In these tumultuous times it’s important to take care of your health: Physical therapy for the body, psychological therapy for the mind, and what I call philosophical (or spiritual) therapy for the soul.
Addressing the latter, I have been reading (and trying to understand) The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich. He explores the underlying Existentialist anxiety and feelings of meaninglessness in society during times of change, and how to address it, the courage to be. Published in 1952, the book applies now, perhaps even more so.
Virtually unknown today, Tillich was a big deal in the 1950s. Forced by the Nazis to leave his native Germany in 1933, he became a professor at Harvard. A 1959 cover story in Time magazine states: “In a country noted for its impatience with theology, he has come to be regarded by the U.S. as its foremost Protestant thinker.”
The book is very timely for its insights that might help understand what is happening today, in the U.S. and around the world. We are in a critical period of history. In classic historical irony, on Jan. 20, Martin Luther King Day, the man who became the next U.S. president spouts unbelievable almost obscene rhetoric attacking many honorable beliefs and values in our culture and institutions.
We understand that people continually seek self-affirmation. However, Tillich writes: “There is a moment in which the self-affirmation of the average (person) becomes neurotic: When changes of the reality to which he is adjusted threaten” his mastery of fear. “If this happens – and it often happens in critical periods of history – the self-affirmation becomes pathological.”
In my understanding of Tillich, this pathology may underly what seems to be happening in our social and political realms today. All the political and social conflict, different world views, seem to be an insurmountable threat to society. It’s the culmination of all that is harmful in the Postmodern Era: Being cynical and disbelieving about facts, truth, faith, morals, institutions. Tillich again: “This is the explanation of the mass neuroses which usually appear at the end of an era.”
I am befuddled trying to understand what must be going on in the new president’s mind, and in the minds of his most ardent followers. Not the billionaires cynically who are using him to increase their wealth and power, but the masses of people who seem to worship him.
In some perverse combination of personality and circumstances, this man has been able to intoxicate the mass of his followers with feelings of power and vitality, giving meaning to their lives. Those who profess to be Christians also raise the question, who is their God? I am a Christian, but I am dismayed seeing T-shirts, hats and buttons with the slogan: “Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my president.”
You could argue that in this case the word ‘president’ should be crossed out and replaced by ‘God’. Remember the first commandment in Exodus 20 (You shall have no other gods before me). And if Trump is their God, you could say a handful of billionaire technocrats are his angel investors. Peter Thiel might be brilliant, but he’s on the wrong track leading back to the Postmodern Era and its ills.
In his farewell speech, President Biden warned of “The dangerous concentration of power in the hands of very few ultra-wealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
If Tillich were here today to witness this, it would be extremely enlightening to hear what he had to say, other than ‘I told you so’. I think he would say that it’s up to each individual to summon their ‘courage to be’, to find meaning and vitality in becoming more involved in our society and government in a positive manner. And with Tillich being a theologian, that includes our faith communities.
Positive civic participation has been weakened and eroded by the dark side of digital technology and diminished public education in the liberal arts. Our survival as a democratic society depends on the latter’s restoration, along with true representative democracy, moving toward a democratic conformity (Tillich’s term), or today it could be called neo-democratic conformity. And the digital world needs some accountability.
I hope we are seeing the end of the Postmodern Era. Here it’s worth repeating some of my post Aug. 31 entitled: As Trumpism dies, so does the Postmodern Era: “Like the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, when fascist Germany counterattacked the prevailing Allied forces in World War II, Donald Trump is at the head of a counterattack against truth, hope, and progress. These values were rekindled in the wake of Nine Eleven as Americans rallied together against international terrorism.
“If Nine Eleven shocked us out of the Postmodern morass, and if the Obama presidency embodied Metamodern values (Yes We Can, Change We Can Believe In, Winning the Future, Greater Together), today we must unite vigorously against the Postmodern counterattack from Trumpism.”
“Gaining ascendence, many scholars now point to the so-called Metamodern Era. Basically, it’s a return to Modern Era values of truth, hope, progress, while not losing a healthy skepticism. It is a worldview that combines the modern faith in progress with the postmodern critique.”
Now in the 21st Century, Tillich’s words remain relevant. We can learn and be encouraged by them, and even earlier (700 BCE) by those from the prophet Isaiah, about leaders (chapter 11, verses 3-5): “His (a leader’s) delight will be obedience to the Lord. He will not judge by appearance, false evidence, or hearsay, but will defend the poor and the exploited. He will rule against the wicked who oppress them. For he will be clothed with fairness and truth.” Let’s hope some of that returns in 2028.
(If this essay reminded anyone of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey on “Saturday Night Live” about ten years ago, thank you for reading this far. It’s common for people to awaken in the middle of the night with deep thoughts, less common to arise and write them down, even less common for them to be worth anything. This time I wrote them down, and hope they are worth something. – Forrest)
