This article captured me, although I had never heard of "contemplative realism" nor considered it's proposals and questions. So I respond to the conversation at the most literal level. However, as a writer, it motivates me to read more and to seek understanding because what I read went to heart of my work in progress. I'm thinking about the 'muckrakers,' the writers and journalists who observed conditions (contemplated) they judged to be destructive to human beings (the very real presence of germs) in the meatpacking industry (realism at its most intense). Their fiction and reportage led to federal and local legislation to address the problems.
Unhealthy industrial practices seem quite to hew closely to realism, though a bit distanced from contemplation, and further still from the spiritual. After all, the prideful notion that only humans have souls is readily challenged by anyone who has ever experienced a close relationship with a dog. What about trees, which (it turns out) communicate chemically through root systems? And who can speak for fish...or even germs?
For an author who seeks to create works that inspire people to do better, to do things that matter, to live lives of heft and weight, as the muckrakers did, just the term contemplative realism is...well, squishy. For me, the connotation is to look at "how things are" and consider them in the realm of the mind, even perhaps the imagination. But it does not convey any idea that the reader would move themselves out of their orthopedically-optimized office chair or cushioned armchair and act. Actually act in real world reality. Perhaps this is the point where objections to "contemplative" take shape.
I do not mean to separate spirituality (or contemplation, for that matter) from action. So I will be reading these texts to learn how the proponents of contemplative realism address this matter.
Thanks for being here, JM! If you're interested in hearing more about contemplation & action & how they go together, I have an upcoming post planned on Byung-Chul Han's discussion of just this question, so I do hope you'll choose to stay tuned....
& if you're interested in conversations about spiritual life and the natural world, I suggest you follow Jonathan Geltner (Romance & Apocalypse -- currently on hiatus, but coming back one of these days, I hope!), Paul Kingsnorth, & Hadden Turner, among others. The topic does come up here, but there's much more emphasis on it in these writers.
This is a very fair and thorough rebuttal, for which I am very grateful. It deserves a carefully considered response, which I will attempt to provide in time. But there is one point here I would like you to clarify, if you can, so that I do not waste too many words on trying to guess its meaning. You say, "In quoting Pieper’s line, contemplative realism seeks to suggest a widespread loss of spiritual vision, which is upstream of and definitive of all moral vision, whether we subjectively recognize this as being the case or not."
Here I have to ask, what you mean by spiritual vision? It is obviously a metaphor, since spirits do not emit photons, but a metaphor for what exactly? What does one "see" with spiritual vision that cannot either be seen with the eye, or deduced philosophically, or intuited sympathetically, or learned of from revelation? And whatever it is, how does one distinguish it from spiritualism or Gnosticism?
Maybe my trouble is that I myself suffer from this loss of spiritual vision. I can quite see the dilemma of the man born blind who vainly seeks to understand what other people mean when they talk of light. He must always wonder if the explanations he has been give are not good, or if the understanding of light is simply beyond him. So maybe I am that blind man, and you will never be able to make me fully take your meaning. But if I am, my blindness does not make me in any sense a materialist. It does not prevent me from being whatever poor excuse for a Catholic I am, nor from being whatever poor excuse for an artist I may be. And so I have to ask, what am I missing?
Hi Mark, thanks for your kind words & attention, as always.
By "spiritual vision" I mean two things: one, seeing as a person sees when they consider that certain immaterial things are as real, and at least as important, as the tangible and material; two, the content of such seeing, that which is seen, which is true and knowable and can be thought and talked about, as opposed to being vague and subjective and only able to be felt and emoted about. This is no knock on mystical or emotional faith experience (far from it); rather, it is to say that such is not necessary in order to start a conversation about these matters.
I'm not quite able here to tease out what you mean by spiritualism, which (as I understand it) refers to the belief in the human ability to contact and maybe also manipulate certain non-God or non-godly spiritual entities and, as such, for our faith tradition, is no-go territory, since it opens up the possibility of in turn being manipulated by that which means us harm. Gnosticism, the belief that salvation is only available by secret knowledge not freely and equally available to every person without exception, is also no good to us. Both tend to walk hand in hand with what is most popularly meant today by Gnosticism -- the idea that spirit is to be privileged at the expense of matter, in the sense that it doesn't matter what we do with matter, as though what God had made good were not good -- and both are foreign to the common core, if you'll permit me a rescue attempt of that phrase, of Christ's teaching.
Anyway, please understand that I locate the "curious blindness" in the contemporary cultural & economic mainstream -- not in you personally! And I'm not convinced that you're necessarily missing anything, so much as maybe some dots remain to be connected, or more fully spelled out. Any failure to do that so far is more likely on my part. I look forward to getting further into this in the New Year.
You participate in the most interesting conversations about fiction! I followed the entire discussion between you and Joseph Harris and found it most helpful.
I am most interested in this last paragraph of the above comment (...what am I missing?)
In my own life experience, just asking that question comes from what I would consider a spiritual place. It is humble. It acknowledges the outer limits of your own mentality and feeling, no matter how advanced and educated you may be. For myself, I have yet to advance to a higher state of spirituality, say transcendence. Fortunately, I have no great ambition to reach such a state, as I fear I would have little motivation to write. Sadly, I am too old to learn to play blues piano, so ... have pen, will scribble.
This article captured me, although I had never heard of "contemplative realism" nor considered it's proposals and questions. So I respond to the conversation at the most literal level. However, as a writer, it motivates me to read more and to seek understanding because what I read went to heart of my work in progress. I'm thinking about the 'muckrakers,' the writers and journalists who observed conditions (contemplated) they judged to be destructive to human beings (the very real presence of germs) in the meatpacking industry (realism at its most intense). Their fiction and reportage led to federal and local legislation to address the problems.
Unhealthy industrial practices seem quite to hew closely to realism, though a bit distanced from contemplation, and further still from the spiritual. After all, the prideful notion that only humans have souls is readily challenged by anyone who has ever experienced a close relationship with a dog. What about trees, which (it turns out) communicate chemically through root systems? And who can speak for fish...or even germs?
For an author who seeks to create works that inspire people to do better, to do things that matter, to live lives of heft and weight, as the muckrakers did, just the term contemplative realism is...well, squishy. For me, the connotation is to look at "how things are" and consider them in the realm of the mind, even perhaps the imagination. But it does not convey any idea that the reader would move themselves out of their orthopedically-optimized office chair or cushioned armchair and act. Actually act in real world reality. Perhaps this is the point where objections to "contemplative" take shape.
I do not mean to separate spirituality (or contemplation, for that matter) from action. So I will be reading these texts to learn how the proponents of contemplative realism address this matter.
Thank you for your informative discussion.
Thanks for being here, JM! If you're interested in hearing more about contemplation & action & how they go together, I have an upcoming post planned on Byung-Chul Han's discussion of just this question, so I do hope you'll choose to stay tuned....
& if you're interested in conversations about spiritual life and the natural world, I suggest you follow Jonathan Geltner (Romance & Apocalypse -- currently on hiatus, but coming back one of these days, I hope!), Paul Kingsnorth, & Hadden Turner, among others. The topic does come up here, but there's much more emphasis on it in these writers.
Thank you so much for getting me started on a new, fascinating knowledge expedition! I appreciate your suggestions and will follow them. See you soon!
This is a very fair and thorough rebuttal, for which I am very grateful. It deserves a carefully considered response, which I will attempt to provide in time. But there is one point here I would like you to clarify, if you can, so that I do not waste too many words on trying to guess its meaning. You say, "In quoting Pieper’s line, contemplative realism seeks to suggest a widespread loss of spiritual vision, which is upstream of and definitive of all moral vision, whether we subjectively recognize this as being the case or not."
Here I have to ask, what you mean by spiritual vision? It is obviously a metaphor, since spirits do not emit photons, but a metaphor for what exactly? What does one "see" with spiritual vision that cannot either be seen with the eye, or deduced philosophically, or intuited sympathetically, or learned of from revelation? And whatever it is, how does one distinguish it from spiritualism or Gnosticism?
Maybe my trouble is that I myself suffer from this loss of spiritual vision. I can quite see the dilemma of the man born blind who vainly seeks to understand what other people mean when they talk of light. He must always wonder if the explanations he has been give are not good, or if the understanding of light is simply beyond him. So maybe I am that blind man, and you will never be able to make me fully take your meaning. But if I am, my blindness does not make me in any sense a materialist. It does not prevent me from being whatever poor excuse for a Catholic I am, nor from being whatever poor excuse for an artist I may be. And so I have to ask, what am I missing?
Hi Mark, thanks for your kind words & attention, as always.
By "spiritual vision" I mean two things: one, seeing as a person sees when they consider that certain immaterial things are as real, and at least as important, as the tangible and material; two, the content of such seeing, that which is seen, which is true and knowable and can be thought and talked about, as opposed to being vague and subjective and only able to be felt and emoted about. This is no knock on mystical or emotional faith experience (far from it); rather, it is to say that such is not necessary in order to start a conversation about these matters.
I'm not quite able here to tease out what you mean by spiritualism, which (as I understand it) refers to the belief in the human ability to contact and maybe also manipulate certain non-God or non-godly spiritual entities and, as such, for our faith tradition, is no-go territory, since it opens up the possibility of in turn being manipulated by that which means us harm. Gnosticism, the belief that salvation is only available by secret knowledge not freely and equally available to every person without exception, is also no good to us. Both tend to walk hand in hand with what is most popularly meant today by Gnosticism -- the idea that spirit is to be privileged at the expense of matter, in the sense that it doesn't matter what we do with matter, as though what God had made good were not good -- and both are foreign to the common core, if you'll permit me a rescue attempt of that phrase, of Christ's teaching.
Anyway, please understand that I locate the "curious blindness" in the contemporary cultural & economic mainstream -- not in you personally! And I'm not convinced that you're necessarily missing anything, so much as maybe some dots remain to be connected, or more fully spelled out. Any failure to do that so far is more likely on my part. I look forward to getting further into this in the New Year.
A partial response here: https://open.substack.com/pub/gmbaker/p/on-seeing-spirits-in-literature
You participate in the most interesting conversations about fiction! I followed the entire discussion between you and Joseph Harris and found it most helpful.
I am most interested in this last paragraph of the above comment (...what am I missing?)
In my own life experience, just asking that question comes from what I would consider a spiritual place. It is humble. It acknowledges the outer limits of your own mentality and feeling, no matter how advanced and educated you may be. For myself, I have yet to advance to a higher state of spirituality, say transcendence. Fortunately, I have no great ambition to reach such a state, as I fear I would have little motivation to write. Sadly, I am too old to learn to play blues piano, so ... have pen, will scribble.