Of the myriad neuroses in a hyper-neurotic culture, one stands out as the most persistent, and that is our compulsion, our obsessive need to “get it right.” Perhaps it is the perfect storm, of a toxic combination of post Enlightenment thinking and Calvinistic theology that pervades post modern Western culture that has so crippled our ability to live committed visionary lives, lives rife with meaning and joy. Statistically, North Americans are the most unhappy, most addicted people in the developed world. By post Enlightenment thinking, I mean that we suffer from the belief that the human mind (mostly the left side thereof) is all-powerful… Philosophy calls this phenomenon in human evolution “the rise of the autonomous self.”
The Enlightenment witnessed a renaissance in mathematics and the sciences. In the Enlightenment Western culture found new and exciting ways to quantify reality. Everything could in essence be measured, listed, categorized. The infinite, transcendence, and mystery all took a backseat to the notion of power attained through the human mind’s gift of precision and the sense of certainty engendered therein. Nietzsche coined the term “the Übermensch,” the super-man to describe the brave new human who would usher in a utopian society with his all-powerful mind.
Calvinism, a highly influential theological movement following the European Reformation, articulated a doctrine of humankind’s abject unworthiness. Though fundamentalism is a relatively modern phenomenon, Calvinism planted the seed by emphasizing a strict reliance on a literal interpretation of scripture. Calvinism espoused the quest for certainty, a hallmark of the Enlightenment, while holding that only an elite few would experience the joys of heaven in the next life; and that there was no escaping the bonds of sin in this earthly life. My theory is that the compulsion for certainty born of the Enlightenment, and the fear of an exacting, exclusionary God propounded by Calvinism has made us post modern westerners sick with the compulsion for order and certainty laced with the disposition of unworthiness and fear… Hence our vocation as a culture is to get it right… knowing all the while that we will never get it right. A psychic split. It is no wonder that our culture is so depressed and anxious. This is insanity.
The Christian vision is not about measuring up and getting it right… nor, for God’s sake, is it about fear. That is not to say, however, that the life of faith is not without rigor. Ironically it is the more difficult road… but it is a road whose roadmap is mystery, not certainty; aesthetic awareness not rules for the sake of rules. The life of faith is risky, uncertain, and improbable. It requires the ability to think critically and imaginatively. It requires artful speculation in lieu of dogma. To live the life of faith one must recognize that there is nothing in stone except that the creation is still in its becoming and that its engine is love, and that we are invited to participate in it with whole hearts. To live the life of faith one must give up the need for certainty and nurture the improvisational skill of the imagination. The imagination is not so much concerned with what is right, as it is with what is true. The life of faith is about true, and the art of being true gives great leeway for mistakes and false starts, changes of mind, visions and revisions, surprise, awe, peace of mind… not about getting it right.
Along the road of the life of faith, don’t worry about getting it right. You won’t…. take courage and aim for getting it true… Right?
Thought provoking post. We have been taught to do our best. We internalize that to mean our project has to be perfect by our standards. We internalize that to mean the outcome is more important than the process. We internalize that to mean we cannot watch a colleague fail without trying to stop disaster. Taken to our cultural, middle class extreme, it is toxic.
Well said Linda!