The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe (Jeremy Lent)
OVERVIEW
The main thesis in Jeremy Lent’s The Web of Meaning could be summed up this way: if humans are to save themselves from a crisis of meaninglessness, and if humans are to save the planet from ecological disaster, it will require a radical shift in our cognitive operating systems.
What are these operating systems? They’re our worldviews.
A worldview is a mythology we occupy, “a comprehensive set of assumptions and precepts about how the world works, what’s right and wrong, and how you should live . . . a worldview is usually ingrained so deeply that it tends to be unconscious, which further increases its power to influence the ways in which a person thinks and acts.” The problematic worldview in question here is the one suggested by Plato, expanded by Descartes, and ratified by Christianity – the dualistic worldview. This worldview says, “the mind is separate from the body.” This worldview also says, “man is separate from nature.” It divides humans into mortal flesh and immortal souls – the body something to be transcended… the soul (our consciousness) something divine and other-worldly. It also sets up an imagined hierarchy between man and nature – man’s conceptual consciousness superior and privileged to the animate sentience of less “intelligent” creatures. This is dualistic thinking and a dualistic mythology.
Mind > body. Reason > instinct. Man > animal. Supernatural > natural.
This dominant worldview begets many other beliefs: the belief that humans possess divine, immortal essences; that humans, in their supreme-ness, are entitled to take what they want (no matter how unsustainable or detrimental the extortion); that humans are justified in their occupation and exploitation of the natural world (which we do not see ourselves as part of); that we are superior to nonhuman beings, and that our well-being is not tied to the well-being of the planet. Nature exists for us, not for itself; nature is a “resource.” Animals exists for us – their entire lives dedicated to our tastebuds, to our hobbies, and to our companionship. For those animals falling outside this bubble, extinction is allowable.
This is a natural consequence of the dualistic worldview, and it’s this worldview (this operating system) that needs updating.
Toward that reconditioning, Lent’s reminder is that ancient wisdom and scientific understanding continue to converge on a universal truth, that there is only one world. Dualism is a false ideology. Dualistic thinking is both unwise and irrational. The mind is the body. Human-style consciousness is not the pinnacle of intelligence; it’s just one form among many. Man is animal. Man is not above nature, man is nature. Our deepest reality is not found in disconnectedness, but connectedness. Not two worlds, but one. It’s this one-world worldview that we need to re-situate ourselves within. Not only does this worldview reflect a more accurate rendering of reality, but it’s also one that orients us toward an interrelatedness we’ve too long ignored and undervalued. The earth is a living system that is interdependent and interconnected, and we are part of that system. For humans to flourish long-term, the nonhuman world needs to flourish too (this glut of “abundance” we currently inhabit is what economists call overshoot, and it can’t last forever). We’re teetering at the edge of a precipice; without a radical change in our relationship with the world and with ourselves – one that anchors on our interconnectedness – we’ll lose everything that matters.
What could a one-world worldview give us back? A flourishing planet and a meaningful existence, for one (or two), because connectedness is morality, and connectedness is meaning. If we could learn to see ourselves in nature – learn to see our connectedness – then a moral imperative to care for and protect the natural world would replace exploitation (we could no more exploit nature than exploit ourselves or those we love). Morality is founded on connectedness, and it transforms indifference into care. A connected perspective would also beget meaningfulness. Why are psychedelic trips so often described as “deeply meaningful?” Because they are experiences of deep connection. And that’s what meaning is… connection; feeling part of something bigger than you and feeling like you belong. Our current crisis of meaninglessness can be attributed, in part, to the divisive, dualistic worldview that dis-integrates us, that exiles us from a web of meaning.
Moving from a dualistic worldview to a one-world worldview… man returns home. Personal values are balanced with integrated values. Mechanistic thinking is balanced with systems thinking. The egoic self becomes the ecological self. A self-serving existence becomes a planetary consciousness.
Of course, waking up to a more interconnected reality means contending with despair; expanding your self-concept to include the natural and nonhuman world means feeling the weight of all that has been destroyed and irrevocably lost. It means feeling the depths of our immorality. But being deeply connected also means that every action, no matter how big or small, sends ripples out into the world. Most of your ripples will fade, but some will merge and form waves. Connection makes us responsible, but it also makes us empowered. If you think saving ourselves and the world (one and the same) is impossible, consider history’s unprecedented rate of change. Before the internet, antibiotics, or flight, those realities seemed not just impossible, but unthinkable. And yet, they were proved possible. Have hope, not as “a state of mind,” but as “a state of the world.” Hope is not optimism, it’s action, and your actions co-create reality. As a living, breathing being, your life is a thread woven into the fabric of existence. Everything you do, every choice you make, works that thread, and the web moves with you.
“As you put down this book and move on to the next thing in your life, whatever it might be, I invite you to take a few moments to pause. Sit down, take a few breaths and reflect on this question: What is the sacred and precious strand that you will weave?”
IN SUM:
Is this book entirely secular? Yes.
If I had to describe the book in one sentence? An illumination of our secular mythologies, how science and spirituality intertwine, and why a hopeful naturalism is needed to save us from ourselves.
Who should read this book? Anyone interested in saving the world.