What If Your Deconstruction Was Also A Conversion To Modernity?
When you sow the seeds of the modern self, the tree bears the fruit of deconstruction.
Deconstruction and the Modern Self
The modern self has everything to do with modern deconstruction.
Modernity is the plausibility superstructure in which we live and move and have our being, the web in which we are caught. The way we conceive of our identities today forms the frame for our thinking about religious belief, whether we are converting or deconverting. It privileges certain interactions with Christianity and disadvantages others. If you take the givens of the way modernity conceives of self-identity, the ideal of hard deconstruction is the result.
When you sow the seeds of the modern self, the tree bears the fruit of deconstruction.
But what is the modern self?
A Study In Contrasts: Princess Elsa and John Calvin
The song Let It Go from Disney’s Frozen (2013) resonated with people because (1) it is damn catchy and (2) it captured something of the spirit of the zeitgeist. Princess Elsa became a stand-in for the ideals of the modern self. As a cultural artifact, Let It Go is a window into how our culture imagines the fraught, heady journey of building one’s identity.
Elsa’s Take On Identity Formation
Let It Go (2013)
“…The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I've tried
Don't let them in, don't let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know
Well, now they knowLet it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I don't care what they're going to say…It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all
It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I'm free…”
In this scene in Frozen, Elsa has just fled her childhood home where her powers and personality were repressed and has headed for the mountains where she builds a palace of ice while she sings Let It Go. She was held as a prisoner in the palace and was shackled with a terrible fear of who she was and what she could do. Let It Go is a song of liberation and celebration (“No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I’m free.”) Her childhood had taken her true self from her, but by taking hold of her freedom, she launched a quest to become everything she was meant to be.
It is also a song about turning your back on external authorities and looking within to find true meaning. As the song says, she was taught “Don’t let them in, don’t let them see. Be the good girl you always have to be.” Elsa tried to be what they wanted her to be and it brought pain and tragedy into her life. So she had to separate and look inside herself alone on the mountain in order to find a better way to live. Jean Jacques Rousseau, one of the fathers of the modern self would have been proud of Elsa’s quest. Rousseau wrote, “I need only consult myself with regard to what I wish to do; what I feel to be good is good, what I feel to be bad is bad.’
In a sense, all modern people can come to the brink of moments like the one Elsa finds herself in, alone on a frozen mountain top, faced with the task of building a cathedral for our identities that is big enough to live in. Just as meanings have to be made, they can be unmade. If you find yourself, like Elsa, trapped in a prison of someone else’s making, the only responsible thing for you to do is to throw it off and begin the work of creating a more beautiful self out of thin air and ice.
John Calvin’s Take On Identity Formation
Now let’s rewind the clock 500 years or so and hear from another cultural thinker who drew his ideas about identity from a very different well than Princess Elsa’s: John Calvin.
From The Institutes of The Christian Religion (1536)
“As consulting our own self-interest is the pestilence that most effectively leads to our destruction, so the sole haven of salvation is to be wise in nothing and to will nothing through ourselves, but to follow the leading of the Lord alone…
“Scripture calls us to resign ourselves and our possessions to the Lord’s will, and to yield to him the desires of our hearts to be tamed and subjugated… Let the godly neither desire, nor hope for, nor contemplate any other way of prospering than by the Lord’s blessing. Upon this then, let them safely and confidently throw themselves and rest.
For however beautifully the flesh may seem to suffice unto itself [it will not prosper apart from the Lord’s blessing]. It is for us to look to the Lord’s guidance that we may be led by the hand to whatever lot he has provided for us, [and to] totally resign ourselves to the Lord to permit every part of our lives to be governed by His will.”
John Calvin (1509-1564) came of age just as the Protestant Reformation was igniting the cultural and political landscape of Europe and grew into one of its foremost thinkers. He exploded onto the theological scene in 1536 with his first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion (about as long as the New Testament) and by the fifth edition in 1559 (about as long as the whole Bible), his work has made Geneva into a major center of the Reformation.
When it comes to the construction of the self, Calvin begins and ends in an entirely different place than both Elsa and the modern culture that created her story. To Calvin, consulting your own self-interest is the “pestilence that leads most effectively to our destruction” and instead to “follow the leading of the Lord alone.” That is a far cry from “No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I’m free.”
For Calvin, human identity is a satellite that orbits the massive and glorious personhood of God—we thrive in his gravitation. He is the star that gives light and life to our own personhood. Our lot is to “resign ourselves and our possessions to the Lord’s will” as if our own freedom, happiness, and significance were only derived virtues meant to be freely returned to the God from which they came. In doing so, we will find a better happiness in the Lord’s governance of our lives.
Clearly, there is a gap between Elsa’s vision of human identity and John Calvin’s. What can account for such a difference?
Both figures represent not only their own views, but the views of the culture they are a part of. In the past 500 years, there has been a cultural sea change in the area of identity formation. One sense of what it means to be a person, to establish an identity, to make your way in the world, to live a good life, to be yourself, has been dismantled and another has been built up in its place.
The modern self has subverted and overturned the pre-modern self.
But What Is The Modern Self?
This begs the question: What is the modern self? It is easy to imagine that would be a simple question to answer, but that isn’t necessarily the case. It takes effort to gain enough perspective on our cultural moment to see it for what it is. We are too close to it. Our paradigms have been too shaped by the many values and motivations that have molded them. We tend to accept the lay of the land as what is, was, and ever shall be, world without end. But that isn’t the case.
Our culture’s idea of identity formation has a certain shape, upholds certain virtues, and recommends a certain path to those who would “find themselves.” So what is the shape? What are the virtues? And what is the path?
These questions deserve more than just one post, but at a glance, the modern self is built on a number of givens:
Modern Disenchantment
First, we are our own masters. The materialistic strand in the modern identity emphasizes that we live in a disenchanted universe and there is nothing above us. There is no higher power that has the ultimate say in our lives—and if there is, it is benign, accepting, tolerant, and happy. Just like our ideal selves. The authority that humans once placed within the transcendent realm is now located solely within ourselves. The immanent frame has replaced the transcendent cosmos.
Modern Meaning
Second, we are the makers of the meanings of things. Whatever meaning there is in the universe is not inherent to it, but must be created by humanity. There is incredible freedom in that idea and incredible potential for not only creation but re-creation. If something isn’t working, tear it down and build something better from the pieces. Deconstruct it and move on. Deconstruction might be painful, but it is the only way to personal meaning that works for you, not some ossified ethical code or institutional meaning framework (like traditional Christianity, for instance).
Modern Freedom
Third, it is important to retain our freedom, and we are only free when nothing is stopping us. We have to be able to decide for ourselves what to become. Anything that impinges on our freedom does us violence and impedes our progress toward our best selves. Freedom is a moral good, a commodity to be used for the preservation of the self against the forces of conformity. When the constraints from outside the self come into conflict with the impulses that arise from within the self, damage can be done to the self if the exterior demands are allowed to hold sway.
Modern Performance of the Self
Fourth, we are the things that we become. People today have the sense that, in expressing ourselves, we are defining ourselves. We are malleable and plastic. We can shape ourselves into what we want to become. This strand in the modern identity descends from the Existentialists who thought that identity precedes essence, not the other way around. We are blank slates upon which we can inscribe whatever we choose.
Today, that maxim of the Existentialists could be tweaked to become “aesthetics precede identity.” You can be whatever you want, but first you will need the right shirt, the right playlist. Our aesthetic choices can help midwife us into another way of life. To become something, we must first perform it. The self can be altered, augmented, hastened in its becoming through the use of things exterior to the self.
Modern Authenticity
Fifth, we are true when we are true to ourselves. Modern people know they are on the right track if they are following the trail of their own authenticity. Modern authenticity is the idea that the ultimate purposes for a person are those which come from within. By staying in close contact with one’s authentic self, each person can find the way of living that is right for them. And when they find it, in order to continue growing, they must become it. Modern people know they can look inside themselves and find something there that can be, if not infallible, still a reliable and authoritative guide. If you align yourself with the truths you find there, you can’t go wrong.
The Modern Self Was Programmed to Deconstruct
Deconstruction is the software that runs on the operating system of the modern self. It is what the modern self was programmed to do. It is always waiting in the wings for a culture that conceives of the self as ours does. To the degree that you take this picture of the modern self as a given, deconstruction will seem more plausible, and maybe even irresistible.
That raises an important, but sensitive question for those who are deconstructing or have deconstructed. What if your deconstruction was just a conversion to the modern self?
What if the confusing, painful process of emerging from the chrysalis of your former beliefs was also the pain everyone experiences as we try to make a reconciliation between the vast mysteries of God’s unchanging ways and an ever-changing culture?
What if you have been pre-conditioned to see certain problems when you look at Christianity and to seek certain solutions inside the modern self?
What if certain paths have already been marked out for you as you walk through the labyrinth of the self? They will only be as reliable as the guides who planned the route. And as you walk the maze of self, you will only be free to the degree that you know who those guides were and where they wanted to take you.
These should be troubling questions because if the implied answer is true, you wouldn’t necessarily know it. The modern self has raised the epistemological authority of our feelings. (Remember Rousseau: “What I feel to be good is good, what I feel to be bad is bad.”) So if you follow your feelings into and through your deconstruction, and ask your feelings if you are happy with where they took you, the answer will probably be: Yes.
Also, though these questions are challenging, they shouldn’t be surprising. There is always a cultural background to plausibility that affects our beliefs the way the moon affects the tide, pulling it in one direction or another. Different cultures can come to completely different conclusions about what is believable and what is unbelievable. We are never fully free from that gravitation, but we can become more aware of it.
And that is exactly where we are going next.
Read more from Andy on The Darking Psalter (commentary, translations, and poetry about the Psalms) and Three Things (a monthly digest of worthy resources to help people connect with culture, neighbor, and God.)
Photo by Akira Hojo on Unsplash