Hold tight to the light in the new dark ages
The situation is hopeless; we must take the next step — Pablo Casals
Over 40 years ago, renowned Scottish-American philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre said that the modern world had entered a new dark age. An age characterized by incoherence, partisan divides, and unbridgeable ethical disputes. This time, he said, “the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament.”1
If that was the modern world in 1981, one can only conclude that it is even more so today. We may have been blind to it then, but it is up close and personal now. The barbarians are rampaging, breaking the world apart and remaking it in their own image.
Macintyre’s thesis is that we should not succumb to despair in the face of this upheaval. Rather, we should look to the past and find models that successfully kept social cohesion and the ethical lights on, even amid centuries of darkness.
He finds such models in the monastic movements that eventually spread across Europe after the founding of the first benedictine monasteries in the 6th century. For Macintyre, these represent the construction of local forms of community within which civility continued to flourish, and intellectual vigor was sustained throughout the dark ages through the practice of an ethical code of life. He writes, “We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.”2
This new Benedict, I suspect, is more a metaphor than an expectation that old style monasteries will suddenly find new life and emerge again in our time. That said, the new monastic movement is certainly giving it a red-hot go.
Macintyre, though, is interested in the underpinning ethics that enabled monastic movements of the past to emerge and thrive through the previous dark ages. For him, Aristotle’s virtue ethics is where is it’s at! It is the preservation of this ancient code for life that he is really advocating.
Of course, virtue ethics was not the only game in town for the monks of old. While important, its role was secondary to a more recognizable Christian ethic that finds its core not in ancient Greece but in first century Palestine and the Sermon on the Mount. This has been the go-to text for ethical practice, not just for mystic monks throughout the ages, but for anyone concerned with a practical code of love, humility, and justice that binds and sustains communities together in darkness and in light. The social justice activism of anti-oppression luminaries such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr, and Mahatma Gandhi were all deeply influenced by the ethical code for life that they found in the Sermon on the Mount.
The new “Benedict” is unlikely to be living in a cloistered community. More probable is an outcome where we, both mythic women and men, live and function within our broader communities. This is where the action is. However, finding creative ways to stay constantly connected with our sisters and brothers on the mystic journey will always be vital for maintaining spiritual and ethical sustenance, renewal, and growth.
Many of those around us in the broader community will also become increasingly concerned about the ever-looming darkness. However, they may not be fortunate enough to have a tried and tested ethical code for life to help them keep light on.
The modern mystic, dear comrades, must strive like the mystic monks of old, to use their ethical practice to bring some light during the long dark night to everyone struggling through the new age of darkness. The situation is hopeless; we must take the next step.
— Cormac Stagg, author of The Quest for a Humble Heart