21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview
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T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S
10. The World is Disenchanted
The beginning of wisdom in any human activity is a certain reverence for the primordial mystery of existence.’
Thomas Berry — The Dream of the Earth
In Chapter 2 the ‘disqualified universe’ was mentioned — a view of the world that is stripped of all value judgements. Wikipedia defines it thus:
‘…disenchantment… is the cultural rationalisation and devaluation of mysticism apparent in modern society. The concept was borrowed from Friedrich Schiller by Max Weber to describe the character of modernised, bureaucratic, secularised Western society, where scientific understanding is more highly valued than belief and where processes are orientated towards rational goals as opposed to traditional society, where for Weber “the world remains a great enchanted garden.”’
(Wikipedia quotes from Max
Weber — The Sociology of Religion)
But I’d suggest the disenchanted world is in fact just a pretence. Value still lurks just beneath
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