San Francisco Author Argues the Philosophy of Rationalism May Cause the End of the World

How will our world end?

A huge asteroid could collide into Earth, causing enough devastation to wipe out many species, including ourselves. It’s a rare event, but it could happen. We know our sun will eventually grow old and expand into a red-giant star that engulfs our world and burns it to where nothing can survive on this planet anymore. However, that is pretty far into the future. Or, humans might find themselves in a regrettable, escalating political conflict that just spirals out of control until it ends in an atomic war where many species are no more, including man. And let’s not forget environmental pollution that triggers catastrophic climate change. There are a lot of doomsday scenarios. Yet, could there be even a stranger way that leads to the end of the world, maybe one even the sixteenth-century seer Nostradamus or the American mystic-psychic Edgar Cayce could not have foretold?

Could the philosophy of rationalism cause the end of the world?

Well, according to one author from San Francisco this is a real possibility.

Peter Reynosa has written a very short dystopian novel called “The Vulgarist” that takes place late in the twenty-first century where such an event is actually occurring. “The theme of the story is about what would happen to our world if it adopted the philosophy of rationalism and only rationalism to understand our universe and our place in it,” the 50-year-old writer said.

And by “rationalism” Reynosa is referring to reason and logic and science, even though traditionally Western philosophy has separated science and reason, or as the textbooks call them “empiricism” and “rationalism.” And he does this because he says they are, in fact, to a regular, modern person one philosophy that gives us a single, coherent view of reality. Or, as the main character of the novel is described thinking: “Anyway, he never met a person who believed in the scientific methodology but rejected reason and logic, and he also never met a person who believed in logic and reason but rejected science.”

And what would a society look like if it only used the philosophy of rationalism to discover all its truths?

According to Reynosa it would not be a good society; actually, he believes it would be the worst of all possible worlds.

In the novel he unveils how all of our ancient traditional beliefs are no more because the philosophy of rationalism has caused them to be rejected. And what disappears because it cannot be supported by reason or logic or science? Everything that relates to the supernatural–from God and religion to the idea of humans having a soul and there being an afterlife–no longer exists. Everything is now accepted as only being materialism, or physicalism as it is sometimes called. And rationalism also leads to atheism and the complete secularization of society. And the belief that we exist in a moral universe or that our universe has any meaning or purpose to it also has faded away. And so we end up with a society that accepts that life is purposeless because we exist in a moralless, meaningless universe where what we do does not ultimately matter.

And in this world the author, who was raised in the small town of Farmersville, California, argues there are only two choices left for humans to choose from. Without any meaning to be found in life, people come to exist only for primitive, animalistic carnal pleasures not because they believe pleasures give life meaning, but because there is only the pleasure of the damned when there is nothing else to give life meaning. And the only other alternative in such a future for humanity is a madness beyond madness, where humans purposefully and consciously attempt to bring about the end of the world rather than accept the horrifying truths of what the philosophy of rationalism is telling us about what it means to exist.  

Many rationalists today accept the fact that we exist in a moralless and meaningless universe; however, a lot of them still believe morality exists except now it is created in the particular situations humans find themselves in among other humans; and many rationalists also believe that while we live in a meaningless universe, we can still choose to give our lives very profound meaning. Reynosa completely disagrees with both ideas, and in the story no such rationalists exist. “Rationalists that say we live in a meaningless universe but we can still give our lives profound meaning and rationalists who believe we exist in a moralless universe but still think we can create morality in the now of the human situation are in denial.” He believes it is all just wishful thinking. “They are just expressing their desires and emotions. None of it can be proven by the philosophy of rationalism.” Or, he says it is just the misusage of language. And he has stated: “Even if you say you give your life meaning it still remains meaningless and means nothing.” And he argues no proof or evidence can be found using the philosophy of rationalism to argue morality exists in a meaningless and moralless universe.  And so Reynosa believes presently in most societies most rationalists are not true rationalists. Yet he makes the rationalist of the future more truthful than the rationalists of today are by having them accept the meaninglessness of life and the fact that we live in a moralless universe. And so these rationalists understand the true horror and accept what it truly means to exist in a moralless and meaningless universe. “In this story the age of the half-rationalist is dead,” he has said, referring to rationalists who still believe in morality and that life can be made meaningful. And he believes this fact would also change their view of our world and how we should exist in it. “Tomorrow’s rationalist will not be today’s rationalists.”

And all this horror is told in a story that revolves around the wealthy entrepreneur Gordon Harper and the suprasensual Fiona Doyle. We watch as these two Americans travel around the world seeking out more and more sexual decadence of a horrifying nature. Fiona does this because she accepts the meaninglessness of life and only believes in pleasure because that is all there ultimately is, and she also thirsts to experience more of the darker pleasures of life no matter what the risks are. Gordon does this because he also relishes the pleasure and debauchery, but he is starting to have doubts that living such a meaningless life can be enough as he goes deeper and deeper into the sexual abyss, almost as though he wants to destroy himself. And while all this is going on, Gordon becomes strangely obsessed and fascinated and even almost attracted to a horrifying war of growing madness that threatens to engulf the world and destroy it.

But could the philosophy of rationalism become so powerful? Or, is Reynosa overly exaggerating rationalism’s effects on both our present society and the society of the future.

Not according to the Fresno State graduate. Reynosa believes that rationalism is the dominant philosophy of Western civilization. “It is by far the principle belief system in our society right now,” Reynosa explained. “From geology and medicine to mathematics and history, it is omnipresent.” And he sees it as the principle methodology in our school system. And he has no doubt that it is spreading around the world and steadily growing within most societies that practice it.

Four Horsemen of Apocalypse by Viktor Vasnetsov. Painted in 1887.

And while rationalism in our present time is the single most powerful philosophy, still it is not the only philosophy. “A lot of irrationalism still exists,” Reynosa has commented. And by “irrationalism” Reynosa is referring to all those belief systems that are not based on reason and logic and science, from mysticism and religions based on revelation to Romanticism that despises logic and science and depends more on our emotions and the view of a reality that cannot be contained by the logical or scientific. And there are a lot of other philosophies that go by the will, intuitionism, emotionalism, or some other way of knowing not associated with logic and science. And Reynosa has admitted  “…and let’s not forget just plain ignorance.” In fact, many rationalists argue that this is really the main thing from preventing rationalism from being more prevalent in the world.   

And yet, while Reynosa makes the philosophy of rationalism sound almost evil, he is usually the first one to acknowledge and praise rationalism’s benefits to humans. “One cannot deny all the goodness of this philosophy. It has given us an unimaginable amount of knowledge of our universe.” He also has mentioned how it has taken us out of the darkness and into the light compared to our ancestors. “From how our planet works to what are atoms, it has been responsible for more knowledge than any other method of knowing.” He readily admits how this philosophy has improved our lives beyond words and has eliminated so much of our human misery. “The amount of ignorance and agony this philosophy has taken out of the human condition is incalculable.”

Yet, there is a darkly tragic side to this philosophy.

“While rationalism gives us much, it takes more,” Reynosa has said.  According to him, this philosophy asks that we become soulless, atheistic, without a moral universe, and even exist without either true meaning or purpose. And in the story he tries to show the horror that comes with accepting reason and logic and science as the only way of discovering truths. And he thinks it is ironic that that which is so good for us would also be so bad for us. “It is like learning your savior is also your satan.”

And although the story takes place in the future, Reynosa has remarked how it felt like he had written a historical novel. “When you are arguing against the Age of Reason and disagreeing with the premises of the Enlightenment and questioning the assumptions of the goodness of the Scientific Revolution, you feel like you are fighting something that took place in the past.” And he has said it also felt like he was writing a contemporary novel because the growth of rationalism is a very slow process, spanning over centuries. So even though this story occurs about a century from now, many of the horrors he talks about in a fictional future are actually occurring right now around the world.

And while the story deals with the subject of philosophy, to a large degree it deals with sociology, too. It is as much a sociological story as it is a philosophical one. “The novel asks where is the meaninglessness of life taking us as a society,” Reynosa said. The book makes the assumption that the meaninglessness of life is a cultural and societal experience, much more than a personal one. “While the meaninglessness of life is a personal experience, it is first a social experience, and so to a large degree it has distinct outlines of where it is headed and how people will define and deal with this problem.” And in this story, Reynosa also asks the question of what is the nature of man if he was to truly believe we exist in a moralless and meaningless universe. Obviously, he disagrees with those rationalists who have an overoptimistic view of what the nature of man will be if we existed under only the philosophy of rationalism.

Some religions have the end of the world as being an integral part of their theology. Actually, most of the end-of-the-world prophecies have come from organized religion. Christian fundamentalists and Islamic extremists both believe the world will end violently and that this is inevitable. Many of them believe we are in the end times now. Some intellectuals in the West see the jihadists behind ISIS as Muslim apocalyptists who believe in the Islamic Day of Judgment and are attempting to fulfill the Quran’s version of Armageddon.

Yet, in the story it is not traditional religious believers that desire the world to come to an end. It is rationalists themselves. Actually, the movement just exists in the story. It is just a horrifying mysterious conflict without rhyme or reason. We never learn of the motives through anything they say or believe, but we see through the main character what is driving them mad and how it is a thing that cannot be understood by reason or logic or science. 

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Peter Reynosa in San Francisco

And in most traditional religious eschatology (that part of theology that deals with the final or last matters and purposes of a religion) usually the idea of the world coming to an end is a battle where good will defeat evil, and almost always do religions believe some kind of ecstatic and joyful world will soon follow this horror. When Ragnarok, the Viking apocalypse, comes and the world is destroyed, it is at least eventually reborn. And in Hinduism when Shiva destroys the universe, Brahma comes to create it all again. But not in this story. In this tale, the humans made mad by the philosophy of rationalism are attempting to destroy the world because they want the world destroyed. And so here we see those trying to bring about an apocalypse without the Apocalypse or forge the last day of mankind but one without the return of the Mahdi of Islam. It is the holy war to end all wars, but one without any religious purpose behind it.  

John Lennon once asked in a song to imagine a world without religion, but little would he have ever suspected what might happen to mankind if this event actually came into existence.

And in this painting of the future, the last legacy of religion is not a new age of beautiful enlightenment, but a maniacal lunacy that cannot be comprehended as it tries to bring about the end of the world by the most inhuman and cruelest of ways imaginable.