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Whatever Happened to Personal Responsibility
There is an old adage which states that you do not know how big a tree is until you try and cut it down. Today, as cultural forces slowly destroy it, we are beginning to understand that the same thing can be said about personal responsibility.
Society no longer believes that people ought to bear their suffering with dignity and grace. Rather, it now believes that the problems of the individual ought to be made the problems of the community. Individual problems are no longer the consequence of individual decisions, but come as the result of race, gender, class, and so forth.
The result of this move towards collective responsibility has been the invention of victim culture. According to this culture, non-whites are the victims of racism and white privilege, women are the victims of the patriarchy, homosexuals are the victims of a heteronormative society.
The 20th century is a perfect example of what happens when responsibility is taken from the hands of the individual and placed in the hands of the mob. The twin evils of communism and Nazism – which blamed the problems of the individual on economic and racial factors, respectively – led to the deaths of tens of millions of people.
Furthermore, such ideologies led otherwise decent individuals to commit acts of unspeakable violence. Whilst observing the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a former SS soldier who had been one of the architects of the Holocaust, the writer, Hannah Arendt was struck by the “banality of evil” that had characterised German war atrocities. Arendt noted that the men who conspired to commit genocide were not raving lunatics foaming at the mouth, but rather dull individuals inspired to commit evil due to a sense of duty to a toxic and corrupt ideology.
The Bolsheviks taught the Russian people that their misfortune had been caused by the wealthy. And that the wealth was gained through theft and exploitation. Likewise, the Nazis convinced the German people that their problems could be blamed on the Jews. It is not difficult to see how this philosophy led, step by step, to the gulags and the concentration camps.
The same thing is happening today. The only difference is that those who play it have become more sophisticated. Today people are encouraged to identify with identity groups ranked by so-called social privilege. Then they are taught to despise those with more social privilege than them.
Under this philosophy, crime is not caused by the actions of the individual, but by social forces like poverty, racism, and upbringing. Advocates claim that women should not be forced to take responsibility for their sexual behaviour by allowing them to essentially murder their unborn children. Sexually transmitted diseases like HIV is caused by homophobia rather than immoral and socially irresponsible behaviour. And alcoholism and drug addiction are treated as a disease rather than a behaviour the addict is supposed to take responsibility for. The list is endless.
Personal responsibility helps us take control of our lives. It means that the individual can take a certain amount of control over his own life even when the obstacles he is facing seem insurmountable.
No one, least of all me, is going to argue that individuals don’t face hardships that are not their fault. What I am going to argue, however, is that other people will respect you more if you take responsibility for your problems, especially if those problems are not your fault. Charity for aids sufferers, the impoverished, or reformed criminals is all perfectly acceptable. But we only make their plight worse by taking their personal responsibility from them.
Responsibility justifies a person’s life and helps them find meaning in their suffering. Central to the Christian faith is the idea that individuals are duty bound to bear their suffering with dignity and grace and to struggle towards being a good person. To force a man to take responsibility for himself is to treat him as one of God’s creations.
You cannot be free if other people have to take responsibility for your decisions. When you take responsibility from the hands of the individual you tarnish his soul and steal his freedom.
Freedom from responsibility is slavery, not freedom. Freedom is the ability to make decisions according to the dictates of own’s own conscience and live with the consequences of that decision. Freedom means having the choice to engage in the kind immoral behaviour that leads to an unwanted pregnancy or AIDS. What it does not do is absolve you from responsibility for those actions. Slavery disguised as kindness and compassion is still slavery.
A Man For All Seasons
It is a rare occurrence to see a film that is so memorable that it implants itself on the human psyche. A film that contains such a captivating story, compelling characters, and profound themes occurs so rarely it becomes etched into our collective unconscious. A Man for All Seasons is one of those films.
Set in Tudor England during the reign of King Henry VIII (1491 – 1547), A Man for All Seasons tells the story of Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon (1485 – 1536), the birth of the Church of England, and the man who stood opposed to it.
During the 1530s, King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church, passed the Act of Succession (which declared Princess Mary (1516 – 1558), the King’s daughter with Catherine, illegitimate) and the Act of Supremacy (which gave Henry supreme command over the Church in England), and made himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
In A Man for All Seasons, Henry asks Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535) to disregard his own principles and express his approval of the King’s desire to divorce his wife and establish an English Church separate from Rome. Henry believes that More’s support will legitimise his actions because More is a man known for his moral integrity. Initially, Henry uses friendship and dodgy logic to convince his friend. It fails, and the so-called “defender of the faith” tries using religious arguments to justify his adultery. When this fails, he merely resorts to threats. Again, More refuses to endorse Henry’s actions.
A Man for All Seasons is really about the relationship between the law (representing the majesty of the state) and individual consciousness. In the film, Sir Thomas More is depicted as a man with an almost religious reverence for the law because he sees it as the only barrier between an ordered society and anarchy. In one scene, when William Roper the Younger (1496 – 1578) tells him he would gladly lay waste to every law in order to get at the devil, More replies that he would “give the devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.”
More’s reverence goes far beyond mere man-made law, however. He also shows a deep reverence for the laws of God, as well. After being sentenced to death, More finally breaks his silence and refers to the Act of Succession, which required people to recognise Henry’s supremacy in the Church and his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, as “directly repugnant to the law of God and His Holy Church, the Supreme Government of which no temporal person may be any law presume to take upon him.” More argues that the authority to enforce the law of God was granted to Saint Peter by Christ himself and remained the prerogative of the Bishop of Rome.
Furthermore, More argues that the Catholic Church had been guaranteed immunity from interference in both the King’s coronation oath and in Magna Carta. In his coronation oath, Henry had promised to “preserve to God and Holy Church, and to the people and clergy, entire peace and concord before God.” Similarly, the Magna Carta stated that the English people had “granted to God, and by this present charter confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired.”
The central problem of the film is that the legal and political system in England is incapable of allowing More to hold a contradictory, private opinion. Even before he is appointed Chancellor, More expresses no desire to get involved with the debate surrounding the King’s marriage. He will not, however, swear an oath accepting the King’s marriage or his position as the head of the Church of England. More believes that it is the Pope who is the head of the Church, not the King, and he is perfectly willing to sacrifice his wealth, family, position, freedom, and, ultimately, his life to retain his integrity.
The relationship between the law and an individual’s conscience is an important one. What A Man for All Seasons illustrates is just how important this relationship is, and what happens when this relationship is violated. Modern proponents of social justice, identity politics, and political correctness would do well to watch A Man for All Seasons.
IN DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
In 2017, the online video subscription service, Hulu, embarked on the production of Margaret Atwood’s (1939 – ) 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. The story is set in the fictional, totalitarian state of Gilead: a society run by fundamentalist Christians who overthrew the previous secular state and set up a theocracy in its wake. For years, influential thought leaders and other arbiters of popular opinion have espoused the opinion that broader society would greatly benefit from the abolition of Christianity. It is my belief that such an occurrence would have precisely the opposite effect.
No group has criticised Christianity more than the New Atheists. Frequently deriding it as nothing more than “science for stupid people”, prominent New Atheists have ridiculed Christianity and dismissed its positive effects. Atheists and anti-Christians turn Christianity into a straw man by reducing it down to his most basic elements (they are helped, unfortunately, by those fundamentalist Christians who still assert that the earth is literally six-thousand years old). They then use this straw man to discredit the idea of faith. The philosopher, Sam Harris (1967 – ) argued in his book, The End of Faith that religious belief constituted a mental illness. More alarmingly, the British Scientist, Richard Dawkins (1941 – ) took things one step further by claiming that religious instruction constituted a form of child abuse.
The basis for much of Christianity’s negative portrayal finds its roots in the philosophies of the political left. A central tenet of the left-wing worldview is an adherence to secularism, which appears set to replace Christianity as the prevailing cultural belief system. (This is not to be confused with atheism, which denies the existence of a creator). On the one hand, secularism promotes both religious liberty and the separation of church and state (both of which are good things). On the other hand, however, proponents of secularism reject the knowledge and wisdom religious institutions can impart on the world. In a secular society, God can be believed to exist, but not in any sort of a productive way. God is something to be confined the private home or the sanctuary of one’s local Church. God is something to be worshipped behind closed doors where no one can see you.
Of course, anti-Christian rhetoric has been a facet of popular culture since the 1960s. Today, finding a positively-portrayed devout Christian family is about as likely as finding a virgin in the maternity ward. Christians are routinely depicted as stupid, backwards, hateful, and extreme. By contrast, atheists are routinely depicted as witty, intelligent, and tolerant. In short, Atheism is deemed as good and Christianity is deemed as bad. And, of course, this attitude has filled some with a kind of arrogant grandiosity. During an interview in 1966, John Lennon (1940 – 1980) opined: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity.”
The mainstream media rarely discusses the persecution of Christians. Indeed, prejudice and discrimination against Christianity is treated with a type of permissiveness that prejudice and discrimination against other religions, Islam being a primary example, is not.
Christians are estimated to be the victims of four out of five discriminatory acts around the world, and face persecutions in one-hundred-and-thirty-nine countries. Churches have been firebombed in Nigeria. North Koreans caught with Bibles are summarily shot. In Egypt, Coptic Christians have faced mob violence, forced removals, and, in the wake of the Arab spring, the abduction of their females who are forced to marry Muslim men.
In China, Christian villagers were instructed to remove pictures of Christ, the Crucifix, and Gospel passages by Communist Party officials who wished to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party.” According to the South China Morning Post, the purpose behind the drive was the alleviation of poverty. The Chinese Communist Party believed that it was religious faith that was responsible for poverty in the region and wanted the villagers to look to their political leaders for help, rather than a saviour. (Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Chinese Communist Party looked at their own evil and ineffective political ideology as the true cause of poverty in their country rather than blaming it on religion?). As a result, around six-hundred people in China’s Yugan county – where about ten percent of the population is Christian – removed Christian symbology from their living rooms.
Popular culture and thought in the West has attempted, with a great deal of success, to paint Christianity as stupid, backwards, dogmatic, and immoral. It is the presence religion that is to blame for holding the human race back. It is religion that is to blame for racism, sexism, and all manner of social injustices. It is religion that is the cause of all wars. So, on and so forth.
I strongly disagree with this argument. Indeed, it is my belief that the abolishment of Christianity from public life would have the effect of increasing intolerance and immorality. Christianity’s abolishment will have precisely this effect because it will abolish those metaphysical doctrines – divine judgement, universal and absolute morality, and the divinity of the human soul – that has made those things possible.
Christianity and Western Civilisation are inextricably linked. In the field of philosophy, virtually all Western thinkers have grappled with the concepts of God, faith, morality, and more. As the writer, Dinesh D’Souza (1961 – ) wrote in his book, What’s So Great About Christianity:
“Christianity is responsible for the way our society is organised and for the way we currently live. So extensive is Christian contribution to our laws, our economics, our politics, our art, our calendar, our holidays, and our moral and cultural priorities that J.M. Robers writes in Triumph of the West: ‘We could none one of us today be what we are if a handful of Jews nearly two thousand years ago had not believed that they had known a great teacher, seen him crucified, died, and buried, and then rise again’.”
The primary contribution of Christianity to Western civilisation has been to act as a stabilising force, providing society with an overarching metaphysical structure as well as rules and guidelines that act as a moral foundation. This shared metaphysical structure and moral foundation, combined with traditions and cultural customs, has the effect of bringing a country, a township, even a school or parish, together.
When Christianity lost its supremacy in society it was replaced by smaller, less transcendent and more ideological, belief systems. Where people had once been unified by a common belief, they have now become more divided along ideological lines. Religious belief has not been replaced by rationalism or logic, as the New Atheists supposed. Rather, people have found outlets for their need to believe in other places: social activism, political ideologies, and so forth.
The most prevalent contribution that Christianity has made to the Western world comes under the guise of human rights. Stories like The Parable of the Good Samaritan have had a remarkable influence on its conception. Human rights stem, in part, from the belief that human beings were created in the image of God and hold a divine place in the cosmos. Christianity has played a positive role in ending numerous brutal and archaic practices, including slavery, human sacrifice, polygamy, and infanticide. Furthermore, it has condemned incest, abortion, adultery, and divorce. (Remarkably, there are some secularists who wish to bring back some of these antiquated practices).
Christianity placed an intrinsic value on human life that had not been present in pre-Christian society. As the American Pastor, Tim Keller (1950 – ) wrote in Reasons for God: “It was extremely common in the Greco-Roman world to throw out new female infants to die from exposure, because of the low status of women in society.” Roman culture was well known for its brutality and callousness. Practices of regicide, gladiatorial combat, infanticide, and crucifixion were all common. Seneca (4BC – AD65), Nero’s (AD37 – AD68) chief advisor, once stated that it was Roman practice to “drown children who, at birth, are weakly and abnormal.”
Christian morality has had a notable effect on our views on human sexuality and has helped to provide women with far greater rights and protections than its pagan predecessors. Christianity helped to end the hypocritical pagan practice of allowing men to have extra-marital affairs and keep mistresses. It formulated rules against the cohabitation of couples prior to marriage, adultery, and divorce. Unlike the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans, Christians do not force widows to remarry, and even allowed widows to keep their husband’s estates.
The Christian faith has been instrumental in the enactment and promotion of public works. The instigator of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) championed the idea of compulsory education and state-funded schools. Similarly, the Lutheran layman, Johann Sturm (1507 – 1589) pioneered graded education. Christianity has been the source of numerous social services including health-care, schooling, charity, and so forth. Christianity’s positive belief in charity and compassion has lead to many orphanages, old-age homes, and groups like the Sisters of Charity and Missionaries of the Poor, the YMCA and YWCA, Teen Challenge, the Red Cross, and numerous hospitals and mental health institutions being founded by the faithful.
One of the frequent criticisms levelled at the Christian faith, particularly the Catholic Church, has been that it has stymied scientific and technological development. In truth, Western science and technology have been able to flourish because of the influence of Christianity, not in spite of it. This is because the Christian belief that God created everything lends itself to the idea that everything is worth contemplating. It is certainly true that the Catholic Church has been hostile to those discoveries that do not conform to its doctrine. Galileo, for example, was forced to retract his claim of heliocentrism because it challenged the Church’s doctrine that the earth acted as the centre of the solar system. For the most part, however, Christianity has been largely supportive of scientific endeavour. Christian scientists have included Gregor Mendel (1822 – 1884), Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543), Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630), Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642), Arthur Eddington (1882 – 1944), Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727), Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662), Andre Ampere (1775 – 1836), James Joule (1818 – 1889), Lord Kelvin (1824 – 1907), Robert Boyle (1627 – 1691), George Washington Carver (1860s – 1943), Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895), Joseph Lister (1827 – 1912), Francis Collins (1950 – ), William Phillips (1914 – 1975), and Sir John Houghton (1931 – ), and more.
The forces behind the stratospheric success of Western civilisation has not been its art or music or architecture, but the ideas it has built itself upon. It is notions like the rule of law, property rights, free markets, a preference for reason and logic, and Christian theology that are responsible for making Western society the freest and most prosperous civilisation that has ever existed. It cannot survive with one of its central tenents removed.
The War On Christmas
In 2015, the then-Presidential candidate, Donald Trump (1946 – ) called for a boycott of Starbucks after the famous coffee shop chain failed to include the words “Merry Christmas” on their annual Christmas cups. “Did you read about Starbucks?”, Trump asked a rally in Springfield, Illinois. “No more ‘Merry Christmas’ on Starbucks. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks.”
Two years later, Donald Trump, now President of the United States, doubled down on his pro-Christmas message. Speaking at a Christian Public Policy conference, the President stated:
“We’re getting near that beautiful Christmas season that people don’t talk about anymore. They don’t use the word ‘Christmas’ because it’s not politically correct.”
Trump continued:
“You got to department stores and they’ll say, ‘Happy New Year’, or they’ll say other things and it’ll be red, they’ll have it painted. But they don’t say it. Well, guess what? We’re saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”
The sentiment that there is a War on Christmas designed to push the religious holiday out of public consciousness carries a great deal of validity. Since 2000, the Becket Institute has listed the biggest Christmas scrooges in American public life, giving the worst offenders an ‘Ebenezer award.’
In 2000, city manager of Eugene, Oregon, Jim Johnson was given the Ebenezer Award after he issued a five-page memo banning Christmas trees from any “public space” in the city.
In 2011, the Ebenezer Award was given to the United States Post Office after they enforced a policy preventing people from singing Christmas carols on Government property. This decision stands in direct contradiction to Benjamin Franklin’s (1706 – 1790) (their founder) commandment to “always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.”
In 2014, the City of Sioux Falls was given the Ebenezer Award after they threatened to repaint and censor snowploughs that featured artwork celebrating the religious nature of Christmas.
In 2015, the Ebenezer Award was given to the Department of Veteran Affairs after they banned their employees at their Salem, Virginia facility from saying ‘Merry Christmas.’
The problem is not unique to the United States, either. During an interview with 2GB Radio, Peter Dutton (1970 – ), Australia’s minister for immigration and border protection, became incensed after a caller informed him that there had not been any Christmas carols in a performance at his grandchild’s school. The caller informed Dutton that the school in question, Kerdon State High School, had replaced the lyric “we wish you a Merry Christmas” with “we wish you a happy holiday.” Dutton replied: “You make my blood boil with these stories. It is political correctness gone mad and I think people have just had enough of it.”
I believe that the drive to remove the more traditional and religious aspects from holidays like Christmas and Easter is indicative of a larger attempt to abolish the influence of Christianity on society and culture.
The problem with this, needless to say, is that it is akin to chopping down a tree and still wishing to enjoy its fruits. It is not possible to enjoy the fruits of Western culture and civilisation when its ideological origins and overarching philosophical-cum-theological structures have been removed. Christianity and Western civilisation are inextricably linked. The poet, T.S. Eliot (1888 – 1965) wrote in Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1943) that “to our Christian heritage we owe many things besides religious faith. Through it we trace the evolution of our arts, through it we have a conception of Roman Law which has done so much to shape the Western world, through it we have our conception of private and public morality.”
The War on Christmas is an attack on the very fabric of Western Civilisation. Christmas symbolises the central axiom our culture was built on: that the Universe was constructed to have a natural and moral order. The War on Christmas is not merely an attack of Judeo-Christian belief, nor is it merely an attack on Western culture, it is an attack upon truth itself. And the truth cannot prosper while those who believe it are unwilling to defend it.
Society Neglects the Importance of the Dream World
Since the Industrial Revolution, scientific and technological development has progressed at an unfathomable rate. In a little over a quarter-of-a-millennium, the Western world has gone from a superstitious, agrarian society to a scientifically and technologically sophisticated one. The price of this remarkable achievement has been our alienation from the ‘dream world.’ We have lost our sense of wonder, our sense that there is something more substantial to existence than just mere crude matter.
The lack of spirituality among modern man is largely the result of an overreliance on materialism. For the philosophically challenged, ‘materialism’ is not a reference to consumerism, but to the philosophical position that regards physical matter as the fundamental substance of nature. Philosophical materialism posits that everything, including human thought and the course of history, comes as the result of physical forces. This is a philosophy which has no room for the soul, for divinity, or for God.
Philosophical materialism likely harkens back to the pre-Socratic philosophers. Epicurus, for example, believed the universe consisted of invisible and indivisible free-falling atoms that randomly collide with the world. For all intents and purposes, however, it is the Ancient Greek philosopher, Democritus (c. 460BC – c. 370BC) who is credited with the invention of philosophical materialism within the Western tradition. Democritus formulated the theory that the world was composed of ‘atoms’ – invisible chunks of matter – existing in empty space. He theorised that these microscopically small atoms would interact with one another by impacting or hooking up. Change occurs when the configuration of these atoms is altered.
In modern philosophy, materialism is referred to as a category of metaphysical theories. The French philosopher, Baron d’Holbach’s (1723 – 1789) book, Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral (1770) (The System of Nature, or the Laws or the Moral and Physical World) argued that everything that occurs, down to human thought and moral action, comes as the result of a causal chain that has its roots in atomic motion. The book was condemned by King Louis XVI (1754 – 1793), meaning that it was the job of the hangman to locate every copy and cut it to pieces on the beheading block.
The modern world likes to see itself as fundamentally materialistic. Being seen as “practical”, “realistic”, or “down to earth” is considered by many to be a great compliment. However, this view is largely mistaken. In reality, it is ideas, referring to the ability to think and feel and imagine, and the ability to implement them that has truly made the human race what it is. In a letter to Guillaume Gibieuf (1538 – 1650), the French philosopher, René Descartes (1596 – 1650) wrote: “I am certain I have no knowledge of what is outside me except by means of the ideas I have within me.”
It would be a great mistake, then, to suppose that human beings are naturally rational or civilised creatures. In reality, people are far more irrational, crazy, and destructive than we like to think. Modern science is really only a few hundred years old, having its roots with Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626), Rene Descartes, and Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727). Therefore, the basis for modern society is not, as often supposed, science, but religion. This is evidenced by two facts. First, the existence over thousands of years of civilisations that have their basis in religion, not science. These societies and their corresponding religions include the Japanese and Shintoism, the Chinese and Buddhism, the Middle East and Islam, and the West and Christianity. And second, by the numerous anti-science movements (most notable in today’s world are the social constructionists) that have come to the public’s attention in recent years. We are able to live in an orderly and rational manner because we live in a society that has moral rules and legal boundaries, not because it is something that comes naturally to us
The relationship between the mental and physical worlds was of great interest to the Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung (1875 – 1961). Influenced by the German Idealist School, Jung believed that “metaphysical assertions… are statements of the psyche.” He would comment: “it is the soul which, by the divine creative power inherent in it, makes the metaphysical assertion; it posits the distinction between metaphysical entities. Not only is it the condition of all metaphysical reality, it is that reality.” The central idea behind Jung’s metaphysical system was that:
“The premise that all psychological processes are necessarily conditioned on innate universal structures of subjectivity that allow for human experiences to transpire, and that these processes participate of a greater cosmic organising principle that transcends all levels of particularity or individuality.”
– Jon Mills, Jung’s Metaphysics
In his function as a psychotherapist, Carl Jung observed that western men and women often suffered from debilitating feelings of inadequacy, hopelessness, and insignificance. He believed that this was caused by a kind of spiritual problem that, even today, threatens the stability and liberty of our society. The result is that we limit ourselves only to what is socially and economically attainable. As Carl Jung wrote:
“Man feels isolated in the cosmos. He is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional participation in natural events, which hitherto had symbolic meaning for him. Thunder is no longer the voice of a god, nor is lightning his avenging missile. No river contains a spirit, no tree makes a man’s life, no snake is the embodiment of wisdom and no mountain still harbours a great demon. Neither do things speak to him nor can he speak to things, like stones, springs, plants and animals.”
– Carl Jung, The Earth Has a Soul
Jung noted that this problem, and the consequences associated with it, correlated with the declining influence of Christianity in the Western world and the rise of mass urbanisation that came as a result of the Industrial Revolution. As the individual surrounded himself with more and more people, his feelings of insignificance increased. The result is individuals who are highly insecure, unstable, and highly suggestible. Furthermore, the rational and scientific mindset that rose to prominence during the Enlightenment has also fooled many politicians and social reformers into believing that the same measures can be used to address social and political problems. The existence of the totalitarian systems such as fascism and communism, genocides, and mass murders that characterised the Twentieth Century stand as testaments to this reality.
The problems the West faced during the twentieth century are almost entirely spiritual by nature. The communists killed tens of millions of people in an attempt to achieve a worker’s paradise, the Cold War was as much a battle between opposing worldviews as it was one of political and economic differences, and one would have to be blind not to notice the religious overtones present in Nazism. Even today, the conflict between Western civilisation and fundamental Islam can be seen as having profound religious overtones.
Jung believed that the unconscious mind could be split into two distinct categories: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The contents of the personal unconscious is comprised of both instincts (Triebe) and archetypal or primordial images. It merely refers to the memories, emotions, and knowledge that have generally been conscious but have become repressed over time. By contrast, the collective unconscious, one of Jung’s most misunderstood concepts, is distinguishable from the personal unconscious in that it is manifested separately and is therefore not a personal acquisition. It symbolises universal culture: the anthropological images, practices, edicts, traditions, mores, social norms, values, and beliefs that embodies a culture or mythos. The collective unconscious, therefore, symbolises the space that human-beings exist in.
Dreams are considered to have great psychological significance. They use mythological narratives to allow us to naturally express our unconscious fears and desires. The average person dreams between three to six times per night with each dream lasting between five and twenty minutes. Jeffrey Sumber, a clinical psychologist, has spent years studying dream mythology at Harvard University and Jungian dream interpretation at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. Sumber argues that dreams bridge the unconscious mind with the conscious mind. “Dreaming is non-essential when it comes to survival as a body”, Sumber concluded, “but is essential with regards to our development and evolution as metaphysical beings.”
Active imagination exists to give a voice to the anima, animus, shadow, and other areas of the personality that do not typically hold our attention. When the individual engages his active imagination, let’s say through painting or writing, there is a transformation of consciousness. As Carl Jung wrote in The Conjunction:
“Although, to a certain extent, he looks on from outside, partially, he is also an acting and suffering figure in the drama of the psyche. This recognition is absolutely necessary and marks an important advance. So long as he simply looks at the pictures he is like the foolish Parsifal, who forgot the ask the vital question because he was not aware of his own participation in the action. But if you recognise your own involvement you yourself must enter into the process with your personal reactions, just as if you were one of the fantasy figures, or rather, as if the drama being enacted before your eyes were real.”
The collective unconscious manifests itself most greatly through mankind’s proclivity for telling stories. As the clinical psychologist and cultural critic, Jordan Peterson (1962 – ) explains, story-telling is an ancient and innate aspect of human nature:
“You know, we’ve been collecting stories as people we don’t know how long – hundred thousand years, maybe. There’s been creatures like us, indistinguishable from us, for a hundred thousand years. And we know that societies that appear more or less as archaic as those old societies tell stories, have rituals, have mythology. What do they mean? What are they good for? Well, imagine this: you tell a story to your husband or your wife about something interesting that you saw. Well, imagine that you could collect a thousand of the most interesting stories. And then imagine that you were some kind of literary genius like Shakespeare and you could take those thousand interesting stories and boil them down to a hundred really interesting stories. And then imagine that you had ten thousand years to gather up those most interesting stories and average them and you could come out with one perfect story: the best story, the most interesting story you could possibly tell. Well, that’s what a myth is. It’s the most interesting story you could possibly tell. Virtually every story you ever see has a mythological structure, that’s why it’s compelling to you. And when you meet someone who is charismatic or who holds your attention or who you’re interested in, the probability that they’re acting out a mythological fragment is very, very high. That’s why it is that your attention is captivated by them.”
Myths are really psychological in nature, even though they are typically misread as biographical or even historical. Myths, much like dreams, emanate from the unconscious thoughts and emotions and gives a voice to the innermost fears and desires that underlie most of our behaviour.
The purpose of mythology is to provide the individual with a mirror which he can use to assess himself and his relationship with the wider world. It exists to provide the individual with a sense of history and of his place within the cosmos. Whereas the world of fiction has to work in an alternative reality where the facts of that universe are considered irrefutable and correct, mythology works by taking the metaphorical or metaphysical-cum-spiritual truths of existence and gives them voice and meaning through the medium of a story. Therefore, it is not how factually true a mythological story may or may not be that is important, but the metaphorical truths it imparts on the reader.
There can be little doubt that the modern world has produced marvels. The price of these remarkable achievements has been a form of perverse arrogance in which modern man likes to believe he is somehow a different, more rational, creature than his ancestors. The price for our arrogance has been the loss of our sense of something more substantial and wonderous than ourselves. As a result, people limit themselves only to that which is socially and economically attainable. Seeing ourselves as eminently rational and pragmatic creatures we have managed to produce a world where the individual feels worthless and insignificant. What is required is a revitalisation of the dream world. A return to the knowledge that it is ideas, our ability to give a voice to those aspects of our personalities that lie dormant, and to venture out into the chaotic unknown and return triumphantly that makes human beings great.
The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church
Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, established His Church with a definitive structure. It is the duty of every Catholic to understand this hierarchy and how it helps Christ’s Church lead the faithful at both the local and overall level.
The most basic level of the Church is the local parish. This is where practising Catholics are baptised and confirmed, get married and have their funerals, attend weekly mass and receive the sacraments. Often the parish is named after Christ himself (Blessed Sacrament, Sacred Heart), the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Mercy, Our Lady of Good Counsel), or a Saint.
After the parish, there is the diocese: an amalgamation of parishes controlled by a local Bishop. The Bishop of the diocese is seen as an authentic successor to the apostles and is not just an ambassador to the Pope. Following from the diocese is the archdiocese controlled by an Archbishop, and finally, the Catholic Church headed by Saint Peter’s successor, the Pope.
The order of precedence for the Catholic Church can be found here.
THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVES
This is our weekly theological article
The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), is one of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment. His views on metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics have had a profound influence on virtually all philosophical movements that came after him. It was his views on ethics, however, that he is most remembered for.
Kant presented his works on ethics in two works. First, there was The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, published in 1785, in which Kant sought to find and establish “the supreme principle of reality.” Then there was The Critique of Practical Reason, published in 1787, which detailed his moral philosophy. (This was the sequel to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781, in which Kant explored the foundations and limitations of human knowledge.)
Immanuel Kant is one of philosophy’s most ardent defenders of deontological ethics (think of this as the study of duty). Put simply, deontology asserts that it is the motivation behind an action that determines its morality, not its consequences. Kant believed that human freedom was based on the fact that human beings are endowed with a conscience that makes them aware of the power moral law has over them.
Immanuel Kant believed that human morality was based on an absolute and objective moral law that he referred to as the categorical imperative. There are essentially two kinds of imperatives: hypothetical imperatives and categorical imperatives. A hypothetical imperative refers to commands that are conditioned by your own desires. Attending medical school is only imperative if you wish to become a doctor, for example. By contrast, a categorical imperative refers to an unconditional command. You cannot refuse to pay your taxes, for example. Kant believed that moral imperatives were categorical because the individual cannot decide they don’t apply to them.
Kant split his categorical imperative into three maxims:
First: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” Put simply, this means that you should not engage in a behaviour unless you are prepared to will that everybody else does it all the time.
Second: “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.” In other words, it is immoral to manipulate others for any reason whatsoever.
Third: “Act as if you were through your maxim a law-making member of a kingdom of ends.” In other words, you must act as though you are the ultimate moral authority of the universe and that everyone was is duty-bound to emulate everything that you do.
Kant’s moral maxims, therefore, can be summarised in the following way: don’t do something unless you are prepared to tolerate everyone else doing it all the time, never manipulate people, and act as though others are duty-bound to emulate everything you do.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLICAL STORIES
This is our weekly theological article.
The Canadian clinical psychologist, philosopher, and academic, Jordan B. Peterson (1962 – ) has released a 12-part lecture series designed to evaluate the psychological and cultural significance of the Bible. As he explains on his website:
“The Bible is a series of books written, edited and assembled over thousands of years. It contains the most influential stories of mankind. Knowledge of those stories is essential to a deep understanding of Western culture, which is in turn vital to proper psychological health (as human beings are cultural animals) and societal stability. These stories are neither history, as we commonly conceive it, nor empirical science. Instead, they are investigations into the structure of Being itself and calls to action within that Being. They have deep psychological significance.”
Be warned, these are long lectures, ranging from two-hours-and-twenty-eight minutes to two-hours-and-forty-minutes. Furthermore, much of the subject matter is very deep and complex. However, it is a lecture series that boasts a wealth of practical wisdom and will greatly enlighten the viewer on the cultural and theological heritage of Western civilisation.
You can find the full lecture series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQD_IZs7y60I3lUrrFTzkpat
MEMENTO MORI
This is our weekly theological article.
For most of my life I have had a great affinity for cemeteries and graveyards. A gentle stroll through the neat and peaceful rows of graves, pausing occasionally to read the inscription on the headstone of someone who lived and died long before I was born has been the source of great pleasure for me.
I believe cemeteries and graveyards are important for two reasons. First, they are incredibly artistic. One cannot help but notice the well-manicured lawns and beautiful gardens, the magnificent sculpting’s of the headstones, and the often-poetic rhetoric of the epitaphs. Second, I believe that cemeteries and graveyards provide people with a physical connection with their cultural heritage and allows them to tap into their ancestral past. As Doctor Celestina Sagazio, a historian working for Melbourne’s Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, observed, cemeteries and graveyards provide a clue into the daily lives of people throughout history.
Modern culture has little time for the contemplation of death. That would go against ‘positive thinking’ and the perpetual lie of ‘eternal youth.’ This, however, stands in stark contrast with the convictions of most of our forebears. From antiquity through to the early twentieth century, the consideration of death was considered a good motivator for leading a virtuous and meaningful life. Recent studies affirm this belief, finding that the contemplation of one’s own mortality acts as a motivator for assessing one’s values and goals and can greatly improve physical health.
The phrase, ‘Memento Mori’, is said to have originated with the Ancient Romans. Tradition in Ancient Rome dictated that a servant or slave should stand behind a triumphant General during his victory parade. This servant or slave would whisper in the General’s ear: “Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento! Memento Mori!” (“Look behind you! Remember that you are but a man! Remember that you will die!”).
Between the 14th and 17th centuries, the concept of ‘Memento Mori’ took on new motifs. The engraving, ‘The Triumph of Death’ (1539) by Georg Pencz (1500 – 1550) depicted a scythe-wielding skeleton commanding an oxen-driven chariot. Similarly, the dance of death – involving skeletal figures – lead everyone from the Pope to the humble ploughman in a final dance of death. During the 17th and 18th centuries, many New England graves were adorned with epitaphs like ‘Memento Mori’ and ‘Hora Fugit’ (‘the hour flees’) and were emblazoned with images of skulls, bones, winged death’s heads, hourglasses, and other symbols of death and the passage of time.
The Roman stoic philosopher, Seneca (4BC – AD65) advised: “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day… The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” The careful contemplation of mortality and the deliberate awareness of death has a profoundly positive effect on the health and vitality of the soul.
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF MARRIAGE
The focus on rights and privileges has become a major characteristic of our modern culture. This focus has manifested itself in a variety of ways. One of these has been the focus upon the denial rights of the so-called underprivileged and oppressed – these namely being women (who, for some reason, are considered a minority), homosexuals, transgendered peoples, non-whites, non-Christians, and more. This focus on rights and privileges has perverted and corrupted all aspects of social and cultural life, including marriage.
For centuries, numerous political philosophers have seen the organisation of sex and reproduction as being vital to the health of a society. The most obvious form of this organisation could be found in marriage: an institution used by society to regulate family life, sex, and reproduction. The American political scientist, James Q. Wilson (1931 – 2012), said in his book, the Marriage Problem (2002): “Marriage is a socially arranged solution for the problem of getting people to stay together and care for children that the mere desire for children, and the sex that makes children possible, do not solve.”
Wilson observed in his book, the Moral Sense (1993):
“In virtually every society, the family is defined by marriage; that is, by a publicly announced contract that makes legitimate the sexual union of a man and a woman. Even in societies where men and women have relatively unrestricted sexual access to one another beginning at an early age, marriage is still the basis for family formation. It is desired by the partners and expected by society. Marriage, in short, is not simply a way of legitimizing sex, and so it cannot be dispensed with just because sexual activity need not be made legitimate. Marriage exists because people must take responsibilities for child care and assume economic obligations. Marriage, and thus the family that it defines, is a commitment.”
Christianity sees marriage as a covenant based on duty and commitment, not one based purely on feelings. Christian marriage is based on agape: the sacrificial love for another person. It is a love that is genuine, that endures through both good times and bad, that is not diminished by time or circumstance, that has a spiritual dimension, and is based on words and actions. This is a compassionate love, not a romantic one.
Marriages work when husbands and wives contribute equally to its health and vitality. Suffice to say, both husband and wife have duties and responsibilities in this regard. The first duty of the individual, then, is to psychologically separate themselves from their parents and siblings and form a new identity as husband or wife. (It is important to note here that this does not mean alienating or abandoning one’s birth family). After this, husbands and wives are duty-bound to love, honour, and trust each other. They should avoid any activity that may cause reasonable suspicion our jealousy so they may live in peace and harmony with each other. Finally, they ought to treat each other with reverence and respect: tolerating each other’s imperfections and being kind and charitable with one another.
The modern obsession with rights and privileges has created an imbalance. This imbalance can only be redressed by asserting the importance of individual responsibility. One of the central places this can occur is through the focus on the obligations and responsibilities of spouses within the confines of marriage.
