Servile Conformist

The Cult Of Individuality

Just another symptom of a very sick American culture:

 

The Most Influential Books That Have Impacted Me: # 1 & 2

One of meat-space friends posted a question on a social media site that asked everyone what are some of the most influential books you’ve ever read. He wanted people to understand “influential” as having the most impact on your worldview. Asking this type of question always invokes a bit of story telling because important books are often embedded into the context of our lives. I’ve decided to list 5 books that have made a major impact on me.

1. Marcus Aurelius’ 'Meditations'

This is the first philosophy book I read from front to back and actually felt I had a decent understanding of. I picked up a Penguin edition of the Meditations at Bagram Air Force Base for free (from some box of library books donated “4 TEH TROOPS”)  late 2004 on my way to some hovel called Asadabad. It was lost on me then I was just a stones throw away from the ancient site of Kapisa founded by Alexander the Great. It also would have been meaningless to me that the hovel I was traveling to was the birthplace of Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn al-Afghānī, the great 19^th century Islamic thinker.

 

Atheism + Outdated thinking.

So I’ve gotten a few requests to share my thoughts on a so called “New Wave” of atheism called Atheism+. I’ve hesitated because I really don’t want to add to the dog pile of criticism that seems to be a war of conflicting personalities. I’ve finally relented and I’ve decided to post my thoughts because I wasn’t seeing anything that really reflected my thoughts being put out by anyone else (sure as shit ain't this or that).

The best place to start is with my friend Dan Finke, in a post describing his visit to my school he made mention of a lively discussion he and I had at lunch:

 

Behold: Thy Ministry Man.

I came across this video on Facebook the today from a Christian apologist on Youtube who goes by the name Mr. Ministry Man, and I was fascinated by it, though not for the content itself:

 

The plight of the servile conformist

Here is Bertrand discussing the plight of the servile conformist:

“The life of the instinctive man is shut up within the circle of his private interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is something feverish and confined, in comparison with which the philosophic life is calm and free.”

-Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, Chapter 15.

Servile Conformism

The name of this blog is ‘Servile Conformism’, a phrase I’ve shamelessly borrowed from Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali and his spiritual autobiography al-Munqidh min al-Dalal (commonly translated as ‘deliverance from error’ or ’rescuer from misguidance’). The autobiography takes the form of an epistle written to an unidentified student, and in this epistle, Al-Ghazali explains how he came to know that Islam is the true faith of God. Servile conformism first appears in the second paragraph:

“Now then: You have asked me, my brother in religion, to communicate to you the aim and secrets of the sciences and the dangerous and intricate depths of the different doctrines and views. You want me to give you an account of my travail in disengaging the truth from amid the welter of the sects, despite the polarity of their means and methods. You also want to hear about my daring in mounting from the lowland of servile conformism to the highland of independent investigation (paragraph 2:McCarthy translation).”

 Al-Ghazali goes on to explain in some detail about his early life, and how he dived head first into serious matters concerning the sciences, philosophy, and religion, mastering each topic before passing judgment on it. An impressive feat. He goes on to say:

“The thirst for grasping the real meaning of things was indeed my habit and wont from my early years and in the prime of my life. It was an instinctive, natural disposition placed in my makeup by God Most High, not something due to my own choosing and contriving. As a result, the fetters of servile conformism fell away from me, and inherited beliefs lost their hold on me, when I was still quit young. For I saw that the children of Christians always grew up embracing Christianity, and the children of Jews always grew up adhering to Judaism, and the children of Muslims always grew up following the religion of Islam. I also heard the tradition related from the Apostle of God--God’s blessing and peace be upon him!--in which he said: “Every infant is born endowed with the fitra[1]: then his parents make him Jew or Christian or Magian.” Consequently I felt an inner urge to seek the true meaning of the original fitra, and the true meaning of the beliefs arising through slavish aping of parents and teachers. I wanted to sift out these uncritical beliefs, the beginnings of which are suggestions imposed from without, since there are differences of opinion in the discernment of those that are true from those that are false (paragraph 6:McCarthy translation).”

Al-Ghazali’s aims are to get back to the pure faith that each man is born with. In the end, Al-Ghazali’s goals and motivations are not my own, but we share the same spirit in regards to the search for true beliefs. What is interesting about Al-Ghazali is that he turns to a form of radical skepticism where he doubts everything, and thoughtfully works his way back to Islam in a way that is strikingly similar to Descartes’ project in the classic ‘Meditations of first Philosophy.’

 I do not believe it is possible to ever totally cast off the fetters of servile conformism, but the goal is noble enough to be pursued. I think it is an epistemological mandate to admit (at least to ourselves) that we are servile conformists, and then start working our way to the high ground of independent investigation.

 

　

[1] Fitra is an Arabic word that has the religious meaning of mankind’s natural disposition. This concept is derived from the Qur’an in Surah 30: 28-30, “He gives you this example, drawn from your own lives: do you make your slaves full partners with an equal share in what We have given you? Do you fear them as you fear each other? This how We make Our messages clear to those who use their reason. And still the idolaters follow their own desires without any knowledge. Who can guide those God leaves to stray, who have no one to help them? So [Prophet] as a man of pure faith, stand firm and true in your devotion to the religion. This is the natural disposition God instilled in mankind--there is no altering God’s creation--and this is the right religion, though most people do not realize it. (M.A.S. Abdel Haleem translation)”