读了Educated by Tara Westover之后对宗教又提起了兴趣，于是想到了这本一直想读却一直搁置了的书。是本有意思且有实用价值的书，但我读得有一些囫囵吞枣，主要是因为观点很清晰，但扩写特别多，所以到最后有些读不进一些细节了，着重把握了下大概。好在作者在最后贴心地总结了一下全书观点，如下：
“...lessons we might retrieve from religions: how to generate feelings of community, how to promote kindness, how to cancel out the current bias towards commercial values in advertising, how to select and make use of secular saints, how to rethink the strategies of universities and our approach to cultural education, how to redesign hotels and spas, how better to acknowledge our own childlike needs, how to surrender some of our counterproductive optimism, how to achieve perspective through the sublime and the transcendent, how to reorganize museums, how to use architecture to enshrine values–and, finally, how to coalesce the scattered efforts of individuals interested in the care of souls and organize them under the aegis of institutions.”
一些觉得有意思的点
- 在聊到世俗社会中community的时候，作者说道我们都活在自己的茧中，对别人的了解很多是从媒体上来的，所以很自然我们会觉得陌生人可能会是谋杀犯，强盗，其他坏人或者低智的人，从而只相信自己身边的和圈子里面的人。是啊，人们开始alienate不是自己圈层的其他人。这真是现在撕裂社会的一个很好的写照
- 大人和孩童的需求界限没有那么明显。大人也是很脆弱的，会感受到恐惧，绝望，无助，迷惑，需要爱，温暖，和力量。过于强调理性的世俗社会可能会弱化传递人的这些诉求，但它们是真实存在的，需要被满足。宗教很好地给了这些诉求一些出口，一些应对方式，而这些应对方式在世俗社会中却特别零星。与此同时，宗教让人们知道寻求帮助是很自然的，而这在世俗社会中却并不明显
- 宣扬自由和宣扬美德有冲突吗？作者说，sufficient wisdom是充分享受自由的一个必要条件
- 现代的世俗教育和宗教中的教育的对比：宗教的教育走心走情感，用来解决人的终极困惑；世俗教育把知识和理性捧在了制高点，但其实有很多精神财富都可以成为我们人生路上的明灯，但教育体系弱化甚至淹没了这些属性，变成了纯粹的academia研究，这样是非常可惜的，knowledge是可以转化成wisdom的。另一个对比是：人类是健忘的。宗教教育有很多的重复性，什么时候该读什么书，需要背什么经，这样知识/智慧才会慢慢地渗入我们心中；这是在世俗教育中没有的，我们时常早上读过了觉得醍醐灌顶，到了晚上却又全忘了
- 宗教要人nurture自己的身体，头脑，和灵魂（body, mind, spirit）。现代世俗社会中有很多nurture身体的解决方案，头脑的也有（知识武装），但对灵魂的关注比较少，也很零星
- 科技和商业（science, technology, and commerce）的进步并不能解除人性中的frailty。即使科技在进步，我们的很多挣扎和祖先的挣扎都是相似的
- 和浩瀚宇宙相比，我们每个个体是很渺小的，struggle也是非常渺小的，人的一生在历史长河中也只是一瞬。有了这个perspective，可能会减少对自身所谓命运的纠结
对我生活的一些启示
- 多同的人接触，比如朋友聚会大家可以带一些其他人不认识的人，由此来抵制圈层外的alienation。可以做一些聚餐之外的活动，即使聚餐聊天，也有意识地去聊一些更有主题性的东西
- “每日三省吾身”，做好世俗社会中的day of atonement
- 将words of wisdom摘抄下来，定时温故，说不定还能知新
- 懂得感恩，从小事做起：闻到茶香时，第一次吃到当季的新鲜水果时，买了料好的新衣时
- 在nurture自己身体头脑的同时也要nurture自己的spirit；通过和大自然接触，冥想音乐艺术
- 在追寻真善美的前提下追寻自由
一些觉得有意思的摘抄
Community
- “For all the large-scale political solutions which have been proposed to salve ethnic conflict, there are few more effective ways to promote tolerance between suspicious neighbours than to force them to eat supper together.”
Kindness
- “Once we are grown up, we are seldom encouraged officially to be nice to one another. A key assumption of modern Western political thinking is that we should be left alone to live as we like without being nagged, without fear of moral judgement and without being subject to the whims of authority. Freedom has become our supreme political virtue. It is not thought to be the state’s task to promote a vision of how we should act towards one another or to send us to hear lectures about chivalry and politeness. Modern politics, on both left and right, is dominated by what we can call a libertarian ideology.”
- “Our downfall lies in our inability to make the most of the freedom that our ancestors painfully secured for us over three centuries. We have grown sick from being left to do as we please without sufficient wisdom to exploit our liberty.”
- 作者聊到了给美德“打广告”：“Such messages would, after all, constitute dramatic infringements on our much-prized ‘liberty’. However, we have already seen why this concern for liberty doesn’t necessarily honour our deepest wishes, given our compulsive and wayward natures. We can also now admit that, in any case, our public spaces are not even remotely neutral. They are–as a quick glance down any high street will reveal–covered with commercial messages.”
Art
- “ The German philosopher Hegel defined art as ‘the sensuous presentation of ideas’. We might modify Hegel’s definition to bring it more fully into line with Christianity’s insights: good art is the sensuous presentation of those ideas which matter most to the proper functioning of our souls–and yet which we are most inclined to forget, even though they are the basis for our capacity for contentment and virtue.”
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