16. Search for America - Human Fulfillment with Paul Tillich and Mark van Doren

this is the editing room of a scholar a professor of philosophy his name is Houston Smith for six months dr. Smith has been doing research on a special project and recording his findings on film his purpose has been more than usually serious and profound he's made an attempt to discover America's own moral answers to 16 of the most basic public and private issues that Americans face in his search dr. Smith has traveled thousands of miles and asked literally hundreds of questions he's talked with scholars and statesmen newspaper editors and economists philosophers and politicians tonight from these priceless film records of that journey dr. Smith has drawn together what he believes are America's best answers to another basic problem of our future tonight on the search for America [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I'm Houston Smith the object of our search tonight is ourselves the question what is the highest goal our lives can achieve we've had occasion on this search for America to talk a good bit about our nation's objectives in foreign policy in race in economics and in other areas but what about our personal objectives suppose our national policy were to be wildly successful suppose perpetual peace and prosperity were to be assured and each American citizen free to pursue his own personal destiny without interruption would we know how to proceed or would we be like that man who longed for eternity and didn't know what to do with a rainy afternoon what is the objective of our lives what do we take to be the highest goal that they can achieve is it pleasure happiness achievement duty well done the sense of belonging the sense of having contributed as literature is one of the places where we get the clearest vision of what life might be the first man I wanted to talk to about this question was a man of letters and I knew which one I wanted he is Mark Van Doren who for the past 30 years has been teaching at Columbia University in New York City I wanted him not only because he is himself a Pulitzer Prize winning poet poet but because he enjoys I found a unique distinction the distinction that under him more perhaps and under any other teacher in America students have found themselves so one morning I made my way to where mr. Van Doren has been living for the past 20 years in his apartment at 393 Bleecker Street in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village mr. Van Doren I've heard you say that man has a duty to be happy you think a man can be happy today without shutting his eyes to the fear and danger and tragedy that surrounds him it's never been easy to be happy and it isn't now it's the hardest thing to be happy but it's a duty I mean by that such a simple thing as a week we like people who are happy we don't like people who are unhappy nobody wants an unhappy person around we want children to be happy we actually get angry at them if they're not but happiness seriously consider this is a is the achievement only a very distinguished people only very distinguished people know anything about happiness and this achievement doesn't require any compromise with realism you don't have to escape into any sort of fantasy in order to have oh no I certainly don't mean fun to see the happy people are the people who know everything about all the reasons that exist why they should should not be happy but they are nevertheless it's like the power to believe only a great person can believe ordinary people can't believe anything they haven't got the vitality to believe anything neither have they have the vitality to be happy oh you speak of the bad world around this is bad partly because it's full of unhappy people is it possible that happiness perhaps is a cheap goal I remember that mill said that it's better to be Socrates unhappy than to be a pig happy is that true oh no happiness to me is the greatest of all things it's the end of life it's the reward of virtue it's what we it's what we live for happiness is not a cheap thing happiness is not an easy thing and that happiness is not always expressed by laughing or by grinning joy is a very solemn experience we weep with pleasure we weep with happiness why do we why do we do that it's because it's something almost too great I should say to contain happiness is there's not the same thing as bloodless there's not the same thing as being bled happiness is not the same thing is being lucky very unlucky people can be happy but is happiness something that we fall into that happens to us like love to a certain extent that's true some people have a genius for being happy that and others don't seem to heaven is there anything we can do about it anything we can do to achieve it or at least more of it well I think education makes people happy oh well I see a person who says he's educated and yet is unhappy I doubt that he was educated oh they're the art of happier their happiness becomes a kind of art I've already said that I believe the greatest happiness that we find is in the use of our mind think of what it is to be able to read a good book that we can be very sorry for people who who can't read good books either because they can't read at all and therefore slaves in our society the illiterate person is surely the slaves either for that reason or because they are restless they're nervous they are thinking only about themselves and can't give themselves to the wonderful experience of reading in which you participate in other people's lives and learn about how great men can be is there anything at all to the saying that ignorant is bliss how did this get started well oh you know where it came from it's in a one of Thomas Grey's poems in 18th century he went back to look at Eton where he had gone to school as a boy and he himself now was a man with all the cares of a man and he saw the boys have another generation playing ball shouting and chasing the ball over the playing field and he said just like that that he envied them the fact that they didn't know it yet anything about the world but I would say that he could very well have been happier than they was partner because he could think that he was thinking about something utterly foreign to that oh there's a wonderful moment in Shores back to Methuselah when one of the Ancients you know who by some accident have have stumbled upon me the way to live thousands of years instead of seventy one of Shaw's convictions and that was that we don't live long enough they're about the time anyone we just have a little sense yes to die well these ancients by a freak of violence they have have have not died and here that some of them are several thousand years old and they're wandering around one day some of them bald-headed gray not very interesting to look at and one of them has gets in the way of of a very young man who was playing running around they were playing a game and the young man is a little impatient because this old ancient is there the ancient finally steps aside and the young man says something to show that he pities the ancient because he doesn't have a good time the ancient said something and I've never forgotten I saw this in the theater I heard it in the theater thirty years ago I said infant the ecstasy of life as I live it would strike to you dead Oh ideally the older you are the happier you should be I feel very sorry for old people who are not happy they must have live live badly they shouldn't be able to have a very good time in their ones is there anything that you would add to pleasures of the mind as being pretty important ingredients for happiness well they one thing that I think of our friend is is is not different I'm not sure that anything gives me personally more pleasure than a good conversation such as you and I are having today I'm enjoying this very much like um I'm not sure that anything is anything is more fruitful then then good talk I feel very sorry for people who meeting together in the evening Kent can't talk to one another they have to rush out and see something they have to turn on something they have to be entertained they could entertain one another mr. Van Doren what writers impress you as having the clearest vision of the way life ought to be lived I prefer those writers who will have a clear vision of how light is lived no great writer tells you how to live your life he tells you how you do live your life Shakespeare for instance doesn't tell anybody how it should live Homer doesn't Tolstoy doesn't except in his summary as minor works which ever have beautiful things but he's written in his old age from his great powers were spent no the business of literature is to tell us how we do live not how we should nobody knows I think how we should live I was just going to ask you whether out of a writer's description of the way we do live we gather some insight into the way we ought to live but I gather that you're saying that it isn't the function of literature to do this the great storyteller is a man who doesn't know how people ought to live but he's he loves people and he thinks they're just about alright as they are and I was there all kinds of them and so he represents them good and abet he loved he can he even loves bad people and the way God does the I'm I'm serious about this yeah it's enough it seems to me for us to know what Y is and can be has been maybe not what it should be but we all distrust literature which is didactic don't write which is which is trying to put over something on us say one very interesting way to look at Shakespeare who to me is by all odds the greatest of all men who ever lived if to ask you what one way to appreciate his greatness is to ask where he wanted the world to go he didn't want it to go anywhere he wanted to stay right here and be the wonderful thing that it is full of a brotherly Leah Rosalind and you would share this perspective it's enough for you that people are what they listen if it's enough for me that the world is what it is it's a terrible world and I love it if literature provides one angle of vision on the good life religion provides the other important work and so from a great teacher of literature I turn to a great theologian I drove from New York City to Boston Massachusetts and there in his office at Harvard Semitic museum I had a long-awaited conversation with Professor Paul Tillich dr. Tillich what is the highest good that man's life can achieve to become real what he is potential well and bring into reality the powers which are given to him is that obvious what we mean by the realization of our potentialities and does this mean the same thing for all people I believe that every human being has something even often very hidden Lee in the corner of his soul which is sacred to him I never have found a human being - nothing is sacred even if it is the cynical desire to have nothing sacred then this desire is sacred to him so you cannot escape what I call ultimate concern the only question is which concrete thing is a bearer of his ultimate concern there are all the differences of religion and what we call - dick as I religion as political systems occur the ultimate concerns are different and here I makes the difference between the authentic and unauthentic expressions of it those which are really genuine out of an ultimate concern and those who are only taken and have lost any power over the man and I make another distinction which is perhaps more profound in this respect namely the distinction between the divine and demonic forms of ultimate concern what makes an ultimate concern demonic the destructive character and perhaps I could go even more sharply to your point saying if it is against justice and tools and it was very interesting to observe when I observed the development talks Nazism in the 20 years before I was on out how they started with the destruction of justice against everybody else except against their own movement and his truth truth is what must be said in order to keep the ruling group in power name is Andreas it would seem then that whatever else human fulfillment involves it must at least conform to the structures of justice and truth in to say we've been talking about human fulfillment why do we fall so far short of it we fall away from what we could be namely united in love through justice and tools because we want to draw the whole world into ourselves and our sign reality and this is the old doctrine of the Paradise story you will be like God let's see temptation do you think that all the meaning our lives may have is to be found within our present lifespan what I'm asking I suppose is whether there's life after death yes and I would add you also asked whether there was life before both I suppose I am these two things always should seem together now you know that in the indian theology for many centuries perhaps millennia this doctrine of the reincarnation in different forms whose the whole process of time is one of the central tenets of this of this religion we don't have that in Christianity I myself am doubtful how to deal with it we cannot say that the life process of a child which died before it became one year old or feeble-minded or even a man who comes out of bed con surroundings and never found much of the actualization of his life is now finished in eternity we cannot cannot say that I really feel there is a kind of gap in Christian thinking in Roman Catholicism there is a doctrine of the purgatory which does in some way similar thing but in what stunts ISM this has never been taken very seriously and so I am now in a difficult situation with your question but I can only tell you that I see the lack of an answer to this question in Protestant Christianity this is my first answer to it I simply must confess something of ignorance about this cannot simply accept the Indian doctrine I cannot accept the Catholic doctrine but I cannot retire to the traditional Protestant doctrine so here we are before a problem and it's my hope that in the encounter of Allegiant perhaps Christianity will do what it did once when it encountered the oriental religion see which existed in the Roman Empire and the Greek religion Greek philosophy taking in a lot of it perhaps we can take in something from from India just on this point very good let me now come back to this idea of reconciliation or acceptance it's a key notion in your idea of human fulfillment what does it involve everybody has a hidden hostility against his own being we are hostile against other human beings even if we believe we love them we are hostile towards account of our being we are afraid of see in a judgment which is connected with the principle of justice and love and so we need this kind of reconciliation now the main impediment against the feeling of reconciliation is that we feel judged that we feel rejected condemned or however you express it and therefore the first and basic step in the process of reconciliation is that we get the feeling we are accepted and I like to express it in the little bit paradoxical phrase accept that you are accepted in spite of being unacceptable that's the summary of my t ology in this respect and this means that though there are drives tendencies within us which lead to consequences which we could interpret as standing judgement upon us there is at the same time a power which despite all that we do works in our behalf towards healing yes towards healing and we have now again the very interesting fact that you ology has learnt a lot from psychotherapy the good psychotherapists accepts the patient and doesn't put moral demands upon him he doesn't say don't drink but he's he I know you are drinking too much so let's see where it comes from you are my friend we all are in the same boat I also am judged in many respects but in any case I accept you I hope you can accept me now let's go on and find out what the background of this is now this kind of medicine has taught the ministers of today quite a lot namely that they shall do what they always speak of name is the good news the good news is not that one shall be good but the good news is that one can be good although one is not good dr. tiller gives the human race should destroy itself by blowing up this planet would this have any bearing at all on the meaningfulness of life I'm very glad you bring this question out of the mere individualistic discussion we had up to this moment to the society and to history my answer to your question is definitely know the meaning of history doesn't lie in any imagined future in history say but it lies in what is created in every moment of the East Oracle process and has its fulfillment in eternity and eternity is something else than endless time here and now history fulfills itself for instance in our talks in this moment this is history and this is the beginning and the end also of this moment of history but to think if history goes on a few thousand years longer that then the meaning of history is more obvious is fantastic in my mind meet me in my mind I believe that if history is not fulfilled in every moment it's not fulfilled at all I want to read to you one of your sentences you say that all is vanity yet through this vanity eternity shines through to us what does this mean this means even if we are in the feeling that life has not much meaning we spoke about that just a moment ago that if he take this question of meaning seriously then in the very seriousness of our question the ultimate meaning is still present that we can say why do you take this so seriously because this is for what I am here this is my question of to be or not to be there is a question of life and test for me and even if I know no answer if I don't know any answer whatsoever the seriousness of my question is the manifestation that I still have my ultimate concern and have the meaning of my life if there really were no meaning and when be impossible to take the question of whether there is serious actly every question presupposes an answer which already has been received out of an answer you ask questions then you get perhaps more answers perhaps not but this answer which is preceding the question is that element of meaning which shines who the vanity vanity title it's axiomatic that the greatness of America ultimately depends upon the greatness of its citizens and their stature in turn depends on what they choose to give their lives to this problem is more difficult for Americans today than it was in the past when the primary needs of our country were for physical strength and material abundance but the calls of the body are clear and compelling whereas those of the spirit are usually soft and distant consequently once the needs of the body have been met it's more difficult it takes vitality as well as insight to choose those things that lead to greatness and understanding enlarge nosov heart in preference to those which slope towards ease and atrophy and self engrossment I have a feeling tonight of having listened to words that point in the right direction if in the years to come we can follow leads like these America having become great in power will be on its way to becoming great in spirit as well [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is national Educational Television

Channel: Vedanta Video

Views: 6,913

Keywords: Vedanta, religion, god, karma, meditation, ramakrishna, vivekananda, brahman, hindu, love

Id: Y5kTW4lLA9U

Length: 29min 10sec (1750 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 23 2020