Jef Sneider's Reviews > Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self

In this collection of essays, Marilynne Robnson starts out as a critic. Her targets are those scientific writers of the 20th and 21st centuries who have sought to take the products of contemporary scientific inquiry and blend them into a coherent commentary on the meaning of life and the universe for the general public. Ms. Robinson does not like their method of inquiry, their style of presentation or their conclusions. She labels it “parascience,” and indeed it is. The scientists in question include those such as Daniel Dennett, E.O. Wilson, and Richard Dawkins who “present an assertive popular literature,” attempting to describe “the mind as if from the posture of science.” She seems to want to criticize such writing as shallow, in that it claims scientific objectivity without using “the self-discipline or self-criticism for which science is distinguished.”

In making such a statement, she implies that readers like myself are deluded into thinking that statements about the nature of the brain, the self and mind, God and religion when made by these writers are true with no recognition of the limited nature of the scientific underpinning that might be present. That may be fun for her, to give herself a platform for criticism, but in the end it is nonsense.

Of course, she has no scientific background that I could discern, and claims none; she is just a writer. I find it strange that her writing is almost impenetrable with complex sentences and a vocabulary that calls for the reader to keep a dictionary at the ready. Is it really necessary to write in such an opaque manner to sound erudite and intelligent in criticizing those who write with clarity of the difficulties of understanding the implications of modern scientific discoveries? Do we really need to ponder the “hermeneuticization of philosophy” or “polemics against religion” as “hermeneutics of condescension?” And what is chthonic? Tell me before you look it up.

She disagrees with those who “attribute the universe in all its complexity to accident.” I don’t see that she takes a position in opposition except to show that those who negate the religious impulse, often using science and scientific explanations as the alternative, have failed to take into account the profound limitation of their own science and a failure to consider that their pronouncements are limited by the time and place from whence they arise. In this she is surely right, but it doesn’t mean that the contemporary reader isn’t aware that everything written today could be proven completely wrong tomorrow.

I did love her discussion of Freud and the way in which his immersion in the Austrian culture that was in the process of degenerating into Nazi Germany unconsciously infused his theories and writing. Hers is an interesting and, to me, novel analysis of the great analyst. For some reason the writing in the section on Freud was very readable.

This is obviously a very intelligent and gifted writer who is widely read and thoughtful. Reading her musings on the mind and science and religion, Freud, Darwin and the meaning of life are challenging and enlightening. I hope to read one or more of her celebrated novels.

In the end, in her final chapter, “Thinking again,” about the brain and the mind, she is eloquent as she writes, “here we are, a gaudy effervescence of consciousness, staggeringly improbable in light of everything we know about the reality that contains us.” The human brain might just be “the most complex object known to exist in the universe.” The brain is also just a lump of meat, but “the brain is capable of such lofty and astonishing things that their expression has been given the names mind, and soul, and spirit.”

I share her joy and amazement at the very existence of the world, the universe and her mind (and mine) in it. I am reminded of a quote I took from Abraham Joshua Heschel’s God in Search of Man: "To our sense of mystery and wonder the world is too incredible, too meaningful for us, and it's existence the most unlikely, the most unbelievable fact, contrary to all reasonable expectations."