In 1974, an unstable and unknown man called Robert Pirsig finally got a publisher to agree to publish his strange, unwieldy manuscript. And 2024 will thus be the 50th anniversary of the best-selling philosophy book in the USA of all time: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values.
But why is this book important now? Why is philosophy important now?
To explain, let me begin with Hindu cosmology. According to this cosmology, we are currently in the Kali Yuga, the age of vice and misery, the age of quarrel and hypocrisy, an age of discord and strife. Is this literally true? Personally, I don’t believe in Hindu cosmology, but really, who knows?
What we do know is that a few years ago, a strange virus spread through the world, killing millions, shutting life down for years. We know that the planet is burning and that climate catastrophe is already here. We know that as I write this, and most likely as you read it, there are bombs falling in Ukraine and the Middle East. We know that innocent people are being tortured and babies are being killed.
Regardless of whether we put in terms of Hindu cosmology or not, we know that the world is troubled and that times are tough. We live in a time of profound suffering.
And it is also a time of deep uncertainty. What is the world going to look like in 10 years? What is going to happen with Artificial Intelligence? With climate change? With wars and conflicts? No one knows, and anyone who says they do is trying to sell you something.
We are living at an inflection point in human history. Everything is in play, even such fundamental questions as the future of the human world and what it means to be human at all.
In such times, what we need more than anything else is wisdom.
Esta historia es de la edición December 31, 2023 de THE WEEK India.
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Esta historia es de la edición December 31, 2023 de THE WEEK India.
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