Reason and transcendence
Our fetishization of Reason and its use to elevate us above everything else and the world carries with it a secondary consequence. Although we are limited beings who have evolved to the state we have in the context of a complex system of animals, plants, and ecology, we believe that reason allows us to transcend this embeddedness. “Transcendence” implies both existence and experience beyond the normal, physical level as well as an overcoming of that level. Our normal, physical reality constitute a boundary, barrier, or limitation that we must overcome, or transcend.
Transcendence is not mere difference from the norm. The transcendent realm is taken to be more ‘real’ than reality – eternal, unchanging, absolute, universal – and transcendent truths therefore have validity that is unassailable from the perspective of lived experience. The transcendent endures in the face of the changing world: fidelity to the transcendent means honoring what is superior in virtue of its static, persistent nature.
This is a decisive, lethal move. To act in accordance with the transcendent is a license to sacrifice the lived, embodied present for something ‘greater’. Ideals become more important than individuals, causes become crusades, ideologies are the engines of oppression. Again, this is an historical, empirical fact: most of the great crimes and atrocities perpetrated by humans have been (and are being) done in the name of some greater, transcendent ‘good’.
To name a few: man’s (pronoun intentionally used) dominion over women, animals and the earth is justified by revelation – a transcendent truth. The divine right of kings posited that a single individual had no accountability to others, the community or law. The idea that race is intrinsic to human beings is used to mark some people as inferior, simply by the accident of birth. The ideologies of the 20th century – communism, fascism, totalitarianism – generated violence, destruction, and mass murder on a scale that defies human comprehension.
To be clear, transcendence is also the source of beneficial idea(l)s. However, in the service of power, transcendent principles have an unparalleled ability to motivate individuals and drive collective action for the most horrific ends. Referring to the notion of reason prioritizing the absent over the present, transcendence – the eternal, universal and unassailable absent – is taken to have existential precedence over the lived present, whether in the form of individuals, groups, communities, nations, or the earth. No living thing has value that can trump an ideal.
Understanding the mechanism of transcendence in human action is one thing; the apparent human need to identify with transcendent ideas is something else. Those who seek power over others, even in matters of life and death, can find no better rationalization that simultaneously soothes their consciences than ideology. This makes sense. But it appears even the powerless seek after ideals that give them existential support – that give their lives meaning. This is indeed the trap of transcendence – humans reach for the solace of transcendence to ease their existential angst. Transcendence holds the possibility of human meaning for one individual, while simultaneously containing the seeds of the extinction of human meaning for another. The transcendent brooks no opposition.
Reason’s functions of prioritizing absence over presence, pitting itself against emotion, and engendering a superiority complex manifest the transcendent. Where you find the transcendent you will find an absolute, universal absent that justifies the believer in their superiority over the non-believer, allows them to overcome empathy and act in the service of the ideal over the real.