Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

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that people bring so (pause) and just a couple of final questions (soft) David, are there
any areas or issues that have struck during this interview that you would like to add
because I know we have been very focused in terms of my questions
DB: yes (pause) I was thinking of the idea of ontology grounding values really uhm
(pause) I mean there is a phrase that people sometimes use which I am not quite
comfortable with but I think it’s getting at something you know I think Max Weber or
someone talked about the disenchantment of the Universe the removal of the idea of
magic and then the idea of religion in favour of scientific understanding and some
people of talked about the need for re-enchantment of the Universe something like
that see I don’t like that language I don’t think of enchantment but it does seem to me
that if there are to be values that people actually hold to as opposed to pervasive
dishonesty of public life for example it’s not going to values that people hold to its
going to be because they construe the world as something that values matter in. I’m
not putting this very well I’m thinking of the word worship and the idea that the word
worship is to do with recognizing worth and recognizing value so to speak objectively
and obviously you can never say the values are objective that it doesn’t seem adequate
I have said this many times in the past it doesn’t seem adequate to say values are only
subjective there is some sort of movement between objectivity and subjectivity that
allows value to really have value not just be provisional and instrumental, utilitarian
that seems to me the heart of the matter really. I am very impressed by how you did
mention Thomas Merton and I think good Christians good Buddhists and I am sure
good everything else have actually come down to values I mean ontology is all very
well but it will always be questionable always be theoretical but there are convictions
like the Dalai Lama saying that only religion is kindness. you know I think a lot of
practitioners of all religions would come down to some simple statement like that like
that, it is probably present in their Christian notion, God is love, ultimately that is
what matters, what attitude do we have towards other people, what attitude do we
have towards the ego system. So I think that is what is the driver behind all this
AR: No, that’s very helpful that notion about values and certainly you state that very
clearly in your chapter about the importance of objectivity or the engagement between
the subjective and the objective there has got to be for you certainly, you have to
engage with that otherwise it’s just wishful thinking or it’s just something else
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