Scan barcode
A review by svsmith21
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl R. Trueman
5.0
This is an exceptional book and its timing is exceptional as well. For many within the Church, there is great confusion about how Christians are to locate themselves on the social landscape. Trueman does his best as a dispassionate scholar to identify and describe the cultural pathologies regarding human conceptions of identity that have led to the sexual iconoclasm we are witnessing in our culture today. Where lament and polemic can lead to oversight, Trueman's objectivity transcends mere rhetoric to get to the foundations of the cultural moment and help us to understand that the modern social imaginary (37) and Sittlichkeit (62), i.e. the natural intuitions we have about what is right and good and true which shape our lives, are not emerging in a vacuum, but are the logical consequences of centuries of revolutionary thought concerning how humans identify themselves. What follows in this review is a very rough sketch of the concepts and the arguments in the book. This is certainly not comprehensive, but the following are important ideas that are brought up and fleshed out in greater detail within Trueman's masterful work.
Drawing on the social, historical, and philosophical categories of Charles Taylor, Philip Rieff, and Alasdair MacIntyre, Trueman provides a basic framework for understanding modern humanity. In contrast to the ancient world, where humans conceived of themselves as subject to nature, technology and other developments have given modern humans greater "control" over their surroundings. Where humans from centuries past saw the natural order as something to which they must conform, modern humans see the world as raw material which they can mold according to their inward desires (mimesis versus poiesis). Thus, any "natural order" is rendered meaningless or an attempt by a privileged group to control behavior and preserve the status quo. Additional changes can be noted, but some of the major insights from this preliminary material in the book include the triumph of the therapeutic and the development of a modern anticulture, which aims for the removal of any boundaries, especially those related to sexuality. All of these realities find their union in the conception of the expressive individual, which compellingly describes modern man as finding happiness and authenticity in publicly expressing their inner thoughts and beliefs according to their individual psychological needs.
From there, Trueman walks through a historical narrative beginning with Rousseau, whose thought, for the purposes of this book's discussion, may be summarized as a belief in the inherent goodness of man in a natural state and the corollary belief that humanity has been corrupted by society and its structures, one of those corruptions being that the psychologized self has been alienated from an appropriate self-love that is consistent with the natural state. These ideas found artistic expression in the poetry of the Romantics, who viewed the task of the poet as an ethical one: to strip away the parts of modern life that make it inauthentic and to reconnect people with their true natures. This type of ethical endeavor prepares people for proper moral argument by using aesthetics to cultivate correct sentiments about reality. How we understand ourselves is ultimately an inward-looking task, and one that requires work to undo the alienation due to civilization and its demands. This especially includes the undoing of Christian sexual mores in favor of a sexual liberation, since these cultural demands are repressive and lead to an inauthentic life.
While the Romantics bridged the psychological conception of identity and political action to a certain extent, the current politicization of sex can best be understood by the narrative Trueman compellingly draws by studying Nietzsche, Marx, Darwin, Freud, and others. Nietzsche's proclamation of the "death of God" was really a cry for the thinkers in the tradition of the Enlightenment to take seriously their dismissal of an explanatory "need" for God, which in turn makes them have to take on the task of being "gods" themselves. His contribution was to remove any belief in the transcendent and all of the relics of metaphysics, arguing instead that humans must insist on choosing a life to make for themselves. Marx also attacked transcendent religious beliefs such as Christianity by claiming that religion keeps people from being fully human by keeping them in a state of alienation from the fruits of their labors. Not only that, but Marx saw religion as an instrument of oppression as well. Moral and ethical codes were tools of the dominant economic classes of the current society to maintain the status quo for the interests of the elite, which serves as an example of the critical spirit against religious and cultural norms that finds its voice into today's sexual revolution. Finally, Darwin helped to dispatch with metaphysical assumptions and human teleology by providing an intuitively plausible argument for materialism in a scientific idiom, which retains immense power even to the present day. In his view, there is no natural end around which humans should order their lives. Life has no transcendent purpose, which implies that humans are allowed to dispose of repressive moral codes which appeal to a transcendent authority that keep them from the psychological happiness of a good life. Marx in particular also introduced the argument that the good life is realized through political struggle against oppressive authorities. These men helped to shape the modern desire to live a life characterized by Invictus, where we are the captain of our fates and create the meaning of our lives.
Trueman then moves into the sexualization of this conception of identity, which finds its main theoretical roots in the work of Freud. Like Darwin, Freud used a scientific idiom to describe humans as fundamentally erotic creatures for whom sex is definitive. The key for human happiness, according to Freud, was the maximization of human sexual pleasure. Society should thus be ordered in a way that takes this claim seriously, beginning even with the sexual expression of children in their infancy. While many of Freud's ideas have been debunked, the basic contentions related to the primacy of sexuality is a powerful force in the modern social imaginary.
Finally, the politicization of sexuality is given a full treatment by the "New Left" in critical theory. Trueman provides excellent detail cataloguing many of the developments of Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse, who took ideas from Freud and Marx to make the basic contention that sexual codes are a tool of the oppressive political regime to maintain the status quo. One of the main ways this is manifested, Reich argues, is through the nuclear family, which restricts the sexual activity in children and thus makes them compliant to authorities even at the expense of their inner happiness. The family is a tool for the perpetuation of the oppressive status quo. Thus, "the dismantling and abolition of the nuclear family are essential if political liberation is to be achieved" (235). This must be accomplished through a radical and revolutionary overthrow of the current societal structure, where even the state has the right to intervene within the family unit if families are disrupting the sexual liberation program. Sexual education is required at early ages to ensure that an "appropriate" consciousness is raised for people to find sexual satisfaction. Therefore, sex is not just a private activity in their view, but a necessarily public matter, since sexuality is a part of what makes our identity. Sexual liberation must be contended for to achieve an "equitable" society.
Once he sets up the intellectual movements that led up to the present, Trueman does an outstanding job showing the range of the triumphs of this psychologized, therapeutic, and sexual conception of identity. From the use of therapeutic language in Supreme Court decisions to an incredibly insightful section on the appeal and availability of pornography to satisfy inner sexual desires apart from any consequence (in the popular understanding of it), it is evident that all of the figures in the preceding discussion were key players in the appearance of our cultural character. Trueman also describes that the LGBTQ+ coalition is a largely fragile one that is cohesive only insofar as they are fighting against the common enemy of the remaining sexual codes of Western Civilization's past. However, it is not clear that the distinguishing elements between the groups will allow them to peacefully coexist for very long once they have achieved their mutual goals, a point that Trueman argues well.
There is much more to say, but it is valuable to state Trueman's valuable conclusions for the Church, which are as follows:
1. The Church must think carefully about the connection between aesthetics and its core beliefs and practices: one of the arguments made, especially related to the arguments on abortion, is that many modern ethical beliefs are based on aesthetics (e.g. most pro-life gains are due to sonograms rather than argument, pedophilia and zoophilia remain outside the social imaginary mainly on aesthetic grounds). The church must respond to a world that puts primacy on images rather than extended written or spoken argument. The freedom to express inner beliefs and the freedom to love whomever we please have strong aesthetic power in today's world. The church must respond to this reality by being conscious of it and responding in a manner consistent with biblical teaching.
2. The church must be a community of believers: another argument in the book is that personal identity is dialogical. That is, we only understand ourselves in relation to others. As Trueman writes, "Our moral consciousness is very much shaped by our community" (405). The emergence of the Internet and other technology has made humans very isolated and detached from their communities. The church must retain and, where necessary, recover a community that will most likely live on the margins of society as the West completes the move from a Rieffian second-world culture that is built on a sacred moral order to a third-world culture that rejects the transcendent and the sacred altogether (74-77). Trueman argues that we should model ourselves after the church of the second century, which depended on strong communities for survival, an argument that holds a lot of weight for me.
3. The Protestant Church need to recover natural law and a high view of the physical body: while Trueman concedes that natural law will not change the view of broader society, he argues (well, in my opinion) that the church needs to have a firm grasp of natural law to coherently explain moral principles to its members. The moral and ethical needs of the day will rely on principles that depend on the ordering of the world God created. Also, the Church should not emphasize the importance of the spiritual at the expense of the importance of the physical. We have been bought with a price, so we must glorify God with our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:20). This is a call to teach and practice what the Bible has called us to regarding our bodies, especially related to sexuality, in the modern age.
There is not much evidence that the cultural tides will change, but this is a very important book for understanding what is at stake for the Church in the West. For the Church to remain pure, Christians should know what they face. Trueman provides a great service to the church in this work and shows great erudition in my view. I heartily recommend this book.
Drawing on the social, historical, and philosophical categories of Charles Taylor, Philip Rieff, and Alasdair MacIntyre, Trueman provides a basic framework for understanding modern humanity. In contrast to the ancient world, where humans conceived of themselves as subject to nature, technology and other developments have given modern humans greater "control" over their surroundings. Where humans from centuries past saw the natural order as something to which they must conform, modern humans see the world as raw material which they can mold according to their inward desires (mimesis versus poiesis). Thus, any "natural order" is rendered meaningless or an attempt by a privileged group to control behavior and preserve the status quo. Additional changes can be noted, but some of the major insights from this preliminary material in the book include the triumph of the therapeutic and the development of a modern anticulture, which aims for the removal of any boundaries, especially those related to sexuality. All of these realities find their union in the conception of the expressive individual, which compellingly describes modern man as finding happiness and authenticity in publicly expressing their inner thoughts and beliefs according to their individual psychological needs.
From there, Trueman walks through a historical narrative beginning with Rousseau, whose thought, for the purposes of this book's discussion, may be summarized as a belief in the inherent goodness of man in a natural state and the corollary belief that humanity has been corrupted by society and its structures, one of those corruptions being that the psychologized self has been alienated from an appropriate self-love that is consistent with the natural state. These ideas found artistic expression in the poetry of the Romantics, who viewed the task of the poet as an ethical one: to strip away the parts of modern life that make it inauthentic and to reconnect people with their true natures. This type of ethical endeavor prepares people for proper moral argument by using aesthetics to cultivate correct sentiments about reality. How we understand ourselves is ultimately an inward-looking task, and one that requires work to undo the alienation due to civilization and its demands. This especially includes the undoing of Christian sexual mores in favor of a sexual liberation, since these cultural demands are repressive and lead to an inauthentic life.
While the Romantics bridged the psychological conception of identity and political action to a certain extent, the current politicization of sex can best be understood by the narrative Trueman compellingly draws by studying Nietzsche, Marx, Darwin, Freud, and others. Nietzsche's proclamation of the "death of God" was really a cry for the thinkers in the tradition of the Enlightenment to take seriously their dismissal of an explanatory "need" for God, which in turn makes them have to take on the task of being "gods" themselves. His contribution was to remove any belief in the transcendent and all of the relics of metaphysics, arguing instead that humans must insist on choosing a life to make for themselves. Marx also attacked transcendent religious beliefs such as Christianity by claiming that religion keeps people from being fully human by keeping them in a state of alienation from the fruits of their labors. Not only that, but Marx saw religion as an instrument of oppression as well. Moral and ethical codes were tools of the dominant economic classes of the current society to maintain the status quo for the interests of the elite, which serves as an example of the critical spirit against religious and cultural norms that finds its voice into today's sexual revolution. Finally, Darwin helped to dispatch with metaphysical assumptions and human teleology by providing an intuitively plausible argument for materialism in a scientific idiom, which retains immense power even to the present day. In his view, there is no natural end around which humans should order their lives. Life has no transcendent purpose, which implies that humans are allowed to dispose of repressive moral codes which appeal to a transcendent authority that keep them from the psychological happiness of a good life. Marx in particular also introduced the argument that the good life is realized through political struggle against oppressive authorities. These men helped to shape the modern desire to live a life characterized by Invictus, where we are the captain of our fates and create the meaning of our lives.
Trueman then moves into the sexualization of this conception of identity, which finds its main theoretical roots in the work of Freud. Like Darwin, Freud used a scientific idiom to describe humans as fundamentally erotic creatures for whom sex is definitive. The key for human happiness, according to Freud, was the maximization of human sexual pleasure. Society should thus be ordered in a way that takes this claim seriously, beginning even with the sexual expression of children in their infancy. While many of Freud's ideas have been debunked, the basic contentions related to the primacy of sexuality is a powerful force in the modern social imaginary.
Finally, the politicization of sexuality is given a full treatment by the "New Left" in critical theory. Trueman provides excellent detail cataloguing many of the developments of Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse, who took ideas from Freud and Marx to make the basic contention that sexual codes are a tool of the oppressive political regime to maintain the status quo. One of the main ways this is manifested, Reich argues, is through the nuclear family, which restricts the sexual activity in children and thus makes them compliant to authorities even at the expense of their inner happiness. The family is a tool for the perpetuation of the oppressive status quo. Thus, "the dismantling and abolition of the nuclear family are essential if political liberation is to be achieved" (235). This must be accomplished through a radical and revolutionary overthrow of the current societal structure, where even the state has the right to intervene within the family unit if families are disrupting the sexual liberation program. Sexual education is required at early ages to ensure that an "appropriate" consciousness is raised for people to find sexual satisfaction. Therefore, sex is not just a private activity in their view, but a necessarily public matter, since sexuality is a part of what makes our identity. Sexual liberation must be contended for to achieve an "equitable" society.
Once he sets up the intellectual movements that led up to the present, Trueman does an outstanding job showing the range of the triumphs of this psychologized, therapeutic, and sexual conception of identity. From the use of therapeutic language in Supreme Court decisions to an incredibly insightful section on the appeal and availability of pornography to satisfy inner sexual desires apart from any consequence (in the popular understanding of it), it is evident that all of the figures in the preceding discussion were key players in the appearance of our cultural character. Trueman also describes that the LGBTQ+ coalition is a largely fragile one that is cohesive only insofar as they are fighting against the common enemy of the remaining sexual codes of Western Civilization's past. However, it is not clear that the distinguishing elements between the groups will allow them to peacefully coexist for very long once they have achieved their mutual goals, a point that Trueman argues well.
There is much more to say, but it is valuable to state Trueman's valuable conclusions for the Church, which are as follows:
1. The Church must think carefully about the connection between aesthetics and its core beliefs and practices: one of the arguments made, especially related to the arguments on abortion, is that many modern ethical beliefs are based on aesthetics (e.g. most pro-life gains are due to sonograms rather than argument, pedophilia and zoophilia remain outside the social imaginary mainly on aesthetic grounds). The church must respond to a world that puts primacy on images rather than extended written or spoken argument. The freedom to express inner beliefs and the freedom to love whomever we please have strong aesthetic power in today's world. The church must respond to this reality by being conscious of it and responding in a manner consistent with biblical teaching.
2. The church must be a community of believers: another argument in the book is that personal identity is dialogical. That is, we only understand ourselves in relation to others. As Trueman writes, "Our moral consciousness is very much shaped by our community" (405). The emergence of the Internet and other technology has made humans very isolated and detached from their communities. The church must retain and, where necessary, recover a community that will most likely live on the margins of society as the West completes the move from a Rieffian second-world culture that is built on a sacred moral order to a third-world culture that rejects the transcendent and the sacred altogether (74-77). Trueman argues that we should model ourselves after the church of the second century, which depended on strong communities for survival, an argument that holds a lot of weight for me.
3. The Protestant Church need to recover natural law and a high view of the physical body: while Trueman concedes that natural law will not change the view of broader society, he argues (well, in my opinion) that the church needs to have a firm grasp of natural law to coherently explain moral principles to its members. The moral and ethical needs of the day will rely on principles that depend on the ordering of the world God created. Also, the Church should not emphasize the importance of the spiritual at the expense of the importance of the physical. We have been bought with a price, so we must glorify God with our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:20). This is a call to teach and practice what the Bible has called us to regarding our bodies, especially related to sexuality, in the modern age.
There is not much evidence that the cultural tides will change, but this is a very important book for understanding what is at stake for the Church in the West. For the Church to remain pure, Christians should know what they face. Trueman provides a great service to the church in this work and shows great erudition in my view. I heartily recommend this book.