September 13, 2009
Dear People Whom God Loves,
DANGERS OF RATIONAL CONTROL
For the foundation of these insights, I am indebted to Charles Taylor in his book A Secular Age. The thoughts I present are mine.
We are inclined too often to divide our humanness into the higher and lower parts. The rational, i.e. reason and will, are the higher part. The bodily functions and the intermediate emotions and passions are the lower part. This at times goes to the extreme of seeing the lower parts as bad.
Morality in this understanding means that by reason and will power we will force control over emotions and passions. This is helped by thinking of them as disgusting. Control over all the bodily functions cannot, of course, be done. Emotions and passion can be repressed so that their presence is not recognized. They seem to us to be gone or almost gone, but they have merely gone underground, and we are unaware of their influence in our lives.
As children, we can only develop in a healthy way by the flow of emotions that, ideally, are present in our family. Emotion and passion flow back and forth among the family members. This provides the intimacy that is essential for our growth.
In a society or smaller grouping where morality means forcing out the lower parts, we can be trained to detach ourselves from these lower parts. Intimate relations are then lost. Everyone in a way becomes an outsider to us. For example, in warrior societies, young boys are detached from women at a certain age.
Since we are afraid of intimacy, we relate to our leaders and peers in a gruff, un-intimate way. We also relate to those “inferior” to us in a restrained manner that has no tenderness, compassion, or understanding.
This loss of intimacy leaves a deep emptiness that we try to fill in an unhealthy manner. We can attempt to do so in various ways. We can latch onto an institution as if it is a human person . . . at the same time not having much awareness of the struggles of the humans within the institution. We may also attempt it by seeking power. This usually includes docility to those with power above us and moral or physical force against those with less power below us. Another avenue is to seek to increase our wealth.
These attempts, of course, don’t fill the emptiness. Another way to put it is to say that only the love that comes from intimacy will fill us and allow us to live as full human beings.
Finally, only when we accept all of our humanness and integrate all the parts, will we grow in the spiritual journey. When we believe that God is Love and that love is the core of our being will we have the foundation for spiritual growth. That is something for another column.
Smile, God Loves You,
Father Clay
Leave a Reply