More about the second language

There are of course some objections to the definition of enlightenment on the previous post. Peter Sloterdijk, whom I took the expression "second language" from (how could I have made it up myself?) relates enlightenment to asceticism, to detachment and mysticism, all in a very old language.



In Buddhist terms, for example, it would be the quest for nirvana, i.e. breaking up the wheel of births and deaths and soul transmigrations (all of which looks like a process for getting out-of-this-world, when translated into the second language). First sight, in consequence, you take a mystic and remove his/her spirituality and what's left?: a kind of self-torturer who is nowhere and has renounced to pretty much everything.

Maybe that kind of definition (enlightenment is simply the asceticism to get out-of-this-world) makes sense, more or less, when you stick to the old tranditions. For example even if people talk about something apparently so innofensive as "the quest of the self", it could actually be referring to the "Self" meaning the divine inside the individual -thus mystic and ascetic. My point is, when westerns look at enlightment and use the second language not as carefully as Sloterdijk, they (or I) might understand "self" without the devine; I might regard "dettachment" as an exercise to improve awareness (and the last one is again a confusing word, by the way).


Sloterdijk's proposal for the second language is so interesting: to try to translate more acuratelly some of these important words in a way everybody (religious or not) could agree with -since there is a source of misunderstanding when two people think about the same word in different ways, obviously.

But honestly (and very humbly) I don't like his definitions; there are a few words for which I would like to find a writter or a phylosopher or a thinker that could have made an alternative interpretation. Enlightenment according E. Fromm is one of them; others to come are redemption, liberation and devotion.

enlightenment in the second language

It's a copy-paste from a book by Erich Fromm and T. Suzuki, "Psychoanalisis and Zen", (bad translations in fact).


The routine, a destructive or idolizing attitude, greed for property of fame, a quest, admiration; those compensate with the inherent and potential depression in any person. When these compensations break off, mental health is threaten.

The awareness of oneself creates a problem, a question: how to overcome the suffering, the feeling of being in a trap, the experience created by experiencing the rupture; how to find the union inside ourselves, towards other human beings and nature?

The ball rolling on the floor and a baby throwing it again and again with surprise and joy; however the adult recognizes the ball-object and the floor-object and the propierty of round things rolling on the floor and sighs with relief at the confirmation that everything keeps working as expected.



In Fromm words: the quest for balance in oneself, with others and nature (maybe with his help, or the help of a therapist) goes into the same direction as the buddhist quest for enlightenment; he puts it in a way that a buddhist would probably agree with and hardly any western would be surprised about: that's the second language.

The second language (it's still about the hippies, more boring somehow)

Fist of all I must say I have never understood how the ideas of philosophers, writers, scientists and even poets end up being part of everybody's way of thinking. I have no idea how it happens, since some of those thinkers are so difficult to understand, and it is nearly impossible to read their books (e.g. Kant's, who is meant to be the one who "killed" metaphysics).

Anyway let's assume it just happens: it is obvious that in the West in modern times people are rationalistic. Some of them might believe in god but clearly there's a split: religion is not anymore a way to explain how is it the world keeps turning, nor how are people supposed to behave; it is just about god and the soul and that kind of grey subject that science can hardly say anything about.

Since metaphysics were killed, whenever it was, a "second language" developed: it belongs to psychology and psychoanalysis, and anthropology, and sometimes to philosophy, and it is useful to talk about certain deep aspects of the human being. There are concepts that before belonged to religion, e.g. "redemption" or "enlightenment", which are now explained in a rationalistic way through that second language. (I'll put the example for enlightenment in another post soon.)


Then: there is a second language managing some concepts which used to be addressed by religion, and that second language somehow is now in everybody's mind.


At the same time, western religions are in a low, and some people look around for alternatives to fulfil their "spiritual needs". Some of them find it in the East, and become the hippies, and some others become "the more serious seekers". And the point is: they search in the ancient eastern religions and they read everything using the second language (and that language has a strong influence in their understanding).

As a result: a big mess (good or bad who knows). Mystics are not hardliners anymore -they are indulgent. Hippies and particularly "the more serious seekers" practice half an hour of meditation (detachment) before going to the office.


Looking at it from the outside, it is a mess: what are those new mystics?

Are they like the old ones? -meaning they are going to renounce to everything material so that they get closed to the divine, and maybe torture themselves?

If they are not like the old ones, what are they doing? -inventing a new system of believe from the old traditions, but completely unrelated at the same time?