The Odyssey of the Western Spirit: From Scarcity to Abundance (Third Edition)

By Jack Meyer

The Odyssey is a general theory as to how mankind moved from the scarcity of primitive life to the present world of technological abundance.It offers a specific view of psychological life that recurs in the institutional structures of religion, capitalism, and romanticism. A similar theme emerges in the various configurations of the Western world starting with Odysseus on his way home to today’s world of global outreach, a story like no other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781490796321

Jack Meyer

Jack Meyer is an unaffiliated freelance writer living in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His prior works include The Odyssey of the Western Spirit: From Scarcity to Abundance and Alcibiades: A Play in Three Acts.

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Copyright 2019 Jack Meyer.

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Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

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Table of Contents

PrefaceA World in Crisis

InroductionMethod and Intention

Part OneMateriality and Mentality:

The General Condition of Human Reality

Chapter One Materiality and the Experience of Scarcity

Chapter Two Mentality and the Experience of Ideality

Chapter Three The Religious Experience

Part TwoConstitution and Power

The Specific Conditions of Human Reality

Chapter Four Denial and Substitution and Power

Chapter Five The Individual and Capital

Chapter Six The Public and the Idea of Social Welfare

Part ThreeThe In-Between

Transition and Opportunity

Chapter Seven The In-Between: A Description

Chapter Eight Abundance and Self-Responsibility

Chapter Nine A Change of Attitude: Examples

ConclusionPersonal Choice

EpilogueA World at Peace

Bibliography

Preface

A World in Crisis

I n the natural human quest for understanding, the greatest difficulty concerns the beginning . Where is the place from which one can achieve the perspective to see clearly and distinctly? Recourse is possible to any number of theories, both historical and philosophical, but the hope is to step outside of such theories and to take a first look anew, perhaps even naively. From there it may be possible to push to a greater clarity with respect to the burgeoning problems of today. As our world seems to continue to descend into intractable conflicts and fundamental divisions, it becomes more and more evident that it is necessary to do better, to find ways to think this through with the hopes of a better resolution.

Looking towards a better understanding of this, it is necessary to take the broadest possible historical and philosophical perspective. It is necessary to begin anew and to re-think all of our history, the entire cultural tradition that makes up our world. How did we get here? The purpose is to think this through with respect to three questions. The first is necessarily philosophical, the second historical, and the third psychological and political. The general issue concerns the conditions for the possibility of fundamental social and political change, or the terms by which we could carry through a positive program of deep and difficult cultural transformation that will move us away from crisis and towards a greater consensus and cooperation. The issue is for us together, as a global community, to do better. So, as with any crisis, there are simultaneously conditions of danger and possibilities of opportunity. The one requires urgency and the other foresight in order to orchestrate an attempt to meet the immediate danger with the embrace of the long-term opportunity.

At the beginning stands the most important question of all. What is the general condition for the possibility of human existence? In other words, what is the essential reality that must be present for there to be human existence at all? What is the essential common denominator that is evident with every possible human being? Simply, what and who are we? While there is certainly an unjustified presumption as to any possible answer it is nonetheless perfectly appropriate to ask. The attempt then is to ask without presuming much of an answer, although one will clearly be offered. But none of this suggests anything of the mysterious rather, it is simply asking as to what a human being is as such. Whether one is alive today as an American, an Oriental, an African, or one has lived in Ancient Greece, Persia, or India, or whether one is to live in some possible future, it is all the same. What is the essential and common reality that is universally true for everyone, anywhere, anytime?

An obvious and immediate fact is that it is essential that one have a body. No one, ever, has existed as a human being without a physical body. Accordingly, the fact of being embodied places one within the domain of material nature. Any human being is a piece with material conditions which are determined by the physical laws of nature. This physical reality is of a profound importance and in coming to terms with these conditions, much of human history has been enacted. Another essential fact lies at the center of the possibility of human existence. As it is necessary to have a body, it is quite obviously equally necessary to have a mind. While being, on the one hand, an object of material conditions, so too, on the other, one is subject to the conditions of the mental. As materiality defines one limit, so too, mentality defines another. Between the two, between the real and the ideal, the material and the mental, the general condition for the possibility of human existence is established. Part One will work through the historical and philosophical details of this relationship and lay the foundation for the second question.

Given this twofold general condition of human existence, it is necessary to ask about specific conditions. What are the specific conditions for the possibility of human existence as that has developed in the history of the Western world? What are the particular details that distinguish the West from all other historical traditions? How is the West uniquely itself, in contrast, for example, to China or India? Of central importance will be the traditions of the Biblical Old Testament, Ancient Greece, and the New Testament. As these traditions were woven together there was established the cultural formations that came to determine the subsequent development of the West. This of course is the foundation of the modern scientific and technological culture that shapes most of the world today. It will be necessary to present this historical development in detail as it moves forward from the Old Testament, to the New Testament, to the Greeks, to the Romans, to Roman Catholicism, to the Lutheran Reformation, to the Modern Age of science and technology, to the capitalism of the New World, and, finally, to our world today. The critical task will be to show how the general condition of materiality and mentality has been specifically played out in the history of the West. Something unique occurs that will make all the difference. This concerns the nature of self-consciousness and the power of the person to think for himself. The circumstances of this thinking will provide the impetus for self-responsibility, and this in turn will transform the conditions of social and political life. A dichotomy will be established between traditional cultures, where the life of the individual was strictly determined in advance, and the culture of the West, where the possibility arose for the individual to find his way outside of a pre-determined tradition. He came to think for himself and to live his life accordingly. Of course there is never a complete freedom to step beyond the limits of tradition but a decisive exception was made that is essential for the cultural formation of the West. This too can be referred to as a tradition but now qualified by an exception. With this account of the history of the West, there will emerge general structures that will appear in various specific configurations. The experiences of religion, capitalism, modern science, nationalism, and romanticism will be shown to be various expressions of an underlying theme.

The final question brings us to the present crisis. In light of questions one and two, what could this mean for our world today? More specifically, on the occasion of the end of the Cold War, where do we go from here? The world is now in the midst of the greatest transition in all of history. How is this to be understood? What role are we to play as active and concerned participants? In a way it is a struggle between the negative and the positive, between the ideologies of the past that no longer apply, and the possibilities of the future, that requires untried methods and unproven initiative. This will concern the political as the place where power and policy meet on behalf of the possible well-being of the world.

This then is the task of The Odyssey of the Western Spirit, to ask three questions that span the historical horizon from the general to the specific, from the philosophical and historical to the political. But the question of method immediately arises and, before advancing to the central task, it is necessary to address this preliminary concern.

In the most general way the method could be defined as a matter of description, but in a specific manner and intention. Preliminary to beginning it is necessary to determine a general attitude of inquiry. That is defined by the notion of suspension of belief. This concerns a preliminary resolve not to judge in advance, not to bring to bear presuppositions that would easily convert and distort description into mere ideological justification. Much is involved. ... at first we shall put out of action all the convictions we have been accepting up to now, including all our sciences.¹ All opinions and judgments whatsoever need to be put out of action. All beliefs of a personal kind, anything at all that could obstruct a clear, direct, and first look at the things themselves, is put out of play. This is not to deny the possible validity of these opinions and insights rather it is just to say that in advance they cannot be instrumental to our task. Their possible validity cannot be assumed at the start. We must become as little children, innocent of isms and abstractions, washed clear of prejudices and preconceptions. We must destroy the Idols of the mind.² Ideological belief presumes a particular set of assumptions as the underlying criterion of judgment with truth then being but the imposition of that criterion on any possible circumstance. Beginning in ideology, it will be necessary to end in ideology. Obviously then the ideological attitude can play no part in any clearly philosophical intention to look to things as they are. Ideology will deliver only as one would want them to be, given a particular emotional expectation.

The method of description requires a look to essential structure. For example, when drawing triangles in the sand,³ in the hopes of understanding geometrical figures, it is not the drawing, or the sand, or the natural imperfections of the lines, that express an essential structure, rather the drawing, sand, and imperfections exemplify the perfect figures of geometry, figures that exist only in the ideally perfect dimension of geometrical shapes as such. This exemplification is a reference to essential structure. Facilitating this movement towards the essential is the ability to freely vary the thing in question, to look at it in different ways, to sort through the many specific ways in which a thing appears as it does, in order to determine more precisely the invariant structure, its essence. This essence is not something mysterious or mystifying but rather simply that which is absolutely necessary for there to be the thing itself. It is essential that humans speak, but it is not essential whether that speaking is in one language or another. It is essential that one eat, but not exactly what it is that is eaten. The interplay between the essential and the inessential is evident in all description. Only with the essential is it possible to see what a thing is as the inessential naturally falls away to the margin. Knowledge and understanding naturally follows in the wake of the clarification of the essential, as the inessential is quickly forgotten in the daily passage of time. Distinguishing between the two therefore is the central task of philosophical and historical insight.

While suspension of belief provides the general attitude of questioning, as the focus toward essential structures provides the direction of questioning, a third methodological quality is necessary. When looking towards the essential structure, it is equally important to see how that same thing is meant, intended, how the viewing subject perceives that thing. It is a matter of intentionality. When I look, for example, at the lamp nearby it is not the lamp itself as lamp that is the focus, but rather how that lamp appears. Equally, it could be seen from one side at a time, from one perspective or another, or even recollected in memory as one’s glance is turned away. It can be seen by someone else over there. What is of the greatest importance is that the subjective conditions for the possibility of experiencing the thing itself are the central concern. How is an experience built up in the subjective activities of the thinking person? How is it intended? In geometry, for example, the focus is towards the geometer himself, his mental activities of geometrizing, in relation to the objects of geometry. The task of this type of methodological attitude is to understand the subjective activities of the thinking person that constitutes any object whatsoever. How does working with figures first become geometry through the mental activities of the first geometer? This recourse to subjective intentions makes all the difference when viewing the development of the West. Without an understanding of subjective intentions there can be no true account. For purposes here, human affairs will be understood as an accomplishment of this subjectivity. The traditional view of the priority of the objective then will be contested and turned upon its head. The great objective structures of human affairs, such as government, science, art, architecture, and the like, will be shown to be what they are only when understood with respect to their essential foundation in the subjective activities of the thinking person. The seemingly self-sufficient objective edifice of science, for example, is possible only as an intentional accomplishment of subjectivity. Generations of active participants, thoughtful humans beings spanning millennia, will contribute to the building up, or constitution, of all objective accomplishments. The objective is bound by absolute necessity to the underlying reality of mentality. It is only through thinking that anything at all becomes possible. But an important qualification is required. The universe does not spring forth from the fact of mentality rather human reality is constituted through the agency of that mentality. Human beings build up their world through their own mental effort in the context of the physical universe. Mentality does not create the physical world rather it constitutes the reality that is meaningful to us as human beings.

The methodological components of suspension of belief, essence, and intentionality can be uniquely exemplified in the example of the archer and archery. The archer steadily draws his bow, taking aim, and with a momentary pause, letting loose the arrow that hurtles through the air towards the intended target. What are we to make of this? As a matter of contrast it will be useful to sketch a natural scientific objective account. This could be termed the mathematical physics of force, projection, trajectory, and impact. The resistance of the bow generates a potential force that when released projects the arrow through a trajectory in space with sufficient impact to cause penetration of the intended object. A natural scientific account of this event would have recourse to a mathematical physics that would be able to measure, or quantify, force, trajectory, and impact in a mathematical formula. Using this, an expanded account could be created that would provide a model for all such events of force, trajectory, and impact. Specific principles of physics would be enumerated that would state the physical laws of archery, which would be subsumed under the generals laws of physics as such. While it is obvious that these principles would be of great usefulness, at the same time it would exclude, as a matter of scientific principle, the subjective reality of the archer himself. His possible motives and intentions would have nothing to do with an instance of natural law. This may appear to be reasonable enough yet an account of archery without the archer is an astounding piece of scientific omission. The natural scientific account of nature in general then is without persons, without subjective intentions, as the reality of the scientist himself is excluded. But of course it is the archer who is so decisive for an understanding of archery. His subjective intentions are of an essential importance. It is now necessary to begin again and provide an account based upon the methodology of suspension of belief, essence, and intentionality.

Who and what is this archer? First of all, we know nothing about scientific theory, we know nothing about the physics of force, trajectory, and impact. All of this is put out of action. The first and most immediately obvious fact is that the archer lives in a world. He is a human being among others, participating and sharing the tasks of life, living between a vague past and an indefinite future that places him in his concerns of the present. He lives in a society, however small or large, among other societies that compete for the fundamental requirements of life. Society, history, culture, and personality then, contribute to his make-up or constitution in the world. For purposes here, the person is a Persian archer on Xerxes’ march to defeat the Greeks. He is part of a conscripted army that intends to subdue the Greeks in the West into submission to an Oriental tyranny of the East. The Occidental will be brought under the power of the Oriental, the West brought to bay by a total power from the East. But fate would have it otherwise and the decisive battle would be lost at sea and the archer scrambles home without letting loose a single shot. But history was being made.

The Greco-Persian War was the most momentous in European history, for it made Europe possible. It won for Western civilization the opportunity to develop its own economic life—unburdened with alien tribute and taxation—and its own political institutions, free from the dictation of Oriental kings. It won for Greece a clear road for the first great experiment in liberty; it preserved the Greek mind for three centuries from the enervating mysticism of the East, and secured for Greek enterprise full freedom of the sea.⁴

To say that the archer lives in a world then is to place him somewhere among the deeds and misdeeds of history. Natural science could have no interest in this archer as he himself would have intended.

But what of the act of archery itself? In drawing and aiming the bow, the archer intends the arrow to a specific target. The factors that comprise this event are his subjective awareness that chooses a particular target. Subjective motive provides quite varied intentions and expectations. He could be practicing in order to improve his skill so as to be allowed entry into an elite legion of archers. He could be a lone hunter in the field hoping to feed himself and his family with the kill of a deer. He could be William Tell fictionally taking extra careful aim. The range of these possible intentions is as vast as the circumstances of history that have required its unique effect, the delivering of force at a distance. Secondly, the flight of the arrow exists throughout a range of conditions. Wind, distance, and obstructions influence along the way. The archer’s intention may vanish to nothing as the arrow projects itself through a variety of adverse conditions. Only sometimes is the target hit upon as intended. Thirdly, the target itself exists under a variety of changing conditions. It may be stationary and simply there for practice, or it may flee for its life or, most urgently, the target may be another archer with subjective intentions of his own. The reality of archery then is comprised of the archer’s subjective intentions, the tenuous conditions of the flight of the arrow, and the uncertainty of the target, all of which takes place in the context of historical reality.

Furthermore, though, archery is the act of delivering force, it is essentially a killing force. In the primitive struggle for survival its usefulness was exemplary. It was of the highest value. The struggles of living and dying, of winning and losing, of being and not being, were bound up in the possibility offered by the bow and arrow. Summarily then, the natural scientific account of the physics of archery does not touch upon these deeper human concerns. A material, natural scientific, account alone, that is without recourse to mental intentions, cannot go to the essence of human reality. A pre-eminent example suggests itself.

The trials of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey culminate in a display of archery, or the test of the bow. With the end of the battle at Troy, the war hero searches for home but is left scattered about the Mediterranean. Sundry adventures and misadventures send him here and there, escaping at times with only his life but always abiding by his firm resolve to arrive home again. His will to persevere becomes tied to the fortunes of chance and finally he finds himself on the shores of his beloved and long lost Greek homeland. But his absence has taken its toll and circumstances have come to an impasse. In the absence of a King, the kingdom requires that his queen, Penelope, take a new husband. She resists the claims of the demanding suitors as best that she can, hoping against all hope for the return of her rightful husband, Odysseus. As she delays, the suitors nightly consume in drunken feasting the substance of the household. The moment of decision is at hand.

My lords, hear me: suitors indeed, you commandeered this house to feast and drink in, day and night, my husband being long gone, long out of mind. You found no justification for yourselves—none except your lust to marry me. Stand up, then: we now declare a contest for that prize. Here is my lord Odysseus’ hunting bow. Bend and string it if you can. Who sends an arrow through iron axe-helve sockets, twelve in line? I join my life with his, and leave this place, my home, my rich and beautiful bridal house, forever to be remembered, though I dream it only.⁵

The bedraggled and disguised Odysseus has secretly returned and has quickly assembled a small band of co-avengers. The suitors can now be tested directly. ... the great horn bow... ,⁶ was brought forward. Each in turn gripped ... the great bow of Odysseus... ,⁷ attempting to set the string in place but achieving only failure. All were thwarted in their desires to string and shoot the great bow and capture the royal prize of Penelope. The King though has returned. Recognized only as a worthless beggar, he has the presumptuous audacity to request a chance for himself. The suitors scoff at this arrogance of one not of their kind but Penelope, unrecognizing, is intrigued. Give him the bow and let us have it out!⁸ The vanquished suitors are not pleased but finally begrudge consent. Eumaios picked up bow and quiver... and there he placed them in Odysseus’ hands.⁹ They taunted him as he inspected his old and familiar weapon. The bow was in his hands, a tool to accomplish his deadly intentions.

But the man skilled in all ways of contending, satisfied by the great bow’s look and heft, like a musician, like a harper, when with quiet hand upon his instrument he draws between his thumb and forefinger a sweet new string upon a peg: so effortlessly Odysseus in one motion strung the bow. Then slid his right hand down the cord and plucked it, so the taut gut vibrating hummed and sang a swallow’s note. He picked one ready arrow from his table where it lay bare: the rest were waiting still in the quiver for the young men’s turn to come. He nocked it, let it rest across the handgrip, and drew the string and grooved butt of the arrow, aiming from where he sat upon the stool. Now flashed arrow from twanging bow clean as a whistle through every socket ring, and grazed not one, to thud with heavy brazen head beyond.¹⁰

Revelation and retribution were at hand. Comeuppance was due as the truth is quickly unveiled.

Odysseus faced the crowd and spoke clearly. So much for that. Your clean-cut game is over. Now watch me hit the target that no man has hit before, if I can make this shot. Help me, Apollo.¹¹ The carnage begins. Odysseus’ arrow hit him under the chin and punched up to the feathers through his throat.¹² His co-avengers had closed all exits and the scramble to flee is futile, their destruction will be complete. And Odysseus looked around him, narrow-eyed, for any others who had lain hidden while death’s black fury passed. In blood and dust he saw that crowd all fallen, many and many slain.¹³ The deadly deed had been done, the suitors were no more. Penelope only slowly allows herself to recognize her long lost husband, but finally sees.

Now from his breast into his eyes the ache of longing mounted, and he wept at last, his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms, longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer spent in rough water where his ship went down under Poseidon’s blows, gale winds and tons of sea.¹⁴

He has returned home.

Who is this Odysseus? The purpose of this book is to recount the story of the Odyssey of the Western Spirit, at the beginning of which stands Odysseus. Something entirely unique happens that occurs nowhere else, something absolutely essential for our world today. Outside of the West societies and culture have long since established a traditional structure. The rules and procedures, the laws, of life, based upon religious principles, have been set in place from which there can be no dissent. For the person this means that his life has been determined in advance. He will be whatever tradition has already determined him to be. With Odysseus, a first glimmer, an inkling, appears on the world horizon of something entirely different, something that will take millennia to come into full view. The issue is the matter of self-awareness or self-consciousness. It is the possibility of the individual coming to think for himself such that he is able to act on his own behalf. Rather than passively existing in the tradition of his birth, the person establishes his own center of validity and takes the opportunity to actively participate in a world that will accept his contribution. Thinking for himself, he is equally able to act for himself. No greater contrast with tradition is possible. But the career of this thoughtful action, this willful intention, is long and difficult, but finally will constitute the spirit upon which will stand the Western world. All the great players in history will have been touched by the audacious spirit of Odysseus. The Greeks and their philosophers, Jesus and his followers, Michelangelo and the great Renaissance creators, the superb mathematicians of the Modern era, and anyone who takes upon himself the labor and responsibility of thinking and doing for himself, are all part of this single tradition. Of course, this will always occur in a broader society, but it is the inspiration, and then, initiative of the person that is decisive and that will make all the difference. This making is responsible for the formation of the unique institutional structures that make our world what it is. It also gives us the courage to think that the deeds that have been done can be re-done anew, that we have the power and ability, if we only have the courage, to change our world for the better. Where do we go from here, or what are we to make of our future? This final question now comes into clearer focus.

Amazingly, in simply trying to describe the essential conditions for the possibility of archery one is led back to the subjective intentions of the archer, then back further to his world, which includes the larger historical world, where we find Odysseus in search of home. Arriving there, it is then possible to turn forward and re-live and re-think the ensuing historical and philosophical development of the West, at the end of which we find ourselves. An amazing thing indeed.

* * *

But the telling of the story of the Western spirit involves yet more that stands in the even larger context of world history itself. This concerns the meeting of the East and the West, the interface between the Eastern Spirit and the Western Spirit. Too easily the natural bias leans towards the domination of the East by the West. Today this takes the form of globalization as Western principles of science, technology, and economic and political organization are imposed throughout the world. This material imposition is subject to a more subtle characterization.

...the human race has come to the juncture where it must decide whether to be content with the subjugation of the material world, or to strive after the conquest of the spiritual world, by subjugating selfish desires and transcending self-imposed limitations.¹⁵

As the West achieves a global predominance, it may find the need to incorporate the profound levels of insight from the regions of the Eastern Spirit. As the West has come to master the mechanics of the material world, it may find pause to consider the Masters of the East who more self-consciously understand the emotional and spiritual requisites of being human. The Western accomplishment is like none other but it too must finally square with the wisdom of the East that places that accomplishment in its most pre-eminent light.

Finally, an essential intention of The Odyssey is to provide a descriptive account of the passage of human reality from primitive conditions of hunting and gathering to the present world of global interrelations. How was human reality able to transform itself in such a miraculous way? More specifically, all cultures other than the West are political tyrannies and the grip of this tyranny ought never to have been relinquished yet somehow it became possible to create liberal and democratic institutions over against the totalitarian fact of traditional tyranny. In telling this story it is hoped to have shed light upon this quite astounding fact and then showing how it can no longer be taken for granted. In not fully appreciating this accomplishment, often times innocent ignorance serves to undercut the validity of this to which we are all beneficiaries. Equally, as we look about our world today, any short-sighted understanding of the Western accomplishment will entail a limited understanding of our more liberal possibilities. We will have chosen to be less than we otherwise could have been and that makes all the difference in a world presently gripped in continental unrest. In seeing only less, it is only conceivable to choose to be less. In seeing more, it is our further choice to be more. Essentially, the less is fear and the more is love, our simple choice of being who we choose to be.

Introduction

Method and Intention

T he Odyssey of the Western Spirit falls into the category of philosophical idealism. It will show that the primary condition of human reality is essentially a matter of mentality, an accomplishment of the spirit. Underlying and carrying forward the Western tradition are three philosophical idealists. Foremost and most profoundly standing at the beginning is Plato of Ancient Greece. A breakthrough occurs that is unique in the world and establishes an intellectual foundation that is as profound as it is breathtaking. Idealism receives its inception and its greatest expression. But this beginning was allowed to falter and it would be another 2000 years before a new thinker would re-constitute idealism in an even more powerful formulation. It is Descartes of the 17th century that methodologically re-states idealism as the basis for Modern Science. He pushes this forward through the formation of a new mathematics. And, finally, in the 20th century, it would be Edmund Husserl that would give to idealism its most detailed and precise formulation. The great tradition of the West then is indebted to these original thinkers. But much is buttressed against this idealism, as the central prejudice of our time is that of material realism, or the theory that there is no such thing as mentality at all, only a material network of neurological events. The task is to marshal the evidence required for a convincing description of the realm of the spirit, and to show that any theory of material realism is a contradiction in terms as such a theory cannot account for the possibility of its own theorizing. Thinking in terms of theory is an activity strictly of mentality and spirit and must be understood as such. Material realism seemingly accounts for much indeed but finally falls short in any general completed theory of human reality. Only idealism is inclusive of all of existence, both the material and the mental, the real and the ideal. Every theory other than philosophical idealism necessarily ends in cynicism, sarcasm, and disdain.

What distinguishes the Odyssey of the Western Spirit from all other cultural formations is precisely the fact that it is an odyssey, a journey, a development, that utilizes the continual mental accomplishments of single individuals in the constitution of greater and greater cultural achievement. What defines the great civilizations of China and India, by way of essential contrast, is that, with each of these there is no odyssey, no journey, and no development at all, save that of the incrementally inessential. A traditional society came to be established and change would neither be allowed nor tolerated and, in fact, it would be inconceivable. The individual with his mental abilities could have no possible use. Society was what it was finally. A central task of this work is to present in detail the significance of this contrast.

If the odyssey of Odysseus marks an essential re-formulation of this fundamental transformation of the possibilities of human life, then Ancient Greek culture in general and Plato in particular constituted the intellectual context within which this transformation would occur. Plato is not the cause of this turn, rather he is the philosophical caretaker who nurtured this mental possibility. The underlying social, economic, material, cultural, and spiritual conditions established the reality of both Odysseus and Plato, who in turn carried the Western possibility forward into ever enhancing formations. The title of this work then, The Odyssey of the Western Spirit, is to be understood with a certain amount of precision. It is an odyssey, a journey, and not a static fact that is to go nowhere. It is also Western, or occidental, and not Eastern, or oriental. It concerns itself with the relatively free and democratic culture of Ancient Greece, rather than the absolute despotism, the perfect tyrannies, of the East. And, finally, it concerns matters of the spirit, the mental, as the essential quality of human reality, as opposed to the merely material. It is as thinking things that we are who we are as the material can define only what we are.

The subtitle, From Scarcity to Abundance, also requires a certain precision. Only in the West is there conceived the possibility of the transition from fundamental scarcity to general abundance. Political tyranny manipulates scarcity to its own ends as the individual is shackled in place. Only in the West, where democratic institutions emerge, where the individual is accorded some personal rights, does it become possible to constitute the methods and institutions that are essential for enhanced production. This, of course, is nothing short of the miracle of the Western Spirit.

While this is a work in the tradition of idealism it is less a work of traditional scholarship. Its specific methodology requires recourse to the history itself and must therefore necessarily stay clear of scholarly commentary. This is both a strength and a weakness. It is able to range freely without constraint to existing opinion, yet perhaps at times ranges too freely. The reader will need to judge one way or the other. But there is an authority to which one must necessarily defer and that is the descriptive record of Western history itself. Any interpretative account naturally emerges from this record, if having allowed the things to speak for themselves. But interpretation, philosophical theorizing, is a difficult thing and results can only be tentative at best.

Not being a work of originality, this is more a compilation of the sense of the Western Spirit from a particular point of view. Much will resonate easily, yet the organizational structure may appear to be distinctive. There is a bit of picking and choosing that hopes to move more quickly to the point. For example, little of Descartes’ philosophy is involved but much of his methodological beginning. So, The Odyssey is an attempt at re-formulating the essential impetus of the Western Spirit such that we are left pondering yet further.

Of immense help has been the monumental work of Will Durant entitled The Story of Civilization. Its 11 volumes provide an historical vision and scope that sets matters into proper perspective, in one place. He has worked through the historical record and provides a detailed clarity and a storytelling of consummate insight. At times he is allowed to speak at some length when that is simply the best that can be done.

The philosophy of Edmund Husserl provided the original inspiration for this work. His Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology is an idealistic masterpiece that established a philosophical methodology that needed to be applied to all of history. Conceived in this light, this work surely falls short but is nonetheless a serious and sustained attempt to think through the issues of the Western Spirit. Any attempt at all must be considered noteworthy in the face of the overwhelming intellectual prejudice against any such affirmation of idealism.

Additionally, these is found an asking of very big questions. Academic reluctance in this regard has established a strict confinement to the small question, the question that has been broken off from the totality and reduced to a component part that is therefore manageable and reducible yet further. Having explicitly chosen to free myself from the dictates of scholarship it is possible to open oneself to the highest generalities rather than being confined to the narrower particularities. But, well and good, it is one thing to ask a big question and quite another to put forth a reasonable answer. No apologies. The answers hope to tie together the historical, philosophical, economic, and social, so that a final insight into the political becomes possible. Mere theorizing needs to finally square with political necessity, and that will be done.

Hopefully, at the start, the reader may be a little disturbed by all this. The goal though is to de-construct all of historical, philosophical, religious, and personal belief, only to re-construct that belief on the far side of this account of the Odyssey of the Western Spirit. Believing what we will, a journey back through the historical sources can only add insight, if not revelation. But the reader must be willing. Without setting aside all of one’s beliefs, at least, for the time being, there will be little achieved except perhaps a bit of rage. Duly warned, the reader may need to read without taking issue, and then extend the opportunity for the case to be presented. The benefit of the doubt must be affirmed if anything is to become useful.

In working through a theory of idealism, it has been essential to cross paths with the religious traditions of the world in general and of the West in particular. In so doing it is necessary to distinguish institutional religion from the religious experience of the individual that is a personal revelation of the larger universe. The one deals with social, political, and economic ideology, where men contest one another for worldly power, whereas the other deals with the matters of the personal spirit, where the individual seeks to achieve a heightened awareness of the greater grandeur of existence itself. In hoping to clear the way for the latter, it has been necessary to take issue with the former. The one is a theism that imposes its will in the world, whereas the other is a pantheism which recognizes the greater good in the wonder of the universe pure and simple.

A final comment regarding perspective is necessary. As we go about our business in daily life, we are naturally engrossed and involved in the activities and events that surround us. We live our lives directly and that is usually enough. But a radically different attitude is occasionally possible that could profoundly alter the manner of our living. It is the possibility of reflection. Rather than standing in the middle of the swirl of our lives, it is possible to step back and take a different look. Traditionally, this is understood as the domain of philosophizing, of thinking about possibility rather than actuality. The collected works of this is called philosophy. A very specific result comes to the fore. In reflecting and thinking about ourselves, in stepping back, we immediately discover history, or the fact that we live in a greater context of before and after that quite directly influences who we are now. Little revelation is possible until one realizes the full extent of this context, the incredible force and momentum of all that has come before, and to which we are privileged beneficiaries. In telling The Odyssey of the Western Spirit, it is necessary to bring to full light the details of our indebtedness and to see that history is not a dead re-telling of the facts of the past, but rather the living reality that allows for the possibility of our existing world. It is we as participants in this historical drama that makes us fully who we are, as we choose to bestow a greater legacy to those who will quickly follow. The full drama of the Western Spirit includes our own contribution. Nothing can be greater than our own willful participation in the greater glory of our shared world. It is for each of us personally to recognize the truth of this privilege, or not.

Before moving forward it may be useful to re-think issues of method, so as to more precisely consider how to proceed in a philosophical way. Being born into a world, it will be years before anyone of us will have any sense of self-consciousness, any first memory of anything at all. During these formative years and on to adulthood we acquire a complex network of habits, experiences, and assumptions, altogether constituting our world. We live into this world in complete belief in those assumptions as they are re-confirmed daily. To think otherwise is incomprehensible, simply beyond our willingness to consider. But, oddly enough, or perhaps surprisingly, there are moments when things shift, when the way of the world becomes imminently questionable. Something is out of sync and resolution needed. Some unexpected discontinuity arises to force us to consider one thing or another to be true when each cannot be true together. A judgment is being forced that requires attention, some sort of choosing. With all of this unanticipated confusion, one needs to be in search of a method.

Out of the depths of the ancient Greek past arose a first answer to the question of method. Famously uttered in the voice of Socrates and recorded in the writings of Plato was the method of knowing thyself. Inscribed over the entrance of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in central Greece this dictum was widely acknowledged and generally ignored as frenzied emotion impelled war and violence as the first fruit of not knowing thyself. The understanding of the natural limits to human action was continually faulty. It was a nice thing to say, an original lip-service, but a difficult thing to do. Could this in any way be construed as a method? What could "knowing