As the title of this paper indicates, the study aims at evaluating the role of metaphysical concepts in traditional African life, and considering the value of an integrated life style in relation to the natural environment as contrasted to the artificial environment. Finally the paper looks at the possible contribution to the contemporary society (especially the Western industrialised society) which such concepts and way of life can provide. This is not a typical academic paper in that it is "researched" from existing written material. Its intention is more to look at different attitudes and lifestyles and to try to formulate original conclusions from the contrasts and similarities elucidated through the comparison. These conclusions also will be drawn from the trends and the physical, social and psychological results of these lifestyles and attitudes. From these conclusions will come suggestions of what from the traditional African world can be of value to contemporary society.

CHARACTERISTICS OF AFRICAN TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES

A common characteristic of traditional African societies is that they did not separate consciously the various aspects of life and social behavior into discrete compartments or treat them as possible areas of study or contemplation. All areas of life were seen and treated as part of an integrated whole which also included all nature. Thus aspects of religion are intertwined with aspects of culture; politics not only is mixed up with its sister economics but mingles freely with family structure and even relationship with ancestors. In a traditional African mind this does not lead to confusion, but shows how the African derives his ideas and way of life

from the integration that he sees in the diversity of nature around him. He does not feel that he is separate from nature around him, but feels so "integrated" in this diversity he does not stand aside to analyze and intellectualize nature. This does not mean that the African does not use his intelligence to deal with his environment, but that he uses this intelligence to play his role in the "ecology." This "intelligence" develops from his own integrated relationship with nature which is an "informing" process whereby his learning about nature is an internal process just as the child learns about its mother through a special relationship which is part of the child's life and growing up, so that by the time the baby is weaned it "knows" its mother emotionally, physically and lastly intellectually. This kind of knowledge is more complete than the intellectual knowledge so popular in contemporary society. The African's knowledge of nature was, therefore, integrated with his life and with his very identity. The life experience of one generation was added to the life experience of previous generations and was handed down to succeeding generations as "social wisdom" or as social structures and convention which later could later be modified by new experience.

What can be described as metaphysical concepts in traditional African thought derive from African cultural and social practice. From the self renewal and the natural cycles that Africans observed around them came not only the feeling, but the conclusion that man renews himself and that ancestors do not die out but are reborn in the young. This entailed belief in ancestral spirits and specific conduct towards them. As elders were at the top of the social ladder, so ancestral spirits were seen not only as super elders, but, being spirits, as close to the Gods. Thus, sacrifice to and worship of ancestral spirits naturally followed. Children born resembling dead relatives or forbearers reinforced belief in the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Children were thus not only loved, but held sacred as ancestors reborn; bearing children (or having them) was seen as a special blessing of the Gods. Conversely, miscarriage was seen as a curse and deliberate abortion was an abomination unknown.

The Gods--often one central God--were not just a belief, but a conviction in all African societies. This was at the center of African traditional metaphysical systems. It was arrived at not only by intuition and reason but also through their communion with nature and the society around, which not only implicitly believed in God but also "lived" this belief. If you live close to nature the integration and purposefulness of nature are things you take for granted. If nature was chaotic and disorganized it would prove impossible to predict its behavior; hence, one could not adapt to it. This truth is self-evident to those who live close to nature as opposed to those who live in artificial man-made surroundings. Living in what I would call "the natural state" (i.e., not so civilized as to find nature strange) one learns to "pray" to the spirits or spirit controlling nature for protection against unpredictable natural forces and calamities. Living in cities protected by man's science and reading about nature in books is how modern metropolitan man has progressively lost his integration with nature and the intuitive understanding of this great system. When dependent on science, one regards religion and metaphysics as mere academic curiosities, and subjects them and all life to the same rationale that guides science. One cannot comprehend that all things are not governed by and understood through a similar logic. In traditional African life the "logic" that guides or explains nature is felt and understood, but it is not a prima facie requirement for accepting an integrated life with nature. The question then is whether this integration with nature and the metaphysical intuitions arising from it are of any value to modern man?

THE WESTERN PROBLEMATIC

Modern man (in the first, second and progressively in the third world) is living an artificial life divorced from nature. We hear phrases like "man rediscovering nature" from western world media, this would not be the case if western man was in harmony with nature. Man who is educated through the system of Western civilization comes to metaphysical concepts through mental discovery processes such as mathematics, or through belief or faith in a religion. Faith does not come naturally to modern western man, it is a forced attitude inculcated by family habit and social pressure. This is because all other approaches to knowledge are through a scientific system of education with self evident materialistic concepts. Africans who have been integrated into this system live a dichotomous life of opposed cultures and values.

So long as the so called "Western" civilization was successful in most areas of human endeavor and in controlling the environment, large parts of the world embraced it warmly though it often disrupted their own way of life and always broke up any society's integrated systems of life and belief. But now western civilization has reached a crisis. Its technologies have created environmental hazards hitherto unknown to man and capable not only of destroying man but rendering our planet unfit for life. Even on a daily basis environmental pollution has to be fought to preserve threatened plant and animal species. The ideologies engendered by this civilization and those that support it emphasize individualism, consumerism and materialism. The "permissive" nature of societies which have emerged in the centers of western culture has stretched the moral and cultural fabrics of those nations to the breaking point. Let it suffice to mention that it is still a matter of shock to many in this world to learn that in certain societies homosexuality and abortion are permitted by law.

Individualism, materialism and consumerism emphasize the body at the expense not only of the mind, but of metaphysics. The physical world is glamorized in an artificial and synthetic way since it is divorced from nature. Food, clothing, shelter and medicine are all ready-made, packaged and waiting for the consumer. Knowledge and religion are also similarly "packaged" and made easy to consume by "sweeteners" and "preservatives". If you have enough money you can buy any amount of this "manufactured" stuff till both your mind and body are obese, lazy and sick of it. This has the effect also of stunting one's spirit and the growth of one's non-physical attributes. This makes it difficult, therefore, to perceive any non physical entities or even to entertain metaphysical concepts. This gross materialism cannot of necessity and by persuasion admit of "any" god except science which can preserve and maintain it till the inevitable end.

My description of Western materialism may sound exaggerated till one realizes that computers can now be "trusted" to compose music and other forms of creative art. Since the contribution of the human spirit to these activities is considered doubtful, a good brain (e.g. a computer) is all that is needed. Marriage guidance bureaus use computers to match partners since love is considered a purely biological phenomenon. Religious fanaticism (e.g., Islamic fundamentalism) is now relegated to technologically underdeveloped societies which are growing suspicious of western materialism. Gone are the days of the crusades which are now a matter of intellectual curiosity. The modern western mind can only "crusade" in politics and economics, while religion is regarded as a matter for priests and such specialists. You do not mention religion or God in "polite" society especially at mealtimes. This crusading spirit in politics and economics has found expression at national level. Spurred on by the challenge of Marxism, it has led to wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Afghanistan and Angola. The pawns in this game of power are the nationals of those countries settling a power struggle between the two opposed mamoths of materialism: the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.

The surrender to materialism by the western world has not gone unchallenged. Being the most sensitive, the young rebelled against their elders in the sixties (1960's) with movements like the "hippies" in America, the "flower children" in Britain and others in Europe. These openly denounced the materialistic values of their parents oriented toward "success" in the Western world. They challenged their empty religiosity as formalized and materialistic, and even turned to Hinduism and Buddhism in search of spiritual expression. This should have sounded the warning bell to the Western world, but few understood the implications of this revolt. The generation that rebelled has now joined the mainstream of the materialistic world for the sake of survival. The only expression left in the 80's of this kind of spirit are the "Greens" and other environmentalists, who always are looked upon as the lunatic fringe because they interfere with money making.

Philosophy did attempt to revive the flagging spirit against the twentieth century onslaught of materialism spurred on by the scientific and industrial revolutions. Heidegger, following in the footsteps of Kierkegaard¹ tried to define human existence and purpose in terms of an essence which involved "mind" more than "body". In other words, the human person was not merely the product of the evolution of his body.² At the turn of the century Bradley³ had developed Hegelianism into a system that caused a polarity between the British Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the latter being the center of atomic materialism led by Bertrand Russell⁴ and later Ludwig Wittgenstein⁵ the single most influential thinker behind the logical positivists. The clash between the metaphysicians of the school of Hegel and Heidegger and the materialists of the Vienna the circle⁶ and the Cambridge variety was settled by historical and social circumstances in favor of the latter. Science and Technology were achieving revolutionary progress everywhere, normal human cupidity gave science an omnipotent and omniscient future, and this cupidity penetrated to philosophy. In many if not most European and American Universities metaphysics and ethics went out of fashion, and philosophy became a "science" of language, a kind of philosophy little divorced from linguistics. So influential was this movement that even a number of post-war existentialists, such as Jean Paul Sartre,⁷ were materialists and Marxist, which goes to show that very few philosophers, if any, can rise above the predominant influences of their time and place.

AN AFRICAN RESPONSE

But neither Hinduism, nor existential materialism, nor even Marxism can solve the crisis in Western civilization. In African terms this is the crisis of the person who has broken away from his parents, his society and his roots and is living a new life supported by artificial systems in a cultural and metaphysical vacuum. Such a person cannot hold the Gods or God as sacred since he does not see his parents, society and ancestors as so sacred. In ancient Greek terms he has committed "hubris," which always led to tragedy.⁹ In both ancient Greek and African terms the God or Gods gave such a person enough rope to hang himself. Traditional European and African societies coincide in this view. The African Heritage would view modern "Western" or "Westernized" man as a rebel against nature and God, someone who inevitably is being taught a lesson. He has created toys that can destroy him and, like a forest fire started by a child, are out of control. Now, paradoxically he is appealing to his parents, to every passerby and even to God; science, the tool he turned into a god, has turned traitor. Western-oriented man has to learn some humility, seek himself once again, and find his place in a natural ecology of body, mind and spirit.

The approach of African traditional society to the problem was not to seek to "control" or "manipulate" nature, but how best to "integrate" into their system of life whatever new knowledge, discovery and invention they had come across. They (the Africans) would always discard whatever seriously disrupted their social order or spiritual beliefs, for instinctively they recognized that their society was not yet ready to accept such a disruptive change. They would discourage any "inquiring mind" that would bring about such a disruption because they were afraid of seeking "power" over nature (they reserved this for God), and concentrated on how best to live within the system physically and spiritually. They knew the price of "hubris" from experience; always they expiated any acts that appeared to challenge the Gods with elaborate ceremony and sacrifice intended to prejudice popular opinion against such tendencies. Nobody was expected or even allowed to "play God" by trying to control the system; one was only to seek to understand how God wanted the system to run. Nobody sought to understand "how" God or the gods run the system or "why" the gods run it the way they did. This hierarchy of authority began in the home, was present in the society and was pursued in spiritual matters. You did not question the motives of your parents, the elders, and never those of God.

The assertions above may sound childish in a century when man has left his planet and can reach others and they may appear as a condemnation of science and technology; but his is not the case. All I am saying is that all development must be integrated. If man must take a big leap in technology, he must take a similar leap morally and spiritually or he will turn technology into a God and will only wake up when his own tool is about to destroy him. It is my contention that science has become a religion in the western world and technology a God. There are stirrings against it now, but environmentalists and other preservers of nature still look at the problem from a purely materialistic standpoint, their morality is an argument for self survival. There is little realization that this is the result of lopsided development and divorce from nature. Like physical development, spiritual and moral development must be nurtured, but it is dangerous for moral "infants" and spiritually malnourished "children" to handle advanced technology whose capacity can reach the moon or carry out genetic engineering. The one area where this lopsided development is obvious is the capacity of the military arsenals of NATO and the Warsaw pact countries vis-a-vis. The number of quarrels currently going on in many parts of the world spurred on by rivalling alliances whose ideological quarrel is endemic. Man has not yet outgrown war as a means of settling disagreements, yet his capacity to destroy far exceeds what is necessary to destroy all life on earth. Man's moral and spiritual condition thus is far behind the requirements of a being so endowed with powers of destruction. It is the condition of a child holding in his hand a very dangerous weapon which should be retrieved from him till he is old enough to use it wisely if at all.

Looking at man in the above light it is obvious to all that we must stop and reconsider. Man could not have reached such an impasse unless at a certain stage he went wrong in his development. It has become the characteristic of "Western" civilization to worship science and machinery ever since the industrial revolution. Philosophy followed suit. The movement started by empiricists like David Hume¹⁰ culminated in the twentieth century assertions of Wittgenstein¹¹ and other linguistic analysts that metaphysics and ethics not only were not philosophy, but that they were palpable nonsense.¹² This kind of "hubris" was not limited to philosophy, but was reflected in every aspect of life. The popularist political philosophy that every budding revolutionary "ate up" was dialectical materialism, a denial of "soul" in man. Popular art in cinema, theater and elsewhere swung to sex and violence; popular music spoke of physical passion. Beauty became an industry as did games of skill and those of violence. Except for the abolition of slavery Western Europe did not seem to have advanced morally from the days of the ancient Roman Empire. Such materialism is a sign not only of spiritual and moral decadence but of underdevelopment.

I submit that the foregoing problems are all the result of a kind of "hubris." Man was so happy with the discovery of his new "toy" technology that he concentrated all his energies on its byproducts and forgot the serious things in play. Western man organized his society to suit technology or to let technology organize his life and his society. He trusted to scientific methods for understanding life and God, and when he could not he abandoned God and "life" as the African understands it. When you commit "hubris" the Gods react by "blinding" you to your acts till it is too late.¹³ It is the job of Africa now to lift this veil of blindness before it is too late for the whole world. It is the turn of Africa to play missionary to Europe, America and even Asia. African man is not yet entirely divorced from his environment; he knows nature not just with his head but with his body and spirit. One thing Western man must learn from the African is that mental analyses and generalizations must come last rather than first in our knowledge of anything, we must first live and tangle with that thing. In other words there are other types of "knowledge" apart from the mental type, this comes from communing with nature as our physical and spiritual "senses" get attuned to that which we are communing. This experience defies easy mental analysis, and one must learn to accept at times what may not be explained by science.

Simple faith--and at times blind humble faith--is good to foster among the young and not so young members of society in order to preserve the hard earned values which uphold that society. African society encourages this. In contrast, the young in Western society are free to inquire into any subject, there are no forbidden subjects; and the scientific inquiring mind is encouraged. This leads to a society dominated by science. Since the elders tend to give children a right to question them and even to disobey them "hubris" comes naturally. In Africa we know that a child who does not obey his parents will not worship God, so we insist that he first must hold his parents sacred, respect the elders and obey them, then he will hold God sacred. Respect must be cultivated, it does not grow on the soil of challenge and dispute. Nature too deserves some respect, that is why at times certain groves and trees were held sacred, often for the purpose of teaching society not to misuse nature out of disrespect. People learned to associate nature with God, and not to divorce it from his law and his interests. This results in a general respect for nature and also for things in nature one did not understand. This attitude is opposite to that of manipulating nature to the extent of releasing forces one cannot control.

The metaphysical "concept" of God per se is not a concept in Africa, but for ages it has been a living reality. The metaphysical world is introduced to the child as part of daily life in Africa and, like the physical world, the metaphysical world must be lived in to be fully understood and not simply studied as an abstract hypothetical possibility. The African "lives" the metaphysical as well as the physical life, his religion is not divorced from his culture or his philosophy of life. In many parts of Uganda one still finds the ancestral spirits' huts close to the homesteads, and people still take there beer and food for the ancestors. Only the Westernized elite scoff at this.

CONCLUSION

I am not advocating the blind copying of African culture by the Western and Asiatic worlds. What I am advocating is a more sensitive, receptive and humbler approach to nature. We must all be willing to admit that the technological development of Western man has created a lopsidedness in the whole world of man which we must strive to correct because technology has spread. It is difficult to correct a bend in an old tree, but it can be done with the young and tender saplings. However, the old trees must acknowledge that they are bent before we can get their cooperation in helping to straighten out the young. The "straight" sticks to which the white young saplings can be tied (so as to grow straight) exist in Africa; even these are no longer as straight as one would have wished, but they are some of the few left in the world. This symbolism in an attempt to illustrate the depth of the problem. Those Africans who are still integrated with nature in their lives are so because of the way they have been brought up and the seclusion of their lives from the influence of materialistic cultures. If certain aspects of their integrated lifestyles are to be "tried out" in the West it can work only on the young whose psyche is still sensitive and receptive to lasting influences. In order to be lasting an environment sympathetic to such influences must be created, or else the unsympathetic atmosphere of flagrant materialism and skepticism would wipe out these influences from the psyche.

The change required in the Western world would be too fundamental and drastic for it to be willingly accepted. The sort of change that would alter the outlook of the adults sufficiently for them to accept a different and revolutionary system of upbringing for their young could only be dictated by a catastrophe of no small magnitude. However, the condition of imminent danger to life which brings about endless "arms reduction" talks (which only scratch the surface when they do achieve reductions) and the increasing environmental concern are signs that if the Western world could recognize the root cause of their problem they may be willing to do something about it.

Makerene University

Kampala

1. Soren Kierkegaard, "Fear And Trembling" and "Sickness Unto Death."

2. Martin Heidegger, Being And Time.

3. F.H. Bradley, Appearance And Reality.

4. Bertrand Russell, "The Analysis of Mind;" "The Problems of Philosophy."

5. Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; Philosophical Investigations."

6. Ernst Mach, The Analysis of Sensations; Moritz Schlick, Positivism and Reality.

7. Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism; Critique of Dialectical Reason.

8. Euripides, The Bacchae.

9. F. Kitto, The Greeks.

10. David Hume, Inquiry Into Human Understanding.

11. Euripides.

12. Ludwig Wittgenstein.

13. Euripides.