Individualism Versus Being Independent

Recently I read something that caused an eye-opening AHA moment for me. However, for the life of me I cannot remember where I read it. I just want you to know this observation is not original with me. The eye-opening thought was an observation concerning the difference between Individualism and Being Independent.

Here in the U.S. we are witnessing a movement couched in the framework of old-time freedom and independence – as in our 18^th century patriots who fought the British for our independence. However, this newfound sense of “fighting for freedom from government” or protesting government’s “encroachment on our individual liberties” is NOT what our Founding Fathers were doing. Our Founding Fathers were not simply against the British government. More importantly, they were collectively FOR self-government and personal self-restraint for their common, collective good. Their sense of collective freedom rested on the necessity of collective responsibility.

We have confused a 21^st century sense of individualism with our Founding Fathers’ 18^th century concept of freedom and independence.

What is missing from today’s “patriots” is this sense of collective personal interdependence – this willingness and acknowledgment that each individual operates with self-restraint for the common, collective good of the nation. It is a belief that we are all in this together. We all protect each other. We all respect each other, even if we differ. We all respect the democratic process, which means we encourage the voting process, respect the opinion of the majority, and operate within the “rules” if we want to change the majority opinion. It is an understanding that we, as a country, are only as strong as the weakest part of our citizenry.

Individualism, as generally expressed today, is much more like the independent freedom as expressed by explorers, early mountain men, or the earliest settlers. It is an understanding that you are on your own, must make your own way, solve your own problems, and – most importantly – survive.

A sense of individualism is absolutely necessary for individual survival. By necessity survival is based on the concept “It’s all about me.”

A sense of interdependent personal freedom is absolutely necessary for a democratic society. Collective freedom rests on a sense of collective responsibility. By necessity a democratic society is based on the concept “It’s all about us.”

These two concepts are not the same. An individualistic concept of freedom may be collectively expressed as anarchy. An interdependent concept of social commitment may be collectively expressed as a representative democracy.

That set of distinctions really resonated with me.

Immediately I thought of similarities with the “me-ism” of growing segments of our population, exhibited in a growth of the use of social media and an “I-Am-A-Star” mentality – the kind of drive that motivates someone to post Facebook pictures of themselves or Tweet about their shopping experiences at a mall.

From a spiritual point of view this all may lead to a further sense of separation – solidifying the sense that “I am me and you are not,” and I have to take care of me and mine.  If that idea of individual separateness continues our spiritual growth as humankind will suffer a setback. On the other hand this “Star” mentality may lead to a growing sense of Oneness – a sense that others are truly NOT so different from me – a sense that, in truth, we are all united as one single human race living on a beautiful blue orb floating in space. This is the type of social media use we have already glimpsed in the Arab Spring uprisings.

If the latter occurs, perhaps we will continue to evolve towards a caring, sharing interdependent society rather than a competitive, individualistic survivalist social system.

Time will tell.

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#1 February, 2014

Copyright, 2014

Part 2 - The Subtle Spiritual Sickness that Stems from a False Enlightenment

Continued from Part 1

Then I remembered the tale of two Islamic mosques here in Tennessee. One, in Murfreesboro, had been there for a long time. They had plans for moving and expanding the mosque into a larger Islamic Center – much of which would be open to all the public. Plans were approved and the project moved forward. In the aftermath of the 2010 elections, anti-Moslem tensions were escalated and the reactionary portion of the community wanted to shut it down. It has been delayed and repeatedly taken to court. Finally, it is moving forward again. The second occurred in Memphis. A mosque was moving to a suburban area in order to expand, a process similar to many evangelical congregations. When the land was purchased and the building permits approved, they held a ground-breaking ceremony. As the Islamic congregants gathered, they noticed a sign in the yard of an evangelical church across the street. The sign simply stated: “Welcome Neighbors.” Later, when construction delays were threatening the mosque’s ability to hold Ramadan services in the new building, the evangelical church opened its doors and offered their sanctuary to the Muslims for use. Now, the two congregations work together to provide food, health, and other services to the most vulnerable of Memphis.

I had another little flash: Maybe, if God really has wanted America to be a shining light to the world – then maybe it is the image of Memphis He wants us to project. He wants America to represent the values of acceptance, tolerance, inclusivity, openness, charity – these are the values God wants America to stand for. Not the image of America represented in Murfreesboro.

Then I had a third flash of insight. Rather than seeing this “vision” of the marriage between the ultra wealthy and the ultra social conservatives as an attempt to reduce their fearfulness, I was seeing their vision as an extremely “bad” interpretation of history as I understood history.  I was chastising their perception of reality because they didn’t agree with my perception of reality. After all, I’m right, aren’t I? Wrong!

What I couldn’t (or didn’t) see was their remembrance of reality was meaningful for them because it offered them assurance, peace, security, reduction of fear, and confirmation that their concept of rightness is, for them, true and correct. Are not these the very things I long for? Yes. Are not these the very qualities that provide valued meaning to my life? Yes. What, then is really different between them and me? Other than our different perceptions - nothing.

The power of my Egoic thinking never ceases to amaze me. My higher mind will receive a glimpse of a message from the Holy Spirit and – rather immediately – my Egoic mind will step up and say: “Oh! I see more clearly now. Thanks, Holy Spirit, I’ll take it from here.” And off I go into the eddy of my own thinking.

I just finished studying a text in A Course in Miracles with our local ACIM Group (TXT, 2, V, 1-10) – fearful Egoic thinking cannot heal because it cannot see the Christ in someone else. Whenever I can see the Christ in someone else, I can see the Christ in me. Whenever I fail to see the Christ in others, I fail to see Him in me. The choice to see the Christ in others occurs not as an act of willpower and restraint on my part (this, too is of my Egoic thinking), but as a function of the Holy Spirit who provides me with true vision rather than physiological sight.

What is so complicated about that? Not much, but it is enough for me to continue to need gentle reminders all the time.

Thanks for listening, and – as always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#3 September, 2012

Copyright, 2012

Part 1 - The Subtle Spiritual Sickness that Stems from a False Enlightenment

While watching the news this past week I heard portions of Romney’s now-famous quote that 47% of Americans are unable and unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. As he was talking (May, 2012 to a group of donors), his view of the world became pretty clear and I had a brief flash of insight that suddenly provided clarity and unity to the vision behind a lot of conservative rhetoric over the last 10-15 years. Suddenly I could see how the hopes of very wealthy fiscal conservatives and the visions of very conservative and evangelical biblical literalists had become joined. The vision explained to me the current agenda of these extreme social conservatives and their alliance with big corporate interests and the wealthy one-percent.

They want to return America to its “glory days,” believing we are God’s gift to the rest of humanity. They invoke this idealized remembrance of our past history. But when you look at their vision, it is quite incomplete. In short, they adore the Pilgrims who came here to establish a Christian nation. After a hundred years or so, they wanted to unfetter themselves from the constrictions of the English crown and establish a purer form of capitalism. These early Americans developed the Declaration of Independence, won the Revolutionary War, and developed the Constitution. At the heart of the current conservative movement is a belief that we need to get back to those ideals, those social and individual moral principles, and that form of purer capitalism.

What this remembrance forgets is the very flawed implementation of this unified vision of these (mostly) white, western Europeans. The Pilgrims didn’t come here to establish a Christian nation. They came here to escape the European marriage of government and religion and to practice their form of religious freedom – one that unified their local government with their concept of morality. If you disagreed, they killed or disowned you. There were as many different forms of religious ideals of godly government as there were colonies.

Their purer form of capitalism was pretty much identical to that of England, involving an unbridled greed that understood the need to establish a government that existed for the protection of the country against enemies and for fostering unregulated business interests. What were those interests? Wealth – in the form of money, land, and minerals or raw resources.

In turn, this led to a government-assisted wholesale genocide of our Native Americans, legalizing the institution of slavery (where, in our Constitution a black male is defined as being 3/5 of a human), the wholesale destruction of fur bearing animals, and the theft of the underground mineral rights of small landowners as well as the legal basis of banking, both based on the precedents of English Law.

But I thought England was repressive? Well, the English form of religious intolerance was repressive. The English form of capitalism that favored the landed gentry was repressive. However, our form of religious intolerance was okay; our form of government-assisted capitalism, which favored corporations and share holders, was also spun to become accepted as being “heavenly blessed.”

Somehow, over time and wishful thinking, this vision of America successfully blended Christianity, the Bible, religious morals, capitalism, corporate greed, the Stars and Stripes, patriotism, and Caucasian western European puritanical morals into one huge, inseparable ball of wax. This ball of wax seems to have fostered values of fear, exclusivity, intolerance, and mistrust. That’s not a very pretty picture of America nor of the god that truly wants it to become the shining light of the world.

Continued in Part 2

Freedom of Religion Doesn’t Mean What Some Want It to Mean

It is absolutely no coincidence that freedom of (and from) religion is the very first of the agreed-to 10 Constitutional Amendments referred to as the Bill of Rights.

In the mid-19^th Century Alexis de Toqueville (1805-1859), a French historian and philosopher, toured the United States to see for himself how our fledgling democratic republic was working. The results of his observations appeared in his signature work, Democracy in America, published in 1835 (Vol. 1) and 1840 (Vol. 2).

One of his significant contributions was his observation concerning the impending opportunity of “…the majority raising formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion,” if, in fact, the democratic process spilled over from America’s arena of politics to the arena of everyday social life. This idea of de Toqueville’s led, later, Lord Acton (British Historian, 1834-1902) to coin the famous phrase: “The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority….” 

In his opinion de Toqueville saw the very detrimental possibility in our society that voting on political/legal/economic policies would morph into similar “voting” on social/cultural/personal values as some form of un-official national policy. His complete observation was: “In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers [someone may write or think] what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.” Remember, this was 180 years ago.

Watching some of the debates for the GOP presidential nomination and hearing some of the commentaries (both conservative – FOX – and progressive – MSNBC), I am struck by how much the religious views of our candidates play in the nomination/election process. It’s as if voters want to hear how religious and spiritual our elected (or nominated) officials say they are. How utterly inappropriate this is, according to our Constitution. As stated by Phillip E. Johnson (American Educator, 1940 -) “The restriction of religion to private life therefore does not … threaten the vital interests of the majority religion, if there is one, and it protects minority religions from the tyranny of the majority.”

This raises, for me, the question: Why is the opinion (to use de Toqueville’s term) of religion so critically important in an election cycle?

My initial answer? Fear and Ignorance. To assuage their fear and the world their fear thinks it sees, folks perceive their religious “world view” as paramount in their decision-making. They have to find something that will provide them with a certainty of faith. They have found that certainty – not in their personal transformation and acceptance in the Kingdom of God – but in the literal words of the Bible. Any verse anywhere in the Bible is the Word of God, and if verses contradict each other, then that’s an illustration of the mystery of God.

I discussed this issue in my book (pages 345-46) under the heading of “Recognizing the Dangers of Bibliolatry.”

“There is always a tension between the faith itself and our attempt to communicate it in a rational language at a given historical period. A relatively static authoritarianism, either of the Roman Catholic type or fundamentalist/evangelical type, so confuses the authority of the Church, the Bible, and the faith of the people that the tension, which is between God, as we understand God, and our human understanding, is removed. Without that tension the doors are opened to idolatry – in this case a blind worship of the Bible itself – or Bibliolatry.”

As Karen Armstrong pointed out in her book, The History of God, fundamentalists cannot conceive that I experience and think about God differently than they, which may be different from that Abraham experienced as a middle Bronze Age nomad or as Paul experienced as a first-century Jewish Roman citizen.

Back to an election cycle: It seems fearful religious conservatives have extended that belief-form (everybody everywhere thinks of God in the same way) to apply the Founding Fathers. Surely, Franklin, Jefferson and Paine, all of whom referred to “God,” must believe as we biblical literalists believe. The problem is they didn’t. They were essentially Deists. God was the prime (or first) mover. The Creator. God didn’t interfere in personal lives and liberty. Jefferson’s Bible had been all crossed-out except for those passages, especially parables, which began “Jesus said....“

When biblical literalists use a quote from Isaiah or Deuteronomy to justify their actions/beliefs they are denying the message of Jesus the Christ. He said He was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. His was the new message from God. The Gospel. The Good News – the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear. He gave us three commandments to follow, replacing the Ten Commandments of the Israelites.

But religious conservatives cling to the Old Testament and its Ten Commandments. It’s simpler. It’s easier. But it’s incorrect, and it’s a grave error when it’s used as a litmus test for politicians.

To elevate the Bible in ways that overshadow the Gospel of the Lord is a supreme sacrilege. To pursue a political end of enacting legislative laws to ensure the apparent “sanctity” of the United States so God will once again bless us above all other nations is an act of unbelievable un-love in the name of the God of love.

Thanks for listening and, as always, feel free to share this message with my blessings.

Don

#2 March, 2012