Havel on Meaning and Awareness

Havel on Meaning and Awareness

Vaclev Havel (1988) wrote, "The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less" (p. 237).

Do you agree with Havel? Why or why not?

Modern man actually knows much more about the nature and origin of life that did any of his ancestors. Prior to the scientific era of human life, many things were absolute mysteries, such as medicine, biology, evolution, physics, and the general workings of the world we inhabit. In many respects, ancient societies can be excused for some of their barbaric practices and rituals and for their bizarre religious beliefs and conflicts, precisely because they were completely ignorant of the scientific reality of their world and of their place in it.

By contrast, today, we have a nearly comprehensive understanding of biological and evolutionary science and of the physical realities of the world. If our perspective of ourselves and of one another reflected what we understand empirically about ourselves and our environment, we would no longer conduct ourselves as though we were the most important forms of life in existence, as though the "purpose" of life on earth was to support human life, or as though there were a supreme being who regarded the particular religious faith into which we happened to be born as the one genuine religious faith among approximately 1,500 other religions, most of which, by definition, imply that our religious beliefs and the supreme being with whom we identify as completely false and illusory, just as we regard theirs.

How does this issue tie into our larger discussion of worldview?

It seems to me that the more we learn about how similar human life is to every other form of life and about how ridiculous some of our traditional religious beliefs are, the more humble we should become as a society and as individuals. By now, for example, we should all realize that man created "gods" rather than the other way around, and that, ultimately, our lives are meaningless simply because we already know that all life on earth will eventually come to an end. That knowledge and realization should, if anything, help us eliminate arbitrary prejudices and atavistic xenophobia that are substantially related to religious and cultural differences in their origin.