The Tyranny of Self-Expression

Driving around recently, lost in my thoughts and therefore often missing turns, I was thinking how much of modern American life is framed in the language of individual self-expression rather than any common good. Everything, everything, is explained in terms of individual preference: politics, religion, culture, social relationships, buying and selling. Preference implies that none of the alternatives are better than any other. In short, all of life is simply a marketplace, a cafeteria, a flea market -- pick and choose what you like. Turn on the television and a sea of self-expression (and the advocacy thereof) washes over you: football players who celebrate to express their happiness (team, opposition, and spirit of the game be damned), soda advertisements that preach "be you" (apparently "it tastes good" is simply not good enough; it has to express the self to be really good), car commercials with a woman who constantly changes her outfits saying "change is good, right?" (to which I always say, no -- I'd like to give that woman the flu and then ask her how the change from health to illness has been). If it is true that Americans are united by an "idea" (a thesis I am not tempted to agree with), that idea is an ironic one: we all agree to disagree on what constitutes the good life, and in order to avoid any conflict let's make everything an individual preference. In short, we are all together in making different choices. This sounds like something written on the side of Orwell's Animal Farm barn.

This came to mind again reading a rather chilling article by Philip Turner in the November First Things. Speaking of the Anglican/Episcoplian crisis of Gene Robinson, he warns rather ominously that the problem is not simply with the ECUSA: The Robinson election in fact serves to highlight challenges that all American churches currently face, be they Catholic, Orthodox, "mainstream" Protestant, Evangelical, or Charismatic. I speak of the subversion of Christian belief and practice by the logic of autonomous individualism, and the churches' transformation into simulacra. Make no mistake: what has happened in ECUSA is not a problem limited to a once (overly) proud denomination. Rather, it provides an exemplary case study of the subversion and transformation that, in one way or another, threatens all American denominations today. What makes one so cold when reading these lines is the double threat. Not only are all denominations threatened by this, the threat is at the heart of American culture itself -- it is the American way of life.

Turner says you can see the insidious working of this liberal social economy on the ECUSA as early as the 1960s. Protest theology, calls for "local options" on various church policies, and a total lack of central control progressively eroded the moral coherence of the church, so that today the Anglican Church represents nothing more than a vague "God is inclusive" ideology. Everything is expressed in terms of preferences. Within a liberal social economy, the notion of moral agency gives particular significance to issues of sexual preference and sexual satisfaction, since such a society's members think of themselves not as inhabitants of a pre-established moral order but as individuals who are utterly unique, as selves that have particular personal histories and needs, and as persons who have rights that allow them to express their individuality and pursue their personal well-being. For moral agents who think of themselves as individuals, selves, and persons, sexuality becomes, along with money, both a marker of identity and a primary way of expressing the preferences that define identity.

It is precisely this sexualized notion of moral agency and personal identity that makes the Robinson election so predictable. Here is a unique individual, who is a self with a particular history, and a person with a right to express his preferences and put his talents to work in the social world he inhabits. To deny him that right on the basis of sexual preference is to deny his personal identity. This notion of moral agency also makes understandable why the issues of abortion and euthanasia take their place alongside self-chosen sexual expression as centers of moral controversy both within the churches and without. At the heart of each of these arguments lies the characterization of moral agents as individuals, selves, and persons who have the right to pursue their own preferences, whatever they may be.

Turner rightfully charges the inclusivity liberals with idolatry, of thinking of the self first, of the creation of a God made in our own image. We no longer mold ourselves in the image of the Other, we mold the Other in the image of our selves. And how to fight this tendency? Is it the invasion of a new heresy, new trends in thinking? Hardly. What makes it so disturbing and difficult is that it finds its source in the American way of life. In the culture wars that rage over abortion, euthanasia, and sexuality, defenders of more traditional Christian teaching and practice often miss the fact that they must confront American culture on a deeper level than any of these specific issues. If they are to be effective, they must take on the very way in which Americans think of themselves as moral agents.

Preference, idolatry, self-expression. Not to sound like Pat Buchanan, but traditionalist Christianity faces a culture war and an intellectual fight against how Americans think about themselves, their community, and their souls. And in the current environment, when both grocery shopping and church-going use the logic of individual preference, that is a mighty tough battle. How many times have I heard people use the well-worn phrase there are many paths up the mountain? I always reply, yes, but most of them lead off a cliff.