Individualism

“The heresy of individualism: thinking oneself a completely self-sufficient unit and asserting this imaginary ‘unity’ against all others. The affirmation of the self as simply ‘not the other.’ But when you seek to affirm your unity by denying that you have anything to do with anyone else, by negating everyone else in the universe until you come down to you: what is there left to affirm? Even if there were something to affirm, you would have no breath left with which to affirm it. The true way is just the opposite: the more I am able to affirm others, to say ‘yes’ to them in myself, by discovering them in myself and myself in them, the more real I am. I am fully real if my own heart says yes to everyone.“ Thomas Merton

In my Air Force career I have been fortunate to visit more than 30 countries. I have played soccer with the Turkish, sung Karaoke with the Japanese, and drunk Maté with the Uruguayans. If there is one thing I have learned from interacting with people from all over the world, it is this: we are all the same. Each of us desires companionship, love, respect, and acceptance. Most importantly, each of us is a child of God.

After reading the above Merton quote I was reminded of how much alike we really are. Individualism, and even more so ethnocentrism, is something that tears at the heart until it is unable to love anything but what is close and familiar. It is what fuels racism and violence…and ignorance. In the religious sense, individualism is a blindfold to truth and understanding, and unless we take it off we can never see what God has intended for us to learn and understand: that we are all the same, and that we all came from the same place: the hands of God.

So what then should our response be? I do not think it can be anything but what God has commanded us to do from the beginning. Love. Love your neighbor; love your enemy. Love those who look different; love those who worship different. I truly believe that a response of true love towards God’s creation would alleviate much of the individualism and ethnocentrism in society. It does not need to happen in the next blink of my eyes, but it can happen over time.

I suppose the trick would be to start small. We begin by loving our neighbor, the atheist. We begin by loving our co-worker, the Jew, or our classmate, the Muslim. We love them not because we understand them, but because they are God’s creation.

And then we listen. We listen to their stories; we listen to their beliefs. We listen for what we share rather than what we do not understand. I think we would be surprised by what we would learn if we listened. If we listen and love, as God loves, we can see that we come from the same place, and need the same thing to survive.