SELF-IMPROVEMENT, WORLD CHANGE, AND HUMAN NATURE

Diagnosis should precede prescription and intervention. This is not only true of medical issues but also of emotional and even national issues. Therefore, if we want to do something about our emotional torment, we need to understand its cause. Of course, we can merely cover over the torment with a drug or a few beers. However, the problem will still remain.

Modern secularism sees our problems originating from the outside. Consequently, we are not fundamentally the problem but society. Hence, we are the product of our social and familial influences. Joseph Stalin was convinced that humanity’s problems did not originate within ourselves but without, in the economic system. Consequently, his prescription was to change the environment—the State and its economy:

•                Whatever is the mode of production of a society, such in the main is the society itself, its ideas, and theories, its political views and institutions. Or, to put it more crudely, whatever is man’s manner of life, such is his manner of thought. https://www.allaboutworldview.org/marxist-history.htm

For Stalin, a change in the “manner of life,” namely, a change in the economic and political institutions, would fundamentally improve the human condition. This meant that Stalinist government would have to exert overwhelming force to coerce change. This resulted in the extermination of many millions, the “enemies of the State.”

This is almost inevitable. When our problems are deemed to originate from the outside, then the outside must be controlled to eradicate these problems and any who get in the way of the “solution.”

Outside of Krakov, Poland, Anita and I had visited what had once been considered the ideal communist/Stalinist city, Nowa Huta. Stalin and the other communist idealists had reasoned that once distinctions had been removed, there would be nothing left to interfere with the realization of true comrade-ship among the workers. Consequently, all worked in the same factory. All were given the same income and lodgings. Did the removal of these distinctions create a greater brotherhood? Apparently not! Instead, they lived isolated lives divided by walls of suspicion. At least, they were guaranteed lodgings and an income, which, in the end, could only be paid in vodka and sugar.

Every communist experiment had been a glaring failure at the mere cost of 100 million lives. Meanwhile, the presently existing communist nations have adopted capitalism to dig themselves out of their economic hole.

Why had every one of these promising experiments failed? Perhaps the communists had misdiagnosed the problem, and assumed that if they changed the society, they could also improve the man. Perhaps, instead, the inner man needs to be changed before society can be meaningfully changed.

Nevertheless, secular, utopian schemes continue to abound. Many college students believe that love will conquer all. This is based upon the assumption that most haven’t received enough love.  Therefore, we just have to learn how to love. These students are convinced that if Hitler, Stalin, Muhammad, and Mao had received enough love, they would never have embarked on their genocidal rampages.

How do we love? Basically, we have to change society and its corrupting influence. I recently talked with a group of young communists at Columbia University and asked them about their hopes. They answered, “Revolution.” Light-heartedly, I probed, “Well certainly, you are not advocating violent revolution?” They were; but they assured me that their revolt would only kill a mere 1% of the population.

Again, I probed: “In light of the failed communist experiments of the twentieth century, what hope do you have that your revolution will be successful?” They explained that they now had an “enlightened” leader who would not repeat the mistakes of former Marxist revolutions.

Meanwhile, my young, idealistic communist comrades assured me that love for humanity required them to strike a quick, relatively painless and antiseptic blow against the capitalist elites.

I wondered about what was motivating them, and why they thought that they could limit the carnage to only 1% of our population. Whatever it was—anger, compassion, jealousy, or self-righteous idealism? I was thinking about Paul Johnson’s book, Intellectuals, in which he exposed the lives of our intellectuals. On the surface, they had seemed to be very committed, other-centered, and even compassionate. However, their personal lives painted an entirely different picture.

I reminded myself that these students are human beings with the same feelings and needs that I have, but yet, they are also our future murderers—instruments of genocide. Can friendship, affirmations, and love turn them around? Would these techniques have turned around Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, or would they have co-opted them for their own sinister designs?  In view of the fact that there has never been a society that has been able to relax sanctions against anti-social behaviors, I had my doubts about their effectiveness.

I’m certainly not against using the carrot of love and affirmation before the club. Some will respond favorably to the carrot, but it seems to be undeniable that the club also has its place. This is why all legal systems have instituted deterrents against crime.

Perhaps this should lead us to a reassessment of humanity and our prescriptions and hopes for a better world. Perhaps we have faults at the core of our being that all of the loving affirmations in the world cannot adequately address. The communists and other utopian idealists are convinced that they can create a better world by removing the evil elites. However, there seems to be something about all of us that can give rise to evil.

Genocide knows no national or class boundaries. When the Nazi leadership was brought to trial at Nuremburg after the war, many believed that they would see in them the incarnation of evil itself. However, they were surprised to find that these were ordinary men just like us. They loved their wives and children and cared about their neighbors. What then turned them into genocidal maniacs?

Perhaps we all have our dark-side, although we’d like to present ourselves as compassionate, and we even make a good showing of it. Our psychological needs, like the need for approval, success, security, and to think well of ourselves, are so powerful that they secretly infiltrate and contaminate everything we think and do, even our most idealistic ventures. However, if we refuse to be aware of it, we cannot even begin to control it. But can we confront ourselves without this knowledge undermining our carefully constructed and manicured positive image of ourselves? I couldn’t! Instead, I hid the evil within, which I had experienced as a destabilizing threat to my selfhood:

·       “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

Naturally, we prefer the darkness to the light, which painfully exposes us. It has only been my confidence in the love and acceptance of my Savior, which has enabled me to accept, examine myself, and to exercise control over my dark-side. Consequently, I can now see how the evil within had contaminated everything I did, even my naïve attempts to be a good person.