Catholicism and modern individualism

Further to two recent posts, one about Steven Pinker's view that the Enlightenment is the source of science, reason and progress, and another about Tom Holland's view of the modern west as being very much the legacy of Christendom, I came across this interesting article.

A growing body of research suggests that populations around the globe vary substantially along several important psychological dimensions and that populations characterized as Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) are particularly unusual. People from these societies tend to be more individualistic, independent, and impersonally prosocial (e.g., trusting of strangers) while revealing less conformity and in-group loyalty. Although these patterns are now well documented, few efforts have sought to explain them. Here, we propose that the Western Church (i.e., the branch of Christianity that evolved into the Roman Catholic Church) transformed European kinship structures during the Middle Ages and that this transformation was a key factor behind a shift towards a WEIRDer psychology.

By breaking down extended kin-based institutions and encouraging a nuclear family structure, the Church encouraged more individualistic behaviour.

This also ties in with Larry Siedentop's brilliant Inventing the Individual; the Origins of Western Liberalism which makes a very powerful argument along similar lines, i.e. that the moral revolution unleashed by Christianity sewed the seeds of modern individualism as we know it.

This idea of the Catholic Church as a cultivator of individualism is rather refreshing when one has come to take for granted the more popular idea that the church inculcated authoritarianism and generally frustrated human freedom, i.e. the kind of idea that Pinker would promulgate.

There is also an irony to this; the individualism that the Church unleashed basically went rogue and now thrives independently of any religious objectives.

This highlights two different types of causation; physical and logical. Speaking logically, i.e. the language of necessity, if I was to suggest that you needed Christianity to be have individualism, such an argument would be difficult to sustain.  There are many argument for individual freedom that do not rest on religious foundation. The writings of Kant and Rawls immediately spring to mind as examples. Rawls appealed to hypothetical metaphysical state of nature (i.e. veil of ignorance) in making his case - that this is also a secularised version of the Christian soul doesn't mean it relies on the   actual existence of souls to be valid.

Speaking in terms of physical causation, i.e. the language of historic contingency, it is extremely hard to see how modern individualism could have emerged without Christianity. Without the church's concern with individual souls, conscience and will, the conceptual space for the notion of individual flourishing would not even have existed.

These arguments are a reminder that in criticising modern individualism, Catholics should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and remember that individual freedom remains inextricably linked to the faith. Christians should be wary ceding individual freedom as a principle to liberals and being seduced by anti-individual movements on the right.

Taking the ball home

On the recent controversy over the Fine Gael government's plans to commemorate the RIC, and the subsequent decision to cancel those plans, Irish independent economist Dan O'Brien argues that "reflecting on history should become more like the practice of faith - a private affair." This is to avoid unnecessary controversy caused by bringing up old and irrelevant divisions.

Is Dan sulking? The force of public opinion caused Fine Gael to backtrack on its ill-advised proposal. Perhaps Dan is a bit sore over this and consequently does not want anything to be publicly commemorated now. The giveaway is the following line; "...and how strongly some of those who opposed it appear to feel on the subject."

So all the strong feelings are on one side? The proposal itself was the outcome of Minister Flanagan's own very personal and strong feelings about the subject. It was completely and explcitly unsupported by the expert advisory group on commemorations, despite the minister's claims otherwise. His strong feelings on the subject were also apparent in various interviews he did to try and defend his decision.

There were strong feelings on both sides. But the issue here is not an inability to commemorate the past, but just an unwillingness to celebrate certain things, and a feeling of genuine annoyance when a government tries to celebrate those things.

It probably was an irrelevant and unnecessary distraction but that was Fine Gael's fault for starting such a pointless fight. It was not irrelevant in the sense that the history of the RIC or Tans in Ireland is irrelevant. History like that is as relevant as the current times dictate, and the passions (passion not being a dirty word btw) aroused show that the subject matter is still very important.

So contrary to O'Brien's narrative, Fine Gael, due to strong feelings, sought to commemorate something that was not appropriate to commemorate, and were forced to backtrack due to inevitable and justifiable backlash of the pubic. Using this as a argument for banning all commemorations is just sour grapes. The controversy is a signal to think a little more carefully about what we commemorate, not that commemorations should cease full stop.