Why to live or die for a theory

In an effort to structure my ideas & feelings regarding our class´ task to answer the question of ´why a theory would be worth living / dying for´, I experience strong emotions. To some extend and in some format, this can be seen as appropriate. Since when considering matters of -one´s- life and death, basically the whole person is involved, rather than one´s mental / rational faculty only. Addressing the question tempts me to try to go beyond my usual effort to argue in an essay-format, since this format would probably not convey my position regarding the question at hand: why live or die for a theory. I´d like to invite the reader to join me on a mildly eclectic tour: When I read George Steiner´s essay ´The idea Europe´ the first time, we were hiking in the Ardennes. It helped me orient myself then, towards using a PhD-format to write a book. In re-reading it recently, I found inspiration to think over some phenomena in my life anew. George Steiner speaks about what could be seen as typical for Europe. He mentions 5 points: (i) its coffee houses, (ii) its wander-distance format geography, (iii) its nomenclature of streets, (iv) the fact that it has a dual inheritance: Jeruzalem & Athens and (v) an eschatological awareness. Regarding i: I see our DBA-PhD class as an instance of a coffee house. Here we exchange ideas, invite one another into meaning, build one´s & one another´s character as a humanistic intellectual. I feel priviledged in various ways. This leads directly to a sense of joy, as well as of responsibility. To be able to think in a disciplined way to me is the next step in the development of consciousness ( happening to be experienced by us in a commonly constructed human format, but I think we limit it to that to our detriment ). Consciousness to me is of the essence. It relates directly to a quest for & experiencing of meaning, connectedness, growth to greater circles of compassion, dissolution of greed, anger and ignorance. I see this thinking as being in the footsteps and on the shoulders of the great humanistic thinkers. This next step will be transcended & included by other steps in our emerging history. But for now the next step is in line with Max Weber´s speech in Munich in 1918, called ´Wissenschaft als Beruf´ Regarding ii: the day before yesterday, we booked a bus trip to Northern Portugal, for a 3 week hike. This fits in with my hike, bike & sailing perspective of our planet in a geographical sense. This perspective makes me feel at home in Europe. Other continents, as I have experienced them, have much less of a human-scale geographical environment. This format is conducive to what I would like to call ´slow questions´. These are questions of an existential nature, which tend to stay unresolved to the extend that business is our guiding principle. Contemporary, globalized, commodified, market oriented life, endeavoring supposedly self-realizing activities, is at odds with this. As I see it, the major obstacle in resolving pressing contemporary problems stems from our uneasyness with these slow questions. Example: we followed the language frontier in Belgium for 4 years and experienced, in other domains than the mental, what this phenomenon amounts to. This lived, somewhat maniacal, experience I see as indisposable, when coming to terms with the problematic implications of sort-like phenomena. Regarding iii: yesterday I bought all works by Brahms, at a rediculously low price, at Kruidvat. I´m amazed by the capacity of the commercial domain to deliver so many goods, at such a low price ( externalization of costs opens a new line of thought, which I will not pursue here ). It enhances my feeling of living in abundance. Today I listened to Brahms´ ´Ein deutches Requiem´ and was reminded of the books on WW 1 & 2 I read during secundary school. These books constituted to me a significant life world and formed a stark opposition with school. The former dealt with issues of life and death, comraderie, meaning, absurdity: I was awestruck, compelled. Perhaps it was a form of being sensitive to the theme of Frankenstein, das Rheingold, Faust, Darth Vader: what happens when you do away with the interior domain; what happens when one´s sense of lack enactingly morphs & is morphed by some social aggregate. My school and many other direct surroundings made me feel inadequate, sad and mad at times. This situation lasted until I finished Law at 30. Some weeks ago there was a documentary named ´Speer und er´, dealing with the moral downfall of Albert Speer as gentleman nazi. This image reminded me of my youth fascination, particularly by its compressed format: on the one hand there is this young engineer, who stumbled upon and seized the opportunity to live his dreams: to realize grandiose constructions. On the other hand we see the ultimate technocrat, for whom the interior domain, more in particular suffering, was irrelevant. It leads me to a theme that has been with me for a long time: after the question ´to what extent are the differences between the bad guys and the good guys arbitrary, shifting per perspective, sliding per circumstance, gradual as a character trait, rather than binary´ how do we reduce suffering, which emanates from whatever position we find ourselves in ? In European street names I´m reminded of the grotesque, in that one street name points to moral catastrophies of WW1 & 2 and near by others to cultural icons. Regarding iv: Jeruzalem in Catholic format was dominantly present in large parts of Europe since the Roman Empire. Subjectivity didn´t play a pivotal role there. In the Germanic territories subjectivity was already embedded, when the Protestant reformation, with its emphasis on subjectivity, took hold there. This was a fertile soil for the Enlightenment to take root in. Athens stands for the current & dominant iteration of people asking questions about the world and the heavens. Europe ( and the US and other Western-oriented realms ) shows strong influences of both worlds. Regarding v: George Steiner uses the term ´Geschitsmüde´, indicating a sense of weariness regarding Europe´s intuition that it could some day collapse under the burden of its paradoxical succes and richness of its history. Both world wars ( GS: ´civil wars´ ) could be seen as summits of this intuition. This fatalistic intuition / stance easily feeds, as well as feeds on -our perception of- contemporary problems, which seem increasingly unsurmountable: poverty, global warming, soon sharply increasing oil prices, Christian- , Muslim- & market fundamentalism, international criminal networks, the Iron triangle, developing countries entering an industrial phase, information overload, etcetera. Here I would like to let the snake bite its tail and go back to point i: I see myself as a free and priviledged agent, in various ways an European, who can serve the two-unity of himself and the common good, in- as well as outside Europe. My concentric circle of compassion makes it logical, as well as surely not always easy, to choose to live for a theory. Plotinus and his contemporary protagonist Ken Wilber lead me.