ABSTRACT
Earth seems entirely normal and appropriate. But a fundamental irrationality resides at the heart of the modern paradigm, for behind the stated intentions of the Enlightenment epistemologists lurk unhealthy, even perverse, tendencies of mind. Imperial Science’s claim to a monopoly on truth was not solely an outgrowth of the ideological struggle. It also reflected a fundamental characteristic of Western thought from ancient times: the demand for a single, omnipotent deity. Once rationality destroys the cosmos, there is no support for values outside the individual. The combination of secularized monotheism and idolatrous faith has proven to be a heady and dangerous mixture, especially when it is yoked to the peculiar arrogance or hubris of the modern ethos. In essence, ideology is tantamount to a shared mental disease. This disease originates in the individual human psyche as an epistemological neurosis in which the fearful mind grasps desperately for certainty and coherence, for “truth.”
