Individual, society, effective ethics
I would argue that the creation of the individual is intimately related to Christianity. Julian Jaynes though that early civilised man had no self consciousness at all. While not going as far as him, it is probable that ancient man was not as individually conscious as modern man, and that self consciousness became more prominent during the course of the first millenium BC. Christianity responded to the process of individuation which other older faiths did not satisfy. Thus guilt replaces shame as the psychological means of ethical discipline.
Self consciousness is socially adaptive, but painful. There is a desire to retrogress from it and retreat into the collective, to get rid of the awful burden of responsibility. Two routes exist: the introspective retreat into the collective unconscious (India's way: the individual ego is an illusion) and collective consciousness (ecstatic merger with the tribe: the ME/Western way). The dangers of both are obvious, from the narcissistic hippie at one end to the crusader/jihadi/fascist at the other. If we steer between and learn to live with the pain of the indiviudal consciousness, then arises the issue of its relation to society: indeed the danger is atomisation, "there is no such thing as society" as Mrs Thatcher once notoriously said.
Most individualistic post -protestants seem to have a social contract at the back of their minds, even if it is unconscious. All flows from the individual, who delegates powers to the state for functions which are inevitably collective. This tends to the political right, but you can even have a left wing version if you like (John Rawls). Very sweet and 17C, but not how things actually work. "No man is an island", the individual consciousness is a social construct (largely through language, thank you Wittgenstein) and if individuation was a late process - then society largely precedes the individual. Such as statement is neither Marxist nor Buddhist - the individual exists all right, and has autonomy, but only as part of the whole.
It is no use having the most wonderful ethics in the world if they cannot be applied. Otherwise they become like laws passed in the Italian parliament - statements of moral intent, but with no real intention of putting them into practice.
In terms of social ethical effectiveness, religion has very little to do with it. Look at Holy Russia, even before the revolution. Tsar Nicholas I said in the 1850s that he could rule the country if only he could find one honest man to assist him: clearly he could not. The Western polity has been the most successful in the past millenium, because it combined individual creativity with Christian roots with the ethical effectiveness of rule based on Athens, Rome and Germanic feudalism. The latter is often underrated, but was a key influence on building social trust: everyone had both rights and obligations, even serfs and aristocrats, something quite absent in somewhere like Russia. You want "Judeo-Christian" without Athens? then go to Russia or Latin America, not 17C Massachussetts or 21C Bible Belt. The second most successful polity has been Confucian states, where not only the practice but even the underlying ethics are humanistic.
Where religion does come into its own is to provide motivation to meet ethical goals, for men to stretch themselves. China managed that in a different way, by providing private (therapeutic) religion to complement the ethical state.
Evangelical Xtianity may be good at socialising those where there is no effective social trust, in the "Global South" so it helps to build it - but a faith whose beliefs are so at variance with the other needs of the modern world? Over half of all Americans believe the world was created 6000 years ago, you cannot long sustain a scientific civilisation that way. The alternative (which applies even in the USA) is the ethical state with private therapeutic faith. We need a Christian Zen, one that recognises the individual, in his place, without denying it.
Self consciousness is socially adaptive, but painful. There is a desire to retrogress from it and retreat into the collective, to get rid of the awful burden of responsibility. Two routes exist: the introspective retreat into the collective unconscious (India's way: the individual ego is an illusion) and collective consciousness (ecstatic merger with the tribe: the ME/Western way). The dangers of both are obvious, from the narcissistic hippie at one end to the crusader/jihadi/fascist at the other. If we steer between and learn to live with the pain of the indiviudal consciousness, then arises the issue of its relation to society: indeed the danger is atomisation, "there is no such thing as society" as Mrs Thatcher once notoriously said.
Most individualistic post -protestants seem to have a social contract at the back of their minds, even if it is unconscious. All flows from the individual, who delegates powers to the state for functions which are inevitably collective. This tends to the political right, but you can even have a left wing version if you like (John Rawls). Very sweet and 17C, but not how things actually work. "No man is an island", the individual consciousness is a social construct (largely through language, thank you Wittgenstein) and if individuation was a late process - then society largely precedes the individual. Such as statement is neither Marxist nor Buddhist - the individual exists all right, and has autonomy, but only as part of the whole.
It is no use having the most wonderful ethics in the world if they cannot be applied. Otherwise they become like laws passed in the Italian parliament - statements of moral intent, but with no real intention of putting them into practice.
In terms of social ethical effectiveness, religion has very little to do with it. Look at Holy Russia, even before the revolution. Tsar Nicholas I said in the 1850s that he could rule the country if only he could find one honest man to assist him: clearly he could not. The Western polity has been the most successful in the past millenium, because it combined individual creativity with Christian roots with the ethical effectiveness of rule based on Athens, Rome and Germanic feudalism. The latter is often underrated, but was a key influence on building social trust: everyone had both rights and obligations, even serfs and aristocrats, something quite absent in somewhere like Russia. You want "Judeo-Christian" without Athens? then go to Russia or Latin America, not 17C Massachussetts or 21C Bible Belt. The second most successful polity has been Confucian states, where not only the practice but even the underlying ethics are humanistic.
Where religion does come into its own is to provide motivation to meet ethical goals, for men to stretch themselves. China managed that in a different way, by providing private (therapeutic) religion to complement the ethical state.
Evangelical Xtianity may be good at socialising those where there is no effective social trust, in the "Global South" so it helps to build it - but a faith whose beliefs are so at variance with the other needs of the modern world? Over half of all Americans believe the world was created 6000 years ago, you cannot long sustain a scientific civilisation that way. The alternative (which applies even in the USA) is the ethical state with private therapeutic faith. We need a Christian Zen, one that recognises the individual, in his place, without denying it.
posted by Total Issues at 1:46 pm
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