i read this with interest as had been reading David Brook’s The Second Mountain where he observes, “ People who are left naked and alone by radical individualism do what their genes and the ancient history of their species tell them to do. They revert to tribe. Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism.”
He goes further to elaborate, but makes a good argument that seems to put the blame of our divided society and the “us vs. them” mentality on our individualistic society. Which may be a negative side of post-modernism magnified by our use of digital media and loss of community.
By the way, this is but a point he makes in describing the valley before the Second Mountain, which as I understand it is the joy of service in community and interdependence. So far a good book, with lots of pithy quotes from others though history,.
I would add that while we are individuals, we are by nature social creatures. The problem, like with a tribe, when there is unresolved conflict, it will tear the relationship apart. Pretending the conflict doesn’t exist won’t make it go away. And bringing it out in the open won’t guarantee resolution. Jesus taught about this.
I see the context, and it’s not good. What makes it so bad is it is so subtly wrong, and yet monumental at that. C.S. Lewis said something about how lies are never entirely false. And the best ones truly hide their deceit in a glorious cloth.
I picked up this quote from the New Yorker article, “Jesus is the person who shows us what giving yourself away looks like.” If that’s where it ends, like my professor of legal philosophy handing me Geza Vermes book and saying Jesus got it right with the chief commandment, which is to love your neighbor… that mountain is straight from the pit of hell. Imagine that. Even I’m beside myself in saying it. But it’s true.
Phil, I haven’t read Brooks’s book yet, but have heard him speak on the topic. I think the Individualism you brought up from his book is something different from what I mean, though.
As individuals, each with a unique self, Christians see ourselves as individually in relationship with God but also corporately so as the church. This is supported throughout the Bible, in the OT with individual (as well as corporate) responsibility to keep the law and individual (as well as corporate) punishments, in the NT we see Jesus singling out individuals, promising a single man assurance of paradise, new individual names, etc. Yet all the while those individuals are part of a larger community: the people of God, Israel, the church, the body of Christ. Separate individuals, who comprise a whole–as the elementary kids learned in library time yesterday, a mixture, rather than a solution.
Both aspects, corporate and individual, are essential and must be valued as such.
Maybe Brooks is showing what happens when only one part is valued and the cultural sickness that stems from that.
In writing what you quoted from me, I wanted to emphasize that for Christians much of our hope for an afterlife involves maintaining our individual selves, but finally in right relationship with God as well as others. We do not understand ourselves as melding in some way with everyone or thing else as part of a solution.
Thanks
Tough to see the context without reading the book, or at least that chapter, but will try to add a little more to explain. The article linked is interesting, but is somewhat of a strawman, not really addressing the idea his addressed in his statemant. To fill it out a little, he goes on to say a few paragraphs later
" People who are experiencing existential dread slip into crisis mode: “I’m in danger! I’m threatened, I must strike back.” Their evolutionary response is self-protection, so they fall back on ancient instincts for how to respond to a threat: us vs. them,. Tribalists seek out easy categories in which some people are good and others are bad. They seek out certainty to coquer their feelings of unbearable doubt…"
I think we see some of that not only in politics but in the cultural wars waged in the science-faith setting.
Gotta go Christmas shopping, so will check back later.
I’m carefully stepping into Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling (Amazon.com). The translator’s introduction to this edition provides an excellent prep for reading Kierkegaard’s text itself. Already in the introduction the book is convicting.
Fear and Trembling is a difficult and disturbing book. It is difficult owing to the complexity of the concepts it develops…
On the other hand, the disturbing quality of the book cannot be dispelled by studiously examining the argument it contains, because Fear and Trembling is designed to provoke the reader into considering what is actually meant by the word “faith,” and whether those who proclaim themselves “believers” are in reality anything more than good citizens of the state, nice people with whom one feels comfortable. These nice believers pride themselves on also being up-to-date, on their supposed lack of complacency, and thus on their willingness to “doubt everything.” In de silentio ’s view, these moderns believe themselves to be followers of Descartes, whose statement about doubting everything they have seriously misconstrued, yet nonetheless as shareholders in “Christendom,” they also claim to venerate Abraham. The question is: What, if anything, do these nice, modern people, who doubt everything, have in common with Abraham, who “had faith and did not doubt”? Thus, in addition to everything else, Fear and Trembling is a polemical book, directed against what Kierkegaard viewed as the self-satisfaction of his times and the complacency of Christendom.ading this book.
Kirmmse, Bruce H. Translator’s Introduction. Fear and Trembling, by Søren Kierkegaard, Liverlight Publishing Corporation, 2021, pp. xiii-xiv.
What is our faith about? How cheaply did we acquire it? seem to be the questions of S.K.'s focus in this disturbing book.
I usually don’t quote Christian themes, not wanting to “faith bomb,” but I hope this is ok. Has anyone read “Cry, the Beloved Country”? It’s been a few years for me. Here’s a quote that struck me.
“ — This world is full of trouble, umfundisi.
— Who knows it better?
— Yet you believe?
Kumalo looked at him under the light of the lamp. I believe, he said, but I have learned that it is a secret. Pain and suffering, they are a secret. Kindness and love, they are a secret. But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering. There is my wife, and you, my friend, and these people who welcomed me, and the child who is so eager to be with us here in Ndotsheni – so in my suffering I can believe.
— I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi. For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For he knew that there is no life without suffering.
Kumalo looked at his friend with joy. You are a preacher, he said.”
― Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country
I welcome anything you feel prompted to share, Randy. I’m actually pro-faith, in favor of taking steps forward in hope and trust where we ourselves can’t foresee how each succeeding step can be safely trod. We must do all we can to be responsible for those who depend on us and ourselves. But beyond certainty there is always hope that what is greater may bolster and strengthen and help us to choose wisely beyond our knowing.
thanks. I actually don’t think this has to be so much faith, as a parable–that even those we learn the most from did not shirk from pain, but met it with love. I marvel at that in those who suffer so much as especially the Africans under apartheid. I appreciate your patience!
Faith bomb away, as with suffering or specifically martyrdom, would God give us the wisdom to know and the courage to do. Paul had himself lowered from a window in a basket to escape persecution. So suffering need not be something we bring upon ourself.
I think that it is true, @heymike3 , that we are wise to avoid needless suffering–good point. I think that we also would agree that if there’s a point to enduring it, surviving with kindness vanquishes the source, to an extent. Well put.
Here are 2 more quotes that make me mind that; thanks for the thoughts.
“Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that’s the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing. Nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him if he gives too much.”
“I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men, desiring neither power nor money, but desiring only the good for their country, come together to work for it.
I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating.”
I love the poetic expression and longing for a better day. I shall have to look up this book and hopefully find an audio recording.
There is a place for kindness and also causing offense, as Jesus taught with turning the other cheek. But often I confuse the giving of offense, for an offense, with vengeance.