Individuality in Modern Culture: The Loss of the Self in Romanticism
A superb summary by Reinhold Niebuhr on the tension between romanticism and idealism - the reason I am putting this down on the blog is because the book (The Nature and Destiny of Man) is almost impossible to obtain (unless one is willing to buy through Amazon) - mine is a borrowed copy from NTU library - and his words are well worth retaining:-
Romanticism is, in short nearer to the Christian faith and a more perverse corruption of it than idealistic philosophies. It understands, with Christianity, the unique and arbitrary character of historical existence and knows that the rational universalities of philosophical systems can neither fully contain nor comprehend the unique quality of the givenness of things nor yet themselves fully transcend the contingency and irrationality of existence. With Christianity, it consequently discovers the subtle self-deception and hypocricy of rationalistic cultures, which manage to insinuate their own particular values into the supposed impartial and objective universall values of their philosophy. (The relation of democracy to bourgeois culture for instance.) It is this penetration into the dishonesty of rational idealists which establishes affinities between Nietzsche and classical Christianity, despite his strictures against the "bad conscience" which Christianity prompts. On the other hand romanticism, at least in its fully developed Nietschean form, substitutes brutality for hypocrisy and asserts the particular and unique, whether individual or collective, in nihilistic disregard of any general system of value.
The simple fact is that both the obviously partial and unique and the supposedly universal values of history can be both appreciated and judged only in terms of a religious faith which has discovered the centre and source of life to be beyond and yet within historical existence. This is the God whi is both Creator and Judge revealed in Biblical faith. Romanticism understands the fact of the goodness of creation in all of its particularity and individuality; but it has no perspective beyond creation. Idealism seeks a rational point of vantage beyond the created forms and thus has an inchoate conception of God as judge. But the judge turns out to be man's own reason. The individuality of man is tenable only in a dimension of reality in which the highest achievements of his self-knowledge and self-consciousness are both known and judged from a source of life and truth beyond him.
The idea of individuality which is the most unique emphasis of modern culture, is thus a tragically abortive concept, which cannot be maintained as either fact or as idea within the limits of the cultural presuppositions of modernity. The social history of modern life moves from the individualism of the early commercial period to the collectivism of industrialism. The individual who emancipates himself from the social solidarities of agrarian feudalism and the religious authoritarianism of medievalism is, within a brief span of history, subjected to the mechanical solidarities of industrial collectivism. His revolt against this collectivism betrays him into the even more grievous tyranny of primitive racialism and imperial nationalism.
The cultural history of modern man gives him no resource to modify or to defy this tendency. In idealism the individual is able to transcend the tyrannical necessities of nature only to be absorbed in the universalities of impersonal mind. In the older naturalism, the individual is for a moment to apprecoate that aspect of individuality which the variety of natural circumstances creates; but true individuality is quickly lost because nature knows nothing of the self-transcendence, self-identity and freedom which are the real marks of individuality. In romantic naturalism the individuality of the person is quickly subordinated to the unique and self-justifying individuality of the social collective. Only in Nietzschean romanticism is the individual preserved; but there he becomes the vehicle of daemonic religion because he knows no law but his own will-to-power and has no God but his own unlimited ambition.
Without the presuppositions of the Christian faith the individual is either nothing or becomes everything. In ths Christian faith man's insignificance as a creature, involved in the process of nature and time, is lifted into significance by the mercy and power of God in which his life is sustained. But his significance as a free spirit is understood as subordinate to the freedom of God. His inclination to abuse his freedom, to overestimate his power and significance and to become everything is understood as the primal sin. It is because man is inevitably involved in this primar sin that he is bound to meet God first of all as a judge, who humbles his pride and brings his vain imagination to naught.
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Romanticism is, in short nearer to the Christian faith and a more perverse corruption of it than idealistic philosophies. It understands, with Christianity, the unique and arbitrary character of historical existence and knows that the rational universalities of philosophical systems can neither fully contain nor comprehend the unique quality of the givenness of things nor yet themselves fully transcend the contingency and irrationality of existence. With Christianity, it consequently discovers the subtle self-deception and hypocricy of rationalistic cultures, which manage to insinuate their own particular values into the supposed impartial and objective universall values of their philosophy. (The relation of democracy to bourgeois culture for instance.) It is this penetration into the dishonesty of rational idealists which establishes affinities between Nietzsche and classical Christianity, despite his strictures against the "bad conscience" which Christianity prompts. On the other hand romanticism, at least in its fully developed Nietschean form, substitutes brutality for hypocrisy and asserts the particular and unique, whether individual or collective, in nihilistic disregard of any general system of value.
The simple fact is that both the obviously partial and unique and the supposedly universal values of history can be both appreciated and judged only in terms of a religious faith which has discovered the centre and source of life to be beyond and yet within historical existence. This is the God whi is both Creator and Judge revealed in Biblical faith. Romanticism understands the fact of the goodness of creation in all of its particularity and individuality; but it has no perspective beyond creation. Idealism seeks a rational point of vantage beyond the created forms and thus has an inchoate conception of God as judge. But the judge turns out to be man's own reason. The individuality of man is tenable only in a dimension of reality in which the highest achievements of his self-knowledge and self-consciousness are both known and judged from a source of life and truth beyond him.
The idea of individuality which is the most unique emphasis of modern culture, is thus a tragically abortive concept, which cannot be maintained as either fact or as idea within the limits of the cultural presuppositions of modernity. The social history of modern life moves from the individualism of the early commercial period to the collectivism of industrialism. The individual who emancipates himself from the social solidarities of agrarian feudalism and the religious authoritarianism of medievalism is, within a brief span of history, subjected to the mechanical solidarities of industrial collectivism. His revolt against this collectivism betrays him into the even more grievous tyranny of primitive racialism and imperial nationalism.
The cultural history of modern man gives him no resource to modify or to defy this tendency. In idealism the individual is able to transcend the tyrannical necessities of nature only to be absorbed in the universalities of impersonal mind. In the older naturalism, the individual is for a moment to apprecoate that aspect of individuality which the variety of natural circumstances creates; but true individuality is quickly lost because nature knows nothing of the self-transcendence, self-identity and freedom which are the real marks of individuality. In romantic naturalism the individuality of the person is quickly subordinated to the unique and self-justifying individuality of the social collective. Only in Nietzschean romanticism is the individual preserved; but there he becomes the vehicle of daemonic religion because he knows no law but his own will-to-power and has no God but his own unlimited ambition.
Without the presuppositions of the Christian faith the individual is either nothing or becomes everything. In ths Christian faith man's insignificance as a creature, involved in the process of nature and time, is lifted into significance by the mercy and power of God in which his life is sustained. But his significance as a free spirit is understood as subordinate to the freedom of God. His inclination to abuse his freedom, to overestimate his power and significance and to become everything is understood as the primal sin. It is because man is inevitably involved in this primar sin that he is bound to meet God first of all as a judge, who humbles his pride and brings his vain imagination to naught.
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posted by Benjamin Ho at
6:56 AM
1 Comments:
OOOO... *Head spins*...now I know why I gave up philosophy in favour of mathematics...Haha... My goodness...what a whole battery of terms, 'idealism', 'individualism', 'transcends', etc. I don't think they have the significance which they use to have anymore... I think the time of 19th century philosophy has passed. Try reading some of the works of contemporary philosophers, especially from the analytic tradition. Their exacting and clarity is a far cry from the wishy-washy and dodgy discourse of german idealism/romanticism.
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