Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Individuality and Collectivism vs Community
This month's First Things has an article on Dietrich von Hildebrand, a heroic German who stood against Nazism and anti-semitism in the war years. He apparently realized the opposing temptations of individualism on the one hand (inherited from the "enlightenment") and collectivism on the other side.
"If it is unworthy of the human person to exist in a fundamental suspicion of others, individualistically fortified against them, it is no less unworthy of the human person to dissolve as a part into some social whole."
His answer was a God-centered community, where each person is part of a community but is also is individually called to God. This sort of thing doesn't appeal to moderns, who like to have some philosophically pure position. Pure individualism (libertarianism) or pure collectivism (Marxism, communism, socialism) are easier to explain and don't leave one with those nagging tensions. I was a libertarian for a while before I began to realize the importance of tension to a mature, realistic view of life.
He thought that people would try to meet the need for meaning in life by abandoning themselves to instinct. Not bad for a guy in the 30's, a pretty on-target prediction.
Another interesting part of the article is on morality.
"The Enlightenment had thought that one could eliminate the Christian God, and indeed eliminate God altogether, and still have morality, the same morality that Christians had upheld. Nietzsche was one of the first to see through this incoherence of thought...For a time, man might retain a sense of some special dignity, but this is the last light cast by a setting sun."
"All of Western Christian civilization stands and falls with the words of Genesis, 'God made man in His image.'"
I'll try to link this in a couple of months or you could consider buying a copy of First Things. This is an important magazine with excellent writing, deep insights. John Patrick recommended it to me.
"If it is unworthy of the human person to exist in a fundamental suspicion of others, individualistically fortified against them, it is no less unworthy of the human person to dissolve as a part into some social whole."
His answer was a God-centered community, where each person is part of a community but is also is individually called to God. This sort of thing doesn't appeal to moderns, who like to have some philosophically pure position. Pure individualism (libertarianism) or pure collectivism (Marxism, communism, socialism) are easier to explain and don't leave one with those nagging tensions. I was a libertarian for a while before I began to realize the importance of tension to a mature, realistic view of life.
He thought that people would try to meet the need for meaning in life by abandoning themselves to instinct. Not bad for a guy in the 30's, a pretty on-target prediction.
Another interesting part of the article is on morality.
"The Enlightenment had thought that one could eliminate the Christian God, and indeed eliminate God altogether, and still have morality, the same morality that Christians had upheld. Nietzsche was one of the first to see through this incoherence of thought...For a time, man might retain a sense of some special dignity, but this is the last light cast by a setting sun."
"All of Western Christian civilization stands and falls with the words of Genesis, 'God made man in His image.'"
I'll try to link this in a couple of months or you could consider buying a copy of First Things. This is an important magazine with excellent writing, deep insights. John Patrick recommended it to me.
