The Service of Self and the Service of Kali

We move on now from strange beliefs based on optimistic distortions of evolutionary theory to ones based on pessimistic distortions, from Lamarck’s escalator to nature red in tooth and claw. Are we then still in realms which ought to be called religious at all? Certainly this is a gloomy and alarming cult. But it is still one celebrated with powerful incantations, such as Tennyson’s and that of M.T. Ghiselin (quoted on p. 340 and to be looked at again shortly). As we have already seen, even the cosmic escalator, when set against a sufficiently vast and disheartening backdrop, can give a deeply gloomy impression. Yet the drama to which this picture contributes is certainly spiritually ambitious enough to constitute a faith and in some sense a religion

Drama · Faith · Kali · Pessimism · Service (business) · Set (abstract data type) · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Indian and Buddhist Studies