Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Futuro Antico. Interview with Richard Tarnas
14 nov 2023
Marco Bassan
Strengthening our capacity for hope, not as a passive optimistic attitude, but rather as a courageous metaphysical act that helps to sow the future and shape its flourishing. This is how American historian Richard Tarnas envisions the future.
What are your inspirational references in art?
If you’re asking me which works of art have inspired me the most over the years, I would struggle to include even a small fraction of them in one response. In music, I could mention the adagio movement from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5("The Emperor") as particularly moving. As well as many of Puccini's beautiful arias. But also Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O'Connor, the album American Beauty by the Grateful Dead, or Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis. In literature, I could mention War and Peace by Tolstoy, The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, Emma by Jane Austen, and the works of Shakespeare. For cinema, many films by Ingmar Bergman come to mind, such as Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries) and The Seventh Seal, as well as films by Fellini and Truffaut. But these references are just the tip of the iceberg. Our artistic heritage contains endless treasures.
Which project represents you the most? Can you tell us about its genesis?
The project that represents me the most is the one I am working on now, which builds upon the work I’ve been doing throughout my life and is particularly connected to the conclusion of my first book, The Passion of the Western Mind. The book I am currently writing reflects on what I have learned in the thirty years since the publication of that book, during which I have taught and learned a great deal as a professor of philosophy and cultural history. This project focuses on trying to better understand the uniqueness of our historical moment and its relationship to planetary evolution, analyzing what has shaped it in the past and what is at stake in the present.
What importance does Genius Loci have for you in your work?
Each of my books has been profoundly influenced by the spirit of the place where I wrote it, namely the coast of California. The majestic redwoods, the vast Pacific Ocean, the spectacular mountain ranges and their rivers, as well as the variety of flora and fauna that live alongside us human inhabitants. I also believe that we are influenced by the ancestors who once lived where we now live, and who were members of the communities in which we and our work are immersed and nourished. All of this inspires me, both consciously and unconsciously.
How important is the past for imagining and building the future?
This question touches the core of my beliefs as a scholar and writer: I deeply believe that we cannot create a viable path toward the future without an understanding of history. As historian Daniel Boorstin once said, “Trying to plan for the future without knowing the past is like planting cut flowers.” One of the important benefits we gain from better understanding the past is discovering the useful lessons and spiritual/moral sources that were known in ancient times but with which the modern era has lost connection. The future we imagine and build will be better if we reintegrate the wisdom of past eras into our modern knowledge, in a broader creative synthesis.
What advice would you give to a young person who wants to pursue your path?
Pay attention to what brings you creative joy and to the meaning it holds within you to stay true to your individual aspirations. If you feel inspired to be a writer or a teacher, is it because you want to be known as “a writer” or “a teacher”? Or is it because, along your journey, you’ve discovered something valuable to communicate to others, something to write or teach that could help others in the future?
In an era defined by post-truth, does the concept of the sacred still hold importance and strength?
Indeed, the concept of the sacred still holds a very important role in our time.
It is when we touch the sacred that we feel most alive and connected to the deep foundations of reality. Whether I am an astronomer in awe of the evolving cosmos, an inner explorer during an ayahuasca ceremony, or an artist sensing the creative power of inspiration while composing music or writing a poem.
Collectively, our society, modern civilization, has a deep need to reconnect with the sacred in multiple ways—in our inner depths, in others, in the natural world, and in the cosmos. In our time, many seekers are discovering new and ancient ways to access the sacred and to live more meaningful lives.
How do you imagine the future? Could you give us three ideas that you think will guide the coming years?
If we are fortunate, humanity will undergo a profound transformation in its relationship with the rest of the Earth's community, ceasing to view the non-human world as nothing more than objects to be exploited for our needs. This will require a powerful initiatory experience that will lead to the death of our old identities and worldviews, and potentially to a rebirth into a new participatory relationship with the Earth. The wealthy and powerful of the world must recognize that they are part of a larger community of life and understand that accumulating vast wealth and power while relentlessly exploiting the Earth and oppressing or impoverishing others is a path to self-destruction.
And how do we proceed from there?
In our postmodern era, we will need to cultivate certain capacities: appreciating the complexity of life and striving to deepen our understanding of that complexity; expanding our capacity to imagine; accepting uncertainty and the state of not knowing as we face the underlying mystery of life; and strengthening our capacity for hope, not as a passive optimistic attitude, but rather as a courageous metaphysical act that helps to sow the future and shape its flourishing.