JEFFREY EPSTEIN, THE IDEALIST

Albert Popa

It might sound unbelievable that the sexual predator and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and idealism can be mentioned in the same breath. However, Nicole M. King has written that, in Epstein, they were closely associated:

·       Epstein was also deeply fascinated and invested in the world of science. Specifically according to the New York Times story [nytimes.com, 2019/07/31], Epstein “hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch.” (Salvo Magazine, Winter 2019, 20)

While most would terminate with an abortion, few of us would welcome hundreds of additional Epsteins unleashed upon this world. However, Epstein had been “hosting Harvard luncheons…offering financing for some of their research projects”:

·       “Mr. Epstein’s vision,” said the Times, “reflected his longstanding fascination with what has become known as transhumanism: the science of improving the human population through technologies life genetic engineering and artificial intelligence.”

We shouldn’t be surprised by Epstein’s idealism and his bankrolling of research. Mao, Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin were also idealists, even though they terminated the lives of tens of millions for the sake of their ideals.

Nevertheless, many, like the late poet T.S. Elliot, have warned about the costliness of unbridled idealism:

·       Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. 

Pursuing our ideals can give us a heightened sense of self-importance, and this high can prove highly self-deceptive. In White Nights and Other Stories, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s character had warned about this danger:

·       “And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!”

Not everything that feels good is good. The noted Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis also recognized the threat of an idealism untamed by wisdom:

·       Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. (God in the Dock: Essays on Theology; “Making of Modern Theology”)

The pursuit of an ideal can override the voice of the conscience and of reason. It is easy to imagine how Epstein was able to quiet his conscience through his idealistic beneficence. Just find a “glorious” cause, and you can justify genocide. Even science can be called upon for its support. In From Darwin to Hitler, Historian Richard Weikart demonstrated how Darwinism had been used to support genocide:

·       Darwinism by itself did not produce the Holocaust, but without Darwinism... neither Hitler nor his Nazi followers would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince themselves and their collaborators that one of the world’s greatest atrocities was really morally praiseworthy.

As a Christian, I began to see that so many of my beliefs and ideals had been self-aggrandizing. I believed in them because they enabled me to feel good about myself, even if it meant looking down on those who didn’t share my beliefs.

The assurance of Christ’s love and forgiveness enabled me to honestly look at myself and the lies I had spun, trapping me in their web. The Bible assured me that I am acceptable to Him just the way I am, warts and all, and that I only need to humble myself before Him to admit my need:

·       If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)

When we know that we are forgiven and cleansed, we no longer need to pursue the approval of others. We have Christ’s approval. We no longer need to give vast sums to charity or to give up our lives for a worthy cause. We already have been validated by the One who loves us so much that He died for us while we were His enemies (Romans 5:8-10).

Yes, we still have our ideals, but we pursue them, not because they exalt us but because they exalt the One who die for us. We also pursue them, not out of desperation to silence our conscience, but because it has already been satisfied. We seek to do the right thing, not out of guilt but out of gratitude for what He has already done for us:

·       For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Because our need for significance and worthiness has already been satisfied, we can now more soberly assess what others need rather than what we need.