Disintegrating Values In Today’s World

`Self' Cut Off From Any Hope Of Unity
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"Watch out," Jim replied, "I see the beginnings of a `soap box' taking
shape. Batten down the hatches."

"The narrator's alter ego, Phaedrus," Riley continued, "traced the
origin of the disintegration of Western values back to the split
between Aristotle's fact-based studies in classification and
differentiation, and Plato's more speculative approach to philosophy.
In ancient Greece, that separation between facts and subjective
qualities was not harmful, but in today's society, where Western
values are worshiped as God, that widening abyss has thrown everything
out of kilter.

"According to Phaedrus, Plato's dialectical method was supposed to get
at the essence of—`goodness,' `love,' and `beauty.' But that didn't
happen. Instead, we celebrate the dialectic itself as the `highest
truth.' The very qualities it was trying to reveal, it now subverts;
reason and value, truth and goodness, split apart, giving rise to the
destructive dualisms that are at the heart of the disintegrating
values in today's world. The same rational discourse that was supposed
to disclose goodness, love, and beauty as the `highest truth' usurped
the highest truth by becoming the highest truth. Because Phaedrus was
searching for wholeness in a culture intellectually, spiritually, and
emotionally fragmented, he drove himself mad. And, to my way of
thinking, the narrator's schizophrenic personality was simply a
metaphor for all these "feelings of isolation" that are so pervasive
in today's society.

"Society today, is caught in a conflict between—feeling/intuition,
and, sense perception/ reason. The gulf between these contrary ways of
understanding has cut the `self' off from any hope of unity. The abyss
separating these contrary ways of knowing may in fact swallow more,
much more, than mere values. But, hey, that's just my reading of the
story. Right Jim?"

"Shit Riley, with an imagination like that maybe you should write your
own book," Jim replied. "What's all that stuff about feeling isolated
anyway? If I'm being forced into some kind of `isolation cave' then
why don't I feel isolated? What do you mean, split? What split? I'm
not split! There's the real world and an imaginary one--always has
been, always will be. I choose to live in the real one, which is more
than I can say for some of my closest friends. Plato lived in an
imaginary one! It's a choice period--real or imaginary. But be
careful, if you make the wrong choice, you might go mad!"