I find your words about the dissolution of the mechanistic/dualistic worldview very encouraging, Charlene, and it’s good to hear a sanguine view from “your quarters” (i.e., from the disciplines of philosophy and religion). The emergence of so-called new paradigm science is something I’ve been following with great interest for years (the writings of David Bohm, Fritjof Capra, Ilya Prigogine, and Gregory Bateson, in particular, have given me great hope for a new systemic/holistic/ecological worldview). But I must say that I’ve also been a bit dismayed by how little the broader culture seems to have absorbed the new thinking – and, sadly, even more dismayed by how far art has strayed from any serious engagement with it. The “new” paradigm is getting on in years, and meanwhile our fate as a species is looking grimmer with each passing year.
The issue of the art world’s chilly reception to anything related to the spiritual is perplexing, but I think you’ve put your finger on the core problem: the persistence of the modernist project of “liberation from nature” and salvation through science and technology *at nature’s expense*, which carries with it certain refusals (of the body, of the environment, of, as you said, tradition). I might also add that there seems to be an element of misogyny inherent in the modernist project (someone somewhere has linked modern art with the “rhetoric of virility”), which associates anything spiritual with weakness, passivity, etc. And then there is the current disdain for metaphysics so endemic to academic postmodernism. But all this said, I do see signs of hope – particularly in the younger generation’s concern for the environment. I’m not sure the ecological crisis is broadly considered a spiritual problem, but I could be wrong.