SELF-IMPROVEMENT, WORLD CHANGE, AND HUMAN NATURE

Diagnosis should precede prescription and intervention. Therefore, we first have to understand the nature and problems of humanity before we can intercede effectively.

Joseph Stalin was convinced that humanity’s problems did not lie within but without. 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.

For Stalin, a change in the “manner of life,” namely, a change in the economic and political institutions, would greatly improve the human condition.

Other utopian schemes rely upon the removal of the repressive or capitalistic elements. The Occupy Wall Street movement seemed to suggest that if we could simply remove the capitalist oppressors—the top one percent—we could have a better world. Such thinking is predicated on the idea that if the bad guys are removed, the good guys will naturally thrive and create a benign society.

Why? Because the great majority of people are naturally compassionate and other-centered, but they have been oppressed by those who are selfish. By this line of thinking, all the masses need to do is grow in awareness and self-trust.

According to New Age guru, Shakti Gawain, we have failed to learn how to trust in ourselves:

•                  “When we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead for external authority, validation, and the approval of others, we give our personal power away…Every time you don’t trust yourself and don’t follow your inner truth, you decrease your aliveness and your body will reflect this with a loss of vitality, numbness, pain, and eventually physical disease.”

How then do we learn how to trust in ourselves? We need to be empowered. How? According to some, by learning how to relate to one another! Yesterday, I attended a workshop given by THEDIALOGUEPROJECT.ORG for high school youth. We were all directed to write the names of three people in the group whom we admired, and what we admired about them. Then, we broke up into pairs and one had to recite the admirable qualities we noticed to the other as the other listened attentively. Then, the other person related back to the first what they understood the presenter to be saying. Finally, we had to process what we felt about the experience of being understood.

This proved to be an easy way to generate human connectedness. I had attended one of their talks before. While I do think that there is a place for these kinds of exercises, they wrongly convey the idea that if we simply learn how to affirm others, those others will in turn reciprocate and the world will be a better place. If we could simply learn the skills of affirmation, we would empower both ourselves and others. Consequently, we would no longer need police or soldiers.

This, of course, is predicated on a positive diagnosis of the human condition, a condition that presupposes that we all naturally want to affiliate, creating a win-win situation for all.

Similarly, many college students believe that love will conquer all, even hate. We just have to learn how to love. These students are convinced that if we had known better how to love, then Hitler, Stalin, and Mao would never have embarked on their genocidal rampages.

How do we love? Well, one way is through affirming conversations. I recently talked with a group of young communists at Columbia University in a conversation I hoped would be affirmative. I began by asking them about their hopes. They answered, “Revolution.” Light-heartedly—at least at first—I probed: “Well certainly, you are not advocating violent revolution?” They were; but they assured me that their revolt would 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 yours will be successful?”

They explained that they now had an enlightened Thinker/Leader who would not repeat the mistakes of former Marxist revolutions. Meanwhile, I was wondering if, rightly applied, love could persuade their enlightened Leader to lay aside his sickle in favor of tulips.

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 controlling elites.

I wondered about what was motivating them. Whatever it was—anger, jealousy, or self-righteous idealism—it seemed to be more decisive than all the love that I could muster through my affirmative attentiveness and understanding of their concerns.

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 and conversation 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 before the club. Some will respond favorably to the carrot, but it seems to be undeniable that the club also has its place.

Perhaps this should lead us to a reassessment of humanity and our prescriptions 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. Occupy Wall Street and the communists are convinced that they can create a better world by removing the evil elites.

However, the elites are the people who are rich in affirmations. They are successful and have had their needs met, at least more completely than the rest of us. Aren’t they the ones who should be models of self-actualization and humanity? However, affirmations can also harden us in our pride and self-trust.

If our illness lies at the core of our being, perhaps we need to be reborn from above, as the Prophet Ezekiel wrote:

•                  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses (Ezekiel 36:25-29).

If this is correct, then all of our attempts at self-rectification, revolution, and social re-designing are, at best, superficial and temporary. Instead, the inside must first be changed before the outside can be meaningfully addressed.

Understanding Humanity and Utopia: The Great Divide

The way we conceive humanity and our problems determines the nature of our solutions. Gandhi disdained technology and thought that the return to the simple life would solve many of our problems:

• Gandhi’s idea that technology was evil and that a simple, natural life was morally superior came from British idealists like John Ruskin. Sensitive people like him had become critical of England’s Industrial Revolution because of the exploitation, oppression, and other evils associated with its “dark satanic mills.” Mahatma Gandhi brought this opposition to technology to India. (Vishal Mangalwadi, The Book that Made your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization,111)

Shakti Gawain, author of Creative Visualizations, taught that our problems arose from alienation from the inner self. Therefore, her answer consisted of learning to trust the “truth” we find within:

• “When we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead for external authority, validation, and the approval of others, we give our personal power away…Every time you don’t trust yourself and don’t follow your inner truth, you decreased your aliveness and your body will reflect this with a loss of vitality, numbness, pain, and eventually physical disease.” 

Meanwhile, Joseph Stalin was convinced that attaining paradise was a matter of changing 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.

Similarly, The Humanist Manifesto II asserts that “Using technology wisely” can produce the “abundant and meaningful life”:

• “Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life-span, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.” 

Many other utopian schemes rely upon the removal of the repressive or capitalistic elements. The Occupy Wall Street movement seemed to suggest that if we could simply remove the capitalist oppressors - the top one percent – we could have a better world. Other movements placed their hopes on the elimination of those deemed evil or less evolved.

Interestingly, all of these “solutions” have one thing in common – a belief in the essential goodness of humanity, or at least of their particular group, and the superficiality of our problems. Those who believe that humanity has been corrupted by society, also believe that humanity can be easily reformed by a radical change of society.

When we believe that our problems are superficial, we will generate constant flow of utopian dreams. Such dreams are usually revolutionary. They are not content to merely improve the present system but to remove it.

When confronted with the horrors of National Socialism, Communism, and ISIS – and various other utopian movements, each promising to create a better world – the “believer” will insist that these are mere aberrations, easily corrected by the right people and re-education programs. Such hope is inevitably based upon a benign assessment of humanity.

However, what if the genocides, rapes, and abductions are the result of deeper problems that social changes will not touch? What if we are not controlled by rational argumentation or the means of production but by baser instincts?

And here is related consideration. What if there is a human nature that requires a certain kind of care? Then we have to ask the question: “Is this nature best served by sexual liberation? Communism? Finding one’s own truth? Psychotropic drugs?”

This is the Mason-Dixon Line – the great polarizing divide. It depends on our understanding of humanity. How fluid and remedial is our nature? The progressive answers, “very fluid and remedial.” The conservative answers very differently, and these answers determine how readily we will pursue radical change.

The Bible testifies of the pervasive sinfulness of humanity.  According to Jesus, we are normally addicted to darkness, the denial of the truth (John 3:19-20). The veracity of His assessment is evident at every turn. One Sabbath, Jesus healed a man with a “shriveled hand.” Instead of praising God at this miraculous deed:

• The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus. (Luke 6:11)

This same hatred of the Light of God is ubiquitously evident. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after four days in the grave:

• Some of [those who saw the miracle] went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. (John 11:46-48) 

They were unwilling to consider the implications of this great miracle. Instead, they plotted together to kill Jesus and eliminate His unbearable Light.

Jesus even prophesied that the enemies of the Light would not only eliminate Him but also those associated with Him, all the while convincing themselves that they were performing a virtuous act:

• They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. (John 16:2) 

According to the Bible, human perversity is so deep-seated that it requires radical surgery. We must be changed from above. In light of this understanding, utopianism is sheer fantasy, like building a mansion on a cesspool.

We are that cesspool. This is a truth that I had denied, disguised, and suppressed for years. It was just too unsettling! However, through the assurance of my Savior’s love and forgiveness, He granted me the courage to face the disorienting Light, and the closer I came to it, the more I was enabled to see the ugliness within.

Fire can either consume us or free us from our bonds. Rather than psychologically crippling me, the Light freed me. I no longer have to hide and put on a facade. I can non-defensively bask in the truth, knowing that my worth is unassailably buried in His love and care.

This does not represent a rejection of social change, but instead a recognition of our human limitations.

Humanity and its Rut

Humanity has always suffered from a broad array of problems – hatred, envy, bitterness, violence, unforgiveness, and denial – and has never been without various “solutions” and their diagnoses of the problems from which to choose. Inevitably, the solutions take either of two forms – changing either the outer environment or the inner one.

Outer change is often associated with revolution. Something has to be radically changed. Communism/atheism had been convinced that changing the means of production would also change everything else, creating a workmen’s paradise. The infamous Joseph Stalin wrote:

• “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.”

Indeed, “man’s manner of life [affects] his manner of thought.” However, there also seem to be deeper determinants of thought – a breeding ground that a change in mere economic superficialities cannot touch.

I had lived on several Israeli Kibbutzim – perhaps the most radical communist experiments. Owning everything in common clearly had failed to touch our most basic problems. Meanwhile, other communist experiments have uniformly proved to be one enormous, unmitigated blight upon humanity.

The Humanist Manifesto II  identifies a quasi-external problem – ignorance – and therefore promotes its opposite, science and technology, as the solutions:

• “Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life-span, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.”

While science and technology have enabled us to live more affluent and comfortable lives, they too seem to have stopped short of touching the source of our problems. Consequently, depression and suicide rates have been accelerating.

Some solutions, although blaming society, have taken a more internal focus. David Noebel writes about the confidence that humanist psychology has placed in the self:

• “Every humanist psychologist believes the secret to better mental health lies in getting in touch with the unspoiled, inner self.  When man strips himself of all the evil forced on him by society, he will become a positive agent with virtually unlimited potential…The three major assumptions of Humanist psychology are: man is good by nature and therefore perfectible; society and its social institutions are responsible for man’s evil acts; and mental health can be restored to everyone who gets in touch with his inner ‘good’ self.”

If we all possess a “good self,” how is it that all societies – and they are made up of many “good selves” – have become so evil? And if they have all become evil, what hope can we have? Perhaps then if we change society into a utopia, the same internal forces that had corrupted society initially will once again corrupt it.

Perhaps, instead, our very evident human problems are more resistant to change than the progressives have banked upon. Perhaps each one of us is the problem. This is precisely the substance of the Judeo-Christian revelation. Isaiah indicts the entire human race in this manner:

• Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are evil thoughts; ruin and destruction mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in them will know peace. (Isaiah 59:7-8)

Nor can we even correct ourselves. Our problems are intractable:

• The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

Our problems are deeper than we want to acknowledge. As strong as we might be, we cannot lift ourselves out of our rut. Only Another can do that for us.

Atheistic Communism and Genocide

As the West continues to move in a more totalitarian direction – bigger government, control, spying on its citizens, political correctness as the membership card, social group-think - I think that it would do us well to examine the possible implications of such a move. Ironically, these moves are justified in the name of creating a more progressive society.

This also had been the claim of atheistic communist regimes. However, genocide reached unprecedented levels under these regimes. Wikipedia claims:

• Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million.

The human toll has been unbelievably high. While Western civilization is very ready to remember the fascist Third Reich – they will not call them what they had called themselves (“National Socialists”) – they are very ready to downplay the communist atrocities. However, I think that it is important to revisit these and to ask “why.”

Many historians have tried to explain the almost uniform horrors that had been committed by atheistic communism. According to Rudolph Joseph Rummel, the communist genocides were a product of absolute power and Marxism.

• "Of all religions, secular and otherwise," Rummel positions Marxism as "by far the bloodiest – bloodier than the Catholic Inquisition, the various Catholic crusades, and the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants. In practice, Marxism has meant bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal prison camps and murderous forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions and fraudulent show trials, outright mass murder and genocide." He writes that in practice the Marxists saw the construction of their utopia as "a war on poverty, exploitation, imperialism and inequality – and, as in a real war, noncombatants would unfortunately get caught in the battle. There would be necessary enemy casualties: the clergy, bourgeoisie, capitalists, 'wreckers', intellectuals, counterrevolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, the rich and landlords. As in a war, millions might die, but these deaths would be justified by the end, as in the defeat of Hitler in World War II. To the ruling Marxists, the goal of a communist utopia was enough to justify all the deaths."

What we believe determines how we behave. The cognitive/belief conditions in the West seem to be ripe for these kinds of atrocities. There is the necessary identification of the “good guys” and the “bad guys,” those who need to be eliminated from any public influence – the “religious bigots,” the “homophobes,” the Wall Street” folks, anyone who is opposing the dawning of the new age, a sexually free, guiltless society.

Just recently, the military – they had placed Catholics and Evangelicals on their list of terrorist organizations along with Al Qaeda – threatened Christians with court marshal if they tried to proselytize.

It is common today to regard the Stalinist purges as merely the product of Stalin’s alleged mental illness and not the ideas of atheistic communism. However, the evidence tends to argue that he was merely following in Marxist-Leninist footsteps:

• Robert Conquest stressed that Stalin's purges were not contrary to the principles of Leninism, but rather a natural consequence of the system established by Vladimir Lenin, who personally ordered the killing of local groups of class enemy hostages. Alexander Yakovlev, architect of perestroika and glasnost and later head of the Presidential Commission for the Victims of Political Repression, elaborates on this point, stating that "The truth is that in punitive operations Stalin did not think up anything that was not there under Lenin: executions, hostage taking, concentration camps, and all the rest." Historian Robert Gellately concurs, saying: "To put it another way, Stalin initiated very little that Lenin had not already introduced or previewed." Said Lenin to his colleagues in the Bolshevik government: "If we are not ready to shoot a saboteur and White Guardist, what sort of revolution is that?"

According to this world view, the “bad guys” stand against progress and the common good. In his book, The End of Faith, Sam Harris writes that “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.” “Kill people?” His obvious contempt for Christianity makes us wonder whether he has us in mind, as many atheists in the past have had and have gladly acted upon their contempt. However, it is safe to say that we are not the only “bad guys”:

• In The Lost Literature of Socialism, literary historian George G. Watson saw socialism as conservative, a reaction against liberalism and an attempt to return to antiquity and hierarchy. He states that the writings of Friedrich Engels and others show that "the Marxist theory of history required and demanded genocide for reasons implicit in its claim that feudalism, which in advanced nations was already giving place to capitalism, must in its turn be superseded by socialism. Entire nations would be left behind after a workers' revolution, feudal remnants in a socialist age, and since they could not advance two steps at a time, they would have to be killed. They were racial trash, as Engels called them, and fit only for the dung-heap of history."

Judging from the extreme and inflammatory language coming from our U.S. administration and those closely associated, it seems that they have a very clear idea of the identity of the regressive “bad guys.” We are the “homophobes,” the “hate-mongers,” the “bigots” – those who are prejudicially denying others their “human rights.” We are the enemy, and we know, only too well, the fate of the “enemies” of national socialism and atheistic communism. Who will be “fit…for the [next] dung-heap of history?" A warning to the revolutionary: The revolution also has a venerable history of turning against its own!

Life in the USSR according to a Former Soviet

The following account comes from a Russian woman who emigrated from the USSR 20 years ago and now resides in the USA:

I don’t think you can really call it suffering – not in my case.   My family were not dissidents, not protesting against the regime, we always minded what we said and where so as not to join the ranks of those tortured and killed by KGB.  But there were many who suffered and of course much more so during Stalin’s times – I am sure every family has a person who was abused or killed in KGB prisons or in labor camps. 

But if you look at the country as a whole, it has been cursed – it has the wrong spirit, that of fear, slave-like submission, deception – something you can notice from outside, but get used to when you’re inside.  I suppose, we did suffer from it too, only we didn’t know that – meaning the freedom of speech, human rights, protection by the law.  We never had any of those, we were born without, we knew things were different in the West and that there was better life, but we were never into politics or trying to fight for changing our country. 

And also, only here I came to understand WHY things are differed in the West – it’s because of the Christian values, because there are still people here who love God and so are able to love one another.  It’s not the political system or better economics – it’s the spiritual difference.  Even an atheist could feel it – the way people lived in communist countries – constant fear and slave-like mentality – people in the West LOOK different, they keep their heads high, they have dignity, they can actually smile and laugh and dress up in bright colors.   I don’t know if you understand what I mean. 

Of course, people here are used to good things like protection of human rights, freedom of faith, etc.  But all these democratic values  - where do they come from?  Why are they upheld in the West?  They try to build democracy in Russia too, only it does not work – because people are still slaves in their hearts.  Slaves to the devil even if they don’t realize it.  It’s only because of Christianity where every human being is precious to God, all these rights and freedoms have evolved.  And those who are used to them just take things for granted and think that “peace and plenty are the rule and the right of all sensible folk” (quote from The Lord of the Rings) forgetting about the Guardian who actually holds things together.

I suppose, we can only really appreciate something when we loose it.  Go and live in Russia for some time – not as a tourist with dollars but as a regular person who has to rely on local social, judicial and medical systems where everything is corrupted and stolen to the point that elderly people or orphan kids starve to death.  Then you will come back with much appreciation for Judeo-Christian ethics and values that are still upheld here for now.    And by the way, in totalitarian regime (and this is what Russia still is), any disagreement with the regime is punished, so if Putin decides to forbid atheism tomorrow (which he might – Orthodox Christianity is a very popular trend these days and being an atheist is out of fashion), dear atheists will not even be able to express their opinion openly as they do here.  Because in Russia people are just subjects, not human beings created in the image of God, and human life has no value.  And if we forget God here, this is what we will eventually become – subjects, pawns, trash – expendable. 

Which will be a pity – I mean, this is exactly what me and my family were trying to get away from 20 years ago.  So, where do we go next when this country falls apart?