The Crisis of Modernity: Why We Need a New Cosmic Vision

The Paris Accord of 2015, which aimed at restricting the rise in global temperatures to less than two degree Celsius, has been breached, highlighting how humanity is tiptoeing to its own destruction. The need of the hour, therefore, is a new moral vision rooted in a harmonious framework of Western and Eastern Metaphysics.

Modernity, one of the most influential concepts in the intellectual history of the world, has contributed profoundly to the change in the trajectory and existence of different societies. Born between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe, modernity emerged as the product of the Enlightenment period.

This period was characterized by the marked decline in the influence of religion and the overarching authority of the Roman Catholic Church. The decline in the hold of religion was followed by the corresponding development of a new worldview—a distinctly humanistic one underpinned by materialism. This worldview was the culmination of the transformational process that had been set in motion by the Renaissance. The Age of Enlightenment contributed to the evolution of human cognition, resulting in unprecedented advancements in the fields of arts, culture, literature, and science.

These developments marked the transition from the medieval to the modern period.

The Pillars of Secular Modernity

Owing to the material and military progress of Europe from that time onwards, modernity came to be interpreted in distinctly Western terms. 

According to this worldview, modernity is anchored in three themes:

Rationalism: this idea argues that the human worldview should be always guided by science & scientific mindset. It denotes that every phenomenon in nature is observable, discernible and interpretable. It asserts that human beliefs and ideas must be based on facts—information that has been verified and authenticated by rigorous testing and experimentation.  Scientists like Rene Descartes, and philosophers like David Hume, Voltaire, and Francis Bacon among others are some of the prominent figures of that period.

Anthropocentrism: this idea considers humans as the most important beings in the universe with the resultant belief that nature must be made subservient to humans. It adopted a distinctly materialistic approach to life. The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century in Britain followed by its spread to other European countries and later on in North America is a manifestation of it. 

Individualism: a central tenet of liberalism, it contends that human beings are rational creatures who are capable of determining what’s best for them. In that context, the locus of the human world is the individual, not the society, community or for that matter the nation. It repudiates the collectivistic idea of human existence, arguing that rights and liberties vested in each individual constitute an essential bulwark against the encroachment of collective or state power. It regards that humans are the makers of their own destiny and rejects the deterministic outlook of human life. In doing so, they advocate a liberal-capitalist framework where the market is upheld as the best institution for the dissemination of social goods and economic opportunities.

The Consequences of Anthropocentrism

While the Age of Enlightenment gave rise to secular humanism, it unfortunately set in motion the belief that religion must be relegated completely to the private sphere, with the public sphere acquiring a staunchly materialistic outlook and a strong secular spirit.

In that context, the idea of secular modernity spawned three socio-economic forces, which while being the direct products of this philosophical engine, has become a recipe for disaster due to several reasons:

Ecological Catastrophe: anthropocentrism  treats nature as a mere resource and exploits it in the name of furthering ‘progress’. This has been responsible for the chronic ecological crisis afflicting the planet. Indiscriminate discharge of greenhouse emissions by polluting industries across the length and breadth of the Euro-Atlantic region over the past four to five centuries has resulted in extreme weather conditions that have spilled over to other parts of the world. Floods, landslides, droughts and extreme summer temperatures are becoming a routine occurrence. Sea levels are rising.

To make matters worse, rising global temperatures are threatening the biodiversity of Mother Earth, resulting in changes in migratory patterns of species, inability of vulnerable communities to adapt to such abrupt climatic shifts. This has resulted in the increase in the number of climate refugees and has put many countries under the serious threat of climate change. Despite the global awareness, there is little moral urgency in the fight against climate change. 

Instrument of Oppression and Coercion: The spirit of economic expansion unleashed by the Enlightenment era also intensified Europe’s search for new markets and resources. As industrial output expanded, imperial competition increased, resulting in the birth of the Age of Imperialism and its most visible political form- Colonialism. Large parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America came under European control as rival powers sought to expand their commercial influence and geopolitical control. In this regard, the Indian lawyer and scholar J Sai Deepak notes in India, That is Bharat-Coloniality, Civilization and Constitution that the intellectual and institutional patterns established during this period continue to influence some aspects of the modern materialist view in the West.

Alienation of Individuals: In considering humans as the centre of social consciousness, the western modernity has undermined the organic foundations of other societies. Individualism has led to the alienation of a human against their fellow beings, leading to detached social existence fueling modern day crises like depression, loneliness and burnout. The South Korean-German philosopher and academic Byung Chul Han in The Burnout Society has highlighted that neoliberal worldview’s emphasis on developing a technocratic civilization has been responsible for undermining the organic bonds of the Western societies, thereby, bringing about a degeneration in the communitarian bonds of unity, fraternity and most importantly family.

In that vein, he argued in another one of his works Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power that the neoliberal worldview has technologically outsourced the idea of intimacy and sensuality, thereby contributing to its commercialization whose manifestation can be found in the rise of the OnlyFans streaming platform in many countries of the West. When the idea of intimacy is subjected to commodification, as it does in this context, the psyche becomes an object of consumption rather than celebration of our communion with our true personalities.

Given the existing state of conditions, commodified neoliberalism has, in essence, undermined the transcendental nature of the human soul. The soul’s vitality and organic base have been torn asunder, rendering it hollow and deracinated. In this world where individuals struggle to find their true selves, the psycho-politics of neo-liberalism has unleashed this chimera. Such deracination is reflective of Eric Voegelin’s argument about loss of participation in the idea of the actual being.

A New Cosmic Vision?

Faced with a widespread crisis triggered by the forces of secular modernity, it is time to embark in search of a new moral cosmic vision. The first part of this vision is to put forth a Western approach, in this context the first idea is Christian ecology. Anchored in the ideas articulated in Laudato Si’, this concept was developed by the late Pope Francis, the former head of the Vatican, in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home). Drawing inspiration from the life and teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi, the encyclical states that the ecological crisis of our times stems from the anthropocentric worldview advocated by secular modernity.

It calls for “ecological conversion”-the transformation of hearts and minds in which we must see ourselves not as owners of creation but as the stewards of nature. It critiques the technocratic paradigm, underlining the need for the inculcation of a moral dimension to technological innovation: restraint, moral discernment and rejection of consumerist mindset.

However, Christian ecology is the first part of the new vision; the next part is an Eastern approach, particularly from a civilizational state like India. This idea is called Indic modernity. It believes that modernity must be a blend of material and spiritual development and progress. Material development leads to the satisfaction of the urges and aspirations of the scientific man. However, for the scientific man, materialism leads to a void. This void is filled by the spiritual uplifting not only of one’s own consciousness, but the consciousness of the universe.

India’s poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore in his prominent text The Religion of Man explained this idea beautifully. He highlighted that Indic modernity believes in the comprehensive satisfaction of four purusharthas or organizing principles of human life-Artha, Dharma, Kama and Moksh. Artha concerns the satisfaction of material desires; Dharma with the performance of one’s duties as sanctioned by the sacred law, Kama is concerned with the gratification of sensual desires, which manifests itself in the arts and culture while Moksha deals with attainment of salvation from the illusions (Maya) of life. 

A crucial part of Indic modernity is the belief that human civilization has a strong connection with nature. This idea views the cosmos-governed by Rita (cosmic order) —as an expression of Brahman, the universal spirit; within the cosmic spirit resides the Atman—the soul embodied in each human being. The soul is embedded in the universal spirit. Indic modernity, therefore, believes in the preservation of the Prakriti (nature) as a dharma of an individual. This vision’s manifestation is found in the idea of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ or “the world is one family.”

Indic modernity and Christian ecology arise from different metaphysical traditions, but they converge firmly in their critique of secular modernity and their affirmation of a moral cosmic vision. In conclusion, Indic modernity and Christian ecology advocate material progress with humility and collective existence with a strong cosmic worldview. Both doctrines, while separated by geography and history, share a common worldview: creation is sacred, ordered and cosmic.

Hence, in an age where civilizational degeneration, ecological destruction and unprecedented technological disruption have become the unfortunate norms, the need of the hour is to return to what the American philosopher Eric Voegelin argued—a restored spiritual order governed by a harmonious co-existence of order, meaning and a value for the natural heritage bestowed on us by Mother Earth and where the soul has attuned itself to the transcendental nature of reality that was eroded by secular modernity.

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