Overview
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In this chapter, René Guénon argues that modern Western civilisation is exclusively material, and that the Orientals are fully right to reproach it as such. He clarifies that he uses the word ‘materialism’ not merely in its narrow philosophical sense—the doctrine that nothing exists except matter—but in a much broader sense to denote a state of mind that gives preponderance to material things and concerns, whether speculative or practical. This, he maintains, is the mentality of the vast majority of modern people.
Guénon observes that modern science is confined to the study of the sensible world and proclaims its quantitative methods as the only scientific ones, thereby denying all knowledge that does not relate to material things. Many who refuse to call themselves materialists, or who profess religious faith, nevertheless share the same practical attitude. This practical materialism, based on indifference rather than formal negation, is more profound and dangerous than theoretical materialism. Modern people recognise as real only what can be seen and touched, declaring whatever lies beyond the senses as ‘unknowable’. When they attempt to imagine another world, they model it on the terrestrial world, complete with space, time, and even corporeity. This reliance on imagination reveals their incapacity to rise above the sensible, and many cannot distinguish between ‘conceiving’ and ‘imagining’.
He further argues that what is called ‘spiritualism’ or ‘idealism’ is often merely transposed materialism, as philosophical spiritualism and materialism are simply the two halves of Cartesian dualism. From a superior point of view, these contraries are near equivalents, and their supposed opposition reduces to a vulgar dispute of words. Modern science, he contends, is not disinterested knowledge but serves practical ends. Descartes himself constructed his physics with an eye to mechanics, medicine, and morality. Pragmatism represents the culmination of modern philosophy, but a diffuse, unsystematised pragmatism—merging with ‘common sense’—has long existed outside philosophy. Common sense restricts itself to the terrestrial horizon and immediate practical concerns, regarding the sensible world alone as real and knowledge as valuable only for satisfying material needs.
Guénon observes that industry has become not merely an application of science but its very reason for being, reversing normal relations. In trying to dominate matter, men have enslaved themselves to it. Specialisation has rendered intelligent work impossible for workers, who have become mere servants of machines, mechanically repeating the same movements. Modern civilisation is truly a quantitative civilisation—that is, a material civilisation. Economic factors—industry, commerce, finance—now dominate the existence of peoples and individuals, with material wealth becoming the only remaining social distinction. The theory of ‘historical materialism’ is an example of suggestion that aligns with general mental tendencies, with the result that economic means determine almost everything in the social domain. The mass, a passive element, lets itself be led, and today purely material means suffice to lead it while simultaneously making it believe it governs itself.
The modern world has devoted its forces to industrial and mechanical development. Inventions multiply with ever-increasing rapidity and are dangerous because they unleash forces whose true nature is unknown even to their users. The practical applications continue regardless, showing that industry, not knowledge, is the real goal. Guénon suggests that the modern world may end by destroying itself if it cannot stop. He questions whether the supposed benefits of material progress are not largely illusory. Men are not happier today; disequilibrium cannot be the condition of true happiness. Modern civilisation multiplies artificial needs, creating more than it can satisfy, and the passion to earn money becomes the sole goal of life. This gives rise to ferocious competition—the ‘struggle for life’—and to envy and hatred between rich and poor. Citing the Gospel (‘All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword’ and ‘Every house divided against itself shall not stand’), he predicts a tragic end for the modern world unless a radical reversal occurs soon.
Guénon acknowledges that some will accuse him of neglecting elements that mitigate modern materialism, but he dismisses philosophical spiritualism, idealism, moralism, and sentimentalism as equally profane. Any remaining traces of true spirituality in the West exist only in the religious order, but religion today is diminished, stripped of intellectuality, and these remnants are largely latent. He nevertheless admires the vitality of a religious tradition that persists despite centuries of efforts to destroy it, implying a non-human power. However, this tradition does not belong to the modern world. Between the true religious spirit and the modern spirit there can be only antagonism. Finally, he argues that the modern West is not Christian, for the modern spirit is anti-religious and anti-traditional, hence anti-Christian. All that is valid in the modern world has come to it through Christianity, which brought the heritage of earlier traditions, but today even among those who call themselves Christians, few possess effective consciousness of these possibilities. The West was Christian in the Middle Ages but is so no longer; if it can become so again, on that day the modern world will have lived.