The Emerging Centre: Moving Beyond Heroic Materialism

"Heroic Materialism" is the title given by Sir Kenneth Clarke to the 13th and last chapter of his scholarly, comprehensive and insightful book and TV series on the cultural history of Western civilization. He chooses these two words very carefully. "Heroic", in the broad scope of our past, has the connotation of a grand and brave effort, a struggle of noble and magnificent proportions in human endeavour. "Materialism" is our present society's unquestioned belief in the value of goods and products, our principal inheritance from the Industrial Revolution that began some 250 years ago.

We, of course, have honed and amplified this heroic materialism to a global economic system that is unprecedented in its effect on ourselves and the planet's environment. Its most recent expression is technology, a result of the 19th century marriage of industrialization and science. This mature form of heroic materialism has since yielded an unimaginable flood of ingenious inventions and products, a propagation and affirmation of a way of thinking and acting that is staggering in its implications and impact.

How did we get to our present state? The answer is not simple. Perhaps the first cause is in our own character as a species, then perhaps in our ancient shift from nurturing matriarchal theologies to dominating patriarchal ones, a change that probably paralleled our evolution from hunters living in nature to farmers living in settlements. In our more recent history, we can probably attribute cause to the Renaissance for revitalizing Greek Platonic thought and Roman pragmatic control, and for redefining "man as the measure of all things". This narcissism and pride led to a growing secularization that was amplified by empirical reason to create the scientific insights of the 17th century. Secularization flourished, as did the science, until their amalgamation produced the heroic materialism of the present.

Today, we probably don't think of ourselves as being in an age of heroic materialism because we aren't likely to notice that our materialism is a recent cultural development. Neither are we likely to think of ourselves as heroic because our accomplishments now seem to be what we ordinarily do — although, occasionally we are startled by new developments such as nuclear bombs, trips into space, the remarkable power of computers or the nearly miraculous cures of modern medicine.

But, perhaps the most interesting thing about our civilizations is that we don't plan them — they are never intended. We stumble forward in history, gathering their ingredients mostly by accident, becoming what we are by inadvertence. So we have no option but to take the "good" with the "bad": travel comes with the spread of diseases; fossil fuels with the pollution; machinery with the world wars; chemistry with the toxins; mass media with the homogenization of cultures; communication with the loss of privacy; the awesome wealth of material goods with the terrible plundering of nature. The strengths and successes arrive in tandem with the benefits and liabilities.

Each civilization has at its centre a core of beliefs that gives it the energy and confidence to express itself. However, civilizations can exhaust themselves or meet powerful stresses that crack their foundations. Then they must change shape and transition from one set of beliefs to another, from one centre to an unknown replacement.

This is where we are now in our history. Our heroic materialism is beginning to feel the cracks of uncertainty and doubt, a foreboding fraught with the threat of insurmountable problems. On the looming horizon we are starting to glimpse the immoveable walls of limits. The sophistication of our science is warning us that we must change course, find another belief system, discover a new centre.

History felt kinder when we were less conscious and responsible, when we were excused by the generosity of ignorance. If we failed before, we could collapse a civilization and build another somewhere else. But now we occupy the entire planet. And colonizing other parts of the universe, however much we dream of it, is not a realistic option.

"Each time history repeats itself," said the anthropologist Ronald Wright, "the price goes up." So this is us, looking into the abyss of an ecological bankruptcy that is unimaginable in its expanse, intensity and duration. Fortunately, we know what to do to avoid this fate of our own making. We just need the individual and collective will to act immediately and decisively. Beyond fear and uncertainty is the bravery, the trust and the confidence to let go of the old centre and find a new one.

If we need reminding, the real message of history is that all things pass. The pyramids of Egypt are the remnants of a civilization that is now a mere shadow of its former self. Palmyra is the ghost city of ancient Persia. Petra is the empty remains of a Nabataean trading nation. Carthage disappeared into the wreckage of North Africa. Roman ruins in the shape of temples, aqueducts and arenas are spread around the Mediterranean like the shards of a shattered pot. Somehow each civilization weakened or undid itself in some fatal and unintended way. History's sober teaching is that we either confront stress with change or we perish.

We are the same people who have populated our early history; we are only different because the instruments of our heroic materialism have warned us of impending danger. This doesn't make our task easier, it just makes it clearer. As Sir Kenneth wrote as the last words of his book, "One may be optimistic, but one can't exactly be joyful at the prospect before us" — a sober but hopeful beginning to a new year.