On the Reductionism of a Fragmenting World
The recent developments in Syria have exposed a deep problem in our community: hyper-rationality.
While reason is a faculty among other faculties of the human constitution, all of which serve as tools and guides for the believer in this world, it is not the end-all be-all nor even the most impressive capacity of the human being. The other vital powers include the five outer senses, the collective felt sense, imagination, instinct, and the contemplative capacity, not to mention intellect and spiritual gnosis.
From our over-emphasis of the rational sciences to our supposedly strategy-centric political perspectives, the over-use of rationality puts the mental powers in excess and tilts the balance of the constitution to that which is mental, abstract, removed from the real world and out of touch with the jismani (somatic) realities as well as the deeper and more subtle energies of God’s worlds within and without.
It is a problem that was historically dominant amongst the intelligentsia but one that has now trickled down to the masses through the educational system, media, and the hegemonic Western civilizational ethos. It is an insidious problem that the Muslim community has not been able identify sufficiently never-mind uncouple, heal, and return to its proper balance.
Rationality is useful as it helps us categorize particulars into universals and make value judgments easily. Rationality allows us to navigate through uncertainties an make educated guesses about what something is, where it might be headed, and how we may respond in kind. Hyper-rationality, as excessive and distorted rationalism, tends to make every particular one may encounter into something similar and known, eventually leading to a reductionism that collapses the complexity of a particular into something familiar and thus something that can be controlled and neatly ‘dealt with’. Hyper-rationality becomes an attempt to control the uncontrollable.
This hyper-rationality becomes a smokescreen of sorts. A defense mechanism. A strategy employed to assuage the anxieties and fears that can come about by living in a complex world, providing an attempt of sense-making those complexities in a neat and seemingly orderly manner. Reason, often conflated with intellect- which serves more as a discerning spiritual light than a linear and logic mode of processing- is not the higher order faculty that it is often made itself to be.
I am not intending by these words to create a false binary between rationality and other modes of knowing. That would only make me guilty of the very thing I am critiquing. Rather, I am attempting at highlighting an imbalance and inviting the community to reflect more deeply on how this specific distortion plays out in their own world as well as of those around them, informing their day-to-day relationships as well as their worldviews.
This is an invitation to heal: to heal one’s wounds and insecurities, unfurl one’s survival strategies, cultivate consciousness, and develop all of one’s powers in a way that produces a more balanced human as well as Islamic orientation. This is an invitation to place rationality in its place, beautifully and effectively, within the ecosystem of the complimentary faculties of the body and the spirit, ultimately honoring reason for the beautiful and sublime gift that it is.
© Mazen Atassi, 2024
Mazen Atassi, ND
Dr. Mazen is a naturopathic doctor, classic homeopath, Hikma therapist & founding director of Forward To Health.
To learn more about his services visit: www.forwardtohealth.com/dr-mazen