Summary of Preface and Introduction to
The Search for Meaning: A Short History
by Dennis Ford
(University of California Press, 2008. ISBN 0520257936, 9780520257931)
PREFACE
Biography
Dr. Dennis Ford, author of The Search for Meaning: A Short History, earned his Ph.D. through Syracuse University after graduating from Macalester College and the Iliff School of Theology. He studied with religious studies scholar Huston Cummings Smith, author of the popular book The World’s Religions (1990), and psychologist James Hillman, credited with pioneering Archetypal Psychology.[1]
Definition
In the preface to Meaning, Ford argues it is human nature to ask the question “Why?” Although child-like in its simplicity, the question “Why?” generates profound ramifications, especially when applied to finding Meaning. He takes care to note the difference between asking “Why?” as in, “Why am I alive?” as opposed to “How,” as in, “How should I live my life.” Motivation – the answer to the question of “Why?” – is crucial to the value of our actions, he says.[2]
Meaning is the answer to the question of “why.” When we understand the meaning behind something, we understand why it is or why we do it. In some sense, “meaning” is similar to the word “purpose.” Why do we raise children? To perpetuate the race. Meaning is found in the fulfillment of that purpose.
Audience
Ford says Meaning is targeted at both academics and individual searchers alike. The search for Meaning, or the answer to the great “Why” of our lives, entails subjectivity. Because the search is inherently subjective, Ford believes his book can address both individual searchers and so-called “objective” academics.[3]
Nettles
The search for meaning is riddled with hazards, many of which are as mundane as what others think of us when we ask such questions as, “What is the meaning of life?” Although the search for Meaning is common to the human condition, our friends often will look upon us with derision should we announce our search in public, Ford says. By asking the question we appear to be rejecting all the lessons about Meaning that church and family taught us as children. By asking we imply we operate without any purpose and are therefore on the edge of suicide. Those who admit to seeking Meaning in life can be considered haughty and grandiose.
Many consider the question of Meaning unanswerable and therefore a waste of time to pursue, Ford says. Considering the enigma Meaning presents, many live lives of quiet denial, Ford observes.
Assumptions
Ford’s introduction to the subject of Meaning rests on two assumptions: modern culture, including such ancient wisdom resources as the church, no longer provides adequate answers; and, life without Meaning is “unacceptable.”
In summarizing the need to explore Meaning, Ford says, “Without an answer to the why questions we may continue to exist, but we will fail to thrive.”
INTRODUCTION
Crisis
Ford uses Leo Tolstoy’s mid-life crisis as a template for exploring how simply asking the question “Why?” represents a step back from mundanity. Despite being fat and happy, Tolstoy dared to ask. “Those who seek the truth deserve the penalty of finding it,” Tolstoy quipped.
Having opened Pandora’s Box, Tolstoy realized he could not return to the innocence of “intoxication.” The fact he asked the question at a high point in his life, unchallenged by such burdens as poverty or ill health, demonstrates the inquiry is innate to the human condition, Ford argues.
Tolstoy’s first revelation was that the symbols and rituals of church and culture protect us from the Truth, which is that life is Meaningless. This was an unacceptable reality for Tolstoy, who came to believe there must be a Truth behind the truth of meaninglessness, Ford says.
Instinct
Pointing to his cat, Gypsy, Ford notes that operating on a purely instinctual level does not beg the question of Meaning. But, humans are part animal and part symbol, Ford contends.
For humans, the “surreality of culture” assumes the role of instincts in matters beyond animal nature, Ford says. This can be seen in both “primitive” and “advanced” cultures where symbols and rituals protect us from having to ask the question of “Why?” When these systems fail to supply unambiguous answers as to what to believe and what to do, as may be the case with death, birth or the Holocaust, no action or belief seems justifiable,” Ford says. Without answers to the question of “Why?” the landscape becomes flat, with no high or low points. “Choices are instrumental acts to achieve meaningful ends, but when those ends lack justification, choice is arbitrary and meaningless,” Ford says. “In a world without meaning, choice is a futile gesture.”
Ford points to Michael Novak as observing that the experience of “nothingness” is not neutral. Rather, it drives us to insanity.
Our inability to find concrete answers to the question of Meaning creates angst, or as Paul Tillich calls it, “ontological anxiety.” Ford poses a chicken-and-egg conundrum: Does angst cause depression or vise versa?
The following statement by Richard Tarnas, a cultural historian and professor of philosophy and psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, as quoted by Ford, is both relevant and hilarious:
Our psychological and spiritual predispositions are absurdly at variance with the world revealed by our scientific method. We seem to receive two messages from our existential situation: on the one hand, strive, give oneself to the quest for meaning and spiritual fulfillment; but, on the other hand, know that the universe, of whose substance we are derived, is entirely indifferent to that quest, soulless in character, and nullifying in its effects. We are at once aroused and crushed. For inexplicably, absurdly, the cosmos is inhuman, yet we are not. The situation is profoundly unintelligible.
Solutions
If answers to the question of Meaning does not have answers in either our biological instincts or the secondary instincts of our postmodern culture, Ford asks, “What to do?”
One “ultimately futile” answer is to return to our primary instincts, because if meaninglessness is not the problem, perhaps self-consciousness is. I find the following statement by Ford to be particularly salient to my life:[4]
Alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual obsessions, and adventurousness – in which meaning remains, but only while engaged in extreme and risky activities, including violence – have all been attributed to misguided and finally self-destructive attempts to suppress the question of meaning by drowning in instinctual behavior.
Another untenable solution is, having struggled to find freedom from tyranny only to discover there are no choices worth making, we may revert to the authority of others, including spiritual gurus, celebrities or political leaders.
The Moment
Having presented the reader with a series of bewildering observations regarding how to find Meaning in life, Ford quotes Lionel Trilling:
If we are in a balloon over an abyss, let us at least value the balloon. If night is all around, then what light we have is precious. If there is no life to be seen in the great emptiness, our companions are to be cherished; so are we ourselves.
Conclusion
This book, in only its first few pages, rocked my world. In my statement of purpose for admission to IPS’s Pastoral Counseling Program I wrote:
Humans naturally are driven to understand and explain the world around them. When phenomena is inexplicable, as in why a person would act against their own best interests, humans gravitate toward metaphysical answers. The psychological genesis of spiritual pursuits may be explained at least in part by this theory.
This book is written for searchers, or those wishing to study, Meaning. It appears to not include those who already have established views on Meaning and/or are not willing to examine the many idiosyncrasies behind the subject. In this sense, left out of the conversation are those who defend cultural symbols and rituals, including those of organized religion, believing they provide timeless and unalterable answers.[5]
Meaning is particularly valuable because it challenges us to re-evaluate our own answers, or lack there of, to questions around Meaning.[6] As Pastoral Counselors it is valuable as a resource for understanding the importance of each client’s search for Meaning and for appreciating the great breadth of possibilities behind the question.[7]
In The Search for Meaning: A Short History, Dennis Ford explores eight approaches human beings have pursued over time to invest life with meaning and to infuse order into a seemingly chaotic universe. These include myth, philosophy, science, postmodernism, pragmatism, archetypal psychology, metaphysics, and naturalism. In engaging, companionable prose, Ford boils down these systems to their bare essentials, showing the difference between viewing the world from a religious point of view and that of a naturalist, and comparing a scientific worldview to a philosophical one. Ford investigates the contributions of the Greeks, Kant, and William James, and brings the discussion up to date with contemporary thinkers. He proffers the refreshing idea that in today's world, the answers provided by traditional religions to increasingly difficult questions have lost their currency for many and that the reductive or rationalist answers provided by science and postmodernism are themselves rife with unexamined assumptions.
The following are some quotes regarding the book:
“Touching on a wide range of philosophical, religious, and scientific approaches to the search for meaning throughout history, Ford sheds light on our relationship to these questions today, illuminating many of our most unconscious beliefs and unexamined assumptions in the process.”—What Is Enlightenment
“The Search for Meaning reads like an adventure novel of the mind. Supremely researched and also deeply personal, Dennis Ford has succeeded in rescuing experience from meaninglessness. The book's range is unusually wide, from the classical Greeks through Kierkegaard to contemporary thinkers like Huston Smith, James Hillman, and Joseph Campbell, combining a tough yet often impassioned look at the quest for greater truth. The reader will welcome this approach, realizing that there are far more strategies 'under the sun,' than classical philosophy in the perennial search for meaning in one's life.”—Phil Cousineau, author of The Art of Pilgrimage and Once and Future Myths
“Around its centerpiece—meaning—this book weaves a tapestry so encompassing, so intriguingly beautiful, I am stunned by its accomplishment. Ford approaches this centerpiece from many angles, touching on a broad range of historical, spiritual and philosophical themes. Written in a manner that is both passionate and accessible, his book shows how people throughout history have struggled with life's greatest question: Why are we here? Although the eight paths explored in this book are quite different in their assumptions and conclusions, each offers the possibility of achieving what we all desire most—a sense of meaning in our lives. The author compares and reflects on the similarities and differences between the paths, masterfully reflecting on what each school of thought can offer us today.”—Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions
“Ford deserves to be congratulated for addressing a terribly important message so eloquently. I found myself coming back to the book in order to revisit its honesty and questions.”—Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion
[1] Q: What is the author’s professional background and social context? (‘Google’ your author and see what you can find: profession, geographic location)
[3] Q: To what audience is the text addressed?
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