The Betrayal of Tradition: Essays on the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity (Library of Perennial Philosophy) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0941532550 ISBN 13: 9780941532556

Publisher: World Wisdom, 2004

Synopsis

This collection of essays by eminent traditionalists and contemporary thinkers throws into sharp relief many of the urgent problems of today.

About this title

From the Publisher:

SIGNS OF THE TIMES AND THE LIGHT OF TRADITION

The title of this anthology alerts us to the spiritual crisis of modernity and to its root cause: the betrayal of tradition. That there isindeed a spiritual crisis will hardly be denied by anyone who has pondered the condition of the contemporary world. We need not rehearse the whole catalogue of inter-related symptoms, but hereare a few of the more conspicuous: ecological catastrophe, a material sign of the rupture between Heaven and Earth; a rampant materialism and consumerism, signifying a surrender to the illusionthat man can live by bread alone; the brutal extirpation of traditional cultures by the runaway juggernauts of "modernization"; political barbarities on an almost unimaginable scale; a religiouslandscape dominated by internecine and inter-religious strife andby the emergence of aggressive fundamentalisms in both East and West; social discord, endemic violence and dislocations of unprece-dented proportions; widespread alienation, ennui and a sense of spiritual sterility amidst the frenetic confusion and din of modernlife; the loss of any sense of the sacred, even among those whoremain committed to religious forms. These "signs of the times"—and the inventory is by no means exhaustive—are plain enough tothose with eyes to see. No amount of gilded rhetoric about"progress," the "miracles" of modern science and technology, or the"triumphs of democracy" (to mention just three shibboleths of modernity) can hide the fact that our age is tyrannized by an out-look inimical to our most fundamental needs, our deepest yearnings, our most noble aspirations. More problematic is the question of how we arrived at this state of affairs and in which direction wemight turn for some remedy.

From the Author:

Jean Biès, Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor

Philosopher; poet, and author of Returning to the Essential: The Selected Writings of Jean Biès in on : ""This anthology...[scrutinizes] the oppositions between Tradition and Modernity, Perennial Truths and Modern Counterfeits, Social Order, the 'Single Vision' of scientism, and lastly the destruction of traditional cultures....A work such as The Betrayal of Tradition will be a great treasure to those who are still lucid enough to 'take inventory' and comprehend the urgency for rediscovering the eternal.""

About this edition

• Publisher: World Wisdom
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0941532550
• ISBN 13: 9780941532556
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 408
• Editor: Oldmeadow Bendigo University Author Of Frithjof Schuon And The Perennial Philosophy Harry