merely acknowledged it as his own cultural background, and the tradition from within which <em>he</em> explored life’s great mysteries.</p> <p>Indeed, David shared your apparent sense that “<a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/spirit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">if the spirit is anywhere, it is in the natural ecology</a>“, and highlighted that “small communities, with cultures shaped by a closeness to nature, which is held in respect and awe, could be close to pagan spiritualism—like the <em>lelira</em> of the Inuit and the shamanic religions whose rituals sustain the <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/script/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">scripts</a> which in turn sustain their local ecologies”.</p> <p>And he reminds us, as you do, that we have things to learn from all traditions, and that “coexistence is not toleration; it is resonance; it is the nature of the human ecology”.</p> <p>In keeping with that – as you so beautifully write – in these times spirituality will need to:</p> <p><em>“borrow truly benign narratives from religions, cultures and spiritual traditions, past and present, but presenting them as stories only, to be understood as such, and to be used to enrich the culture. We would not need to ‘favour one story over another’, or to see them as ‘competing retailers in the salvation market’. That this would constitute a self denying truth wouldn’t matter if we were not looking to religion as our authority.” </em></p> <p>To my eyes that was exactly his point, wonderfully stated. That <em>both</em> religious fundamentalism and Richard Dawkins-style atheism have spectacularly missed the point – they have taken opposite ends of an argument over whether the literal narratives of particular religions are materially true or false.</p> <p>What he advocates instead is entering into those nuanced <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/narrative-truth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">narrative truths</a> (not the literal narratives) which hold out the potential to encourage us towards reflection and empowerment, rather than the slavish obedience that he so vehemently opposes in everything he writes.</p> <p>As he put it, “some expressions of religion misapprehend their own myths – by, for instance, naively supposing the Creation Story to be fact”. Or as you put it, they should be “presented as stories only, to be understood as such, and to be used to enrich the culture”. That is exactly what he meant by narrative truth, and why he felt it was so important.</p> <p>I hope that explains my firm belief that he would wholeheartedly support your beautiful vision Cath! And given the stories you’ve told about your own interactions with him, I suspect you suspect the same.</p> <p>Thanks again, so much,<br /> Shaun</p> </div> </div> <ul class="children"> <li class="comment byuser comment-author-shaun even depth-3" id="li-comment-354"> <div id="comment-354" class="comment-body"> <div class="comm_edit"></div> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <div class="avatar"><img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=30&d=retro&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=60&d=retro&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-30 photo' height='30' width='30' loading='lazy' decoding='async'/></div> <div class="comm_auth">Beth Brownfield</div> <a class="comm_date"><i class="fa-clock-o"></i>5 years ago</a> <div class="comm_reply"> <i class="fa-reply"></i> <a rel="nofollow" class="comment-reply-login" href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">Log in to Reply</a> </div> </div> <div class="org_comment"><p>Shaun, Your responses are alway so incredible. You must have David’s work memorized with all the hyper links at your finger tips. It would take me a day to make such an intricate reply. Bravo!</p> <p>Catherine, I’ll get back to you soon.</p> </div> </div> </li> <li class="comment byuser comment-author-shaun odd alt depth-3" id="li-comment-353"> <div id="comment-353" class="comment-body"> <div class="comm_edit"></div> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <div class="avatar"><img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=30&d=retro&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=60&d=retro&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-30 photo' height='30' width='30' loading='lazy' decoding='async'/></div> <div class="comm_auth">Catherine Johnstone</div> <a class="comm_date"><i class="fa-clock-o"></i>5 years ago</a> <div class="comm_reply"> <i class="fa-reply"></i> <a rel="nofollow" class="comment-reply-login" href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">Log in to Reply</a> </div> </div> <div class="org_comment"><p>Hi Shaun</p> <p>Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to reply so fully! I have a lot to say in response, but no time right now. Not something I can rattle off! I will get back to you.</p> <p>Cath</p> </div> </div> </li> <li class="comment byuser comment-author-shaun even depth-3" id="li-comment-356"> <div id="comment-356" class="comment-body"> <div class="comm_edit"></div> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <div class="avatar"><img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=30&d=retro&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=60&d=retro&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-30 photo' height='30' width='30' loading='lazy' decoding='async'/></div> <div class="comm_auth">G.M.</div> <a class="comm_date"><i class="fa-clock-o"></i>5 years ago</a> <div class="comm_reply"> <i class="fa-reply"></i> <a rel="nofollow" class="comment-reply-login" href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">Log in to Reply</a> </div> </div> <div class="org_comment"><p>Thanks very much Catherine for your response to the religion reading. I would have said much of what you say and also appreciate Shaun’s response. My sense is that Fleming’s description of religion is more aspirational than actual and, as you and Shaun said, much broader than what we think of as religion. I know that I have a bit of a knee jerk response to the word ‘religion’.</p> <p>As a young child I remember being horrified hearing the teaching of the Catholic church that non catholics would go to hell. I knew it wasn’t true. But my husband, who grew up with a much more all encompassing version of Catholicism, believed it. He never had a non Catholic friend growing up. Probably many of us left the religions of our childhoods because of the ways religion created an us and them.</p> <p>It feels like one of the aspects of religion that Fleming is pointing to, in addition to the way common culture can support community cohesion, is the more mystical aspect of every religious tradition where there is a great deal of common ground – in his words (not exact quote) religion helps us be with unanswered questions, with paradox, with mystery and beauty. If we go beneath the surface, beneath the dogma to the root teachings and practices of most religions we land in the mystery and in the “truth” of non separation, which is where we land when we are rooted in the natural world as well.</p> </div> </div> </li> <li class="comment byuser comment-author-shaun odd alt depth-3" id="li-comment-358"> <div id="comment-358" class="comment-body"> <div class="comm_edit"></div> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <div class="avatar"><img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=30&d=retro&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=60&d=retro&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-30 photo' height='30' width='30' loading='lazy' decoding='async'/></div> <div class="comm_auth">Catherine Johnstone</div> <a class="comm_date"><i class="fa-clock-o"></i>5 years ago</a> <div class="comm_reply"> <i class="fa-reply"></i> <a rel="nofollow" class="comment-reply-login" href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">Log in to Reply</a> </div> </div> <div class="org_comment"><p>Hi Shaun</p> <p>Thanks again for your reply. I think you are probably right that David would agree with my overall vision, but I still think that both he and I, and you and I, do differ, and not really where you think we differ! My turn to explain.</p> <p>You write: <em>As I read it, what he is calling “seriously irrational” is the idea that as the energy-rich market breaks down, we can do without taking culture a whole lot more seriously again.</em> </p> <p>Indeed David talks a lot about the need for a rich culture, but if he had written the same sentence and just used the word “culture” it would have a different meaning. I think he differentiates clearly between culture and religion. Here, he’s talking about the need for a “culture-rich religion”, not just a rich culture.</p> <p>Religion is “the binding-together of people with stories, music, dance, emotion, death, spirit”, whereas “the culture of a society or community is its art, music, dance, skills, traditions, virtues, humour, conventions, celebrations and conversation.”. It’s a broader definition. Religions “embrace its (a community’s) culture, giving it identity and meaning”. So to me he’s saying that within the rich culture that will be so essential, we will also need a culture-rich religion.</p> <p><em>He certainly didn’t think that that needed to be Christian,</em></p> <p>Yes I completely agree. But he does come across as thinking that we would be very lucky if that were the tradition we were to find ourselves in: “ they will inherit a proven, full-mouthed, full-blooded liturgy of great depth and brilliance…….And they will also inherit the architectural expression of that liturgy—the churches—spectacular assertions that community is a mere prelude to the great fugue of overlapping mysteries, parables, affections and accomplishments that give us Gaia.”. If I ended up with all this but with a fundamentally different narrative, I’d be happy! And I love his metaphor of the prelude and fugue!</p> <p><em>…but where you maybe differ is that he did see ‘narrative truth’ – i.e. storytelling – as being necessarily at the very heart of such culture. </em></p> <p>(To get our definitions: to me <em>narrative</em> is storytelling. “It may or may not report the material truth, but the narrative says something that cannot be said in any other way.” <em>Narrative truth</em> is the meaning and understanding, the truth, that we can reach through the story: “a shadow-meaning that extends beyond metaphor, and can lead to the discovery of material or implicit truths”.)</p> <p>I don’t differ with him here at all. I think that narrative is a wonderful vehicle for getting at the truth, and can very often reveal truths that are hard to get to in a more direct manner. And I’m perfectly happy to take his word for it that “it’s nessecarily at the heart of such culture”. I understand the difference between narrative truth and material truth. Where I think David and I part company is that for me there are narratives which impart truths without damaging the listener, and there are those which may aim to impart useful, helpful, meaningful truths, but which have a well-proven ability to damage people on the way. I take objection to the statement “Religion occupies with benign myth the space in the mind which if vacated is wide open to takeover by ideology” for exactly this reason. Many of the stories of Christianity, from which we are supposed to glean wonderful truths (and clearly many do), are not benign, in my view. And also many of the ‘truths’ that we may arrive at from the stories, ie the narrative truths, are also damaging, for example the narrative truth of masculine/male domination. Even if consciously we reject that, it is a strong undercurrent of Christian culture because it is so pervasive in that narrative. In short, in my view both the narrative and the narrative truth of religions can be dangerous.</p> <p><em>What he advocates instead is entering into those nuanced narrative truths (not the literal narratives) which hold out the potential to encourage us towards reflection and empowerment, rather than the slavish obedience that he so vehemently opposes in everything he writes.</em></p> <p>And I would completely agree with him, if the narrative truth, and the narrative itself, were not, in many instances, so unpleasant. It’s hard if you have grown up with all the narratives of a complex religion, to decide which truths you accept and which you don’t. Or, you can decide, consciously, but to remove them as unconscious drivers is not easy. They have become part of your psyche.</p> <p><em>As he put it, “some expressions of religion misapprehend their own myths”</em></p> <p>Yes. But David doesn’t seem to suggest that it’s the wrapping surrounding the (narrative) truth that is the problem. The myths themselves are benign, he says. Of course people misapprehend when many churches present what seem to many to be stories, as fact. Millions of people believe the creation myth, and that they will go to hell if they misbehave, and that they were born sinful. And this causes a lot of pain. And I don’t see how it is avoidable given the nature of some of the stories.</p> <p>To go further, I understand there are aspects of the Christian myth that were added later with the deliberate intention to control the population. I read recently that Saint Someone (sorry, memory fails me) added the notion of original sin sometime in the Middles Ages for exactly that purpose. Benign?</p> <p>Religions can be, and often are, used to manipulate and control. To me we need spirituality, stories, traditions, culture, celebration. But not religion.</p> <p><em>I hope that explains my firm belief that he would wholeheartedly support your beautiful vision Cath! And given the stories you’ve told about your own interactions with him, I suspect you suspect the same.</em></p> <p>You are right, I do suspect that 🙂 And we would end up in a thrilling discussion about what in religion is benign and what is not, and the conversation would go off at so many wild and such wonderful tangents that I would feel like my mind would fly away!</p> <p>Thanks again, Shaun, you have given me something to really get my teeth into. (Sorry it’s so long!)</p> <p>Cath</p> </div> </div> <ul class="children"> <li class="comment byuser comment-author-shaun even depth-4" id="li-comment-359"> <div id="comment-359" class="comment-body"> <div class="comm_edit"></div> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <div class="avatar"><img width="30" height="30" src="https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-48x48.jpg" class="avatar avatar-30 photo" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-48x48.jpg 48w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-300x300.jpg 300w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-1024x978.jpg 1024w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-150x150.jpg 150w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-768x733.jpg 768w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-1536x1467.jpg 1536w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-2048x1956.jpg 2048w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-600x573.jpg 600w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-100x100.jpg 100w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-24x24.jpg 24w, https://leanlogic.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shaun02-cropped-96x96.jpg 96w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 30px) 100vw, 30px" /></div> <div class="comm_auth"><a href="http://www.darkoptimism.org/" class="url" rel="ugc external nofollow">Shaun Chamberlin</a></div> <a class="comm_date"><i class="fa-clock-o"></i>5 years ago</a> <div class="comm_reply"> <i class="fa-reply"></i> <a rel="nofollow" class="comment-reply-login" href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">Log in to Reply</a> </div> </div> <div class="org_comment"><p>Hey Cath,</p> <p>Thanks again – this is great!</p> <p>So yes indeed his phrase is “a culture-rich religion”, though “religion” as he defines it:</p> <p><em>“If a common practice celebrates the identifying narrative or <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/myth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">myth</a> of the community, if it is expressed in one or more of the arts, especially music, if there is at least a degree of repetition and constancy in that expression, and if it requires some, or many, members of the community to participate, it is, for Lean Logic, an expression of religion.”</em></p> <p>and he gets into it more in <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/liturgy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Liturgy</a>:</p> <p><em>“</em>Lean Logic<em> argues that the <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/culture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">culture</a> of a society and its <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/community/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">communities</a> will be central to its existence; that if a culture is affirmed and expressed collectively and regularly, it will have, to some degree, the properties of <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/ritual/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ritual</a>; and that the cultural framework within which a ritual is performed can be understood as a form of religion. This is clearly a nuanced understanding of <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/religion/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">religion</a>: it claims that the nature and intensity of the ritual shapes the nature and intensity of the religion which it affirms, ranging, for instance, from “slightly” religious to “intensely” religious, and indeed the intensity can be expected to vary over time. <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/binary/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Binary</a> definitions—this is/is not a religion—have value only at the extremes, at which the identification of the religious is trivial in any case.”</em></p> <p>I think it’s important to remember that when he uses the word he’s talking about a much broader swathe of culture than what is conventionally referred to by the term “religion”, a term which many – entirely understandably – associate exclusively with the negative force that religion has often been, and so react against, as G.M. said.</p> <p>As you say, he could have written “without either an energy-rich market or a rich culture”, but remember that this was his closing flourish (and I do so enjoy his closing flourishes!) to his entry on religion – as he defines it – which has explained why he sees it as so intrinsic to culture. I believe you share this understanding of his words, but it’s important to emphasise I think.</p> <p>As I understand, you would also agree with him that such practices that ‘celebrate the identifying narrative of the community, expressed together through the arts’ are of critical importance, and would further agree that this can be done well or poorly, and that many expressions of religion today do it particularly poorly.</p> <p>So if I understand rightly, the nub of your <em>dis</em>agreement is that while he <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/narrative-truth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">argues</a>:<br /> <em>“The idea that allegory—or <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/religion/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">religion</a>, whose <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/grammar/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">grammar</a> is allegory—should be taken for the literal truth is an extraordinary failure of mature judgment. A work of art—especially the work of art called religion—makes the question of whether it is true or not absurd.”</em></p> <p>You would perhaps say that given the widespread nature of that ‘failure of mature judgment’, and the fact that – as he acknowledges – many formal religions even fall into it themselves, some responsibility must be taken in crafting/choosing narratives that do not lend themselves to that, or at least that do not lead to such catastrophic outcomes if that mistake is made. I’d have to agree with you there.</p> <p>I’d also highlight that technically David appears to contradict himself by opening the Narrative Truth entry by distinguishing narrative truth from allegory, but then stating in the religion entry that “the <em><a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/narrative-truth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">narrative truth</a></em> of religion is the allegory, the parable and myth which provide insights and deep sources for reflection.”</p> <p>I’m inclined to cut him some slack here – given both the fact that he died before finalising his work, and the intrinsically slippery nature of such non-material truths – but nonetheless, it cuts straight to the heart of your point. If allegory can be mistaken for narrative truth, and narrative truth “works fine just as a story if you don’t want to look for the meaning beneath it”, then clearly some allegories and narrative truths run the risk of catastrophic misunderstanding, as history clearly confirms.</p> <p>There is an open question as to whether the same is true of all narrative truths, but I would agree with you that some are far more open to dangerous interpretations than others.</p> <p>So we turn to the particular tradition that he was raised in, and his “<a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/liturgy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">far-from-objective starting point of being in love with the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.</a>” It is clear to me – and I think to you – that he was able to parse the narratives and <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/ironic-space/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ironic Spaces</a> of that tradition in such a way as to “make a [rather wonderful] person” of himself. As you say, many folk clearly do this. So perhaps it is fair to say that those traditions do not necessarily damage those partaking in them. But do certain traditions run a greater risk of that – and have a worse track record of doing so? I would have to say clearly yes.</p> <p>So while David states that “<em>Religion, like every other human enterprise, comes with no guarantee of being done well</em>“, he indeed doesn’t appear to explicitly acknowledge myth-creation in that list of other human enterprises. He focuses on the possibilities of shortcomings in myth-<em>interpretation</em> more than on possibilities of shortcoming in myth-<em>creation</em>.</p> <p>To me it is clear that – as you say – such possibilities exist there too. Imagine that I try to create the most toxic myth imaginable and share it with the world. I might hope that people would use reflection and sustained engagement to reject most of it, but it would seem inappropriate for me to deny any role should they fail to do so.</p> <p>So yes, I take the objection to the statement “<em>Religion occupies with benign myth the space in the mind which if vacated is wide open to takeover by ideology</em>”. Were I writing similar myself I would be happy to say “Religion [as David defines it] <em>can</em> occupy with benign myth the space in the mind which if vacated is wide open to takeover by ideology”. I indeed think that is a critical role for narrative truths that encourage reflection and empowerment. However, I would also acknowledge more strongly that religion (on either definition) can – and often has – degenerate into such ideology itself.</p> <p>Clearly David recognised that – indeed, his very entry on ideology tells the story of King Philip the Fair “allow[ing] himself to be persuaded by a Spanish mystic called Ramon Lull that he was destined by God to recapture the Holy Land.” – but I can well understand your objection to that particular line of his.</p> <p>And yes, as you say:</p> <p><em>It’s hard if you have grown up with all the narratives of a complex religion, to decide which truths you accept and which you don’t. Or, you can decide, consciously, but to remove them as unconscious drivers is not easy. They have become part of your psyche.</em></p> <p>This is exactly what my mother taught me, since she was raised a Catholic (and on the point of becoming a nun) before coming to believe that it had been a toxic influence on her life, building guilt deep into her psyche. Accordingly, I was raised with a deep anti-religious sentiment (quite common in the secular culture I grew up in), which is probably why I found David’s writings so enlightening – and in particular his reclaiming of the word “religion” – helping me to consciously acknowledge that narrative truths, stories and traditions aren’t <em>necessarily</em> a force for misery. It must be quite a different experience coming to his writings from a religious background.</p> <p>Still, it was a relief for me, as I have always felt the very human yearning towards both spirituality and <em>guidance</em> in facing some of the impossible confusions and mysteries of life, love, work and grief</p> <p>As such, I am completely convinced by his claim that ‘religion’ [as he defines it] is an essential force that people will always seek out and create, whether they or anyone else calls it “religion” or not.</p> <p>So our challenge, I guess, is to harness those intrinsically human and incredibly potent forces of spirituality, story, tradition, culture and celebration while heeding the warnings of history as to how very wrong those can go. How to offer the kind of guidance we all seek in a way that encourages reflection rather than ideology. Which, indeed, I would say brings us back full circle to your wonderful original comment 🙂</p> <p>And also to David’s work, which I think we both find a most helpful companion in that journey. And accordingly, I feel quite sure he would approve of our finding fault therein! <a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/implicature/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">As he wrote</a>:</p> <p><em>“</em>Lean Logic <em>finds that, when dealing with great matters, it can, from time to time, be a good thing if there are cracks and faults in the argument, for the repair of which help is invited. It is a reminder that a conversation is a cooperative affair, not just a series of beautifully-manicured statements.”</em></p> <p>Thanks so much Cath for such a fertile and cooperative conversation, hopefully repairing a few cracks and faults!</p> <p>With love,<br /> Shaun</p> </div> </div> </li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="comment byuser comment-author-shaun odd alt depth-2" id="li-comment-355"> <div id="comment-355" class="comment-body"> <div class="comm_edit"></div> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <div class="avatar"><img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=30&d=retro&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=60&d=retro&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-30 photo' height='30' width='30' loading='lazy' decoding='async'/></div> <div class="comm_auth">Cathy H.</div> <a class="comm_date"><i class="fa-clock-o"></i>5 years ago</a> <div class="comm_reply"> <i class="fa-reply"></i> <a rel="nofollow" class="comment-reply-login" href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">Log in to Reply</a> </div> </div> <div class="org_comment"><p>Your visions are exactly how I would imagine ‘religion’ to be effective, bringing everyone together into one shared understanding of life and our part in it. The whole afterlife idea, while being fanciful, does at least give people comfort about the one inescapable truth of life, that is death. Many people find death unbearably frightening, so the idea that there could be somewhere you end up after you die, where you can meet again those you have loved and lost, is a belief worth clinging to.</p> </div> </div> <ul class="children"> <li class="comment byuser comment-author-shaun even depth-3" id="li-comment-357"> <div id="comment-357" class="comment-body"> <div class="comm_edit"></div> <div class="comment-author vcard"> <div class="avatar"><img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=30&d=retro&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d455c259e55b23dccbde81f7e8abaf9?s=60&d=retro&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-30 photo' height='30' width='30' loading='lazy' decoding='async'/></div> <div class="comm_auth">Catherine Johnstone</div> <a class="comm_date"><i class="fa-clock-o"></i>5 years ago</a> <div class="comm_reply"> <i class="fa-reply"></i> <a rel="nofollow" class="comment-reply-login" href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">Log in to Reply</a> </div> </div> <div class="org_comment"><p>Hi Cathy</p> <p>Thanks for your reply. Yes, I understand that the afterlife idea can really help the many people in our culture who are petrified of death. But I think there is a better solution… if we were to embrace death, as some other cultures do, allowing it to really be part of life, talking about it, not brushing it under the table, seeing it as ecologically essential, not just as unfortunate but inescapable, I don’t think people would be so afraid. We don’t really emotionally <em>accept</em> it in our culture. Some cultures do, and my understanding is that those people don’t have the same fear.</p> <p>Having said that, I don’t have a problem with the notion of an afterlife, unless it’s used as an excuse not to make the most of this life. Bring Hell into the conversation though, then it’s another matter!</p> <p>I watched one of the short videos from week 6 of the Surviving the Future course material yesterday, about grief. It contained a reading from Lean Logic, the entry on death. I must read it properly, it seemed to have really useful insights (of course!)</p> <p>All the best</p> <p>Cath</p> </div> </div> </li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> </ul>  <div class="navigation"> </div>    <div id="respond" class="comment-respond"> <h3 id="reply-title" class="comment-reply-title">Comment on this entry: <small><a rel="nofollow" id="cancel-comment-reply-link" href="/glossary/religion/#respond" style="display:none;">Cancel reply</a></small></h3><p class="must-log-in">You must be <a href="https://leanlogic.online/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fleanlogic.online%2Fglossary%2Freligion%2F">logged in</a> to post a comment.</p><p class='comment-form-subscriptions'><label for='subscribe-reloaded'><input style='width:30px' type='checkbox' name='subscribe-reloaded' id='subscribe-reloaded' value='yes' /> Notify me of followup comments via e-mail.</label></p> </div>  </div>  </div> </div>         </div> </div> </div> <a class="to_top "><i class="fa-angle-up fa-2x"></i></a>  <div data-rocket-location-hash="69950af4ae4b4e9aa0b923cb09df0b32" class="footer_wrap layer_wrapper "> <div id="footer" > <div data-rocket-location-hash="90a07807c5d765791cc0ff4c5b6578f0" class="center"> </div>  <div data-rocket-location-hash="1bad458f64df00b7c3e416a53975f093" id="copyright" class="soc_right"> <div class="center">  <div class="copytext"></div>  <div class="foot_right_wrap">  <div id="footer_menu" class=""><div class="menu-footer"><ul id="menu-footer" class="menu"><li id="menu-item-4420" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-4420"><a href="https://leanlogic.online/bibliography/">Bibliography</a></li> <li id="menu-item-4421" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-4421"><a href="https://leanlogic.online/glossary/">Dictionary</a></li> </ul></div></div>   <div class="foot_soc"> <div class="social_bookmarks bookmark_simple bookmark_size_large"> <a target="_blank" class="ast_fb" href="https://twitter.com/leandictionary"><i class="fa-facebook"></i></a> </div></div>  </div> </div> </div>  </div> </div>  <script type="rocketlazyloadscript" data-rocket-type="text/javascript">window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() { jQuery('#ss360-layer').bind("DOMSubtreeModified",function(){ console.log('changed'); 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