In my secondary school days, the science students were seen as the brighter students. Interestingly, though, Nigeria is better known through her artists than through her scientists.
Central to the influence of the occult and religion on science is Isaac Newton, whose work in the Western esoteric school -dealing with hidden skills and knowledge not available through conventional education- of Hermeticism along with his deep study of the Bible and theology shaped decisively his mind and his scientific discoveries. A central tenent of Hermeticism is the maxim of Hermes Trismegistus , after whom the school is named 'As Above, So Below'. Within that context, the cosmos is understood as organised in terms of the correspondence of order at various levels of existence, from the more abstract levels to the material plane. This world view may be correlated with that of modern scientific cosmology, which understands the cosmos as organised in terms of laws that unify its totality.
Dominic Ogbonna sums up what is a realistic assessment, validated by history, of the role of the study and practice of the arts, the social sciences and the sciences in creating civilisation, particularly the beacons represented by Western civilisations :
"...a successful and civilized nation is NOT just any one thing only [It] is also a nation that respects the freedom of the individual, and the freedom of the press, and the freedom of association, and property rights. It is a nation with Jurisprudence, and universal suffrage, and all kinds of other ideological and sociological intangibles that are clearly NOT reducible to Abba's "science and technology". Some of these non-scientific aspects of civilization are just as critical to civilization, and to the quality of human society, as the things that come from science and technology... [ Their ] very presence... makes science possible in the first place."
I present a similar perspective but with precise historical references
The Arts and Cultural and Economic Development
The Cultural and Economic Colossus that is the Western Arts
The arts play a central role in building the contemporary dominance of Western civilisation, as well as its leadership in creating the template that forms the basis of contemporary global science. The role of the narrative arts- the story telling Abba looks down on- and other arts, is evident in the contemporary global dominance of Western culture which permeates all corners of the globe, projecting the self perception of the West through its imaginative and social values, as well as earning the US a huge amount of money through foreign screenings and purchases of its films, which, along with its music, are still the global standard.
Are there any films or musicians who cross national boundaries the way these art forms from the US permeate the globe?
Michael Jackson died the other day and the whole world changed beceause he was no longer in it. From Asia to Africa and Europe, people were openly changed by his passing. Whitney Houston died recently and the world took note.
Which artiste, anywhere else, has passed away and the whole world took note? One will have to look much further back to a personality like Bob Marley and his kind is rare outside the US.
A lady from Saudi Arabia told me a few years ago that they suffer there from Western cultural dominance, in which the West is perceived as the culture of preference.
Can anyone point to any non-US film of the last 20 years that has a global presence? Yet US films are routinely global
The Domestic and Global Achievement of the Story Telling of Nigeria's Nollywood
In the whole of Nigerian history, the one collective achievement of a body of Nigerians that has registered on the global stage is the story telling of Nollywood. As far as I know, Nollywood is the first original and still the only achievement of Nigerians as a group on the global stage. Is there any other creative activity, from the arts to the sciences, in which Nigerians have excelled as a group and has achieved such economic force in the history of this country?
The US has Hollywood and their technology companies Microsoft , Google and Yahoo as their most prominent global brands. Nigeria has Nollywood. I cannot identify any other collective Nigerian achievement of global renown and perhaps such domestic and global economic force, equal to the achievement of Nollywood. Nollywood is basically the story telling Abba describes as not being central to national development. Nollywood story telling is described as the second largest film industry in the world, in terms of annual number of films produced, ahead of Hollywood and behind India, with a distinctive character of its own.
I discount the Nigerian oil industry because I cannot see the creativity in that industry in Nigeria.
Economic and social development is demonstrated, among other values, by being able to create jobs that enrich the populace and project its image positively. Nollywood could have contributed to those achievements more than any other Nigerian industry in the last 20 or more years.
The Cultural Framework of Western Civilisation
Some contributors on this
1. The Democratic System of Government
2. The Rule Of Law
3. The Bill of Rights
4. The Separation Of Powers
5. The Separation of the Church and the State
6. The Abolition of slavery
2. The Rule Of Law
3. The Bill of Rights
4. The Separation Of Powers
5. The Separation of the Church and the State
6. The Abolition of slavery
Abba responds that "What you listed are government policies/interventions...and not ``arts". What you listed are interventions that create a conducive atmosphere for science and technology to flourish (you forgot to mention many other measures taken to encourage, promote and reward excellence; the US built a culture of meritocracy and competence; a culture that recognizes and salute these).
But all these ain't ``arts"...or are they? "
These "government policies/interventions", however, were enabled by the work of the arts, political and economic philosophy, political activism, political
Faith, Religion and Reason
Interestingly, the people who determine the environment that enables science and technology to thrive are less scientists than they are politicians and others directly involved in public life. If not for the desperate struggles of Martin Luther and his supporters at the Protestant Reformation, the stranglehold of the Church on scholarship is less likely to have been broken, enabling the Church to continue to dictate the boundaries of scholarship, as it tried to in harassing Galileo Galilei for insisting that the earth revolves round the sun.
There is a lot of merit to the argument that the continuing strength of Islam as a political force is central to the fall of scholarship in Islamic civilisation from its previous stellar height to its present lacklustre position in the world of learning, in which subservience to faith has triumphed over rationality or even a balanced relationship between rationality and other forms of knowledge, such as faith. A decisive point in this defeat is described as the debate between Al Ghazzali , Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, represented by Al Ghazzali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers and Ibn Rushd's reply The Incoherence of the Incoherence (link to free PDF copy) , a debate between the faith centred position of Al Ghazzali and the more rationalistic position of Ibn Rushd, though he is described as trying to integrate faith and reason, keeping in mind that this rough summary may be best understood as a simplification of these sophisticated issues. According to this view, Islamic scholarship and civilisation have not recovered from this dominance of religion.
Europe, on the other hand, integrated with its Christian culture the rationalistic dimension of the Greek heritage transmitted to it by the Arabs and eventually subsumed the rational within the religious so thoroughly that they feed each other while reason is allowed to hold a prominent dominant place, an outcome of which is the spectacular success of science. Landmarks in this journey range from the works of Thomas Aquinas on the harmony of faith and reason, built on Aristotelian philosophy, the work of the great Renaissance scientists, artists and architects Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti, to the works that helped to foment the revolutions in Europe and the US, such as the works of Thomas Paine and those that fired the visions of the builders of modern Europe and the US founding fathers, of whom Paine was one.
Thomas Paine, Political Thought and Practice and the Culture of Learning
The history of Western democratic, revolutionary and capitalist thought is profoundly affected by Paine's books and activities, such as Common Sense , the central book that gains Paine the title of The Father of the American Revolution, his book The Rights of Man in defence of the French Revolution, arguing for citizen's rights as source of state authority and the Age of Reason, one of the most influential advocates of a rational critique of religion
Capitalism, Democracy and Scientific and Technological Progress
There exists an intimate relationship between capitalism, democracy and the scientific and technological leadership of the West. Democratic systems
How did the West develop such a robust capitalist system? Through a combination of the work of business people, politicians and the sheer historical convergence of various unanticipated factors, including religion, the latter suggested by the debate around Marx Weber's thesis in The Protestant Ethic and the Rise of Capitalism.
Cultural Foundations of Western Science and Technology
Magic, the Occult and Science
The arts have played a fundamental role in the development of Western science. Central to this is the contribution of religious, occult and philosophical cosmology to scientific cosmology. Tian Yu Cao in Conceptual Developments of Twentieth Century Field Theories, argues that the modern scientific
A book that demonstrates this occult culture in its combination of imagination and rationality, learning and experimentation, integrating broad scholarship with spiritual activity in which the magician trains themselves to understand natural law and work with it, but in a manner different from the instruments of modern science, is Israel Regardie's The Tree of Life : A Study in Magic( link to free PDF copy), which is based on the sweep of the Western magical tradition, from its Egyptian appropriations, to its blend of neo-Platonism and magic, down through the Middle Ages to the present. A historical text that demonstrates how the mentality represented by ideas and practices like those described by Regardie shaped the minds of scientists in the formative period of modern science in 17th to 18th century Europe and how it was transmitted in a modified form into modern science is Frances Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (link to free PDF copy). More modern works take off from Yates' pioneering efforts. The relevant information is plentiful online.
Taking inspiration from this early cosmology of human understanding and management of cosmic law, some of the most influential of the earlier Western scientists were magicians and occultists, these disciplines being central to how they saw the universe, inspiring them in their quest for knowledge and providing the ideational template which they transposed into what is now known as modern science. Some of the most influential modern scientists develop along similar lines, but more in terms of philosophical and religious ideas. Useful guides in the relationships between religion, science and philosophy, particularly in exploring their roles in contemporary scientific discoveries are the works of Paul Davies, such as The Mind of God : Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning.
Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Occultism and Mathematical Cosmology
Central to the influence of the occult and religion on science is Isaac Newton, whose work in the Western esoteric school -dealing with hidden skills and knowledge not available through conventional education- of Hermeticism along with his deep study of the Bible and theology shaped decisively his mind and his scientific discoveries. A central tenent of Hermeticism is the maxim of Hermes Trismegistus , after whom the school is named 'As Above, So Below'. Within that context, the cosmos is understood as organised in terms of the correspondence of order at various levels of existence, from the more abstract levels to the material plane. This world view may be correlated with that of modern scientific cosmology, which understands the cosmos as organised in terms of laws that unify its totality.
Central to the quest to understand cosmic unity is the study of unifying laws and Newton's work in gravitational law and the laws of motion is central to that. Central to Newton's work in gravitation and laws of motion is the concept of force, which I would describe as a layperson as the impulse acting upon bodies. The concept of force is central to Newton's development of gravitational theory in terms of invisible forces acting upon each other at a distance, an idea, which, according to Richard Westfall in his Encyclopaedia Britannica 1992 essay on Newton, the great scientist adapted from the occult idea of invisible forces that act upon forms across space and perhaps unify the cosmos.
Westfall describes Newton's
" In the Beginning, God Geometrised" so declares an expression from an idea attributed to the Greek philosopher Plato and described as adapted by the great mathematician Friedrich Gauss stating 'God arithmeticises', thereby carrying forward the Pythagorean and Platonic vision which has become central to modern science, even though the divine justification for cosmic order in terms revealed by mathematical form is no longer canonical in science. This mathematico-cosmic vision, as it were, has shaped Western science across the centuries, as represented, for example, by the great astronomer Johannes Kepler, who understood the orbits of the planets as organised in terms of geometric solids as well as practising successfully the occult discipline of astrology, which is based on mathematical calculations of relationship between the celestial bodies and events in human life.
Frances Yates in Giodarno Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition describes the difference between Kepler's occult and scientific work, and if I would add, that of Newton and other occult and philosopher scientists, as the ability to allow various realms of knowledge to feed each other while distinguishing between them. Kepler and Newton were inspired by philosophy, occultism and religion but they understood that to demonstrate conclusively their ideas in scientific cosmology, they needed a form of logic, that, unlike the logic of philosophy and the occult, has to be accessible to verification by other scholars who might have little or no interest in their occult and philosophical inspiration, those not being in the realm of science, science as it was emerging in the 17th century scientific
Also prominent in this
Newton describes most forcefully and poignantly his sensitivity to this correlative symbiosis and difference between various realms of knowledge in concluding his Principia with a description of his religious vision as encapsulating his scientific cosmology and describing his further vision of unity in the physical world, in which a force shapes the motion of all forms within the physical world and the human body, from electricity to blood, but concluding that there is no sufficiency of experiments to prove this expanded vision of his, thereby leaving that vision outside the domain of scientific proof.
Alchemy
One of the most spectacular examples of the transformation of occult theory and practice into science is the discipline of alchemy. It involved a complex of theoretical ideas and practical techniques involving material instruments. My understanding so far of this very secretive and arcane field is that it might have been a system for developing a transformation of the human self in relation to the transformation of material substances, with this transformative process
The alchemists are described
The culture of experimenting on the material world using specialised laboratory
Perhaps the most successful transformer of the occult world of alchemy to science while working actively in both worlds was Isaac Newton, whose work in alchemy and religion is described as more voluminous than his better known work in physics and mathematics. Alchemy provided for Newton a cosmology and an experimental framework
Modern Newton scholarship demonstrates how these interests feed each other in his works, studying his extensive original documents in various libraries and posted online at such sites as The Chymistry of Isaac Newton and The Newton Project. His writings on religion and philosophy are published online and in print as in the Newton Manuscript Project
Books that are very successful at showing how these interests are woven together in Newton's life are Richard Westfall's, Never at Rest : A Biography of Isaac Newton abridged in The Life of Isaac Newton, distilled in his Encyclopaedia Britannica 1992 essay on Newton and in his Britannica online essay,
20th Century Science, Philosophy and Religion
It is very useful in understanding the implications of the two great discoveries of 20th century science, Special and General Relativity and quantum theory, to understanding the role of philosophical ideas and ideas related to religion in forming the scientific explorations
Georg Cantor, Kurt Godel and Philosophies of Mathematics
Science, religion, philosophy, the occult and esotericism are best understood as symbiotic because of the mutual fertilisation of these disciplines as well as the light they throw on each other even when they don't affect each other directly in the work of practitioners of these
Scientific, Religious and Philosophical Cosmologies and the Creation of the Universe from 'Nothing'.
Tian Yu Cao in 'Ontology and Scientific Explanation' in Explanations: Styles of Explanations in Science describes
Is this idea of "nothing" as the source of the universe not familiar from non-scientific sources? From the Biblical, " In the beginning, the world was without form and void" to the Buddhist idea of sunyata, Emptiness, the Void, to the Jewish and Hermetic Kabbalistic notion of Ain Soph, No-thingness, the Unmanifest, the idea of 'nothing', self created and self sustaining, has been central to religious and philosophical cosmology. It is also deployed most powerfully in Soyinka's Credo of Being and Nothingness and The Man Died.
Literature, Recreation and Inspiration
While developing scientific and technological innovation, whether influenced by philosophy, religion or the occult or not, how does one relax? How does one rest the mind and body? Can body and mind remain healthy without rest, without play? May the arts not play a central role in the rejuvenation of mind and body? May the arts not be central vehicles for those very religious, philosophical and occult ideas through which people find meaning in life? Is it adequate to enjoy the wonders of science and technology without a sense of the meaning of life beyond such physical conveniences?
Is it not relevant to learn how others have managed challenges like being deprived of their freedom in the name of a cause they understood as just? The struggle for justice is sustained by the awareness that one can survive persecution. Such awareness may be gained through learning about others' efforts in that direction, the 'fellow voyagers' as described in Soyinka's prison poem ' O, Roots'. Rather than succumb to the soul destroying culture of conformity represented by the corruption that has made the development of a scientific and technological culture in Nigeria difficult on account of inadequate funding, one could subsist on inner wealth instead of enriching oneself by guzzling public funds, inner wealth as demonstrated by Soyinka's meditations in solitary confinement in prison during the Nigerian Civil War in which he drew inspiration from the most basic elements of his prison environment, lizards, flying birds, the falling feather of a bird, men being led to be hanged, the walls of his prison cell, the garden constructed by his fellow inmates and destroyed by the warders, , rain, keyholes, etc etc, as portrayed eloquently in The Man Died his prison autobiography and A Shuttle in the Crypt, his poems written in prison.
Wole Soyinka's Global Stature
Is there any other Nigerian figure of Soyinka's global stature?
As for the following comment from Abba: "Besides, there are many others in Africa who are probably as, or even more, deserving of the literature prize (Achebe is surely one)."
I would like to know about such writers since I want to learn more about African writing and keeping in mind that the prize is politicised being largely Western centred.
In terms of sheer ideational power, imaginative inventiveness and linguistic force, Soyinka has earned a unique place in world literature. Soyinka has one work of ultimate sublimity in poetry, A Shuttle in the Crypt; an incomparable essay collection, Myth, Literature and the African World( I refer here to the three essays "The Ritual Archetype", "Drama and the African World View" and "The Fourth Stage", excluding the other two on the history of African literature. Soyinka has many other essays but from my reading of them, even if they are up to 100 they might not be equal those three in the immortal power of their ability to speak to the perennial and deepest challenges of the human condition) ; a bombshell of an autobiography, The Man Died ( I have not read his three or four other autobiographies) ; a most memorable dramatic work, Death
A Nigerian writer known to me who comes close to Soyinka is Christopher Okigbo, although he published only a slim body of poems, Labyrinths, but the book's power is like the power contained in the atomic nucleus that can trigger an atomic bomb. Sadly, Okigbo's greater promise was not fulfilled since he died fighting in the Biafran side in the Nigerian Civil War, his body lost as he covered his men retreating from a federal advance.
Soyinka's three essays I mentioned from Myth, Literature and the African World and The Man Died will stand till the end of time as monuments in the landscape of human achievement, as signposts on the journey of human progress across the ages. As long as the human mind remains what it is, as long as it is not fundamentally restructured to a higher cognitive level, creating a different form of humanity than is evident today, I expect these works will remain be among those of which Hans Georg Gadamer in Truth andMethod declares can never be superseded, like ideas and achievements in science
Even explorers from other worlds who are able to understand human cognition and appreciate human values are likely to revere such works as demonstrations of what the German poet Rainer Marie Rilke described as his task as a poet but which may be extended to a task on behalf of all beings in existence, on earth and beyond earth-to justify one's
Soyinka on the Link Between Boko Haram and Prominent Political and Social Orientations of Northern Nigeria
Soyinka makes the following points on Boko Haram:
1.Boko Haram is a manifestation of religious mania in Northern Nigeria that has gone out of control. Whatever one might think of a direct relationship between Northern religious extremism and Boko Haram, history abounds in examples of a culture of religious extremism in Northern Nigeria, often leading to mob actions resulting in the murder of Southerners and Christians in the North, these mob actions at times being inspired by perceived slights against Islam originating from outside Nigeria, without any
Such periodic murderous mob actions are the sporadic but recurrent manifestation of a culture of extremism
2. Northern Nigeria is prone to such murderous mob actions and organised religious fanaticism partly because it runs an educational systen that provides ready foot soldiers for such campaigns, these being the alamjiris, products of a system described by Zainab Usman as based on the idea of the migrant scholars travelling in search of knowledge but, as described by Gillian Parker seemingly often abused to become a collection of poor young people who are available for manipulation, and being poor and often disenfranchised by poverty and limited education from full participation in society, are prone to flare up against perceived enemies.
3. That Boko Haram is the tool of disgruntled Northern
