"Intellectual honesty instead of beautiful feelings"

The philosopher and cognition researcher Thomas Metzinger calls for a new culture of consciousness

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The more selfish one is, the more he loses his real self. The more selflessly one acts, the more he is himself. Michael Ende

The sparrows whistle it from the rooftops: A new paradigm is imminent, a change of ontology. The need for a socio-ecological transformation has already got around in government circles. However, a whole galaxy of difficulties gapes between desire and reality: for example, the entire European Union and the individual interests of each of its members. Or the survival interest of every capitalistically structured company worldwide. And last but not least, but at least as important: the apparent right to affluent satiety of all participants in consumer societies on earth. They all have one thing in common: more modesty would be like a collective failure.

Ivan Illich summarized the problem as follows: "When behavior leading to insanity is considered normal in a society, people learn to fight for the right to engage in it."

So with just a touch of realism, you could throw in the towel, because every shot wouldn't be worth its powder in such a mountain of adversity. And compared to the assumption that someone in establishment circles took the goal of socio-ecological transformation with the appropriate seriousness, the fantasies of omnipotence of a pubescent seem downright realistic.

New approach gives hope

If only there wasn't a completely different, hopeful approach. The American philosopher David R. Loy puts it this way in his book “ÖkoDharma”: “... the ecological crisis [is] more than a technological, economic or political problem... It is also a collective spiritual crisis and a possible turning point in ours History.” Harald Welzer speaks of the necessary “mental infrastructure” and of “continuing to build on the civilizing project” so that one day “those who produce garbage” will no longer enjoy a “higher social quality – with video” than those who clear it away “.

And because this further construction seems so difficult, almost impossible, the innovation researcher Dr. Felix Hoch with a compact volume dedicated to this topic: "Thresholds of transformation - recognizing and overcoming inner resistance in transformation processes". Thomas Metzinger, who taught philosophy and cognitive sciences at the University of Mainz, has also taken on the new approach with his recently published book "Consciousness Culture - Spirituality, Intellectual Honesty and the Planetary Crisis". Meritoriously, he did not do this at an academically high level, but in a readable, clear and concise manner on 183 pages.

In terms of content, however, he does not make it easy for you. From the very first lines he takes the bull by the horns: "We have to be honest... The global crisis is self-inflicted, historically unprecedented - and it's not looking good... How do you maintain your self-respect in a historical epoch when humanity as a whole loses its dignity? ... We need something that will hold up in the actual lives of individuals and countries even when humanity as a whole fails.”

Metzinger's thing is not to whitewash the situation. On the contrary, he predicts "that there will also be a crucial tipping point in human history," a panic point after which "the realization of the irreversibility of the catastrophe will also reach the internet and go viral." But Metzinger doesn't leave it at that. Rather, he soberly sees the possibility of defying the inevitable in a sensible way.

To accept the challenge

It goes without saying that this is not and will not be easy. After all, a group of people has formed worldwide, Metzinger calls them the “Friends of Mankind”, who do everything locally to “develop new technologies and sustainable ways of life , because they want to be part of the solution”. Metzinger calls them all to work on a culture of consciousness, the first step of which is perhaps the most difficult, "the ability not to act ... the gentle but very precise optimization of impulse control and a gradual realization of the automatic identification mechanisms at the level of our thinking". According to Metzinger, a dignified way of life arises from “a certain inner attitude in the face of an existential threat: I accept the challenge“. Not only individuals, but also groups and entire societies could respond appropriately: “How can it be possible to fail in consciousness and grace in the face of the planetary crisis? We will have no choice but to learn exactly that.”

The culture of consciousness to be developed would be a “form of cognitive action that searches for dignified forms of life ... As an anti-authoritarian, decentralized and participatory strategy, culture of consciousness will essentially rely on community, cooperation and transparency and thus automatically refuse any capitalist logic of exploitation. Seen in this way, it is ... about the construction of a sociophenomenological space - and with it a new kind of shared intellectual infrastructure".

Develop a discovery context

In order not to become ideologically entrenched, the main challenge is to develop a "context of discovery" that does not pretend to "know exactly what should and shouldn't be...a new form of ethical sensitivity and authenticity...in the absence of moral certainty... embracing insecurity". Daniel Christian Wahl has described this as “resilience”. It would have two characteristics: on the one hand, the ability of living systems to maintain their relative stability over time, on the other hand, the ability "to change in response to changing conditions and disturbances"; He calls the latter “transformative resilience”. It is about "acting wisely to enable positive development in an unpredictable world". Thomas Metzinger describes keeping an open mind, feeling one's way into an unpredictable future in a culture of ignorance, as an “intellectually honest culture of consciousness”. The aim would be a "secular spirituality" as a "quality of inner action".

Secular spirituality without self-deception

Metzinger is, of course, harsh on most of the spiritual movements of the last few decades in Europe and the USA. They have long lost their progressive impulse and have often degenerated into "experience-based forms of privately organized religious delusional systems ... follow capitalist imperatives of self-optimization and are characterized by a somewhat infantile form of complacency". The same applies to organized religions, they are "dogmatic in their basic structure and thus intellectually dishonest". Serious science and secular spirituality have a twofold common basis: "Firstly, the unconditional will to truth, because it is about knowledge and not about belief. And secondly, the ideal of absolute honesty towards oneself.”

Only the new culture of consciousness, a “secular spirituality of existential depth without self-deception”, a new realism, would make it possible to get out of the “greed-driven growth model” cultivated for centuries. This could "help at least a minority of people protect their sanity while the species as a whole fails." In his book, Metzinger is not concerned with proclaiming the truth, but with looking at current developments with the greatest possible soberness: "Consciousness culture is a knowledge project, and in precisely this sense our future is still open."

Thomas Metzinger, Culture of Consciousness. Spirituality, intellectual honesty and the planetary crisis, 22 euros, Berlin Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8270-1488-7 

Review by Bobby Langer