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« Invisible senses of knowledge. | Main | Governed by stars. »

Monasticism.

From this page:

Monasticism (from the Greek monos, meaning "single" or "alone") usually refers to the way of life--communitarian or solitary--adopted by those individuals, male or female, who have elected to pursue an ideal of perfection or a higher level of religious experience through leaving the world. Monastic orders historically have been organized around a rule or a teacher, the activities of the members being closely regulated in accordance with the rule adopted. The practice is ancient, having existed in India almost 10 centuries before Christ. It can be found in some form among most developed religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, the Sufi branch of Islam, and Christianity.

Apparently, almost all the world's religions have developed some sort of monastic institution.  Why is this?  Here's a simple theory: Perhaps these religions were meeting a felt need.  Maybe a certain percentage of people, within any given society, are simply best-suited to a life of poverty, chastity, and retreat from society.  Such people make good monks, but probably turn out to be rotten coworkers, rotten parents, rotten drinking buddies, and/or rotten spouses.  If so, then monasteries perform a very simple function in society: Monasteries provide these monastically-inclined people with a place to live the sort of life to which they are best-suited.

If every society contains some such people, then our own society must contain some of them.  But unlike most societies throughout history, our society no longer provides any sort of monastic institution to accommodate their needs.  Catholics, of course, can join the priesthood, but my understanding is that nowadays, being a Catholic priest almost invariably means being assigned to a parish, and thereby being "immersed in the world": Shaking hands after Mass on Sundays, going to church socials, organizing charity raffles, etc.  Protestants, I would guess, provide their clergy even fewer opportunities for monasticism than Catholics do.  And of course, if you are not religious, then your chances of living a monastic life are dimmer still.

Some people go off to live by themselves as hermits in some place like Montana.  Every now and then, one of these people blows a gasket and does something weird or horrible, like sending bombs through the mail.  I suspect that had they been born 500 years ago, the Montanan hermits of the world would probably have become monks instead.  They might have been happier that way.

04/04/2005 |

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Comments

zwichenzug

I'm generally sympathetic with the empirical speculation - there probably are people who prefer a monastic life. What I don't understand is your assertion that there aren't monastic institutions in our society. One can still become a monk, after all, ( see: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/mys/orders.htm) and failing that there is graduate school. Admittedly, graduate school is compatible with an active social life, but it does supply ample poverty and it's not too tough to be an anti-social grad student.

Posted by: zwichenzug | 04/04/2005 at 11:12 PM

david

Z.--
You are right that there are "monastery-esque" options in our society, but most people aren't aware that this sort of lifestyle is possible or available to them. My understanding is that in medieval society, everyone knew that becoming a monk was one of the (three or four) things you could do with your life. Nowadays I doubt your typical high school career counselor would even have a pamphlet about it.

Suppose there were a society where marriage was considered to be a kind of backward, medieval institution. In this society, overhearing that one of your childhood friends got married would be like hearing that she joined the circus or something. Given this kind of environment, people who are best-suited for married life would probably not end up getting married. My contention is that our own society treats the "monastically-inclined" in this way.

You're right that you can still become a monk in our society, but (supposing you are even aware that it is a possibility) it would be very difficult to choose that life. Most of your friends and family would try to talk you out of it; they would think you'd gone kind of crazy. Also, I don't think grad school is really comparable to the monastic lifestyle. For one thing, grad school is eventually supposed to end; "being a grad student" is not a career or a vocation in the way that the monastic life is supposed to be.

Actually, I think that imprisonment may be the substitute for monasticism in our society. Obviously this is a weird thing to say, since in many ways a prison is the polar opposite of a monastery. But I do have a reason for saying this. Maybe I will write more later.

Posted by: david | 04/05/2005 at 10:00 AM

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