CHAPTER 1 - THE THREE PHILOSOPHICAL ARCHETYPES

In the thousands of years since Man has been on Earth, we have seen that there exists three philosophical archetypes. The three philosophies are the Religious, the Scientific, and the Barbaric.  Each person is a composite of these three philosophical personalities  in varying degrees.  Different societies and cultures at different times in history have also had a different mix and preponderance of these philosophies, and the way the philosophies have waxed and waned and intertwined with each other in past cultures has affected history through the ages. 

If you happen to have a religious bent, you will recall that these three philosophies are represented by the three sons of Noah: Shem (Religious), Yepeth (Scientific), and Cham (Barbaric).  Religious tradition maintains that all mankind descended from these three sons.

If, on the other hand, you have more of a scientific perspective, you are probably more familiar with Dostoevsky's great novel Brothers Karamazov.  The novel describes the three brothers Alyosha (Religious), Ivan (Scientific), and Dmitri (Barbaric), that also embody and represent these three philosophical personalities. 

One could also say that Sigmund Freud's suggested structure of the human psyche embodies these three perspectives, that he called the superego (Religious), the ego (Scientific), and the id (Barbaric). 

Understanding these three philosophical archetypes is important on a personal level because seeing in what balance they exist within us, and how they interact with each other, helps us understand ourselves.  In addition we can understand history better by seeing how these philosophies have interacted and combined with each other, and have gained ascendancy and receded over time in current and past cultures.

Let's describe and examine these three philosophical personalities.

Religious

The Religious person believes there is more to reality than the physical world that we see and touch.  He believes that in addition to the four physical dimensions of height, width, depth, and time, that there is a spiritual or metaphysical world.  Encompassing both of these worlds is an intangible and unknowable God that created the universe.  This all powerful and all knowing God expects that we act morally.  There is an absolute good and bad, right and wrong, and we are rewarded for our good deeds and punished for our bad deeds.  The religious person focuses his attention on making sure his relationships are optimum - between Man and God, parent and child, husband and wife, buyer and seller, a person and his community - in ways that have been revealed in holy books such as the Bible. People possess a spiritual entity called a soul, and there is an ineffable quality called holiness that indicates a high spiritual level and a proximity to God.  As the Bible says in Numbers "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."

Scientific

The Scientific person focuses his attention on man's great ability to think and reason.  He feels that it is man's wondrous mind and intellect that sets him apart and above other animals.  He maintains that by putting anything under the intellectual microscope, it will reveal its mysteries, just as Science has gloriously demonstrated in the past few hundred years.  Moreover, the truth or falseness of  any proposition can be determined  by careful examination and experimentation - as exemplified by the Scientific method.  He feels that to accept as true anything that has not been perceived by the senses and passed through the rigorous filter of mental reasoning is to demean ourselves and our intellectual power, and is to succumb to superstition and unverified hocus pocus.  He points to how much that once seemed unknowable has been explained in enormous detail, and he feels it is only a matter of time before Man will understand everything.  Francis Bacon said that the best method of "searching into and discovering truth... derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all.'

Barbarian

The Barbarian maintains that the goal and purpose of life is to have pleasure and to satisfy one's desires.  Wherever he feels a desire - for money, sex, food, power, honor, whatever - good and bad becomes defined in terms of how well and how completely he can fill that desire.  For him there is no other good or bad or morality.  People and objects are all mere means to facilitate this gratification.  To him there is certainly no world other than the world we see and touch and sense.  The Barbarian Personality is often focused on power and money because through these means other pleasures can be acquired. Relationships are important only in that they can be the basis of alliances in the pursuit of pleasure.  The world may be likened to a jungle, where beasts of prey stalk and hunt their next meal. Indulge yourself, at all costs, with no limits, overcoming any obstacles, is his motto.  Life is short, so gratify yourself as much as you can.

As the classic Barbarian Ghenghiz Khan said: "The greatest joy a man can know is to kill his enemies, take away their possessions, clasp their women in his arms, and see those women bedewed with tears."

These three archetypes - the Religious, Scientific, and Barbarian - are three very different philosophical perspectives at looking at life and the world.  It is rare that an individual or a culture is a pure embodiment of just one philosophy.  Most people and cultures are mixtures and amalgams of these philosophies, with varying percentages and weights of each that change over time.  Mixtures of these philosophies within a person or culture often result in dialogues between the various components, with each component trying to convince the others why its position and viewpoint is correct and the others are wrong.  If we listen carefully within ourselves - or to the dialogues that take place within our culture - we'll hear debates between these three philosophies, each vying for position, each trying to convince the others.

Here are examples of such debates:

Religious to Barbarian

You are self centered, selfish, immature, and short sighted.  In your desire to satisfy your cravings, you fulfill a momentary desire, but in the long run you haven't built anything of value - such as family, community, and the joy of contact with the Almighty.  By giving into your evil inclination for immediate pleasure, in the long run you will hurt yourself and destroy society.  I must always be on guard against your sneaky arguments, and can never rest assured that I've won the battle against your overtures, because it is tempting to sacrifice the future for the present.  But true joy and harmony come from the path of goodness and morality, under the eternal guidelines of the Creator of the universe.

Barbarian to Religious

Go ahead and believe in your fairy tales and be a goody-goody, you are the loser.  I love my pleasures and satisfying my passions, because it feels so good.  Your talk of goodness and the hereafter is nothing but unproven, ridiculous fantasies that keep you from enjoying life.  I might not succeed in getting all I want, but I certainly won't stop trying - and I won't let your fairy tales put me in a pleasureless straight jacket.  Restrict and deny yourself all you want, you just become easier game for my wiles, and there will be more left for me.

Scientific to Barbarian

I understand why you don't fall for those silly, unproven religious ideas about a next-world and a Creator.  But examine your ways, reflect about yourself, and use your magnificent capacity for reason to see how much better you are capable of being.  Look at your craven, depraved ways, and compare it to what you could become: a mentally aware, sophisticated, honorable, cultured, fulfilled human being.  Look in the mirror.  You can plainly see that with education, reflection, and self-examination, you can follow well-thought out goals rather than momentary whims that lead nowhere.

Barbarian to Scientific

Your head is in the clouds with your high falutin dreams.  I won't give up my pleasures for your theoretical pie-in-the-sky.  I take what I want when I want it.  I don't like delaying my gratification for one second.  You've lived in your ivory tower too long to understand my passions, and how much joy I have in conquering and taking from wimps like you.  I prefer a good steak and a beautiful woman to the prison of your mind.  I'm free and unrestricted, and love living life to the hilt.  Your utopia of thought offers nothing to me.

Religious to Scientific

I agree that the mind has great power and abilities, but it is the gift of the Almighty and must be dedicated to His service in perfecting the world.  You are naive in your underestimation of the Barbarian, and he'll overpower you just when he's fooled you into having you believe you're reformed him.  If you really used your reason correctly, you'd see there's more to life than the physical world - there's a beautiful spiritual world.  You'd see that our eternal soul has needs that the mind alone can't satisfy.  Look around you, and see evidence of the Creator and His Holiness everywhere.

Scientific to Religious

What you say has no basis in scientific fact.  Has anyone ever seen a soul under a microscope, or ever provided a mathematical equation for an Almighty Creator?  I believe in what I can prove - with experiments and mathematics - and your beliefs are nothing more than superstitions.  Eventually, all people will see that it's reasonable for us all to cooperate in a just society, with freedom and fairness for all.  I have too much self respect than to believe ideas just because they're written in an ancient book.

And so it goes, back and forth, in our heads throughout our lives, and in our culture for thousands of years.  Each of our personalities is some amalgam of the three archetypes, just as different cultures have had different amalgams.  The amalgams often take very interesting forms.

For example, let's consider some different amalgams of the religious and barbarian philosophies.  One example is the idol worshipper, so prominent in ancient society.  His religious rites often were centered on promiscuity, and mockery of the Divine, obvious Barbarian influences, yet he performed these rituals in a religious context. Another example is the religious fanatic, who gorges his passion for anger, and conquering, all in the name of a Divine call.  A more subtle example of an amalgam of the Religious and the Barbarian is someone who is outwardly religious, but is inwardly materialistic and selfish.  The religious part of him may be genuinely giving and primarily thinking of good and God.  But where the Barbarian influence has infiltrated, he thinks of himself and his own physical needs first and foremost.

There are also mixtures of the Scientific and Barbarian philosophies.  An example is someone highly intellectual and cultured who can prove to himself scientifically that it is correct to kill and steal, because science shows him that life is a jungle. He is especially dangerous because he may uses his scientific skills to dominate and injure others all the more effectively. 

An example of a Religious and Scientific combination, on the other hand, is someone who feels he has used the intellect and scientific reasoning to reveal the existence of holiness, the soul, and the Almighty in this world.