By LUCIO F. TEOXON JR., Ph.D. ©
Personality tests given the Organization Man often carry questions which call for an assessment of his values. One such question runs: “Who helped mankind most, Shakespeare or Newton?” This restates the question earlier raised in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed: “Which is more beautiful and precious, Shakespeare or boots, Raphael or petroleum?”
These queries suggest a dichotomization of culture into two camps which C.P. Snow explored in his “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Thus, if the first part of the question is chosen, one aligns oneself with the humanities; and if the second, with the sciences, the professions, or the practical arts.
The great scientific breakthroughs in contemporary times have so transformed civilization that the scales are strongly tilted towards the latter choice. On the macrocosmic scale, man has toyed with the prospect of interstellar travel past the threshold of the black hole to other universes. On the microcosmic level, he has not only charted the elusive tracks of particles in the world of the infinitely small but gone on to tinker with himself by cracking the secret code of life locked in the DNA.
This is all to the credit of science and technology. But have they helped man a whit in understanding the human heart? The humanities could not lay claim to a monopoly of the wisdom of the heart, but at least it has paid attention to the riddles it poses. To a great extent, literature, philosophy, or the arts have brought man back into the presence of himself—into self-awareness as it were.
But the nagging problem ever remains. Why did Hitler’s holocaust happen? Or Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The humanities did not do much to stay the hands that killed one’s own brother. Christ and the Buddha long ago showed that there is a different way of living. But love has not also saved man. What will save us from ourselves? Dostoevsky says beauty will, for without it nothing is left in the world. And if even that fails?
Then, perhaps, the fear of nothingness, of being blown up into smithereens, will make us learn at last. ©
(Republished with special permission from the author)
Email address: jun_teoxon@yahoo.com
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