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[Page -1] World Order

SUMMER 1969

DREAMERS OF THE EARTH: CRISIS IN UTOPIA

Randolph Landry

BRIDGE TO A BRAVE NEW WORLD

Ben Kaufman

THE SAINT-SIMONIANS

Billy Rojas

NEW DIRECTIONS IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Zdenek Saltzmann

MODERNIZATION’S OTHER FACE

Joseph S. Himes

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World Order

A BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE • VOLUME 3 NUMBER 4 • PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

WORLD ORDER is intended to stimulate, inspire and serve thinking people in their search to find relationships between contemporary life and contemporary religious teachings and philosophy

Editorial Board:

FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

BETTY FISHER

HOWARD GAREY

ROBERT HAYDEN

GLENFORD E. MITCHELL

Art Consultants:

GEORGE NEUZIL

LORI NEUZIL

Subscriber Service:

PRISCILLA CHUNOWITZ

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly, October, January, April, and July, at 112 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091. Subscriber and business correspondence should be sent to this address. Manuscripts and other editorial correspondence should be addressed to 2011 Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts and suggestions for articles and subjects to be treated editorially will be welcomed and acknowledged by the editors.

Subscription: Regular mail USA, $3.50; Foreign, $4.00. Single copy, $1.00.

Copyright © 1969, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, World Rights Reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

IN THIS ISSUE

1 The New Tower of Babel

Editorial

4 Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

6 Dreamers of the Earth: Crisis in Utopia

by Randolph Landry

17 Horses, who knows?

a poem by T. H. Breen

19 Bridge to a Brave New World

by Ben Kaufman

29 The Saint-Simonians

by Billy Rojas

38 New Directions in Cultural Anthropology

by Zdenek Saltzmann

45 Modernization’s Other Face

by Joseph S. Himes

50 A Systems Approach to the Investigation

of Religion, by John H. Stroessler

54 Religions: Is There a Basic Unity?

a book review by Firuz Kazemzadeh

56 Authors and Artists in This Issue

[Page 1]

The New Tower of Babel

EDITORIAL

AMONG THE EARLY DISASTERS visited upon men, according to the Bible, was the destruction of a tower built of oven-dried bricks and designed to reach the sky. God punished the builders for their presumption, we are told, not only by causing the tower to come crashing down, but also by dispersing the people and causing the fragmentation of their language into a number of mutually unintelligible tongues. It would be tempting to examine the possible meanings of this story, but, because they are so numerous, we prefer instead to retell the story in modern terms; perhaps we can thereby find, if not the meaning, at least a meaning which could correspond to the original one.

For we are building another such tower today. It is built of rockets and satellites, instead of bricks. We have given up reaching for the sky; we have annihilated it, and replaced it by Space. That early race of men which spread over the world from Shinar (the site of the first Tower catastrophe) has linked up again; the separate groups are no longer in isolation, and the need to return to a common language has become pressing. Are we ready to return to the unified state of men before Shinar? Perhaps God will once again cast down our tower, if, in the spirit of the men of Shinar, we allow our ambitions to outstrip our technological and moral resources.

It is possible to explain Tower #1 as a failure of technology, as bad engineering. We can suppose that a real tower was built and came crashing down, and that this event was seized upon as an exemplum by early moralists. Men were getting “too big for their britches”, and had to be humbled. This canny folk wisdom cannot be ignored. What the parable describes is a failure to be realistic about goals: first, about the possibility of attaining them, given the resources available and, second, about the utility, morality, and consequences of these goals once attained.

Today's Tower #2 is built not only of rockets and satellites, it is not only the complex of instruments with which we reach out to space, it is the whole set of techniques and gadgets, growing and developing in wild profusion, with the ensuing social dislocations, the misery, the destruction [Page 2] of our environment—biological, social, and esthetic—which are characteristic of our time, when the motivations for technological development are selfish and uncoordinated. There is no necessity for an anthropomorphic God to intervene and throw down our tower; it already has a “self-destruct” device worked into it, an automatic gadget which is part of every complicated product of the human intellect brought forth without humility and without taking the law of God—the worship of God through service to mankind—into account. The limitations of the human intellect are painfully evident in the results of the work of some of our finest minds applied to social and military problems.

If anything is clear, it is that we are capable of producing fine gadgets over which we have no control whatsoever, as long as our criteria for action remain purely materialistic, and which will surely wreck global communications (“cause confusion of tongues”) and postpone a world government until after the inevitable disaster will have awakened us to the necessity for securing peace according to Bahá’u’lláh’s divinely inspired plan.

In Oxford, England, there is a laundromat around whose walls are many posters with clear and explicit directions for the operation of the washing and drying machines. And there is one sign which reads, “When all else fails, read the instructions.” Perhaps the builders of Tower #1 should have followed the instructions available to them. One may hope that the builders of Tower #2 will have had time to absorb this lesson.

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Interchange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

WHATEVER THE FORM (novel, poetry, essay) or the discipline (history, literature), men have long been obsessed by the dream of realizing here, on this earth, an ideal society—call it what you will— an earthly utopia, God’s kingdom on earth. This eternal reaching out for that which is better than what man knows, for that which integrates him as an individual and that better individual into the long hoped for ideal group is the subject of several of the essays in the Summer WORLD ORDER.

Rudolph Landry focuses on man’s quest for his position in the scheme of things by pondering first “Where in the world are we?” and then where are we going. Is man’s end utopia, dystopia, consolation, despair, destruction? Or is it in the life-force which connects creation and creator, or in the societies which remain close to nature, or, more possibly, in the utopias of the mind, or in the dreams of the young?

But the one question not raised is why there should have been over one hundred utopias written between 1815 and 1915. To that question Ben Kaufman implicitly addresses himself. Mr. Landry sees the twentieth century as perhaps signaling the end of utopian thought; Mr. Kaufman sees it as a century of choice. Man can in fact choose destruction or he can seek a new world. But that new world is not a mechanical nightmare or a pastoral retreat, at even a personal redirection searched out of and centered in self. The choice is given man by virtue of a mid-nineteenth century juncture in human history, the advent of the twin Manifestations of the Bahá’í Faith, the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. And the choice provides the fulfillment of the centuries-old yearning for utopia. Spiritually and socially mankind has come of age. The result is the inauguration of a world civilization foretold by the prophets and poets and philosophers and statesmen of many ages. Man can choose to cling to his half-understood truths, his partially grasped fragments of reality, the self-made gods which deck his altars, his “impetuosity and prodigality”. Or he can turn to the divine pronouncements which have set the spirit and established the direction of this new age. And he can find in the divine pronouncements the structure which integrates not only the self and the individual into the group, but also binds the groups and states and nations into one human family.

* * *

An historical attempt to answer man’s impulse to a better society is explored by Billy Rojas. The Saint-Simonians of the 1830’s advocated, among other things, the need for world unity, world peace, universal education, the harmony of science and religion, a new concept of God, and a new political order which would be a religious institution. Some Saint-Simonians even saw the several messiah figures in history as “the impetus behind human progress, the increased cooperation of mankind.”

[Page 5] Others felt that the advent of a new messiah was imminent. Their ideas influenced the industrial and economic and social thinking of the nineteenth century. Most important, few groups can match the dedication with which the Saint-Simonians worked to implement the goals which the Bahá’í Faith promulgates for the new era. Where, then, did the Saint—Simonians go wrong? Why did they split into factions, fall into notoriety, and sink into disrepute in less than two years? Mr. Roias’ treatment of these questions deserves thoughtful consideration.

* * *

With “New Directions in Cultural Anthropology” we turn from man’s concern with where he is going to consider instead how he maps out where he is. The methods and theories utilized by older schools of anthropology—and tourists too—says Mr. Zdenek Salzmann, appear increasingly inadequate to younger American anthropologists. Hence new methods for describing and understanding the nature of human behavior are being developed. John H. Stroessler raises an interesting question about how new techniques borrowed from military and industrial problem solvers might be used in investigating religion. Both studies are additional confirmation that Bahá’u’lláh has “lent a fresh impulse, and set a new direction, to the birds of men’s hearts.”

* * *

To the Editor

I read through the Spring Number of WORLD ORDER with great interest. The magazine covers a variety of subjects and the combination of fine literary presentation with deep moral insight gives the articles a high value. The basis of human rights is expounded with remarkable skill and the distinction between ethical thought and ethical action is set forth with great subtlety. The poems make excellent reading. I look forward eagerly to the future issues of the magazine.

I. AGUIAR

Head, Department of English

St. Xavier’s College

Bombay, India

Liked this number very much—all so interesting and easy to read. Mr. Hoff’s poem is clever. . . . Thank you for this fine number—and I’m especially grateful, because of impaired eyesight, for the double columns on each page.

GRACE STEWART

Boston, Mass.

As a subscriber from the beginning, my wife and I have both enjoyed WORLD ORDER. The Fall 1968 issue is just one excellent article after another.

R. G. WILCOX

Woodcliff Lake, N.J.

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Dreamers of the Earth: Crisis in Utopia

By RUDOLPH LANDRY

“Caught in one grief, we share one wound, And cry one dialect of pain”

—Laurie Lee

THE STORY OF ADAM and Eve in the Garden of Eden is, without question, one of the more conclusive indications that man naturally desires to believe that the earth is at root good and golden. According to traditional Christian testimony, for example, the catastrophe of the Fall of Man was followed by the Redemption; the major consequence of the Redemption is that faithful service to God in this world will be succeeded by blissful eternal life with God in heaven.

Indeed, the impulse to a supra-mundane happiness seems to be almost as universal as the impulse to the perpetuation of human life. How rare is the mother nursing her infant who does not secretly believe, or at least hope, that life on earth will be good to her child, that the earth will yield a harvest for her offspring greater than it has in the past and present. This is essentially the impulse to utopia, to the idea of a better world that has been promised to men by divinities and prophets, by philosophers and artists, and by other leaders of men. Certainly all men at one time or another have reflected upon a past that may never have existed as well as a terrestrial or celestial future that may never exist. The quest for the good life springs naturally from the imperfection in all human experience.

Faith in a Good Earth

AGAINST THE CURRENT of faith in the possibilities of an earthly paradise, Samuel Johnson in his philosophical novel Rasselas (1759) contended that faith in a good earth was merely a manifestation of the vanity of human wishes:

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia.

The thesis of Johnson’s novel is that Rasselas is unhappy in the Happy Valley because he has desire but no wants. Unlike the animals who are satiated, he is restless and unsatisfied. He is isolated from the miseries of the world and therefore from the world. And so, convinced that the happy life [Page 7] [Page 8] can be found outside the protected boundaries of the Happy Valley, he manages to escape from the Valley with his sister, his sister’s servant, and Imlac, the voice of common sense, compassion, and experience. Exploring the Middle East, they observe and consider the states of life, states of mind, and social classes. They learn that everywhere misfortune, delusion, and evil stalk human nature. In the conclusion of the novel nothing is concluded, and so the party resolves to return to Abyssinia.

It seems curious that Johnson’s Rasselas comes just about midway between the Renaissance which marks the launching of philosophical and literary utopian thought and the twentieth century which seems to signal the end point of utopia.

Today, the impulse of faith in a good earth is surely threatened. Western man, self-proclaimed lord of creation, is exhausted. He holds on to shreds of nationalism intimidated by atheistic communism as well as by the danger of nuclear annihilation. He preaches skepticism, agnosticism, materialism, atheism, existential despair, even absurdity. He scarcely believes in or hopes for the Promised Land anymore. The Judaeo-Christian tradition, together with the cultures of Greece and Rome, which has mantled the West for over two thousand years remains a force in the lives of individuals here and there; but in modern society at large it is a relic to be respected rather than revered. Where once man paid homage to saints, later to kings, and then to political and financial wizards, now his heroes are faceless, even invisible. He ventures to look up to an anti-hero, and he even suggests that man may ultimately be a cosmic joke.

From “Super Gods” to Super-men

THE “SUPER-GODS” of another period, recalled superbly in the seventeenth century by John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), diminished in cultural significance and were replaced in the eighteenth century by the “super-men”, heirs of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract (1762). In the thought of the Enlightenment extra-mundane gods are superfluous in the fabric of human destiny. Instead, man is the measure of man; man is the maker of rational and scientific progress. The Marxist and Darwinian revolutions of the nineteenth century jarred the stability of the super-men, for Marx and Darwin emphasized the intensity of the non-human forces acting upon human destiny. The autonomy of the “super-men” was thus seriously questioned. But the men of science continued to be optimistic. And today, twentieth-century robot and rocket makers are curiously hopeful about the fruits of their discoveries. Pessimism, on the Other hand, finds its expression in a peer like T. S. Eliot who tells us “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

Even more recently, the very idea of a superman as structured under Nazism inflicted upon the world a satanic cruelty which history will never forget. At this point, Western man is aware of an imminent absurdity. Where are the super-men? Is man a mere muskrat with Platonic dreams?

In many ways, man is of course an amphibian. He is matter and mind, body and soul, flesh and spirit; he is also an individual creature and a social creature. With his duality he continues to endure, to search, to grasp at the elusive form of what seems to be the good life. For this complex seeker, where is the Promised Land?

Will he find his haven in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew? To be sure, the essential words of Jesus Christ are addressed to individual and social man. In an age of faith, they were held as the highest desiderata for the realization of human destiny, which is also divine destiny. Unfortunately modern man does not live in an age of faith.

Might Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (524) lead man to the Promised Land? Certainly he is looking for consolation, and philosophy is really of little value unless it is [Page 9] ultimately consolation. Yet, the modern men in the street are impatient with any philosophical system.

As man’s gaze turns from the Word to something he calls Fact, should he turn to the Declaration of Independence? Americans, for example, generally believe in the historical fact of the Declaration, but in their racial crises and conflicts, they are not quite so certain of its relevance.

Will men turn to the United Nations? As a forum of disputation this august society has been conspicuously engaged in striving for world harmony. Outside of discussion, its function seems to very many observers and commentators to be superfluous. It is a symbol of world unity, but it does not create it.

Should men turn back to Mother Goose? Such a consideration is not as facetious as it may seem. The universality of Mother Goose in our childhood initiation to life is only too obvious. Has anyone ever measured the psychological thrust Little Boy Blue or Humpty Dumpty or the Ugly Duckling has had upon the value systems of our culture? In fact, it is interesting that fairy tales generally reconstruct Genesis with the “Once upon a time” statement of a remotely visible Eden, describe a trial or fall into misfortune, and then settle into a familiar redemption with “and they lived happily ever after.” Modern man patently refuses to take seriously the aboriginal record of childish imagination.

In the face of Mother Goose, modern individual man says: “I don't care about blueprints of the good society; just show me the way to go home.” For home is really what his quest is all about.

But in our culture the way to go home is obscured by the proliferation of value systems on a shrinking planet. Modern man is not sure if home is a house, a neighborhood, a nation, or a continent. Travel and mobility in our time make home a stop rather than a haven, a place to stay in rather than a place to live in. International hotel chains symbolize the unreality of home by cultivating electronic luxury and omniscient service which suggest that ultimate convenience is the essence of the idea of home.

If it is difficult to locate home on a shrinking planet, it is even more laborious to find out where and what home is in an expanding universe. In The Nature of the Physical World, Sir Arthur Eddington demonstrates that man’s place in the universe is precarious. For example, how does man establish his psycho-physical self when he locates himself on a tilted planet which circles a sun that has the humble position of being an ordinary middle class star situated at the edge of one galactic system known as the Milky Way? Beyond this system with which man is generally proudly familiar, he learns that “The galactic system is one among a million or more spiral nebulae” and that “The nearest spiral nebula is 850,000 light years away.” Is not man bewildered by his finitude and humbled by frailty? In space, he is for all practical purposes, invisible.

On this vast isthmus, man is inclined to shrink from contemplating his place in the world. If he dares to turn from the macro-cosmos to the micro-cosmos, he finds again that his scale of existence can hardly be defined as central. Here too he feels insignificant and certainly humbled surrounded by an abundant invisible creation. To cry out “Where in the world are we?” is no cliché.

Throughout history, answers to this question have been innumerable. Charts of human destiny have come and gone. Creeds and cultures have presented man with an incalculable number of value systems and schemes, many of which continue to serve with some effectiveness various societies of men. Notable among the value systems are the philosophical and literary utopias. To trace briefly the short history of these works is fruitful because it enables us to see the patterns which have led to a crisis in the very [Page 10] idea of utopia. For the sake of convenience and brevity, we will limit ourselves primarily to the major works of the English speaking world, though some one hundred utopias were written between 1815 and 1915.

Of course the universal impulse of faith in utopia, as indicated earlier, can be traced as far back as the Old Testament. With the Fall of Man came the loss of Paradise. A Redemption was promised and a New Covenant was formed. And so, in bondage, Israel awaited delivery and the inheritance of the Promised Land.

Even before the advent of Christianity, Plato wrote the Republic (fifth century B.C.), in which he set forth the tenets of a value system designed to alter at least states of mind, if not states of society. Plato regarded man chiefly as a political animal who could be harmoniously integrated in a small city-state under a ruling class of philosophers. The virtues of wisdom and justice would prevail.

Early Christianity, built upon the foundation of the Hebraic tradition, introduced an apocalyptic vision of an earthly kingdom that would last a thousand years. The Book of Daniel, chapter 12, and the Book of Revelations, chapters 20 and 21, were the chief sources of this idea. Its major ptomulgators included Polycarp, Irenaeus. Tertullian, Commodian, and later, Lactantius.

The difference between Plato’s Republic and the New Jerusalem of the Judaeo-Christian tradition is that the former was a plan, while the latter was a promise.

Plans, Promises, and Human Possibility

IT WAS NOT really until Saint Augustine wrote The City of God (426) that the Christian’s vision of his destiny was to be explicitly understood as eschatological transcendence. Augustine flatly rejected the possibilities of an earthly paradise. To inherit the kingdom of God which is not of this world, he affirmed, sinful man must suffer, repent, and die. The drama of redemption in which man was the central protagonist, therefore, emphasized the transience of earthly existence and the warfare in which all creation was embroiled. In a real sense, nature and the world were fallen and corrupt, and were therefore natural enemies of the spirit, which was good. In a broad sense, the Medieval Church followed the organic doctrines outlined by Augustine. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) extended the roots of faith in Aristotelian philosophy and continued in the tradition of Augustine. The utopian impulse thus was quiescent for about a thousand years—from the third to the fourteenth century. Christian Orthodoxy prevailed over the West.

The Renaissance view of the world, however, was basically anthropocentric rather than theocentric, empirical rather than metaphysical. Above all, it reintroduced a faith in man and a faith in the possibilities of a generous earth. It initiated the belief in the inherent value of progress and discovery. The “other-worldliness” of traditional Christianity yielded to the essential worldliness of Cartesian and Baconian philosophy.

Among the many significant utopias written in the English Renaissance were Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) and Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627). These utopias were not so much the literary embodiment of religious promise, nor, for that matter, of political plan; rather they addressed themselves to patterns of human possibility.

Of course the notion of human possibility is implied in the idea of Progress, and this in turn suggests that human perfectibility is within man’s power in the future. But what is immediately apparent about the Utopia and the New Atlantis is that neither of these societies is a state of the future. These island societies are contemporary societies. Furthermore, human nature in these societies has not reached the state of perfection. Instead, a [Page 11] tenacious pragmatism and a Spartan common sense guide human social structure. Neither society is a “perfect” society; both are in process of degrees of perfection far above the plateau of perfection of their contemporaries. In the Utopia an agrarian epicureanism is the rationale supporting the foundation of society, while in the New Atlantis learning is the supreme value, and the primary ideology is the ideology of technology.

These utopias are human, not divine comedies, in precisely the same sense that Dante’s Divine Comedy is eschatological and in no way mundane. These utopias are anthropocentric testaments of human endeavor in the cities of man.

[Page 12] One may safely look upon these two works as the prototypes of two brands of later philosophical and literary utopias—the pastoral and the technological. The pastoral utopias, one manifestation of the Romantic tradition which flowered in the nineteenth century, are numerous. The technological utopias develop in the late nineteenth and grow into the dystopias of the early twentieth century; they become worlds of the future in which human beings are dehumanized by malignant forces of control dedicated to the eradication of imperfection and disorder, and, consequently, freedom, elements all deemed incompatible with the efficient operation of a perfect society.

Actually the utopian harvest is somewhat lean until the advent of the nineteenth century. Mention might be made, however, of Samuel Gott’s Nova Solyma (1648), a strange theocracy of the future, or of James Harrington’s Platonic utopia Oceana (1656). It would be clearly hazardous to regard such works as John Bunyan’s allegorical journey Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), Francis Godwin’s fantasy The Man in the Moon (1638), or Jonathan Swift’s bitter satire Gulliver’s Travels (1726) as being primarily in the utopian genre; at best they are marginal in utopian conception.

Looking Backward (1888) by the American writer Edward Bellamy is perhaps the first and most significant nineteenth-century utopia which embodies the technological point of view. In this book the reader finds himself in a new Boston in the year 2,000 in which economics has evolved with technology to such a level that society is peacefully nourished by a scientific socialism complete with government-issued credit cards and where people are more inclined to generosity in an antiseptic environment.

As a criticism of Looking Backward William Morris wrote a pastoral utopia, News From Nowhere (1890). Morris describes a people who are close to a verdant nature and whose wants are simplified, and who cultivate handicraft after they have smashed the machines which they believe could eventually overwhelm human autonomy and independence.

Another pastoral utopia, not quite as well known as Morris’ romance, is W. H. Hudson’s A Crystal Age (1887). Hudson’s Crystallites also live close to nature in a community of the future. The structure of the communities here shows remarkable resemblance to the society of the beehive. Without what we know as cities and factories, this is a static society dependent on the natural revelation of a “Gospel of the House” for the maintenance of love and brotherhood.

Characteristic of the pastoral utopia is a particular aversion to the fruits of technology. Unquestionably this aversion originates from the fear that dependence upon the scientific and the artificial means loss of independence and freedom, the very fears realized in the dystopias of the twentieth century.

Dystopia as Fulfillment

SAMUEL BUTLER’S Erewhon (1872) is a utopia and a dystopia. On the one hand it is a pastoral state sustained by social equilibrium and peace. The Erewhonians argue that the machine leads to nothing but tyranny. On the other hand, Butler’s stance in the novel is ambivalent. The rationale of civilization approved of has a dark underside. Butler subtly demonstrates that carried to its logical conclusion, the controlling value system is absurd. For instance, since the Erewhonians believe that life guided completely by reason is beyond human realization, they have “Colleges of Unreason” complete with Professors of Inconsistency. They have “Musical Banks” in which worthless money is exchanged in great solemnity. They treat disease as a crime, and crime as a disease; they believe that a child wills to be born and that therefore he is guilty of the sin of wanting to be born. This utopia then, a sharp satire on Victorian England, is ultimately a dystopia.

The crucial point is that Butler firmly suggests that the idea of uiopia carries within [Page 13] it the seeds of its antithesis. To be sure, in the philosophical and literary utopias, reason, common sense, and restraint are the instruments of harmony, equilibrium, and peace; yet, carried beyond the limits of human tolerance of external forces, these elements depersonalize human nature. This creates dystopia.

Major dystopias of the twentieth century include Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and Ape and Essence (1948), H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895), and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). In these future worlds, human beings are so harnessed and controlled by the impersonal forces of totalitarian states which police the citizenry with sophisticated technological armies and equipment that existence is a nightmare. These societies deliberately detach men from their private existences and use them only insofar as they are able to function socially and efficiently. In this context the dignity of the individual as an individual is meaningless. Any opposition to the social and political structures is regarded as treason.

The modern dystopias then emerge as the fulfillment of man’s power over nature and his fellow man; for example, in The Time Machine Wells writes of the twilight of civilization in which all conflict has been removed from existence with the consequence that degeneration is inevitable. Thus, the realization of victory over man and nature produces defeat. And this is the terrifying paradox about the nature of dystopia. What began as a quest for an earthly paradise terminates in an earthly inferno. Man’s quest for freedom has led him, ironically, into slavery. Man never dreamed that the impetus to progress would be instrumental in reconstructing his enslavement. Where primitive man had been enslaved by his ignorance, modern, enlightened man is enslaved by his knowledge. This is more than a bizarre commentary on the idea of the “Tree of Knowledge.” Indeed, it even implies a new Fall of Man. In their responses to faith in the idea of progress, the writers of the modern dystopias are self-appointed prophets of doom.

Ironically, the prophesies of the dystopias are not too far removed from human experiences of this decade. The future nightmares of Huxley and Orwell find a peculiar familiarity in modern life. In the civilized world, the hidden persuaders of selling and advertising are all around us, intruding even into our private lives. In fact, privacy has virtually been annihilated. We are deluged by mass communications media. Our homes abound in electronic devices of communications and service. So dependent are we on electric services that electric power failures cripple the ordinary process of human relations and activity. Our vulnerability to the medium of scientific persuasion renders our self-respect a mortal blow. We are almost convinced that freedom of choice is nothing but illusion.

If dystopias offer us no haven, no essential consolation, we must continue to search elsewhere for our holy grails.

For a time, the New World was looked upon as being the promised good earth. The discovery and colonization of America was in many ways a quest for Paradise. Man would find his land of Canaan here—New Canaan, New London, New Haven, New Amsterdam, New York, New Hampshire. Christopher Columbus dared to entertain the thought that God had made him the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth. Jonathan Edwards, among many others, thought that through hard work, New England would one day be transformed into a sort of Paradise on Earth.

In nineteenth-century America religion became one vehicle of the impulse toward utopia. Religious thought pervaded the land [Page 14] through continued programs of Christian missionary activity and through the dissemination of Puritan thought in New England education. Even a new Christian church, the Mormon Church, was established. In addition, religious utopian communities—New Harmony, Oneida, Amana, Zoar, the Shakers —dotted the country. As different as each of them was (Shaker prophetess Anna Lee was regarded by her followers as the incarnation of God in a female form), they all shared a common purpose. Each community was an experiment in living, a commitment to the creation of a good social order. Today, the Koinonia community of Americus, Georgia, and the Bruderhof community of Norfolk, Connection, are witness of a faith in the possibility of living in societies in which brotherhood is not merely an ideal but an experience.

In literature, Walt Whitman hailed and embraced an America which would be the manifestation of the finest form of democracy. But today poets like Allan Ginsberg hail an America turned upside down (especially in an inverted Whitmanesque poem called “Howl”). And so, in one hundred years, from Whitman to Ginsberg, the American dream has been shattered by a phrase which is now almost obsolete: The Atomic Age.

The Value of Utopian Thought

TO CONTEMPORARY MAN the new world is no longer regarded as the Promised Land. He finds the nuclear age so radically different from the pre-nuclear era that he is inclined to despair of utopia. He is a displaced person. He is an immigrant deprived of a Celestial City. He recognizes the awful symbolism of Dachau and Hiroshima.

Yet in spite of his confrontation with an unfamiliar new era, man must not dismiss the value of the impulse toward utopia. The value of utopia is that it questions and tests a scale of values prevalent in a given society. In a technological dystopia its relevance is that it satirizes a value system or systems which have been implicitly or explicitly accepted in the name of social and scientific progress. (I must disagree with the Rev. Chad Walsh who concludes in From Utopia to Nightmare that “The utopian is like the artist” but that “the dystopian is the art critic.” The dystopia is hardly a secondary art form. Its business is to criticize a value system outside of itself.)

Meanwhile the pastoral utopia affirms value systems which men have rejected chiefly because they have moved unalterably away from an agrarian way of life. The pastoral utopia haunts man as he walks mechanically along the streets of technological cities and teases him out of thoughts of satisfaction. The pastoral utopia gnaws at man’s sense of purpose, makes him ache for green mansions which he faintly believes his anonymous primitive brother must have enjoyed. The pastoral utopia appeals to man’s desire for simplicity rather than complexity, to man’s need for rest from tension, to man’s quest for clarity, in the end to essential man, never to artificial man.

Thus, the value of utopian thought is that it prevents us from taking our value systems for granted. Utopian thought exposes our scale of values to exterior objective analysis. Sometimes it suggests patterns of improvement and sometimes—in dystopias usually— it warns us of patterns of disaster. The very source of utopian thought is as basic as faith in living and in seeking.

One interesting manifestation of utopian thought we should consider at this point is the idea of progress as cultural evolution, an [Page 15] idea which blossomed in the nineteenth century but which originated much earlier in the Neoplatonic thought of such Cambridge Platonists as Henry More (1614-1687) and Thomas Burnet (c. 1635-1715). For example, James Burnett, Lord Monbodo, in his Ancient Metaphysics (1779), interpreted Genesis and the apocalyptic books, posited a soul of the universe, and believed in a fall and a redemption of man. Eventually, by intellectual improvement and by religious spiritualization, man would evolve into a superman. A convulsion in Nature would then produce a New Heaven and a New Earth which the higher races of man would enjoy.

The Darwinian revolution of the succeeding century certainly gave impetus to the idea of cultural evolution. In some ways, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, and Thomas Huxley look to culture to lead men onward and upward as Arnold says, “On to the city of God.” In his poem “Locksley Hall” Alfred Lord Tennyson writes of a future that will emerge after nations will have spent themselves in the futility of modern warfare:

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and

the battle-flags were furled

In the Parliament of Man, the Federation

of the world.

To Tennyson, national convulsions of war would obviously be part of the evolutionary process to a world federation.

This same notion of the cultural ascent of man was treated satirically by George Bernard Shaw in his Back to Methuselah (1920). The play opens in the Garden of Eden, and in the course of the action, superior human beings evolve who have succeeded in lengthening their life spans to the extent of thousands of years. At the end of the play, evolutionary development has reached its apex when men’s minds literally transcend their bodies and merge into the great cosmos. Shaw seems convinced that Time is the great obstacle to perfection.

But if Shaw mocks the idea of the ascent of man, others, such as Teilhard de Chardin, do not. In The Phenomenon of Man (1965) his Christian faith in the Redemption is envisioned through a cosmic salvation which he describes prophetically as noögenesis. The Bahá’ís believe in a real return to Eden; David Ruhe in “Toward the New Eden” describes the Bahá’í approach to higher manhood in this challenge:

To enter the new state of being we, mankind, must be reborn. Before we can be allowed to enter the new Eden, as individuals, as the family of man, we must cast aside much of the past. We must stand upon new ethical pillars erected on the old foundation. The new ethical culture can build and flower only through its rediscovery of individual self, of group self, and of God.

Thus we observe that the thrust of cultural evolution extends beyond the imaginative to the religious and philosophical plateaux in much the same way that the historical ideas of millenium had been implanted in religious and literary thought. At this point it is frankly rash to separate religious from literary forces of thought regarding human destiny. The impulse to utopia is universal, and insofar as it is universal, it would be presumptuous of us to define the presentation and analysis of utopian values as being either religious or literary, as though these categories were mutually exclusive. The fact is that these categories of human values are complementary. When we speak of human nature, all values are in the ultimate sense religious since they all come from one source.

And so there are even now new expressions and new dimensions of utopian hope. Samuel Johnson’s sober conviction of the futility of the utopian quest may be, paradoxically enough, accepted and rejected. The “phantoms of hope” which Rasselas pursued, all men of necessity pursue; for up to the present, mankind has not discovered the life of happiness outside the Happy Valley. So experience persuades us to agree with the [Page 16] great grouchy Doctor Johnson. Yet, in the inner recesses of men’s hearts the impulse of hope throbs on, and men must also point out that Johnson has not given the final words on the pursuit of those “phantoms of hope”.

If then the dystopias of our time have led us into a blind alley, and if the utopias of the past have failed us, we will simply have to turn our backs on despair, and we will have to reach further inward and outward in the inexhaustible human adventure. If utopian societies are outside of the realm of possibility, perhaps utopias of the mind are within individual human realization.

There may be an essential wisdom too long overlooked in the words of William Wordsworth’s sonnet:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Perhaps man’s inheritance lies in personal commitment to essential living, to restore a simplicity to his states of mind, to shed materialistic superfluity and social sophistication, and, above all, to drive away a kind of base curiosity about people. Perhaps man should drive life into a corner, wrench from it all the goodness and the meanness it has, and declare that it is always better to be than not to be.

Perhaps what is needed is the restoration of the life-force in the spirit of the Psalmist. Henry Vaughan, seventeenth-century English poet, for example, wrote canticles in praise of Creation and of the Creator; in “Rules & Lessons” he imagines God speaking to his creature, man:

Walk with thy fellow creatures, note the hush

And whispers amongst them. There’s not a Spring

Or Leafe but hath his morning-hymn; Each Bush

And Oak doth know I AM; Can’st thou not sing?

In A Shepherd’s Life (1910), W. H. Hudson describes what for him was the existence of a genuine utopia in England’s Salisbury Plain; a village, Winterbourne Bishop, was the incarnation of Hudson’s dream of an earthly paradise. Here he found a society which remained close to nature, to the formative processes of nature. Living in physical surroundings closer to those of the ancient people of the Bible, the shepherds, Hudson liked to believe, lived closer to nature and therefore closer to God than do most men. Hudson insisted that he had rediscovered a glimpse of Eden:

The final effect of this wide green span with signs of human life and labor on it . . . is that we are not aliens here, intruders or invaders on the earth, living in it but apart, perhaps hating and spoiling it, but with the other animals are children of Nature, like them living and seeking out subsistence under her sky, familiar with her sun and wind and rain.

To be sure this naturalist’s vision is not everyman’s vision; but this kind of affirmation should be able to overpower our uncertainties. This kind of declaration proves that there are voices of hope in times of despair, faith in times of doubt. Men will prevail. The impulse to utopia will not be vanquished.

Now, in a time of cosmic crisis, the world to so many seems so old. Yet, in the context of cosmic history, it is still quite young. And, fortunately, it is not often the old in orientation who dream new dreams but rather the young; the future, in fact, is very much dependent upon the dreams of youth. To the young, tomorrow is forever. It would be cruel to scoff at the declaration of Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra: “The best is yet to be.” We must continue to elevate, not debase human nature. This is the first condition of our legacy.

[Page 17]

Horses, who knows?

Someone saw a ghostly stallion;

Prancing, just beyond—

Golly-giggen,

What do you make

Of that?

Amen, amen.

An apparition of the Mind;

Fleeting, fanciful—

Golly-giggen,

What do you make

Of that?

Amen, amen.

Or a real live Horse,

With a sugar-bite—

Golly-giggen,

What do you make

Of that?

Amen, amen.

Who knows, who knows?

Ride on, Ride on,

Free, free—

Golly-giggen,

What do you make

Of that?

Amen, amen.

T. H. BREEN

[Page 18]

[Page 19]

BRIDGE TO A BRAVE NEW WORLD

By BEN KAUFMAN

‘O, wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in’t.’

—The Tempest, V, i.

NEVER HAD THE HUMAN MIND and spirit risen to greater heights than in the nineteenth century. It was an age which had begun with much optimism and had brought forth marvelous and striking achievements that stirred men with enthusiasm and supreme confidence. As it drew to a close a belief settled over the western world that the human race at last was on the right path.

Many indications led men to this conclusion. The industrial revolution with its numerous inventions greatly improved the lives of people in many parts of the world. The exchange of industrial and agricultural products increased international commerce and markets and caused nations to dream of great power and wealth. Mark Twain wrote to Walt Whitman: “You have lived just the seventy years which are the greatest in the world’s history and richest in benefit and advancement to its peoples.”

With industrialism came new theories of economics such as those advanced by Karl Marx and his followers of scientific socialism. Capitalism and free enterprise produced high standards of living for large segments of the world’s population. Science gave amazing contributions to the life of mankind. Many diseases were eliminated or controlled; engineering was improved beyond recognition; man’s understanding of the earth and his environment was revolutionized by scientists like Faraday, Darwin, Pasteur, the Curies, and Luther Burbank.

Constitutional government received strong impetus in the nineteenth century from the rise of the middle class. Reform bills in the English Parliament and the spread of the voting franchise in Europe and the United States reflected the growing demand for more liberties and participation in government. Everywhere groups of liberals worked and waited for a chance to overthrow oppressive regimes and autocratic rulers and to put the new ideas of democracy into practice. Nationalism and patriotism were in their heyday. The brilliant Italian thinker and founder of the Young Italy movement, Giuseppe Mazzini, wrote: “. . . the parent thought of my every design was a presentiment that regenerated Italy was destined to arise the initiatrix of a new life, and a new and powerful Unity to all the nations of Europe. . . . I saw regenerate Italy becoming at one bound the missionary of a religion of [Page 20] progress and fraternity, far grander and vaster than she gave to humanity in the past.

In Europe education and nationalism were taught hand in hand, each nation emphasizing its own achievements and glories. Germans considered their country the greatest in the world; French students believed France led the world; the English saw their empire as paramount in all history.

The arts no longer were for the wealthy and the privileged only; they were made available to millions of people. And all of the arts reached peaks of achievement. Writers, poets, painters, and composers included such greats as Dickens, Hugo, and Balzac; Tennyson, Browning, and Wordsworth; Corot, Van Gogh, and Cézanne; Beethoven, Brahms, and Verdi.

As many people began to think that science and technology would bring about a better world, poets expressed their hopes and dreams in verse. In “Locksley Hall” Tennyson, in a burst of lyrical intuition and lofty idealism, revealed his expectations of the future:

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew

From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,

With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

The industrial and scientific revolutions that had matched with so much vigor and self-assurance, however, began to show signs of alarm and danger as the world entered the twentieth century. Impending conditions gave distant warning that civilization was approaching a crisis. Discontent among the poor against the injustices of the industrial system had provided Marx and his followers with their most potent weapon for revolution and upheaval. As the world drifted toward war in 1914 it became apparent that the flimsy pattern of international relations could not conceal a host of evils and imbalances which were afflicting mankind.

World War I, with its twenty-three million deaths in battle and from disease and famine, plus destruction of property amounting to countless billions of dollars, failed to give humanity the surcease it was seeking. Another world war occurred one generation later with more hatred, more destruction, more intense suffering, more weapons of death, more dreams shattered. It was followed in rapid succession, sometimes [Page 21] contemporaneously, by several smaller conflicts, more problems, and a rivalry that has left the peoples and the nations of the entire world, affluent and poor alike, afloat on a sea of fear and bewilderment. Although the twentieth century bids fair to equal or surpass in science and knowledge the great advances of the nineteenth, there is this significant difference: the element of confidence that problems could be solved which characterized the closing years of the nineteenth century does not exist in the turbulent sixties of this century.

A candid study of modern history reveals the obvious fact that beneath the veneer of accomplishments lurk the blunders and tensions which have been building up for 500 years. The Renaissance ushered in the modern world. Armed with scientific knowledge and methods, the newly-formed European nations imperiously embarked upon a policy of aggression to seize and exploit the resources of the world. Competing fiercely among themselves but all employing similar methods, they succeeded by 1914 in fashioning and winning colonies or spheres of interests—all in the name of progress and civilization. When the United States, having learned some of those methods and having applied them, attained her “manifest destiny” by the early twentieth century, the western world found itself at the brink of disaster staring dimly into the future. All the noble thoughts and words of the nineteenth century have come to ashes in the second half of the twentieth century.

Where had humanity gone wrong? The answer is to be found in the spiritual life of mankind. In the mad scramble for material gain and power men had by-passed an essential truth—that they are not merely thinking systems encased in physical bodies but are also spiritual beings whose hearts and souls can lift them above the baseness of their broken world into a brave new world. But this renascence can only be accomplished by a spiritual illumination that will purify and educate their thoughts, morals, and characters just as sunshine causes the growth and development of material organisms. It is the dedicated mission of the Bahá’í Faith to bring to the attention of all humanity the source of spiritual illumination for these critical times and to show how the spiritual and social life of mankind can be brought into balance before time runs out.

The Herald of the Bahá’í Faith was the Báb (i.e. the Gate), a radiant youth of Iran who, in 1844, declared that He was the forerunner of a Divine Messenger soon to appear and deliver His glad tidings. The Báb instructed His followers to spread this message and to prepare people for the promised Day of God. When He was imprisoned in a mountain fortress in northwestern Iran, a group of eighty-one disciples assembled in 1848 in the obscure hamlet of Badasht, east of Teheran, to consider the means of freeing Him and to implement His revelation by a complete and dramatic break with the past. Suddenly one day there appeared before them the only female disciple of the Báb, a beautiful young woman “regarded as the fair and spotless emblem of chastity.” Unveiling herself before the affrighted and horrified group, in fiery, eloquent words she cast aside the veils of orthodox Islamic laws and traditions, which had existed for 1200 years, and proclaimed the inauguration of a new religious dispensation.

Táhirih. eloquent disciple of the Báb, first woman suffrage martyr, gifted poetess, [Page 22] and brilliant exponent of freedom and human rights, was acclaimed far and wide as the Persian Joan of Arc. She had sounded the death-knell of the antiquated past. Fifteen years later, in 1863, the Divine Messenger Whom the Báb had foretold and Whose advent the disciples of the Báb hastened to accelerate appeared. Bahá’u’lláh, Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, announced His mission.

It is Bahá’u’lláh’s mission that bears so much significance for our world today. Like rush into disaster. It invokes those who would listen, the “fishers of men,” to raise up the Conference of Badasht, it breaks sharply with the past and admonishes mankind that only the divine healing medicine of God can save the world from its headlong a new race of men.

In a series of remarkable letters to the most powerful kings of the earth, written between 1863 and 1868, while an exile from His native Iran and a prisoner in Adrianople, Turkey, and Akka, Palestine, Bahá’u’lláh called upon the monarchs to renounce their selfish aims and warlike activities and to work for the welfare of their peoples and for universal peace. Heedless of the word of God in their midst and intent on perpetuating their useless reigns and dynasties, they or their descendants soon were toppled from their thrones as the inexorable tide of events rolled over them. Only the English House of Windsor survived to view what remained of the old world, Queen Victoria having been commended by Bahá’u’lláh for having forbidden the slave trade in the British Empire and “‘entrusted the reins of council into the hands of the representatives of the people.’”

If the extinction of the monarchs of Europe, the Middle East, and Russia were not sufficient to indicate a changing civilization, two subsequent events without question have differentiated our times from all others: the nuclear explosions and the civil rights movement. Nations and races no longer can isolate themselves and exist apart from the broad highway of events. Other episodes show the same trend toward world unity. The weakness of the pound affects a wider populace than the British people; the war in Vietnam is of deep concern to everyone; the death of Martin Luther King touched a responsive chord of sympathy around the world. We are moving toward one world at last.

But the world can become one divided against itself unless common spiritual bonds stretch from every heart in a new society where selfish pursuits are replaced by noble deeds. We need only a casual perusal of the daily newspaper to convince us that something has departed from the world which must be returned to ensure its survival. That something is Love. Love of God, love of family, love of work, love for each other. The spirit of love has been manifest in the lives and teachings of all the prophets, and it is that same spirit of love that Bahá’u’lláh now radiates in His appeal to all mankind to listen, take heed, and unite that it may go forward to fulfill its destiny.

Redirection by Reaffirmation

IN A SMALL VOLUME, The Hidden Words, Bahá’u’lláh has distilled the essence of His Revelation and calls men to redirect their lives according to God’s unchanging spiritual teachings. He affirms again and again that when a believer, with absolute [Page 23] sincerity, turns to God a profound change in his being results and he becomes a new creature:

My fist counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting. (H.W.A.1)

Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant. (H.W.A.5)

My love is My stronghold; he that entereth therein is safe and secure, and he that turneth away shall surely stray and perish. (H.W.A.9)

Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other. Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest. Such is My counsel to you, O concourse of light! Heed ye this counsel that ye may obtain the fruit of holiness from the tree of wondrous glory. (H.W.A.68)

But Bahá’u’lláh speaks to more than the individual man and personal spirituality. He also addresses man collectively and lays down injunctions regulating his social activities and pointing the road to the spiritualization of the entire fabric of his society, from the smallest family unit to the world-wide community of all human kind. Basic to this social regeneration is the observance of justice—justice that is all-encompassing and spiritual in nature. Again Bahá’u’lláh speaks in The Hidden Words:

The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes. (H.W.A.2)

Know thou of a truth: He that biddeth men be just and himself committeth iniquity is not of Me, even though he bear My name. (H.W.A28)

Yet the justice of which Bahá’u’lláh speaks, He places in a context of obedience to divine laws—one scarcely needs to observe that obedience to our laws today is “a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance.” Thus, He not only enjoins strict obedience to His laws:

Walk in My statutes for love of Me and deny thyself that which thou desirest if thou seekest My pleasure. (H.W.A38)

[Page 24] but He also counsels mutual respect and impartiality among men in order that society can become wholesome and progressive: “The Great Being saith: O ye children of men! The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. Suffer it not to become a source of dissension and discord, of hate and enmity. This is the straight Path, the fixed and immovable foundation. Whatsoever is raised on this foundation, the changes and chances of the world can never impair its strength, nor will the revolution of countless centuries undermine its structure. Our hope is that the world’s religious leaders and the rulers thereof will unitedly arise for the reformation of this age and the rehabilitation of its fortunes. Let them, after meditating on its needs, take counsel together and, through anxious and full deliberation, administer to a diseased and sorely-afflicted world the remedy it reqtuires. . . .”

Ironically, the twentieth century finds itself standing on a threshold which is an incredible paradox. It can be the threshold of a catastrophe more disastrous than the fall of Rome in the fifth century, or it can be the threshold of a new world whose radiance heralds the kingdom of God on earth.

Old Clichés and New Realities

BUT MAN must not delude himself. The experiences of the last two decades must cure him of his post World War II feeling that he can act like a god in solving his problems. He must recognize that coexistence among nations, cessation of a hot or cold war, toleration of the races, cultural exchanges, and similar gestures cannot resolve the pressing problems of our times. In short, he must understand that old alliances, old ways of doing things, obsolescent doctrines, discredited traditions, and time-honored institutions are being undermined by virtue of their own inadequacies and inherent corruption. “The vitality of men’s belief in God,” Bahá’u’lláh has written, “is dying out in every land. . . . The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society. . . .” According to Bahá’í writings, as human character is debased and the degradation of human conduct is revealed in its most revolting aspects, religious teachings and experiences become the chief means for the establishment of order and tranquillity in the world. In Guidance for Today and Tomorrow, Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith until his death in 1957, quotes from Bahá’u’lláh: “Religion is verily the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world, and of tranquillity amongst its peoples. . . . The greater the decline of religion, the more grievous the waywardness of the ungodly. This cannot but lead in the end to chaos and confusion.” . . . “Religion is a radiant light and an impregnable stronghold for the protection and welfare of the peoples of the world.” “As the body of man needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God.”

[Page 25] The time is ripe for humanity to become mature, to put aside the toys of childhood, to renounce impetuosity and prodigality, to seek out the ways of wisdom, and from the half-light of shadows walk unafraid into the bright sunlight of reality. Bahá’u’lláh Himself has indicated the realities which are to fill the framework of justice and obedience.

The first reality man must realize is the reality of oneness. Already the signs of this awareness multiply, especially among youth, but man must go further. The human race is one; our hearts also must become one. For too long a time the masses of humanity have listened to, have been betrayed by, the haters, the doubters, the timid ones, and the misdirected activists who would divide them. Never have the famous lines of John Donne conveyed more meaning than today: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Significantly ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, son of the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith and its Exemplar, declared, “God maketh no distinction between the white and the black. If the hearts are pure both are acceptable unto Him. God is no respecter of persons on account of either colour or race. All colours are acceptable unto Him, be they white, black or yellow. Insasmuch as all were created in the image of God, we must bring ourselves to realize that all embody divine possibilities.”

The second reality (a painful lesson of history which men are beginning to sense) is peace—peace without reservation, peace through the application of every control necessary, peace through a system of collective security. The Bahá’í writings make clear that universal peace will be established when man turns to God and accepts the guidance given to him from age to age through His Messengers.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained that religion is progressive and that it must be living, vitalized and moving. In this century of life and renewal the great goal of mankind—universal peace—prophesied 2500 years ago by Isaiah is attainable. Speaking in 1912 in Boston, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stated: “The spiritual brotherhood which is enkindled and established through the breaths of the Holy Spirit unites nations and removes the cause of warfare and strife. It transforms mankind into one great family and establishes the foundations of the oneness of humanity. It promulgates the spirit of international agreement and insures Universal Peace. Therefore we must investigate the foundation reality of this heavenly fraternity. We must forsake all imitations and promote the reality of the divine teachings.”

The third reality is that of economics both at home and on a world-wide scale. The solution for the pressing economic problems of these troubled times is spiritual in nature and depends upon the character and behavior of nations and individuals. Recognizing the variety of conditions and periods of development for different parts of the world, the Bahá’í teachings lay down certain basic principles which can serve [Page 26] as a framework within which local and national governments and the world government of the future can function and meet their own particular problems.

One of these basic principles is that there must be a world economy organized to eliminate the fears and selfish interests of groups of people and nations which caused the ruinous wars of the past. In a world where peace has been finally made, there would be a world currency, a world bank, a universal system of weights and measures, removal of barriers to international trade, and free access to the raw materials of the earth. The relative success of such projects as the Marshall Plan, the technical assistant programs, and the European Common Market attest to the fruitful results which can be attained by consultation and planning.

Another principle in regard to the economic question which the Bahá’í teachings present is that everyone must engage in useful work. Bahá’u’lláh says: “It is enjoined on every one of you to engage in some occupation—some art, trade or the like. We have made this—your occupation—identical with the worship of God, the True One. Reflect, O people, upon the Mercy of God and upon His Favors, then thank Him in mornings and evenings.”

Explaining that consultation, cooperation. just co-partnership, and profit-sharing would best serve the interests of capital and labor rather than the harsh methods of strikes and lockouts, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stated: “The solution of economic questions will not be brought about by array of capital against labor, and labor against capital, in strife and conflict, but by the voluntary attitude of good will on both sides. Then a real and lasting justness of conditions will be secured. . . .”

To limit the extremes of poverty and wealth the Bahá’í teachings point to the path along which some of the more advanced nations already have progressed but which needs further legislation, such as the maintenance of a minimum standard of living and the establishment of a proper graduated income tax scale.

The fourth reality lies in the political realm. Shoghi Effendi wrote that “The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá’u’lláh, implies the establishment of a world commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds, and classes are closely and permanently united and in which the autonomy of its state members and the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded.”

The United Nations represents a small step in this direction. Other signs of the spirit of the age have made, or will be making, their appearances. The relentless forces of civilization have destroyed incongruities like the Holy Roman Empire while the British Empire gave way to the Commonwealth of Nations which in turn is losing much of its usefulness. Nationalism which in the past has caused blind patriotic prejudices will abate and lose its ardor as people expand their horizons and come to realize that political and geographical boundaries lead to hostility, bloodshed, and rapacity. Transportation and communications have brought continents and countries into closer relationships and have helped to break down the [Page 27] barriers of suspicion. The federal principle embodied in the Constitution of the United States may become a guide for the future organization of the world.

The fifth reality is the unity of religion. Since the oneness of God is accepted by all major religions, it is logical to deduce that the principle of universality would also apply to man’s relationship with God so that his spiritual experiences would not result in differences, persecution, sectarianism, or conflict. In the Kitáb-i-Íqán (Book of Certitude) Bahá’u’lláh succinctly explains the divine principle of Progressive Revelation that animates and underlies all religions and makes them stages in the eternal history and constant evolution of one religion, Divine and indivisible: “ . . . they Who are the Luminaries of truth and the Mirrors reflecting the light of divine Unity, in whatever age and cycle they are sent down from their invisible habitations of ancient glory unto this world, to educate the souls of men and endue with grace all created things, are invariably endowed with an all-compelling power, and invested with invincible sovereignty. For these hidden Gems, these concealed and invisible Treasures, in themselves manifest and vindicate the reality of these holy words: ‘Verily God doeth whatsoever He willeth, and ordaineth whatsoever He pleaseth.’”

The sixth reality is education on a universal scale. Everyone, as his birthright, is entitled to an education commensurate with his capacity and needs. All must receive their fair share of formal education but the Bahá’í teachings go much further and combine spiritual and ethical instruction with the study of arts and sciences so that children will be prepared to take their place in the future age of maturity. Thus, Bahá’u’lláh says: “Schools must first train the children in the principles of religion, so that the Promise and the Threat, recorded in the Books of God, may prevent them from the things forbidden and adorn them with the mantle of the commandments: But this in such a measure that it may not injure the children by resulting in ignorant fanaticism and bigotry.” And he furthermore says: “Beautify your tongues, O people. with truthfulness, and adorn your souls with the ornament of honesty. Beware, O people, that ye deal not treacherously with any one. Be ye the trustees of God amongst His creatures, and the emblems of His generosity amidst His people. They that follow their lusts and corrupt inclinations, have erred and dissipated their efforts.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in reply to a question concerning the training of children, gave this answer: “It is incumbent upon thee to nurture them from the breast of the love of God, to urge them towards spiritual matters, to turn unto God and to acquire good manners, best characteristics and praiseworthy virtues and qualities in the world of humanity, and to study sciences with the utmost diligence; so that they may become spiritual, heavenly and attracted to the fragrances of sanctity from their childhood and be reared in a religious, spiritual and heavenly training.”

The Bahá’í teachings state that all standards of training and teaching should [Page 28] conform and agree and that a universal curriculum should be established. A universal language should be adopted and taught in all the schools of the world since it would be one of the great factors in facilitating international communication and uniting mankind.

The seventh reality is harmony between religion and science. In his great search for truth man must be free from the fetters of prejudice, superstition, and tradition. The Bahá’í writings teach that man and his society must be free to investigate truth independently whether his investigation be religious or scientific. They teach that for the progress of his soul man must soar with the wings of religion and science; to attempt to fly with the wing of religion alone, he would quickly fall prey to superstition; and to fly with the wing of science, he would find himself in the despairing slough of materialism enslaved by deceptions of the senses. Bahá’u’lláh insiSts on accord between these two paths to truth. A mature, orderly world requires citizens who can acquire knowledge “of those sciences which may profit the people of the earth, and not such sciences as begin in mere words and end in mere words. The possessors of sciences and arts have a great right among the people of the world. Indeed, the real treasury of man is his knowledge. Knowledge is the means of honor, prosperity, joy, gladness, happiness and exultation.”

The spiritual and social coming of age of the human race will inaugurate a world civilization. It will be the consummation of the goal of humanity foretold by the prophets of old, sung by poets, contemplated by philosophers, and belabored by the statesmen of many centuries. Shoghi Effendi, in The Promised Day is Come written in the midst of World War II twenty-seven years ago, focuses the bright future which the Bahá’í teachings promise mankind:

The world is, in truth, moving on towards its destiny. The interdependence of the peoples and nations of the earth, whatever the leaders of the divisive forces of the world may say or do, is already an accomplished fact. Its unity in the economic sphere is now understood and recognized. The welfare of the part means the welfare of the whole, and the distress of the part brings distress to the whole. The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh has, in His own words, “lent a fresh impulse and set a new direction” to this vast process now operating in the world. The fires lit by this great ordeal are the consequences of men’s failure to recognize it. They are, moreover, hastening its consummation. Adversity, prolonged, world-wide, afflictive, allied to chaos and universal destruction, must needs convulse the nations, stir the conscience of the world, disillusion the masses, precipitate a radical change in the very conception of society, and coalesce ultimately the disjointed, the bleeding limbs of mankind into one body, single, organically united, and indivisible.

[Page 29]

THE SAINT-SIMONIANS

Messianic Precursors of the Bahá’í Faith

By BILLY ROJAS

UNLIKE their French counterparts, Bahá’ís in the United States perhaps are not familiar with the Saint-Simonian religious movement of the nineteenth century. This is understandable. The Saint-Simonian episode is a significant, although minor, part of French history which had little direct influence upon developments in America. Outside of a few intellectuals, Americans seldom heard of the work of Comte Claude Henri de Rouvoy de Saint-Simon (1760-1825). The ideas of his disciples did find a greater audience, but the name which the Saint-Simonians attached to one of their economic schemes, the Crédit Mobilier, was appropriated by financial swindlers in the United States to mask their fraudulent operations. When, during the Reconstruction period, the Crédit Mobilier scandal broke, the small reputation of the Saint-Simonians was severely damaged. Nonetheless, because of the connection of the group with socialist tradition, interest in them was sustained by radical American writers during the 1890’s [Page 30] and throughout the twentieth century.

Why is it, however, that American contemporaries of the Saint-Simonians failed to take note of them? The answer should be obvious to anybody who has studied United States and European history. The interval between the short-lived notoriety of the Saint-Simonians and their dissolution was less than two years. They were famous by 1832 but by the end of 1833 their prestige had eroded because of factional quarrels within the movement that precipitated its break-up. At the time when news of the Saint-Simonian “New Christianity” would normally have begun to percolate into North America, the source of that news had drastically altered.

Furthermore, the intellectual accomplishments of the Saint-Simonians were quickly obscured by another movement, with similar aims, that followed them. Charles Fourier’s utopian ideas were, it turned out, given publicity in Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. This was an important source of motivation for those hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who went to settle in the Fourierist “Phalanxes” (as these model communities were called) which flourished especially in the years 1843-44. Americans, thus, were aware of the Phalanx experiments, cognizant of the Millerite movement of that same era, and knowledgeable about such groups as the Mormons and the Shakers but usually ignorant of the Saint-Simonians.

But why should American Bahá’ís living today be expected to take an interest in Saint-Simon and the movement he inspired? Again, the answer is relatively simple. The Saint-Simonians anticipated many ideas which Bahá’ís espouse, articulated the logical implications of these thoughts, and publicized them throughout Europe and, indirectly, South America. Especially to the point is the fact that some of the problems and dilemmas inherent in the Saint-Simonian system, as can be seen by studying its history, prefigure many difficulties which Bahá’ís have to overcome in the modern world. It would, of course, be wrong to overstate the parallels between the Bahá’í Faith and the Saint-Simonian movement; but numerous points of comparison can, and should, be made. The Saint-Simonian experience is instructive. Thus, by examining it, Bahá’ís should be able to understand hitherto neglected aspects of their own commitment. In some respects, then, one would expect that a study of one movement would teach things about the other. This should be apparent in subsequent parts of the essay. In so many words: Bahá’ís, as well as non-Bahá’ís of course, can learn from the Saint-Simonians.

However, the reader should also be warned that parallels between the Bahá’í Faith and the Saint-Simonian movement are sometimes incomplete or non-existent. In such cases the differences between the two systems ought to be considered. To educate oneself about the Saint-Simonians can also provide protection against those who might want to stretch comparisons too far and, in so doing, detract from the Bahá’í message. And the information so gleaned can also be an antidote against spurious history. Although the original movement failed, its failure is instructive. Moreover it was not without inspiring successes. Like the Millerites, the Saint-Simonians indicate the first stirrings of [Page 31] a religious revolution in the modern world.

How the Movement Began

WHO WERE THE SAINT-SIMONIANS? What did they do? The movement originated in 1825, the year in which Saint-Simon’s last book, Nouveau christianisme, was written. The manuscript not only recapitulated many of the author’s previous ideas on political association and social welfare but crowned the development of his religious speculation, a development dating from about 1820, after which Auguste Comte, Saint-Simon’s politically-minded pupil set out on an independent course. Saint-Simon’s disciples took this text —along with several other writings such as the Mémoire sur la Science de l’homme (1813) and the periodical L’Organisateur (published 1819-1820)—abstracted their master’s conclusions, and elaborated a philosophy predicated on their findings over the course of two years (1829-1830) in a series of lectures called the Doctrine of Saint-Simon. The talks were delivered, for the most part, by Saint-Amand Bazard at the Salle Taitbout on the rue Taranne in Paris and became, in effect, the scriptures of Saint-Simon’s followers. Under Bazard and Barthelemy-Prosper Enfantin, a charismatic leader of the group, a Saint-Simonian movement which flourished in Paris, southern France, and Belgium, could claim some 40,000 adherents before 1832. Pierre Leroux, an editor of the influential liberal newspaper Le Globe, was converted to the Saint-Simonian cause. And no less than John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, and Heinrich Heine became interested in the new faith.

What were the elements of Saint-Simonian philosophy? According to the Doctrine, certain liberal principles had to be established in society; equality of opportunity without regard to sex or class background, [Page 32] universal education, and the responsibility of government to provide for the welfare of its citizens. The social aims of society could be implemented by regulating industry—here anticipating the theories of John Maynard Keynes—and by distributing revenue which could be invested in socially useful enterprises. Among the mottoes of Le Globe, derived from the concluding passages of Nouveau christianisme, were those stating that unearned privilege should be abolished and that social institutions should have as their goal the amelioration “of the most numerous, the poorest class”. This far the Saint-Simonians anticipated contemporary welfare politics. But they understood liberal principles to be nothing but predicates for a broader reorganization of society.

Throughout history, the school maintained, human relationships have gradually been transformed. Man’s capacity for informed insight has increased, and his desire for social unity has expanded. “Organic epochs,” during which religious cults define human goals as the result of having solved basic social and intellectual problems, and “critical epochs,” during which these solutions become untenable due to changed conditions and in which secular institutions attempt to maintain order, have alternated throughout recorded time. The Saint-Simonians held that mankind had morally progressed as a result of this pattern of change because each critical period began as a protest against injustice and ignorance, because it undermined outmoded institutions and, in the end, inspired the desire for man to create a new social order founded on a more mature set of intellectual premises and standards of justice. They believed that, in the world of the 1830’s, the time had come for another religious rejuvenation of mankind to usher in another organic social system. In answer to the question, “Has mankind a religious future?” the Saint-Simonians not only said “Yes,” but indicated the portent of the approaching dispensations: “. . . the religion of the future will be greater and more powerful than all those in the past; . . . it will, like those which preceded it, be the synthesis of all conceptions of mankind and, moreover, of all modes of being. Not only will it dominate the political order, but the political order will be totally a religious institution; . . . this religion will embrace the entire world because the law of God is universal.”

Toward a World at Peace

THE FIRST NEED which this new faith would satisfy would be man’s need for unity. The Saint-Simonians envisaged the establishment of a world at peace, a peace insured by the creation of a world government. Because this federation of states would be brought about as the direct result of religious conversion, its government would have ethical and economic justification. Indeed, economic problems, inasmuch as they are relevant to social problems, would require ethical solutions. The third motto of Le Globe, “à chacun selon sa capacité, à chaque capacité selon ses oeuvres,” meant that government has the responsibility to educate people throughout their entire lives to be useful members of economic society and should see that people are reWarded according to their merits.

The Saint-Simonian faith denied any contradiction between scientific truth and religious teaching. Each scientific discovery, it was held, gave man “a broader view of God and of His plans for mankind”; in fact, “scientific inspiration,” one result of the desire for an “unfettered search for truth,” is a form of “religious inspiration.” Both Saint-Simon and his disciples realized that human conceptions of God are never adequate and must be modified to suit man’s growth of knowledge. Before Nietzsche and, more recently, Thomas J. J. Altizer trumpeted “God [Page 33] is dead”, Saint-Simon wore black. The conception of deity of the pre-scientific, medieval church began to die when the mathematics, chemistry, and astronomy studied by the Muslims began to be studied by European Christians. During the first years of the nineteenth century the process reached a climax. Intellectually honest men could no longer tolerate an almost Ptolemaic God nor a church that believed in such a being.

But the human religious need cannot go unheeded and when such a turning point is reached, a new revelation of God occurs. Previously God was conceived as a transcendent entity, but, for the divine to have meaning to modern man, God must be conceived as an immanent force in the world, and the world itself, and man in it, must be recognized as manifesting, however imperfectly, the deity. Salvation does not consist in individual emotional gratification, according to the Saint-Simonians; rather it consists in working for the elevation of one’s fellow man. Nothing less than the creation of a “New Christianity” could accommodate changing human needs.

At this point some comparison of Bahá’í teachings with those of the Saint-Simonians is in order. There are, however, significant differences as well. Perhaps by discussing the principles of the Bahá’í Faith promulgated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá an appreciation of the relationship of the two movements can be achieved.

On a number of issues the ideas of the Saint-Simonians are in concord with those of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. As a writer for Le Globe said, in the December 30, 1831, issue of the paper: “. . . religion cannot disappear from the world; it only changes its form.” The type of change was, of course, articulated in the philosophy of history, itself explained in the Doctrine. Each new period of civilization requires a new revelation and the creation of new religious institutions. This, obviously, comes close, indeed, to the Bahá’í concept of “progressive revelation.” According to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, every religious tradition has a sacred origin imparted by a Prophet who bears a revelation, a message from God. Such persons, known as Manifestations have a cycle—of approximately a millennium—during which ethical laws are renewed but new social principles are carried out. Then the “cycle is completed by the appearance of a new Manifestation,” and “a new cycle begins.”

The Saint-Simonian division of history into organic and critical periods, into creative ages and epochs of disintegration is much like ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s cyclical theory. Furthermore the Saint-Simonians had a notion approximating the idea of the Manifestations that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speaks about. Saint-Simon was regarded by his followers as the latest in a line of messiahs which included Moses and Jesus. To Bahá’ís, however, this line also includes Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, and Muhammad; the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh are the most recent Prophets. But whereas the [Page 34] Saint-Simonians were not explicit about the relationship of such figures, Bahá’ís have a refined understanding of their inter-relatedness. But one member of the Saint-Simonian group, Pierre Leroux, eventually went so far as to suggest that “revelation is successive,” and that the times were ripe for a new revelation which would preserve the truths of previous faiths while adapting itself to modern social conditions. What is notable here is that Leroux, without dismissing his debt to Saint-Simon, rejected any messianic station for him.

The Saint-Simonians also advocated a number of other ideas that Bahá’ís today advocate. The French religious movement was not necessarily alone in supporting the following proposals, but that observation should not detain us. The Saint-Simonians believed that religious and scientific truths are complementary, that world peace could only result from the establishment of a world government, that economic problems require a spiritual solution, and that the most pressing need for the peoples of the earth is for universal education. However, the Saint-Simonians had nothing to say, it seems, on either the need for a world-wide auxiliary language nor on the need for eliminating prejudice.

It can be argued, certainly, that these “missing” principles (missing from the standpoint of Bahá’í teachings) are assumed by the logic of the Saint-Simonians. Communication in a world society would require a lingua franca and, also, the establishment of an economic order based on talent alone would require the abolition of discriminatory employment and social practices. Yet, because Bazard, Enfantin, and the others neglected such considerations, they betray a marked shortsightedness about practical affairs. It is not enough, after all, to espouse beautiful sentiments if little thought is given to their implementation. Thus, while both Bahá’ís and Saint-Simonians can be classified as utopian—in the broad, historical sense of the term, meaning that both want to create a thoroughly new world society—the Bahá’í emphasis on techniques for carrying out this goal is decidedly non-utopian.

[Page 35] Where Similarities End

THE REALLY CRUCIAL DIFFERENCE between the Bahá’í and the Saint-Simonian systems is their conflicting methods of administration. The representative, democratic structure of Bahá’í assemblies, a feature which was deliberately created, was present, if at all, only accidentally in the Saint-Simonian societies. Where Bahá’ís altogether abandon the institution of the clergy, the Saint-Simonians took another expedient by constructing a new clergy. Where clashes of opinion are resolved among Bahá’ís in the process of consultation, a process in which disputants strive to set aside ego when confronting issues and in which it is not uncommon for the parties involved to switch their positions in the course of discussion, the Saint-Simonians were unable to develop any comparable method. This had disastrous consequences for the Saint-Simonian movement.

In spite of their belief that through love for one another and for humanity they could overcome self-interest and lead society into a new religious dispensation. the Saint-Simonians soon found factions undermining the unity of their movement. Bazard and Enfantin, the dual leaders of the school, did not agree on the program that their movement should pursue. Enfantin, through the seductiveness of his personality, moved the Saint-Simonians in the direction of a rigid, hierarchically structured cult. And when he introduced his ideas for sexual emancipation, the movement rapidly disintegrated. Bazard and Leroux seceded from the group; but Bazard’s attempt to re-establish the faith along its original lines was aborted by his death less than a year after the split. Other Saint-Simonians followed Bazard out of the movement as its mass support quickly evaporated. Some ex-Saint-Simonians joined the Fourierists.

The Enfantin group became the target of persecution by the French authorities, and its leadership was sentenced to prison during 1833. At this point Enfantin concluded that he was the male part of the messianic couple of a new church. Numbers of the cult set out for Constantinople to discover the female Christ they thought they would find there. This venture failed, but some of the Saint-Simonians were convinced that the advent was near and several became Templars or Carmelites and went to live in the Holy Land.

The faithful followers of Enfantin, however, journeyed to Egypt where their leader, after his release, and now imbued with plans for a canal through Suez to symbolize the meeting of East and West, soon joined them. At length this expedition came to a close and the Enfantin cult ended with his return to France in 1837. This group, during its episodic history, did not lack in adventure. But it is open to the serious charge leveled [Page 36] against it in the name of the whole movement —namely, that it is the forerunner of totalitarian politics. The liberal Saint-Simonians, when they broke away, left behind a cult which closed the door on discussion of problems and which invested an inordinate amount of power in one man. Enfantin had no use for intellectual freedom, nor for social freedom, and the unthinking allegiance of his apostles to the cult apparatus built in his name meant that they forfeited an important part of their humanity. Such cult mentality was symptomatic of the group of true believers that followed Enfantin.

The appearance of cult mentality signaled the decline of the Saint-Simonians, because cult mentality invariably means loss of flexibility as the believers become caught up in a vision of the world that recognizes only distinctions between insiders and outsiders, between saved and unsaved. Their faith became what faith is never intended to be: a substitute for intelligence. In the process of being uncritically taken in by cult orthodoxy the cultists served as instruments for the subversion of the very ideas that gave birth to the group.

Saint-Simonian history, is not, however, confined to the Enfantin cult. Among the seceders were those who were ardently interested in oriental religious beliefs and who took up the idea that the Christian faith should be superseded by a creed that would synthesize the truths of all man’s religious traditions. Leroux, as a matter of fact, publicized oriental concepts in the pages of Le Globe before its termination in 1832. Later, Leroux foresaw a future “religion of humanity” which dispensed with a clergy. This “religion” would not, however, countenance any rivals.

Leroux and a number of other ex-Saint-Simonians were active members of what was called “la Renaissance orientale” in mid-nineteenth-century France. Philippe Buchez popularized the notion of periodic revelation, arguing that the several messiah figures in history were the impetus behind human progress, the increased cooperation of mankind. His concepts influenced the English Christian Socialists. And it was in this atmosphere that several non-Saint-Simonians, once they were exposed to such ideas, accomplished a number of notable works. Jules Michelet edited a “Bible de l’humanité” composed of selected Greek, Indian, and Persian scriptures. And Ferdinand Brunetière conceived of the idea of holding a “congress of religions,” a congress which was eventually held in Chicago, in 1893, and which served as the occasion for the introduction of the Bahá’í Faith to America.

The influence of Saint-Simonian ideas was a significant force in the making of the contemporary world. Influential members of the then defunct movement held important posts under the government of Napoleon III as a result of implementing Saint-Simonian schemes in the industrialization of France. The Crédit Mobilier investment bank served as a model for continental finance capital even though the American adaptation of the idea was ruined. But the most outstanding development of Saint-Simonian ideas can be seen in the influence they exerted on the socialist movement. This theme deserves individual treatment but, suffice it to say here, Marx and Engels’ adaptation of some concepts that were created by the school of Saint-Simon have become part of the platform of contemporary Social Democrats, as well as of the new breed of Soviet theoreticians. The Doctrine preached in 1829 and 1830 was, in Hayek’s words, “If not the Bible of Socialism . . . at least . . . its Old Testament?”

Bahá’ís can, in short, recognize similarities between their own position and certain aspects [Page 37] of socialist programs although, to be sure, similarities can also be found between Bahá’í teachings and the ideas of individuals like, say, Tolstoy or the open-ended approach of the Unitarian-Univetsalist Church. But there are few examples which show, as clearly as do the Saint-Simonians, a genuine attempt to bring to fruition goals that Bahá’ís maintain. The shortcomings of the Saint-Simonians that caused their ultimate demise do not, it can be maintained, exist within the Bahá’í Faith.

And the importance of the Saint-Simonians does not stop with their being forerunners of the socialist movement. Many of Saint-Simon’s suggestions were taken by Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim. Saint-Simon’s vision of a positive science of society which could help government agencies regulate the approaching, new, organic society, became the science of sociology.

What can be learned from the Saint-Simonian adventure? Bahá’ís engaged in academic disciplines can certainly draw upon this source for a significant lesson. The Saint-Simonian movement presents another measure of evidence that a new religious spirit entered the world in the early nineteenth century. The appeal that the Saint-Simonians had indicates that a radical, religious transformation is desired by people in this modern age. The failures of the Saint-Simonians indicate that people still await, however, a suitable vehicle for this metamorphosis, a vehicle that Bahá’ís are striving to provide.

Perhaps there is even more that the Saint-Simonians can teach. Among their several schemes for creating a society in which religious principles would be an essential part of economic and governmental programs, Bahá’ís might find useful suggestions for ways in which to do just that. But this possibility must be held in abeyance. There simply are not enough reliable sources available on which to base studies along this line. The important second volume of the Doctrine, like the several Saint-Simonian periodicals, some of their books, and issues of Le Globe can only be obtained in French archives. But the need for further study in this field should be apparent.

In fact, the need for entirely new directions of research on the part of Bahá’ís can be noted here. The literature of the Saint-Simonian movement is merely one example of a corpus of documents that could profitably be included in Bahá’í libraries. Such literature, as well as documents produced by Millerite, Mormon, Socialist, etc., authors can teach two things. First, they can reveal essential characteristics of the religious nature of modern man. And this is valuable information, since all too frequently secular historians and social scientists neglect this aspect of contemporary life. Second, they can help those Bahá’ís who simply want to understand their religious rivals—not as rivals, but as people who have found a portion of meaning in their lives as affiliates of other groups. With a greater appreciation of the beliefs of other people the effectiveness of Bahá’í teaching would be increased.

Finally it should be said that there is an undeniable need for fresh research into Bábí and Bahá’í history. If Bahá’í scholars are to investigate Saint-Simonian and socialist materials there is doubly a need for studies of the Shaykhís, studies of Bahá’í history in the United States, in France, in Russia, Persia, and elsewhere. This is the challenge of future research by Bahá’ís and those who are aligned with the Bahá’í cause. There is much work to be done. It is work, however, that can result in substantial progress. It is work that reaches out into many hitherto neglected subjects. But this is what the Bahá’í Faith is all about. The message of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh is an opening, not a closing, of doors.

[Page 38]

New Directions in Cultural Anthropology

By ZDENEK SALTZMANN

IN THE LAST DECADE and a half, communications media generally, and television in particular, have made the public very much aware of the scope of scientific inquiry. This has been true not only for the physical sciences and the study of living nature but for the social sciences as well, with anthropology at last receiving the attention it properly deserves. Almost any week television guides list programs concerned with societies far different from our own, with the problems of the American Indians who are living between two cultures, or with the newest findings of anthropologists in their search for more knowledge about ancient man. Then, too, anthropology has achieved a foothold in the curricula of our secondary schools, where it shows signs of becoming a healthy competitor with some of the more traditional courses. And in our colleges, the enrollment in anthropology courses is at an unprecedented high and continues to grow. In nearly all instances, what these programs and courses reflect is a well-established body of anthropological theory and method which have served to increase our understanding of man and his ways many times over since anthropology first became a recognized field of study in the early part of this century.

But what of the contemporary background of theory which will help to determine the nature and course of anthropological research in the years to come? It is the aim of this article to acquaint the layman with some of the current approaches which many of the younger American anthropologists are finding increasingly appealing and productive as they engage in ethnographic fieldwork or a more general study of culture.

The Nature and Goals of Ethnography

THE TERM “ETHNOGRAPHY” is commonly used to refer to a descriptive study of the culture of a society. How does one go about such a description? Three basic approaches have been applied to the task. The first approach, exemplified by the accounts of travelers and missionaries, may be put aside as nonprofessional and for the most part naive. It has been characterized by undisguised ethnocentrism, even if on occasion the authors of the reports have refrained from moralizing or from gratuitously assigning the peoples with whom they have become acquainted to one or another stage of mental or cultural development. As early as 1881, Sir Edward B. Tylor, one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology, warned that “the student of history must avoid that error which the proverb calls measuring other people’s corn by one’s own bushel. Not judging the customs of nations at other stages of culture by his own modern standard,” Tylor continued, “he has to bring his knowledge to the help of his imagination, so as to see institutions where they belong and as [Page 39] [Page 40] they work.” Today, nearly a century later, many more people would profit from Tylor’s admonition than he himself intended, not the least of whom might be the millions of American tourists who travel abroad.

The second approach, characteristic of the ethnographic reporting of several generations of anthropologists and still widely used at the present, has provided us with an extensive body of information from every part of the world. The approach consists of systematically collecting data in the field and then ordering them within a comprehensive conceptual framework of cross-cultural design. This collecting of data involves diligent observation of the group under study, coupled with the questioning of reliable members of the group who are willing to act as informants. More often than not the procedure has resulted in a competent and accurate description of a society’s culture, albeit in terms of a priori categories. The claim frequently advanced for this approach has been that the anthropologist’s vantage point from without the culture is not only desirable but necessary to ensure the objectivity of view which can come only with perspective. The research strategy, then, is basically that of a natural historian who sorts his data according to the categories developed and refined by the canons of Occidental science.

The beginnings of the third approach, commonly referred to as “ethnoscience,” or occasionally “the new ethnography,” date back to approximately the mid-fifties. Because of its several implications, the term “ethnoscience” may be somewhat misleading. As it is employed by its practitioners, the first of its components, “ethno-,” carries the notion of being intrinsic to a given culture, the second, “-science,” the notion of classification. We may therefore define ethnoscience briefly as an approach in ethnographic description aimed at the discovery of the particular ways in which societies classify those features of their total universe which they consider relevant.

Like so many modern approaches in anthropology and other fields, ethnoscience is not without an intellectual pedigree, although its relatives are more collateral than they are lineal. Some of its aspects bear relationship to structuralism, as it was developed between the two world wars by a group of linguistic and literary scholars in Prague. These structuralists held that a collection of related phenomena must be viewed as a whole, or structure, and this structure then analyzed for its unique features. Some aspects of ethnoscience are likewi5e congenial with the approach in cultural anthropology which Claude Lévi-Strauss refers to as “l’analyse structurale.” But perhaps the most direct inspiration for the ethnoscientific approach has been derived from the theoretical foundations and the methods of modern linguistics. Here, too, some of the early anthropologists foreshadowed the theoretical directions in which their field was to develop.

In the “Introduction” to the first volume of the Handbook of American Indian Languages, published in 1911, Franz Boas states in his discussion of the characteristics of language, “It seems important at this point of our considerations to emphasize the fact that the groups of ideas expressed by specific phonetic groups show very material differences in different languages, and do not conform by any means to the same principles of classification,” and again, in speaking of the characteristics of American languages, “. . . the method of treatment has been throughout an analytical one. No attempt has been made to compare the forms of the Indian grammars with the grammars of English, Latin, or even among themselves; but in each case the psychological groupings which are given depend entirely upon the inner [Page 41] form of each language. In other words, the grammar has been treated as though an intelligent Indian was going to develop the forms of his own thoughts by an analysis of his own form of speech.” But to dwell on antecedents would unfairly obscure the many vigorous innovations in methodology and reconsiderations of theory which the ethnoscientific approach was able to introduce into anthropology within the short span of a decade.

Culture Viewed Cognitively

CULTURE, THE CENTRAL CONCERN of the ethnographer, has been defined in a multiplicity of ways—as behavior typical of a group or class, as man-made environment, as that which separates man from other animals, as the product of human association— to list only the barest sample. For the “new ethnographer,” these and similar definitions of culture fail to identify and emphasize one of its most salient aspects. For him, culture is first of all a symbol system, or code system. An adequate description of the way of life of a people should therefore amount to no less than specification of these codes. The specification should be such that an outsider acquainted with them could select from among the culturally available alternatives an appropriate behavior for any potential genuine social context.

One would be tempted at this point to draw a detailed analogy between culture and language—a code system par excellence— were it not for the fact that the former completely includes the latter, making such a parallelism a logically questionable exercise. Instead, let me begin with an example of a cultural code from our verbal behavior as I indulge in a Walter Mitty-type fantasy in which I am again leading a gay young bachelor existence. When at a party I engage in conversation with a pretty girl whom I have not known before, I am making an attempt at communication, no matter how trivial it may be. If the signals vocally transmitted between the two of us lead to plans for a meeting at a certain time and place the next evening for dinner, information has indeed been exchanged and purposeful communication effected. This would in part be due to the fact that both of us were constructing and interpreting the messages between us according to a given set of rules, or code system, which we share. The sounds which we used would be chosen from the repertory characteristic of English rather than, say, Blackfeet or ancient Greek. We both would have availed ourselves of a corresponding grammatical code; had I spoken German with her, I would have doubtless addressed her as Sie with an eye for an early occasion when I could smoothly adjust the code to du. Needless to say, what we talked about would have been within the range of a mutual semantic code. I would find it appropriate, for example, to inquire what her relationship was to the host; however, I might not dwell on my extraordinary liking for garlic; and I certainly would not press the discussion of analogous types in Anasazi white pottery wares between A.D. 1050 and 1100 even if I suspected that my new acquaintance was an anthropologist.

Most of cultural behavior, of course, is not embodied in vis-à-vis communication by words. But the concept of communication can be extended rather easily to some of our nonverbal behavior as well (for instance, my sending to my new acquaintance an armful of spring flowers or a box of chocolates). What we need to try next is to apply the concept broadly to all culturally appropriate ways of responding to any situation in which members of a given society may reasonably expect to find themselves. The “new ethnographers” speak of the necessity for fieldworkers to “get inside the heads” or “skin” of their subjects in order to discover how they construe their cultural universe and how they have mapped it for their common traffic.

[Page 42]

Let us now return to the definition of culture and make it more explicit by paraphrasing one of the foremost exponents of the new ethnographic approach, Ward H. Goodenough. According to him, culture may be defined as the manner in which human beings structure their experiencing of their total environment, including not only the innumerable impressions to which their senses are continually subject, but also the ideas which these impressions evoke. Taking this partial definition a step higher, culture may be further said to be the manner in which human beings structure the experiencing of their phenomenal world in terms of both linear, cause-and-effect relations, and hierarchical, rank-order relations. Finally, still following Goodenough, culture may be seen as the manner in which human beings apply this structuring of their experience to the accomplishment of particular purposeful ends.

Suppose I am driving to the airport to catch a plane with only a few minutes to spare, this being the only flight which will get me to my destination in time for a business appointment. I am aware, among certain other things, of the condition of the road and the weather, the volume of traffic, and the potential of my car and of myself as driver. I am also aware of the possibility of my arriving late if there should be traffic congestion near the city or if there should be inadequate parking space at the airport. Approaching a red traffic signal and reflecting on the absence of any moving cars near the intersection, I am not only cognizant of the possible consequences of my continuing without stopping, but also of the priorities of the choices I face. I may decide, however, that the importance of the appointment I am to meet outweighs the desirability of complying with traffic regulations and so proceed to drive through the stoplight. A careful consideration of what seems to be for the most part a routine sequence of activities is now in order.

To begin with, I could have canceled my appointment, offering one of several acceptable excuses but avoiding any number of others which would not stand up to our cultural expectations. I might have also taken the bus, or train, following the proper sequence of “rules,” or code, which our culture offers for such a plan. To ride a bicycle, which serves me well in commuting to and from campus, would be out of the question, and to travel by dugout, dog-pulled sled, on horseback, or by any number of other means never even enters my mind as a possibility. Once in the car, I become caught up in a mazeway of culturally determined inputs and institutionalized tasks assignable, according to Anthony F. C. Wallace, to a number of matrices of decreasing complexity. The most general and complex is the matrix of received sensory input (for example, among many thousands of different perceptions, the sight of horses grazing some distance from the road); next is the matrix of sensory input attended to (such as any discernible movement along the highway in my visual field); next, the matrix of conscious attention (such as a car traveling ahead of me in the same direction, which I am gaining on); next, the matrix of definition of situation (for example, the decision to pass if I am to stay on schedule); and finally, the matrix of available responses (such as the actual passing of the car, in which I use both my judgment and my skills as a driver).

[Page 43] If there is a general tendency for people to go through the particular stop-light which I failed to observe, I may be stopped by a highway patrolman parked in an unmarked car some distance from the intersection. Behind the verbal communication that ensues, another code is employed as I open the window of the car to talk with the officer. I suspect that the only chance I have to be officially warned rather than fined is readily and cheerfully to admit my offense and offer some explanation of my action without, however, attempting to justify it. The officer seems to have understood my coded pleading for leniency and to have judged that I am not the sort who makes a practice of disobeying traffic regulations. He issues me a notice of warning, politely explaining the mounting rate of traffic accidents, which I cannot but acknowledge as alarming.

In brief, culture may be said to consist of criteria for deciding what is and what can be, what attitudes I may adopt in any particular case, and in what manner I might go about doing what I have decided upon. The task of the modern ethnographer is to discover the major features of the complex cognitive mapping which members of any society share, and to write a “cultural grammar”—or to identify the code of expectations—of the responses considered appropriate for the many different sociocultural contexts.

It must be obvious that an ethnographic description in the new style of ethnoscience is a formidable task indeed: of our culture, or any of its subcultures, because we know or can ascertain so much about it; of an unfamiliar culture, because there is so much to be discovered before a cultural grammar of its members can be written. Even so, there are already a number of partial accounts that serve as excellent models for this new approach.

Culture as a System of Systems

LET US NOW BRIEFLY CONSIDER a somewhat different way of looking at culture. This other approach takes interaction and transaction as the two organizing concepts in the study of man. In order for a society to function effectively, its members must act upon one another. The content of their transactions makes up what is referred to as their culture. Culture in this view is a set of cosystems.

To begin with a truism, culture is a perceptual system: we continually take account of innumerable sensory stimuli which are of potential significance in our daily lives. Suppose that on a sultry summer afternoon it suddenly grows darker, becomes cooler, and a strong breeze blows up; I will doubtless acknowledge these signs of an approaching rain-storm by leaving my house with an umbrella and raincoat, or by taking the car. If on my return home in the evening the smell of broiling meat beckons me from the lawn behind the house, my response will be the pleasant anticipation of one of our occasional steak dinners alfresco.

Culture is likewise a symbol system: eating steak is just one of many tangible symbols of well-being and affluence in our society. Do you want to impress your girl friend with the manner in which you live? Take her out for a steak dinner! Contrariwise, once married to her, you may wish to defer such a splurge until you have been definitely promised a raise. When at the end of an arduous day I fail to suppress a yawn, I engage in an involuntary physiological reaction. [Page 44] When, on the other hand, I yawn undisguisedly in front of someone who attempts to lecture me at length on the virtues of, say, vegetarianism, I am symbolically expressing my utter boredom. All cultures are perpetuated by the constant use of symbols: human behavior is above all symbolic behavior.

Culture is an affect system: many situations which some peoples consider a laughing matter would not be openly amusing in our society. Among the Yagua people of northeastern Peru a favorite form of diversion is to kick the log from under someone as he is about to sit down to a meal. Not even the chief or shaman is exempt from such practical joking. To be sure, we might find a similar situation equally hilarious, but the consequences undoubtedly less so. Weeping in our culture is considered unmanly, but soldiers are pardoned if they weep over their fallen buddies. The women of the Tupinamba tribe of coastal Brazil were expected to greet their guests with copious tears, the guests being obliged to reciprocate in kind. It was sufficient for a chief to absent himself for only a short while to be received with much weeping on his return. Reasons for rejoicing or mourning, love or hate, wellbeing or frustration are no less the functions of a particular culture than the foods we serve and the clothes we wear.

Culture, furthermore, is a belief system. Large American hotels are run with a no-nonsense efficiency, but try to insist on a room on the thirteenth floor! If it is true that because of our ever-increasing reliance on science and technology we are relatively free of nonrational and irrational beliefs, it is equally true that, considering the powerful role science and technology play in our culture, we are nevertheless subject to surprisingly many nonrational and irrational beliefs.

The story is told of a woman at a party who found among the refreshments some appetizers topped with delicious white meat. After she had enjoyed as many of these as politeness permitted, she questioned her hostess about them. When told that they were made of rattlesnake meat, she immediately experienced severe nausea. As in a great many cases, here we have elements of several systems acting in concert. In our culture, the snake, a cool, slippery creature which moves in a strange manner, is the subject of many beliefs and, in addition, has acquired rich symbolic connotations. It readily produces fear and disgust, particularly among women.

Finally, as we have already seen, culture is a cognitive system: it is a map which guides the members of a society who have internalized it through learning and socialization.

Conclusion

WE HAVE EXAMINED some of the contemporary theoretical framework which aids anthropologists in their efforts to describe more completely and to understand more meaningfully the nature of human behavior. Necessarily, we have touched on more topics than we were able to discuss in full, and a number of interesting and significant questions have had to be left unraised. It goes without saying, for example, that if culture is the content of transactions among the members of a society, the study of the specific circumstances under which the transacting occurs deserves as careful attention as the transactions themselves. The parameters of interaction within which the business of culture is carried on need to be drawn so as to reflect sensitively the many intricate dimensions of the human situation.

But I hope to have suggested one important point: there is a definite indication from various quarters of modern cultural anthropology that the winds of an integrative and multidimensional science of man are rising again. The claim that the need has never been greater than it is today surely requires no further repetition.

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Modernization’s Other Face

By JOSEPH S. HIMES

WE ARE OFTEN BAFFLED, sometimes appalled, occasionally even incensed by the slow pace of modernization in the developing societies of Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. And though we continue to send them prodigious quantities of material help and sound advice, they seem unwilling or unable to emerge from their traditional past into the modernity of the twentieth century. It almost seems as though they march forward into their history, their backs turned to the future.

History, and to a considerable extent the present also, in these developing societies is defined by hoe and handicraft economies operating in systems of isolated self-sufficiency. Most collective enterprises are organized within traditional groups such as tribes, castes, or feudal estates. A sacred tradition embodies the accumulated knowledge of the society and functions both to define the way of life and to set the task of education. For most people life faces inward and backward.

Yet, in spite of our best wishes and notwithstanding the unquestionable blessings, modernization is a shattering experience for these people. Ineluctably and inexorably it obliterates the familiar paths and destroys the ancient bastions of the traditional world. It aims to turn people from looking inward to looking outward, from focusing on the past to the contemplation of the future. The image called forth by the term modernization is the deliberate act of replacing, overhauling, or otherwise updating the institutional apparatus of these still underdeveloped societies.

In the traditional countryside, agri-business, with its scientific farming, power-driven [Page 46] implements, artificial fertilizers, hybrid seeds and animals, and advanced accounting-marketing methods, sweep ancestral garden practices aside. In the exploding industrial cities the factory, with all its enormous implications, supplants ancient handicrafts and pulls people up by the social roots, as it were, from the rural village for life in urban congestion. A mysterious and invisible market system takes the place of production for use and ceremonial barter.

Meanwhile, other functional systems must be overhauled and updated. The state replaces the tribe, and other traditional organizations, as the instrument of control, and rational authority is patterned by law. Government must become stable, dependable and rational and capable of ensuring civil order. Some people are troubled by the fact that although we set a good example and give sound advice, developing societies sometimes elect to organize non-democratic types of government. Much as we may deplore such a turn of events, it cannot always be prevented.

Economic and political modernization requires creation and installation of stable, calculable monetary and fiscal systems to replace traditional patterns of valuation and exchange. At the same time, the sacred and particularistic rules of conduct and relations must be superseded by universalistic instrumental rules. The heritage of hierarchical, personal obligations, and morality must be replaced by norms of universalistic and public ethics. Family, clan, and tribe as instruments or organized activity must give way to partnerships, syndicates, corporations, specialized associations, and bureaucratic structures as the appropriate types of social organization for the modern forms of economic, political, and educational enterprise.

To prepare people for life in this changing, unstable world, new goals and forms of education must be acquired and installed. The society now needs an educational system to cover the whole spectrum of training from the primary forms to the university. The content and stress of education turn from perpetuating a sacred tradition to transmitting technical knowledge and skills, producing leaders for the society and to generating that dynamic and futuristic orientation that, in the last analysis, is the key to modernity.

Everywhere developing peoples are sucked into the vortex of modernization with little or no preparation. Dragging their past along behind them, they are propelled on the threatening road into the future while their hearts yearn backward for the simple ways of the past. They tell us by their actions that they are of two minds. They want the vaunted material and social blessings of modernity and the tested comforts and securities of traditionalism. This is so very human! Don’t we all want the best of both worlds? These people, straining forward and yearning backward give modernization its two faces. One face, the positive, forward one, is etched by the enthusiasm, the energy, the ingenuity with which these once shackled colonial peoples march bravely into the future of industrial technology, urbanization, literary education, representative government, and all the rest. The other face is shaped by those habits of thought, patterns of feeling and acting, modes of organization, and all the other bag and baggage of traditionalism that they drag along with them out of the beloved and hated past.

People in the developing traditioaal societies possess many functional action patterns that are unusable in modern settings. In this respect they are like experienced cotton farmers from the Mississippi delta region who seek jobs in [Page 47] Chicago’s industrial plants. A man from the African bush or an Indonesian village reveals sanctioned work habits that are motivated by perceived need, buttressed by sacred authority, woven into a naturalistic time pattern, and based upon traditional manual and social dexterities. But such a man has a trained incapacity for useful work on a construction job, in a factory, on a railroad or on an industrialized farm. He cannot understand or appreciate the rigid, clock schedule, repetitive and to him pointless machine operations and the production of irrelevant and unneeded objects.

Or again, this man’s conditioning to social control, group order, and collective activity is grounded in a kinship system, a sense of fealty, and the timeless pattern of custom. He cannot understand the sense or need of impersonal, universalistic and rational laws that say, or at least imply, that he has rights equal to those of his chief. His lifelong training makes him unfit for participation in collective decision-making by mechanical democratic means or for recognizing rational, functionally chosen authorities. No doubt he would be “democratic”, but he does not know how, and so his actions tend to obstruct the establishment and operation of democratic forms.

In the insulated sacred realm of traditional society people are either members or aliens, friends or foes. No man has learned how to perceive and deal with outsiders as neighbors, equals, or potential friends. Foreign relations, in so far as that term has any relevance for traditional societies, are hostile relations. The man who has learned that every unfamiliar person, every different person, every strange person is by definition an enemy, to be attacked in self defense, is rendered unfit by experience for function in a modern society that lives as a neighbor in a community of societies.

Many customs in the developing societies interfere with the routine operation of modern-style functional institutions. Let me illustrate. When I began my lectures last year in a famous South Indian university, I found an impressive, indeed somewhat formidable list of expected holidays. Some were religious; some were secular. All, however, tended to erode the limited and precious time we had for academic endeavor. Imagine how such holidays (many more than in the United States or any western advanced country), interfere with the fulfillment of a production schedule in a factory, or efficient operations in a public office. Such a repertory of holidays suggests that the values they represent vie with the values of modern functional systems and thus subdivide available time, which in this situation is a limited resource.

Or again, various rather obscure customs of “auspiciousness” also tended to regulate work-related behavior. Certain days of the week and certain hours of the day are regarded as “auspicious” (lucky or proper) for initiating activities. Various other days and hours are understood to be inauspicious for such activities. These customs are seldom well understood by foreigners, and even if they were, they would tend to interfere with the bureaucratic regularities of modern functional systems. According to the rules of auspiciousness, an enterprise in industry, business, government, or education, however essential it may be, cannot be initiated on certain days or at certain hours when these are known to be inauspicious. The writer had the launching of his university lectures delayed half a week, presumably because the originally determined starting day was discovered to be inauspicious.

It is reported that devout Hindu workers in factory and office often demand and receive “released time”, so to speak, to say “pujahs” (prayers) before little icons [Page 48] placed in convenient niches in the work place. Ceremonies or other demands of the joint family are sometimes regarded as justification for staying away from duty, no matter how demanding the schedule or pressing the contractual commitments.

The practice of ritual and ceremony in the timeless pageantry of interpersonal relations of traditional societies becomes dysfunctional in the bureaucratic operations of modern functional systems. In Japan I was struck by the courtliness of bowing and ceremonial phrases in leave taking. But I wondered how a business executive or salesman ever got through a day’s work if each contact required all this majestic ceremony. In a big downtown post office of Madras, it required ceremonial relations with four clerks and some forty minutes of time to dispatch a registered international letter. On my first call at the Bank of India I was required to fill out a little form stating my name, business, and other particulars. Each time I returned (and it took three visits to complete a simple transaction), I was required to fill out another form. “It is the formality,” the clerk explained reassuringly to my protests. But, I hear my readers expostulating, I encounter such bureaucratic red tape right here in the United States. To be sure, to be sure, but hardly so much, hardly so ceremonious—and this is not a developing society where waste can be ill afforded.

I have been describing and illustrating modernization’s other face by reference to dysfunctional elements of the traditional heritage. Let me now draw your attention to some features that issue from the absence of certain elements. That is, the face that developing man in many places turns to modernity lacks certain elements that are required by advanced functional systems. The result is strain and malfunction, both conditions being more serious for developing than for advanced societies.

All the developing societies are attempting to install modern industrial, commercial, politico-legal, educational, agricultural, and other functional systems. However, these societies either fail to acquire or to develop equivalent moral and ethical systems for their regulations. Max Weber, R. H. Tawney, William H. Whyte, and others have shown that from their inception in the West, such functional systems were embedded in controlling ethical systems. We have come to know these ethical regulators as the Protestant Ethic, the Puritan Ethic, and the Social Ethic. Whatever faults these ethical structures may have (and they have been shown to be many), they nevertheless implemented integration between the core elements of Western Society.

Characteristically, though, moral and ethical systems of traditional societies are personal and particularistic. They cannot cover and regulate the formal, impersonal, universalistic operations of western-style functional systems. One result is the almost universally reported corruption, graft, and malpractice of all kinds. For example, custom in traditional society obligates a successful man to share the fruits of his good fortune with family, clan, village, or tribe members. He is protected by the fact that they are obligated to reciprocate when circumstances are reversed. So, when he becomes manager of a factory or business, he hires relatives, friends, and neighbors, with no attention to their fitness for the jobs and without consideration of competence. Or again, Indian students vehemently condemn the immorality of American youth, but they mean alleged sexual laxity as portrayed in cinema and picture magazines. They are unable to perceive government corruption, business nepotism, and educational dishonesty as evidence of immorality. The control of male-female relations is an [Page 49] ancient problem for which traditional man has had to fashion solutions. But he has never before operated within an impersonal market system, functioned through a nationalistic bureaucratic government, nor sought to administer a mammoth universalistic educational apparatus. He has few traditional rules that can be used in such situations and he refuses to borrow those that have been developed in the West.

This functional-ethical incongruence has important consequences for the developing societies. Initially, the rate of advancement and the level of effectiveness at any given time are necessarily less than could reasonably be expected in the face of inputs of capital, resources, effort, and the like. But, what is even more serious, this lack of functional-ethical fit delays the developing society’s entry into the community of advanced societies. As a perplexed foreign service official once exclaimed: “How do you do business with such people?” Advanced and developing peoples find themselves in contact, filled with mutual respect, good will, and high expectations, but perceiving and describing the same phenomena in contradictory and mutually incomprehensible terms. For example, currency devaluation in India last year failed to stimulate foreign trade in significant measure as expected because willing customers found it difficult or disappointing to do business with Indian industrialists.

I said above that growing up in an inclusive kinship system or feudal society makes traditional man unfit for life and action in the impersonal bureaucracies of modernity. What is more, inability to construct and operate such organizational apparatus hampers the process of modernization. This deficiency has been called “organizational illiteracy”.

For example, it is often reported in India that management was organized and workers recruited in new industries on the basis of caste identification, not by reference to demonstrated competence. In a number of instances the joint family becomes the organizing unit of a business or industrial enterprise, a shift from agrarian to industrial feudalism. Political action tends to be organized through caste structures, regional bodies, or language-culture groups rather than on the basis of common interests issuing from occupation, economic status, educational level, or the like. Often political contest takes the form of inter-tribal fights or other ancient grudges with little reference to current issues or developing secular interests.

If, as I said at the beginning of this article, we are sometimes perplexed, appalled, or even incensed at the slow pace of advancement in the developing societies, it may be because we are looking at modernization’s other face. But when we shift our perspective and adjust our focus, we can see that these developing societies are indeed advancing into the twentieth century. Behind modernization’s “sunshine” face we may hear heroic anecdotes of individuals who leaped in half a lifetime from primitivism to big city modernity. Or again, we may glimpse a fleeting picture of whole valleys of tradition-bound peasants shaking themselves like some sleeping giant so to speak, and exploding into astonishing animation, energy, and creativity. To recognize that modernization has two faces is to gain balanced perspective on this issue and to move closer to identification with the developing peoples. We are thus better able to help with the substantive task of updating outmoded societal machinery, and to assist with the more elusive work of detaching the developing people from their past and connecting them to their future.

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A Systems Approach to the Investigation of Religion

By JOHN H. STROESSLER

From the field of engineering has come, if not a completely new concept, at least a new term, “systems approach”. New terms can be intriguing, particularly if they suggest a possible relationship between a hard factual science, such as engineering, and religion in which feelings and emotions have traditionally been of uppermost concern. For those to whom a systems approach to anything may seem a bit vague, let us examine the term more closely to determine its derivation and applications.

The term systems approach has grown out of the procedures which military-industrial combinations have used toward the solution of difficult problems inherent in the design and development of large military systems where men and machines were inextricably interrelated in their functions. One of the areas of technical skill which was drawn upon in the development of the systems approach was that of industrial engineering where there is dual concern for improving industrial management and industrial processes. Another technological foundation of the systems approach is human engineering in which experimental procedures are developed and applied to the study of human performance in tasks related to the control, operation, and maintenance of equipment. A third basis is operations research, the particular focus of which is on production-oriented problems and the development of models or representations of selected aspects of the total real world system. The fourth antecedent of the systems approach is systems research. While operations research is directed primarily toward the optimization of existing systems, systems research (sometimes called systems analysis) is concerned with the creation of new systems. Alternative new designs and methods are evaluated and selected in terms of anticipated performance and effectiveness. Frequently, the result is the development of behavioral abstractions which can provide guidance for decisions which have application to a range of values rather than an optimum solution for just one specific system or problem area.

From these beginnings, the systems approach evolved rapidly after World War II in response to the technological revolution in defense weaponry. The development and application of nuclear energy, guided missiles, electronic computers, and other innovations created problems of a scope and complexity never before encountered. Not the least of these problem areas was that of the exploration of man’s functions as he related to the control, operation, and maintenance of the new equipment in an unaccustomed and frequently hostile environment. It became necessary to consider man, not as an appendage to the system—necessary, although separate —but as an integral part of it. Scientists who understood man’s capabilities and limitations were called upon for equipment designed to enhance man’s functioning in the system. This forced coalescence of hitherto discrete disciplines, directed toward the joint consideration of a complex of related problems, resulted in the development of a method of problem solving which became identified as systems approach.

[Page 51] In engineering circles, systems approach has commonly come to consist of a series of steps undertaken as follows:

1. Identification of overall system requirements, goals, and operational constraints.

2. Detailing of the gross requirements into specific requirements for design and test of the required system.

3. Proposal of alternate approaches, weighing of their respective merits, and selection of a preferred configuration.

4. Summarization of the detailed requirements into specifications for the integrated design of the total system.

5. Operation and evaluation of the total system.

The following is a model of the above steps indicating their functional flow (solid lines) and feedback loops or information channels (dotted lines).

Identify Gross System Requirements

Detail System Requirements

Propose and Select Alternate Configurations

Prepare System Specifications

Operate System and Evaluate Performance

Stripped of their engineering jargon, the foregoing steps become identifiable with those of the better known scientific method, namely:

1. Definition of the problem.

2. Analysis of the problem.

3. Development of alternate solutions (hypotheses) and selection of the best.

4. Formalizing of the final solution (hypothesis)

5. Testing of the solution (hypothesis).

One salient characteristic, however, distinguishes the systems approach from the traditional scientific method: its orientation. While the scientific method has generally been used to solve very narrowly defined problems, the systems approach is used to attack very large problem areas (systems) involving complex inter-relationships among its constituent elements (subsystems).

The use of multi-disciplinary teams has frequently been found to be valuable in applying the systems approach to broad problem areas. Utilization of such multi-disciplinary teams in systems studies has paved the way for the application of the technique to areas other than military and engineering. One now finds systems approaches being used in the prosecution of social problems related to hospitals, air pollution, solid waste disposal, criminalistics, and the like. The larger and more complex the problem, the more its solution is amenable to the systems approach. This, coupled with the efforts of defense firms to find non-military outlets for their talents and capabilities, has heightened interest in the possible utilization of the systems approach in a broad spectrum of social applications.

Why, then, should not the techniques of the systems approach also be applicable to the matter of investigation of religious truth? The problem area certainly fits the requirements. It is large; it is complex; it involves [Page 52] myriads of inter-relationships; and it requires the consideration and selection of alternative solutions. It also demands operational exercise of the system in a real-life situation, the evaluation of its effectiveness, and feedback of results into the system as a basis for possible system modifications.

Perhaps the answer lies in the reluctance of man to think of his religious concepts as being vital to real-life applications. He would rather reserve religious contemplation for specified times and places which have no important practical relationship to life as he lives it. He feels that religion has only a vague connection with some far-off afterlife and that there is no possible feedback from a mysterious and unknown God to provide here-and-now guidance.

Another deterrent to the use of the systems approach in the investigation of religion, aside from the fact that people generally feel that religion has little association with the problems of real life, is that most people see no connection between science and religion. This attitude gives little encouragement to seek out and understand scientific techniques such as systems approach in connection with religious considerations.

Perhaps man lacks leadership in these respects. Religious leaders are not generally versed in the theory and techniques of engineering, nor do the multidisciplinary teams working with systems approaches normally enlist the services of religious leaders. What seems most noticeably lacking, however, is widespread acceptance of the concept that religion is a vital part of all of man’s activities and concerns. Such a concept is implicit in the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith which posits that religion is not only an expression of man’s attitude toward God, but that it must be expressed and realized in his relations with his fellow man.

How then, specifically, can man use the systems approach in the investigation of religion? Having once become aware of the steps in the process, what does one do next? Simply enough, experience in the use of the process develops expertise. This can be gained readily, provided that the process is used consciously. The practitioner must be alert to the fact that he is following each step. In addition, his approach must not be that of an isolate or recluse, but that of an interacting, participating member of society. He must first have a problem or concern which stimulates his active attention. For example, he may be piqued by the question, “Is mankind really one?” He then proceeds to analyze the matter through observation, reading, consultation, and other available means. From this, he strives to consider open-mindedly what appear to him to be valid positions, and makes a selection of that concept which seems best. He then formalizes and clarifies his understanding of this concept through further study and prayer, and determines a course of action for its demonstration and application in his daily life. Finally, he operates or behaves in accordance with his understanding of the concept and evaluates the effect on himself and on those about him. As a result, he is able either to strengthen his acceptance of the concept, modify his position, or reject the concept entirely. From the Bahá’í point of view, he should continue this process of investigation, covering various problem areas, until he has reached a state of assurance which permits acceptance of the religious “system” and behavior in keeping with its tenets.

It is certainly not suggested here that the systems approach is a simple, easily applied panacea for every religious problem. The systems approach is essentially a scientific technique, and as such, it can be an effective, keen-edged “tool”. To use it well requires operators who are willing to investigate religion by maintaining suspended judgment until the facts are gathered, the alternatives have been considered, and the applications and evaluations have been made. They must always be willing, in the light of fresh knowledge (feedback), to change their conclusions (modify the system) and thus affect their daily lives as they deal with those about [Page 53] them.

The commonly held ideal of pure science demands that it be detached from religious influence as it is from the political. This is good, but it is not synonymous with holding that the techniques of science should not be applied to religious concerns. On the contrary, the Bahá’í Faith teaches that religion and science should be as two wings of a bird—they both support the truth.

Unless man sees religion as the central component in the total scheme of life, both his assessment of, and his attempts to modify partial, and in practice ineffective. He must his behavior are liable to be fragmented, look upon religion as the engineer looks upon an important control or guidance system. Its nature and values can be understood and applied through the use of the systems approach. This approach is particularly relevant in a confused world where the problem is not one of each man’s creating new religious concepts for himself, but of choosing from among many those which provide the clearest expression of God’s guidance to mankind for today.

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Religions: Is There a Basic Unity?

A review of Ninian Smart’s The Religious Experience of Mankind (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969), 537 pages

By FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

PROFESSOR NINIAN SMART of the University of Lancaster, England, has written an important and valuable book. It is a broad survey of man’s religion from the earliest times to the present with a brief excursion into the future. The spirit of the work is generous and the author’s respect for the diverse forms of man’s religious experience is evident throughout.

The book is divided into five parts: Primitive Religions, Religions of India, Religions of the Far East, Religions of the Near East, and Contemporary Religious Experience. Among the religions of mankind Professor Smart includes Confucianism and, though with qualifications, modern Humanism and Marxism. This inevitably raises the question of definition. What constitutes religion? What are the criteria by which religion can be distinguished from philosophy, political ideologies, or social movements? Since religion has many aspects, or dimensions, one or more of which are crucial to a definition of religion, the author lists and analyzes these. He finds that religion has a Ritual Dimension, Mythological Dimension, Doctrinal Dimension, Ethical Dimension, Social Dimension, and Experiential Dimension, yet at the end of the discussion there emerges no inclusive definition of religion. Perhaps such definition is possible only if one had an overall philosophy which would order one’s perceptions and provide categories and principles for making distinctions in this very complicated field.

The non-specialist reader will be grateful for the clarity with which the author sets forth the intricacies of Hinduism and Buddhism. If the religions of India somehow continue to be elusive and confusing, it may be largely because of their age, the layer upon layer of incrustations they have accumulated over their long history, and, again, the absence of a clear standard of what is and what is not religion. Yet no one could miss the inner core of truth behind the often distracting surfaces of the religions of India.

With Judaism, Christianity, and Islam the Western reader reaches more familiar ground. Familiarity, of course, has its own pitfalls. Professor Smart’s treatment of Christianity turns out to be surprisingly orthodox. Having set out to investigate religion in the spirit of science, he does not commit himself to any particular Christian dogma, yet somehow his judgments on Pauline theology, the Nicean creed, Arianism, Nestorianism, Pelagianism, Donatism, etc., tend to coincide with the orthodox views. The positions of the “heretics” always turn out to have been less adequate, while “orthodox” views are justified by the “religious sentiment of the Christians.” But what of the religious sentiment of the Arians, Nestorians, and the rest who, until the advent of Islam, must have come very close to constituting half of Christendom? What criteria except the votes of bishops at Councils (frequently dominated by secular authority) determine who is and who is not a Christian? And if disagreement with the dogmas promulgated by the various Councils is to be condemned on the ground of Christian sentiment, who should be condemned in the filioque controversy, [Page 55] Constantinople or Rome? How is one to judge between Catholicism and Protestantism, and why are not Luther and Calvin brushed aside together with Montanus, Pelagius, and the rest?

Islám is treated by Professor Smart with remarkable sympathy and understanding. Muḥammad emerges as a Prophet “preaching the glory and majesty of one God Allah.” Though Professor Smart uses the term Allah, he does not lead one to think that it stands for another God. (Many Western writers translate the words of the Muslim creed as “There is no God but Allah,” implying thereby that the two terms are not one in Arabic. The creed should be rendered, “There is no God but God.” The usual formulation is mischievous.) Unlike many Western writers he does not attribute to Muḥammad epilepsy, unworthy motives, love of war, or lust for power, nor does he see in Islám a parody of Judaism and Christianity.

Bahá’í readers will be especially interested in the few pages devoted to their religion. Again unlike some Western scholars, Professor Smart sees it as “in effect a new and separate faith.” However, he repeats the cliché that the Bahá’í Faith is a syncretistic movement. It would be interesting to trace this notion to its source.

The idea that the Bahá’í Faith is syncretistic probably stems from the fact that it accepts the validity of the great religions of the past. However, it does not attempt to combine them, and it does not make the essential syncretistic error of claiming that two dissimilar things are one. If acceptance of the validity of Islám, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and other great religions is syncretism, then Islám was syncretistic in its acceptance of Christianity and Judaism, and Christianity was syncretistic not only in accepting Judaism but also in identifying Jesus with the Messiah.

It is hard to tell what Professor Smart’s sources on the Bahá’í Faith were. His bibliography lists no books dealing specifically with the Bahá’í Faith, no works of Kazem Bek, Browne, Rosen, Tumanskii, or Bausani. Of course, it is true that writing a survey of this nature, a scholar cannot avoid relying on secondary sources and, at times, making statements or passing judgements based upon the works of others who in turn may not have been specialists in a given area.

The last chapter asks some interesting questions and proposes answers the acceptance or rejection of which will depend not on an examination of evidence but on one’s overall view of religion and its meaning. Since Professor Smart never satisfactorily defined religion, one cannot answer his question: “Is there a basic unity among the religions?” He does not see any essential unity among all the religions which he has discussed. However, if “religion” A is Islám, B Confucianism, C Humanism, and D Marxism, the absence of a common essence may only indicate that one, two, or more of them were not religions at all.

As for the future, a scholar is no better prophet than anyone else. History teaches lessons but does not reveal the shape of things to come. Professor Smart makes no dogmatic statements. His speculations are interesting but no more than that. Indeed, speculations about the future may turn out to be true if they are based upon known laws of predetermined historical development or upon the vision of a true prophet. Since we know of no such laws and since Professor Smart does not commit himself on the question of prophets, his excursion into the future, stimulating though it is, does not lend itself to proof or disproof.

While one may express disagreement with some of the author’s views, attitudes, and positions, one cannot deny his goodwill, erudition, and ability to present a most complex subject in readable form. “In his religious life, and in his rejections of religion,” Professor Smart concludes, “man has expressed his deepest attitudes to the universe around him.” Professor Smart has told us what some of those deepest attitudes have been.

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Authors and Artists

RUDOLPH LANDRY, Associate Professor of English Literature at Fairfield University, his alma mater, has specialized in nineteenth-century literature, in which field he is preparing his doctorate at the University of Connecticut. He is deeply interested in jazz, and an interview with Stan Kenton will be published this summer in Arts in Society. He has also published in the Journal of Higher Education.

TIMOTHY H. BREEN is an assistant professor in the History Department at Yale University. He is particularly concerned with the intellectual history, especially of political thought, of the earliest years of colonial America.

BENJAMIN KAUFMAN is an educator of varied responsibilities and interests. He teaches at Pearl River (N.Y.) High School by day and at Fairleigh Dickinson University in the evening and in summer sessions—in history and English literature respeaively. His specializations in the latter field are Shakespeare and Tennyson and Browning. He has written several textbooks, the most recent of which is Background for Citizenship. He has taught the Bahá’í Faith in summer schools in the U.S. and Canada.

BILLY ROJAS is known to our readers for his article, “Ecumenical Man”, in the Spring 1967 number of WORLD ORDER. Since that time he has become Instructor of History at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, Kentucky, where he teaches not only a world history course but also something that may well be without precedent, the Study of the Future.

ZDENEK SALZMANN, now Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts, has pioneered in the introduction of anthropology into the secondary school curriculum. The program which he instituted at Phillips Exeter Academy is thriving there. His textbook, Anthropology, a general introduction geared to high schools, was published in January by Harcourt Brace and World.

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JOSEPH S. HIMES, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology in the North Carolina College at Durham. He has lectured and taught in many American colleges and universities and is the author of two books and some sixty articles and reviews in professional journals. In 1961-62 Professor Himes was Fulbright Lecrurer in Sociology in Helsinki University. The present article captures some of his impressions and insights from a Fulbright Lectureship, 1966-67, in Madras University and his subsequent travels through Asia.

JOHN H. STROESSLER is at present in the Life Sciences Department at North American Rockwell, in the Autonetics Division. He has also worked in the area of maintenance of human life and health in space travel conditions. Previous to this technical aspect of his career, he spent the better part of a decade in secondary school teaching, and two years as Professor of Education at San Diego State College. He is a Bahá’í of long standing and has served on the Advisory Committee on Education for the National Spiritual Assembly.

FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH is the Editor of WORLD ORDER and a Professor of Russian history at Yale University.

ART CREDITS: P. 3, photo by Jay Conrader; p. 7, drawing by Ed Economou; p. 11, photo of a painting by Dudley Stokes; pp. 17 and 18, drawings by Sando Berger; p. 29, photo of a painting by Herb Van Sickle; p. 39, drawing by Ed Economou; p. 45, drawing by Sando Berger; p. 53, photo of a painting by Dudley Stokes; back cover, photo by Jay Conrader.

JAY CONRADER, a former biology teacher, is now a free lance writer and photographer.

ED ECONOMOU, DUDLEY STOKES, and HERB VAN SICKLE together run an art co-operative with studios and a gallery for exhibits called “The Sign of Aquarius” in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Mr. Economou is a sculptor and painter; Mr. Stokes works in collage and acrylic media; Mr. Van Sickle is an oil painter.

SANDO BERGER was born in Rumania, lived in Czechoslovakia and came to the United States as a refugee during World War II. His work in fine arts has taken many forms. For instance, once he won a State prize in Illinois for his encaustic work, now he lives among Indian Americans in New Mexico learning and producing art as they did in the past.

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