Liberal democracy today is a balancing act between liberty and equality that needs to be seen as a dialectical process – especially by those for whom it is an idea and social practice worth living by. If it is to survive and flourish again it is the eleventh hour for an introduction in a meaningful way of the third principle of the French Revolution standard triad, namely that of fraternity. A few introductory caveats:
1. When this essay refers to liberalism as a political theory or practice what is implied is classical liberalism. Liberty is its chief ideal, while equality in fact is not, not in practice at least, and may be regarded, certainly initially, as not much more than its “scope factor.” Its importance comes partly from an awareness that beneficiaries of liberty and political rights based on that idea will not be secure unless and until those rights are extended to a wide population base, since coercion is no longer a systemic option. Once political equality is effected on a universal basis, true “liberal democracy” is instituted. Modern liberalism (as it is understood in the U.S.) is not infrequently accused of undermining “traditional” liberties. It also seems to obscure and muddle equality rather than really championing it. The latter ideal in fact does not seem to have a strong and unified political champion, partly because there are many newly emerged equality fronts in addition to those of old, that are not easily subsumed under one banner. Paradoxically, liberty’s standard today – at least of its classical, strictly “negative” variety – is most resolutely flown by neoconservatives (and more coyly by neoliberals). Some at least libertarians seemingly straddle the divide but largely opt for the neocons’ brand of liberty that secures their economic privileges.
2. The essay talks about political developments in the West as they unfold against the background of Christianity, its prevalent spirituality and crucial to their understanding. It has relevance to other cultures only insofar as they (are trying to) imitate the West in an effort to catch up with it economically. Especially in the far East there are cultures that have been able to hold on to their traditional ways to such an extent that in their pursuit of economic progress they evince significantly different patterns of social dynamic.
From the Feudal State to Modernity
In the feudal systems of the West the state was epitomized by the monarch; state power, with its exclusive right to use violence legitimately, was effectively vested in him (and in those, like feudal lords, to whom he delegated some of his powers). In the long process of monarchical powers’ gradual circumscription and eventual decline, the variously styled Royal Councils or King’s Courts of the as yet monolithic state were taking on more and more formalized responsibilities. With the later formal branching off of theses bodies, their judicial and legislative responsibilities eventually started becoming their prerogatives. The progress is marked by such events as the Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution in England, and the French Revolution. With true universal representativeness still a long way off, for long stretches of time the process may be seen first and foremost as one of liberty rearing its head – from the whims of state power as well as from the constraining status quo of the ancien regime. That process was largely coincidental with the gradual creation and practical functioning of a truly independent judiciary, one of the three Monstesquieuan separate and independent powers in the state (the others being the legislature, and the executive – long tantamount to the monarch). It is no wonder that the first written national constitution, that of the United States of America, enshrines liberty.
What is important to underscore is that the judiciary’s contribution to liberal democracy as a political system comes mainly from its role as the guardian and executor of that facet of the rule of law that can be epitomized by the saying, "everything which is not forbidden is allowed." The liberty thus conceived is that of being “free from,” from any and all impositions that are not codified by statute or enshrined in common law practice. In the Enlightenment era, the time of the system’s successful unfolding, all that in turn was expected to adhere to the dictates of reason, reflecting, as well as safeguarding, the principle of man’s imputed autonomy and rationality. Those faculties were to guide public-spirited individuals when crafting a social contract meant to replace old, outmoded forms of societal functioning and structure.
Now, "everything which is not forbidden is allowed” applied only to those who at a given time were considered citizens of the polity. Becoming citizens in fact meant emancipation from the sovereign’s whims and arbitrariness, and being protected by the law. On a formal basis, it was initially extended only to the feudal lords and aristocrats, the kingdom’s peers. But in the long run, consequently, the gradual process of enlarging the scope of those privileged to be placed under the rule of law was largely coincidental with those new groups’ and classes’ political emancipation, with their gaining political rights. Before equality ever started in effect to impinge on the prevailing notions of man’s nature, it was conceived strictly in terms of political rights, preeminently as the right to elect a legislature tasked with passing laws, especially those having to do with taxation. In other words, with their members becoming citizens of the polity, gaining equal political rights.
In a liberal democracy that stressed property ownership it was only natural that those rights were first strictly coupled with new citizens’ ability to pay taxes. “No taxation without representation” was the slogan effectively guiding the process of enlarging at once the tax base and that of granting citizenship of the Commonwealth. But the process of gaining or being granted political equality, or citizenship, was a bumpy and protracted one. In trying to stem the tide of political equality a reverse slogan, “no representation without taxation,” was used on occasion, if implicitly. In many countries it took the emotional upheaval of World War One, with its massive and mostly voluntary sacrifice of regular man’s life and blood, that tipped the scale in favor of a more universal suffrage. Switzerland, one of the first European republics, and ostensibly democratic to boot, did not grant suffrage to women on a country-wide basis until 1971.
Yet the march of equality would not stop there. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed, “the desire for equality always becomes more insatiable as equality is greater.” The next round had to do with class inequality, and – unfortunately, for some – went down into the dustbin of history with the ignominy of the communist regimes. (China, a strong non-Western culture anyway, arguably is not a communist country anymore, allowing as it does unlimited ownership of capital and means of production). This particular front has largely, for better or for worse, transmogrified now into a struggle based on a growing awareness that transnational corporations are true successors to, if not largely supplanted, national states in their role as upholders of economic inequality. In fact some at least antiglobalists in Western countries more and more demand today the state’s intervention and protection to curtail or at least control the former’s power, not least because there seems to be no other power capable of doing it. From this perspective the bigger the state is, the better, a view obviously not shared by the anarchists.
In due course yet another equality front, a cultural one (or rather a slew of fronts), was created, and now occupies center stage, sometimes to the dismay of those preeminently concerned with economic inequality. The latter tend to be leery of the elites’ often leading the way here, seeing it as a distractive ploy on their part. But what is being taken on now is of vital importance to society: the very notion of man’s nature as traditionally formulated, which is now seen as yet another bulwark against equality’s universal implementation. Not unlike during the previous, “class,” round, this particular fight for equality also impinges on the foundational principle of liberal democracy, that of liberty.
Paradoxically, both sides of the fight must resort now to the state as their arbiter, a role of necessity filled here to a large extent by the judiciary branch of the government. Given its historical role as a bulwark against state power, many of its state-enforced rulings must be abhorrent to those who are “classical liberals” at heart: The judiciary that in the past used to safeguard a liberty epitomized by the maxim “everything that is not expressly forbidden is allowed” seems now bent on finding constitutional justifications for pushing a modern egalitarian agenda, which amounts to pressing a brand of identity or diversity politics. Up until very recently the executive alternately led this effort or supported it, or at least connived in it – while in effect standing for the rights and freedoms of those wealthy classes that usually also hold real economic power (with new winds blowing nothing is changing as far as the latter is concerned). Having in the not so distant past been finally based on universal suffrage the legislature, reflecting as it does the state of mind of society, is now as deeply polarized as society at large (which polarization also becomes more and more equal), including on the very issues discussed here.
In the acrimoniousness of the present scuffle man’s nature certainly is a big factor. Yet it is rather some of its mostly unquestioned aspects, such as thymos and the desire for recognition – even if called by other names, that become crucial.
The Raging Thymos
Megalothymia and isothymia are Francis Fukuyama’s worthy elaborations of the Platonic concept of thymos. Now one aspect of thymos has to do with man’s sense of self-worth, as well as his need or desire to assert it in a social context. Further nuancing is needed when observing that men evince this natural need of theirs in different ways but also in varying degrees of intensity. And that’s where Fukuyama’s elaboration comes in handy, especially when attempting to describe how thymos is playing out in liberal democracy. On psychological grounds a still further nuancing is due, especially by decoupling man’s sense of self-worth from the desire to assert it forcefully over against others.
Much effort has been expended to do the latter, allegedly uncovering subterraneous motives behind man’s various thymotic expressions in the process, vide Rene Girard’s claim, “…Nietzsche… reserves his resentment for the “weak” while trying vainly to establish a distinction between this resentment and a truly “spontaneous” desire, a will to power that he can claim as wholly his own but that is in reality nothing more than the ultimate expression of cumulative resentment.” In this reversal the ultimate faculty of the megalothymotic Nietzschean overman to at once condemn and destroy the old and establish a new, his own, standard of good and evil, is shown for what it allegedly truly is, for some men at least. Incidentally, the spirit of isothymia may seem rather to be prone to act instead mostly by judging according to an existing standard of good and evil, though possibly driving its interpretations to extremes considered by opponents as outrageous.
Spirits of megalothymia and isothymia are thus of course operative also on a societal basis. An outraged megalothymia seems to be driving the angry struggle for recognition of those who profess to stand for their allegedly besieged liberty, while an outraged isothymia seemingly is the impetus, at least initially, behind the struggle for recognition on the part of those who claim to stand for the universal, equal and reciprocal recognition of all the various suppressed separate and unique identities. Neither side is ready any more to subscribe to or settle for the Christian ideal of man’s universal equal dignity and inner freedom based on it, though especially protagonists of the former cause sometimes seem to be paying lip service to it, at least before their outrage gets the better of them. Recognition has always been a zero-sum game, and the contemporary struggle for recognition is as zero-sum as it gets.
Consequently, there seems to be little scope for tolerance either, and not only because it has an insurmountable constitutive problem with intolerance: to have its way tolerance in effect must be intolerant of any form of intolerance. Now since partisans of the cause of radical equality will not settle for equality of opportunity, tolerance is not an option for them. What they demand is an assertion or even affirmation of equality. In fighting this as yet uphill battle their piqued spirit of ostensible isothymia might easily shade into that of self-righteous megalothymia, although as often it slides into resentment when facing off against its seeming psychological twin, a megalothymotically smug, though rearguard and consequently strongly resentful, spirit of outraged liberty. In the heat of their tit-for-tat struggle they become mimetic monstrous doubles.
Incidentally, economic interest takes a backseat to those issues, and any use of economic argumentation on the part of (demagogic) political leaders tends to be spurious or only instrumental. It becomes evident when such issues as globalization and national economic interest are presented as a simple dichotomy, and class distinction is a no-no. Paradoxically, in the heat of the battle instrumental treatment may apparently also be the eventual fate of the very values that both sides brandish when fighting.
This struggle is a struggle to the death, as Hegel postulated. Or would be, for the system of liberal democracy with its checks and balances allows those fighting to continue to live while combating at close quarters. Intersectionality, or the grouping under their respective common ideological umbrellas, of disparate identities on the one hand, and – though rather implicitly, mostly ill-defined, interests on the other, is found useful and eventually resorted to by both “tribes,” out of psychological necessity if not for any other reason. This in turn apparently contributes to the maintenance of their equal strength in the long run. It also seems to be their respective response to a host of largely unacknowledged problems created by lack of a shared identity, which is touted as a desirable “diversity” instead, on the one hand, and societal atomization and alienation on the other.
Neither side is about to budge, those who believe that they are defending their freedom in the face of radical "equalizers," and those who are fighting for justice understood as perfect equality. And if mimetic theory is right, at this stage both sides must not give ground to their opponents lest they become first weakened then fragmented, isolated and eventually "sacrificed," one way or another.
In the absence of the liberal democratic edifice the struggle would be eventually decided one way or another. The fate of the losers would be sealed, no quarter would be given them until a sacrificial meal was consumed by the victors. It seems that the continuing gridlock of the mimetic struggle for recognition is the best Western man can hope for.
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Where is the third principle of the standard French Revolution triad, that of fraternity, in our “thymotic” world? Where is the Christian sentiment of love of one’s neighbor? And what happened to man’s obligations over and above his rights? Also, with values of old forgotten if not condemned, is there a place yet for virtue? Or is our notion of liberty simply flawed, not acknowledging that there are at least two species thereof, a negative, external “freedom from,” and a positive, largely inner “freedom to”? In what circumstances, if any, could the latter reappear and be fostered, short of going back to “illiberal” hierarchical forms of society?
The Liberalism of Fear
Political philosopher Judith Shklar has theorized that liberalism as a political doctrine “has only one overriding aim: to secure the political conditions that are necessary for the exercise of personal freedom. Every adult should be able to make as many effective decisions without fear or favor about as many aspects of her or his life as is compatible with the like freedom of every other adult.” Accordingly, for Shklar political liberalism is grounded in negativity, and its first and foremost foundation is fear. Consequently, freedom from fear was and still is its chief preoccupation (cf. Hobbes’ fear of violent death).
While the liberalism of “natural” rights may be viewed as “positive,” it quickly started showing its twin aspect and devolved into a freedom from obligation. Yet some limited responsibilities, those having to do with mutually securing one another's autonomy, had to be fulfilled anyway, which in the liberal scheme of things translates into the enforcement of liberal rights in the face of those intolerant or otherwise disruptive. That is precisely where the state reappears, fueled in effect by the shirking of those limited obligations on the part of an atomized liberal citizenry, powerless to enforce them on an individual basis when found expedient. Now the state has always been able to do that only through the effective enforcement of the one obligation that is proverbially unavoidable, namely having to pay taxes. The other unavoidable, as this saying goes, is death – thus the liberal goes the full circle, cursing and cheating on taxation and trying to forget or push back death throughout his life.
The negative concept of autonomous decision-making, “without fear or favor,” almost from the start thus meant being free from as many obligations as were at a given moment seen as incompatible with this freedom. Over time that list of incriminated obligations was becoming longer and longer, up to the present moment when we also have arrogated to ourselves an effective freedom from civility and worldview coherence.
That is also when this brand of freedom finally has revealed its “positive” underpinnings, those of megalothymotic self-righteousness. This last development, provoked, as it certainly was, by an unceasing pressure from the idea and proponents of “affirmative” equality, has made “classical” liberals a much more variegated grouping, consisting now not only of those who really hold economic power, but also of those suddenly perceiving themselves as standing to lose a precarious status quo that nevertheless enabled them to feel superior to some others, even as that feeling may have been based on self-deception. They are driven by an impetus to oppose anyone’s or any group’s social advance if that is regarded as threatening one’s cherished position in society. If that advance is led by a state that is seen as no longer upholding his brand of liberty, then that state becomes, perhaps once again, the classical liberal’s chief and the most hated nemesis.
Secular Foundation Stories of the West
For Western man it all of course began with Athens and Jerusalem, and really accelerated with the Enlightenment. It was starting then that some of the West’s still reigning historical narratives and social theories, as well as concomitant anthropologies, were first formulated. Moving past the ideals of Christianity and their translation into a hierarchical, feudal society, they addressed the issues discussed here, including the relative importance of man’s liberty and equality. Three of them bear noting here. They attempt to explain social organization in terms of its coming into being, and serve or may serve as their ideologies. Or, conversely, as ideologies to overcome, or perhaps improve, specific forms of society.
In all the three examples it all begins with a battle, a state of war or a sacrificial crisis, depicted variously as pitting all against all, or, arguably more poetically, as that of two main protagonists fighting it out to assert one’s superiority over the other (Hegel). In terms of Plato’s anthropology it is driven by thymos, the need to assert one self-worth, underlain as it is by a reservoir of anger which gives it its staying power. It is coupled with a desire to seek recognition from one’s opponent, coercively if need be. The immediate outcome of this foundational struggle is the creation of a hierarchical, feudal society, not unlike that of Christian states. But for Hegel it is just the beginning of a long process of social change, towards a more egalitarian and free society. With the French Revolution there was no stopping this movement, its final outcome in effect already decided in advance. Considered a leftist Hegelian, Marx wanted to help and actively speed up this outcome, focusing on class egalitarianism.
Many Enlightenment political theorists ascribe to thymos (variously called by them) a clearly deleterious role in society and thus see a need for its being subjugated or controlled. Rousseau sees in its workings an unfortunate yet ineluctable expression of man’s sociality that appears on his leaving behind the innocence of the state of nature. For Hobbes it is responsible for a state of war of all against all. For him as well as for Locke for the permanent war of the state of nature to end a social contract must be fashioned and entered into – giving rise to a society based on it – whereby the right for thymotic expression is circumscribed by provisions safeguarding man’s liberty and autonomy. Though ostensibly grounded in (largely revised) natural law and attendant natural rights, this liberty is in fact conceived in purely negative terms, certainly not as a call to some lofty undertaking requiring risking one’s life when responding to some moral imperative. It is a species of “freedom from,” preeminently from the danger of a violent death, as well as from fear itself, but also from being deprived of one’s property. The liberalism that is currently reigning in the West is predominantly inspired by those closely related brands of negative liberty.
Then there is Girard’s mimetic theory, also secular despite its strong Christian accents, which denies man’s autonomy and freedom even as it is haunted by the phantom of man’s equality. The drama is underlain by equality’s apparent Janus-like characteristics. It slowly unfolds, from the initial battle of all against all, a sacrificial crisis resulting not in a social contract, but rather in a culture-founding murder and the resulting restoration of peace. Subsequently, periods of societal peace are interspersed with those of ritual sacrifice that in cathartic fashion is able to temporarily restore the peace once more. In due course, in post-Christian societies, the common peace starts to become elusive by no scope being given any more to violent sacrifice, on the one hand, and to increasingly more and more angry, thymos-driven, demands for recognition of equality on the other. Consequently, though grounded in Christianity with its ideal of man’s universal equal dignity and inner freedom based on it, the theory nevertheless is wary of human equality. As undifferentation, it becomes the driver of a more and more nefarious change in our contemporaneity. The gravity of the danger occasioned by equality coming to the fore makes modern times apocalyptic.
Christianity’s Contribution
If Athens gave us much of the intellectual structure and terminology used today, it is Jerusalem that arguably is responsible for much of the current social dynamic in the West. It all begins though in many respects not that differently from what many sacrificial religions propose. In the beginning there is in the Bible a powerful God to be feared while being revered and obeyed, absolutely transcendent and autonomous who by virtue of his power enjoys absolute freedom to do whatever he pleases. This God needed a priesthood to officiate at sacrificial rituals, and as in any such religion-based society, they managed to situate themselves near the top of societal hierarchy.
Yet early on the people of Israel began to weave their religious and cultural story in ways that set them apart from the other cultures contemporaneous with theirs. According to Girard and his followers, by way of Judaism’s prophetic strain there started to appear cracks in the sacrificial narrative. It all culminated, of course not only for the discerning Girardian Christian, but for other Christians as well, in the ministry of Jesus Christ.
What follows is an idiosyncratic view, somewhat contrary to mimetic theory, that the march of equality as spearheaded by Jesus during his earthly sojourn, and continued later as a spiritual force seemingly inspired by the Holy Spirit need not be feared.
Jesus the Egalitarian
Against the backdrop of the Biblical notion of man created in Imago Dei, Jesus preaches radical, spiritual as well as this-worldly, equality from the vantage point of the humble, the persecuted and the powerless. This is effected by an authoritative reinterpretation of the Scriptures that he insists reflects their deep true spiritual meaning. Presenting himself as at once poor yet exceedingly well versed in Scripture, Jesus steps into the traditional prophetic pattern, and takes on the religious establishment of his country, the most important stratum of Jewish society, if not also the most powerful, given the Jews’ subjugation to Rome.
He has not one word of approval for what the religious hierarchy does or stands for, in fact accuses them of the worst transgressions imaginable, including of killing all prophets before him. Only long deceased religious leaders and dead prophets are exalted by him. Of the living he has this to say: “among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he,” a statement that Jesus’ followers (those who “have ears to hear”) might rightly interpret as egalitarian in its far-reaching consequences. In the context of his teaching on repentance it also shows the way for potential equality to become actual, which, paradoxically, for those who in society “are first” would involve their moving back – or else being moved – to “be last” (while “the last” would become “first”). What a way to introduce an equality principle!
All of this is grounded upon the foundational to Jesus’ ministry message contained in the Sermon of the Mount, with its exaltation of the downtrodden. They are called “the salt of the earth,” while the meek among them “shall inherit the earth.” Many blessings and rewards will be showered on them in the hereafter, and they seemingly will be reserved only for them. But that is not all that is to this message: those who are meek, or rather cannot but be meek in order to survive, while subsisting in this world are – as Walter Wink beautifully has shown – in fact instructed in tactics, perhaps a full-blown strategy for the discerning, of using existing cultural norms to shame their oppressors into mending their ways. Even the most famous one in this category, “whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also,” can be interpreted that way. But one is not supposed to hate his oppressor: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Thusly understood and enjoined perfection, “as your heavenly Father is perfect,” is the other side of man’s radical equality in the sight of God.
But those societal as well as soteriological considerations are not all that he has to say in terms of equality advancement. The family also comes within Jesus’ purview in a way that is far from even resembling a traditional endorsement of it. The young man who wished to do his filial duty and bury his father was told, “Let the dead bury their dead,” hardly supportive of the patriarchal family’s ways. Also, when “Someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.” …Jesus answered… “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.” This statement possibly goes even further, effectively replacing family with an earthly brother-(and sister-)hood of equals, provided they do the will of the heavenly Father.
It all culminates in the following: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.”
Whether this is a normative or just a descriptive statement makes little difference. Jesus shows that he knows perfectly well what consequences his message is bringing – but does not hesitate to introduce it anyway, as is done here in the framework of the family. He is “Girardian” before Girard has ever introduced his mimetic theory that warns of dangers of undifferentiation or radical equality. Regardless, the traditional patriarchal family, a bulwark against dangers of rivalry, conflict and, eventually, violence, apparently has to give way to such a one where nothing but God himself is sacred.
The Gospels are a treasure trove of spiritual inspiration. It is true that each new generation finds new themes, or sees other ones in a different light. For Christian gays and lesbians such is now the case with Luke 17:34-35: “…on that night there will be two men in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding together [“grind” is said to refer to sexual intercourse in at least four places in the Hebrew Bible]; one will be taken and the other will be left,” spoken by Jesus in the context of rapture. It is interpreted as signifying that sexually active gays and lesbians are not automatically consigned to eternal damnation on that basis alone, and further as bringing equality of human sexual expression.
Though equality of all humans may be derived from Imago Dei, Jesus’ message of equality, and not only in the sight of God, was addressed largely to Israel and specifically to the first communities of his Jewish disciples and followers. Paul went further, extending the message of equality beyond ethnic boundaries, making it universal in scope. What was yet implicit in Jesus became explicit in Paul, in his pronouncements concerning the standing before God of all the believers: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” and “… [in] a renewal… there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.” Paul’s push to make Christianity a universal religion made the message of equality subversive also of societal hierarchies beyond Israel. Consequently, it was treated as public menace by the Roman Empire.
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The early Christian communities were extremely keen to stay equal socially while striving to measure up to high spiritual standards. Those standards were often strictly enforced in an effort to maintain cohesion in the face of outward adversity. There might seem to have been little scope given to yet another principle made explicit with Jesus' coming forward, namely that of liberty, as personified by the Holy Spirit. But that would be the wrong impression: what must have been discouraged was “negative” liberty.
The liberty emphasized was of positive quality, not a negative “liberty from something” of later political liberalism. It was a “liberty to something,” to something of value, which in the Christian setting preeminently means a liberty to love, firstly to love God, but also to love one’s neighbor as oneself. And it is in this spirit that the Good Samaritan parable is interpreted by philosopher Ivan Illich, over and above its message of neighborly love.
Not only is the Good Samaritan parable not identitarian in its thrust – which would be in line with some modern vision of the principle of equality – but rather universalist; it arguably is rather about the liberty to respond (or not) to an empathy-based call to care when it concerns a human being not belonging to one’s ethnos. More than that: whether or not to form a bond with and befriend a needy stranger, to become a neighbor to him. And allow also the reverse, be open to letting the other choose me. That is Ivan Illich’s interpretation of a parable where Jesus significantly reverses the question, “who is my neighbor,” asked of him, asking himself, “who turned out to be the victim’s neighbor?” Illich’s vision as conjured up by the parable goes even further, to friendship and a community centered around it and solidified by dining together, just like at the Eucharistic table of early Christianity. That is one aspect of what fraternity might look like in a meta-liberal world.
Whether it is a valid Christian interpretation or not depends on the role that Christianity assigns to human freedom. Whether or not it is seen as a human endowment that can be used in a loving way or otherwise, with its call not to be quashed by either self-righteous rhetoric or, conversely, by prolonged guilt. In other words, how is the Christian expected to internalize and live by the Judeo-Christian precept of “love of one’s neighbor.” Whether, in effect, man can truly freely repent and change his ways. And if he indeed is or can be free, what does it mean? And in what way?
Holy Ghost, the Spirit of (Positive) Freedom
“…unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God… The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
In this passage from John 3 Jesus in effect makes the Holy Spirit the principle of freedom in man. As man’s promised Helper (e.g., John 15:26) the Spirit is thus our internal guide not only into the kingdom of God but also into freedom. But the Holy Spirit as Helper also guides us to Truth (ibid), and gives us the freedom to “…worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Truth, He is Truth. In effect, we are free to convert and thus be open to be guided – or we can refuse the invitation. That is one way of looking at the issue of human freedom from a Christian perspective, as exemplified by Ivan Illich.
Jesus Christ himself is of course the exemplar of freedom par excellence. Christians believe that his redemptive self-sacrifice was a truly free act, done out of love for man. But his followers – his friends – are enjoined to be ready to do their part if they truly love him. “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:12-14) This is what man’s positive, loving freedom truly means. And the Holy Ghost, the spirit of freedom, is there to help. Love-emboldened and free, Christians may turn to him to strengthen and guide them along the way, as promised: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit,… will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I [Jesus] said to you.” (John 14:26)
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Not heeding the call of the Holy Spirit, many Christians may be instead accused of having first imagined and projected, then, in the process of emancipation, hubristically internalized God’s freedom, autonomy and power. Conveniently interpreting it in a social context, some were then able to find God’s sanction for their positions of power. To compensate for that the rest pounced on radical equality, first in the sight of God, then also social, seeing Jesus as their champion. But having internalized both dynamics, we have been torn by their tension ever since. That this tension has been real all along is testified to not only by Christianity’s convoluted and often contradictory social history, but also by some of its dogma, e.g., that having to do with God’s theodicy.
The third person, the Spirit, may be seen as a force able to break the projected dialectical contradiction between God the Father on one hand, and Jesus Christ on the other. To do so in this lifetime we need to embrace Western Christianity’s notion of the Holy Spirit as the principle of love between Father and Son, more than the Orthodox emphasis on its personhood, to internalize that love and truly break free.
But it is not an easy task. Paul’s feelings that he was unfree (from the law and the body) experiencing internal tensions when trying to do good (“For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.”), as if being divided against himself – not unlike Satan, show that sensitivity to freedom’s promptings, even as mediated by the Holy Spirit, does not make one automatically free. But that is when Girard’s anthropology comes in handy, both in providing a realistic perspective of human freedom, and stressing faithful imitation of Christ, which in this context may be seen as the only way for the Christian to attempt to be free. Though heeding this call would not necessarily do away with those tensions, especially not in our excessively moralistic world, that could be a way, if not the only way, since Jesus himself announced that he was the Way.
One practical manner of responding to this call in apparent freedom is allowing oneself to be fascinated by Jesus Christ, opening oneself to the Holy Spirit and God’s grace, if you will, and then cultivating this fascination. Or imitating in this respect someone who has followed him before, like Paul himself, who even openly advised us to do just that. Better still, becoming part of a community imbued with a spirit that gives its members a sense of freedom in which to model together their desires and actions on those of Christ.
Christianity’s Historical Reality
It might be argued that Christian societies forgot about Jesus’ equality message (in fact shortly after their religion had become established in the Roman Empire), and from the liberty promptings of the Holy Spirit they chose the perverted part of being “free from,” eventually from any and all obligations that love of one’s neighbor might be personally demanding of them. Free first and foremost from being threatened physically at whatever spiritual cost that might entail, free to live peaceably in self-interested pursuits. Free in fact only in an individualistic, socially atomizing sense. And relegating those neighborly obligations first to church run charities – in this context Illich cites 4/5th century Church Father John Chrysostom’s harsh criticism of early Christians’ spontaneous hospitality falling gradually into desuetude, in evidence after cessation of Church persecution and especially after the Church’s establishment; then to a more and more powerful (national) state of their creation. Instead of being “free to,” preeminently being free to love, having been first invited into Christ’s love, and thus having been potentially made free from fear. And being thus also invited to a relationship of friendship with one’s neighbor chosen freely as such.
The effects of the dynamic that started with the “mutation of hospitality into hospitalization,” as Illich calls the creation of first church-run hospitals, were, and still are, manifold. Not only did it in due course result in an increasingly overweening state charged on our behalf with caring for the needy, but it also contributed to redefining our freedom in a negative way. Having unburdened ourselves of unexpected strangers and their needy eyes, we suddenly realized that they were unwelcome to begin with. That happened when we also forgot that in their persons it was Christ himself whom we used to welcome into our home and at our table.
In a resulting moral confusion, we started to circumscribe our own private worlds, possibly those of our immediate families, while later perhaps harboring high-minded ideas of man’s equality, provided that those putative equals of ours did not infringe our privacy. Moreover, we increasingly started fearing the latter, and gladly vested additional powers in the state to cope with that fear.
Dialectical Resolution: Community Building
Those who might think that out of the current close-quarters battle in which our two protagonist forces are mutually engaged both sides might emerge equally “bloody, but unbowed,” or, conversely, that both sides might be shortly assigned to oblivion, are most probably wrong. There is no returning to legitimation of hierarchical society, but there is no symmetry here either. In a dialectical scheme of things negative liberty seems to be a spent force in the West, both as an idea and in practice, though its partisans might not appreciate fully yet how rearguard their battle has actually become. But not so its present nemesis, i.e., equality or a spirit of egalitarianism, a much later entrant on the West’s social and political scene. Though it may require some reinventing or even retrenchment, it is quite conceivable that it will be seen as a natural development, and may happen as if of itself if and when a new spirit of freedom eventually asserts itself.
So the question is: are we going to remain gridlocked pushing an egalitarian agenda in the face of negative liberty based on a liberalism of fear? Or is the built-up dialectical contradiction going to be resolved by negative liberty giving way to a positive variety, based on love and capable of inspiring and inviting people to freely build or join new communities within a thusly rejuvenated society and large? Communities of people not retreating from the egalitarian ideal one step but feeling safe enough, certainly within those communities to begin with, to perhaps lower their guard a bit and be able to regain a more traditional vision of equality, one predicated firstly on universal equal dignity, but hopefully also confident enough to embrace the ideal of equality of opportunity, securely individual yet communally-empowered, instead of some more strident variety.
This time nobody could be excluded from this universality if those communities, as well as wider society, were to stand a chance of flourishing. This positive liberty must be one of mutual care, support and assistance, of mutual trust and respect and would have to be based on a strong and self-evident sense of obligation, if not also on cultivation of virtue, whereby all those qualities underpinning community would be regarded as both natural and good. And it is only in such an environment of regained real rootedness and solidarity that equality could have any substantial meaning, and not just be a battle cry that it largely is today.
This prospect of community building and communal living cannot get underway without the active participation of committed Christians inspired by Jesus’ message of equality and helped on the way by the promised Helper, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, a spirit of love within it and without. Appreciating also that this spirit is a spirit of freedom, one in which “everything is permitted, but not everything edifies,” we would have all the necessary ingredients for a new abundant life that could propel us into a future sustained by hope. Until such time at least when we have renewed fighting around what equality might mean over and above a truly non-exclusivist, truly universal equal dignity of all human beings as realized in a context of caring and supportive communities that we would hopefully be inhabiting at that time.
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But how to foster positive liberty in an unmoored Western society while still championing loving equality? And how might a society underpinned by positive freedom and a grateful sense of equality look like? If that is about community building, about creating islands of communal living on an individualistic ocean, how the modern state could be refashioned to accommodate them? How even to begin this ground work? Finally, would it all at long last amount to fraternity among human beings becoming a reality?
Marcus Rempel’s 2017 book Life at the End of Us Versus Them: Cross Culture Stories is as splendid a guide and inspiration to such an endeavor as it ever may be hoped for. And a word of warning as to how difficult and gradual this effort to build a new type of community must be. But also why it is worth pursuing. It might be read as an invitation to share a vision whereby there should be nothing to prevent courageous communities, not only those Jesus- and the Holy Spirit-inspired, from putting their money where their mouth is by inviting into their core membership those who might not necessarily be of one mind with them on all the issues from their – Christian and/or progressivist, as the case may be – agenda.
Being hospitable as a community – heeding a neighbor’s call – is key. That would require affirmation of his or her basic human dignity, not only extending a helping hand. Practiced on a sustained basis, it would also hopefully make the community more humble and more open within their permeable if not invisible boundaries: hopefully largely invisible to members themselves, permeable to outsiders inspired and attracted by its spirit. Rempel and Illich before him have a name for that new spirit: conviviality, making for living a life of shared work and blessings, and leading to deepened relationships and friendship.
Conviviality is a very apt word: its Latin-derived root meaning is that of common living, but today it conjures up images of feasting and drinking and good company. If both connotations are taken into account it might bring to mind a momentous precedent from early Christian history: many early Christians seem to have taken their cue from Jesus’ example and exhortation to commemorate his Last Supper and, in addition to establishing a religious rite, created a custom around this central event: agape feast, or communal love-feast. There is historical evidence, including several Scriptural passages, frescos from Rome’s catacombs, as well as documents from the era of the early, cruelly persecuted, Church of the existence of a custom that certainly helped sustain (and enlarge if not create) peaceful communities of ready-for-martyrdom believers, especially, as seems to have been the case at some times and in some locations, when it was connected to the sharing of the Eucharist.
Other precedents or examples include Rempel’s own people, the Mennonites. Having fled Reformation wars and economic hardship, from the mid-16th century till the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century they lived as self-governing rural communities in a part of Poland known as Royal Prussia. In a feudal system around them they were free people, they ran their own schools and, crucially, their obligations toward the land owner were collective, rather than individual. (Incidentally, their example spawned many communities of other ethnicities or denominations functioning under basically the same arrangements across Poland, as they were judged as beneficent to all.) Of course they were not open or even tolerant in the modern sense. But they were resolutely pacifist, which made them move to Russia (Ukraine) when an absolutist Prussia took over and would not allow exemptions from military service. When toward the end of the 19th century Russia turned nationalistic and demanded the same, they started leaving for the New World establishing their communities there. Coming from a rich tradition of long standing, Rempel testifies that it can still be spiritually fruitful.
Another, different source of inspiration might be Mondragon cooperatives, a worker cooperative federation in the Basque region of Spain. It is a business operation based on principles of solidarity and participation that are said to be in harmony with Catholic social teaching. The list of its Basic Principles includes: democratic organization, sovereignty of labor, instrumental and subordinate nature of capital, participatory management, payment equity and social transformation. Crucially, the Mondragon model also reflects a key precept of distributism, namely as wide as possible ownership of the means of production. That has been the case back home since its foundation, but Mondragon is apparently committed to eventually effecting that also wherever their economic expansion abroad might lead them. The Mondragon Corporation is currently the 10th largest business in Spain, employing ca. 75,000 people in over 260 companies and cooperatives.
Certainly nothing is preordained. There is much that could stop us dead in our tracks or even have us double back. But there is but one thing that could be the real undoing of this quest for fraternity and community centered around generous hospitality. It is the very same thing that is the chief aversive emotion of that creation and creator of liberal democracy, the rational man – fear. Now while there are other powerful emotions that can be an antidote to fear, there is but one that is able to build community rather than destroy it – love. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.” Where love is there is also hope. Conviviality is a good nurturing ground for both.
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