The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution

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Rousseau had a somewhat cheerful view of human beings in their natural, uncultured state. Not so his near contemporary, the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), who agreed with Rousseau that culture prevents us from being ourselves, but regarded the natural human being as a seething mass of dark and destructive desires. This Sadean appropriation of and reaction to Rousseau found influential expression in the plausible idiom of science in the hands of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Then, to abbreviate the story somewhat, the marriage between aspects of Marxist theory and Freudian anthropology in the work of men such as Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) and (even more so) Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957). The self was psychologized, psychology was then sexualized, and finally sex was politicized. The stage was set for the contemporary politics of sexual identity. Carl Trueman explains modernity to the church, with depth, clarity, and force. The significance of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. . . is hard to overstate.” The family has been redefined. Many mothers work outside the home, single parenthood is the scourge of inner-city communities, and no-fault divorce (a sign of the primary importance assigned to personal satisfaction over social responsibility) carries no social stigma. And these were realities long before gay marriage. 2. Church Part 1, ‘Architecture of the Revolution’, introduces concepts from three philosophers (Philip Rieff, Charles Taylor, and Alasdair MacIntyre) which are used throughout the book. No doubt many readers – myself included – will find that most of these concepts are new to us, but they are very helpful ways of understanding the world we live in, and they also help readers to follow the thread of Trueman’s argument.

However, none of these were invented by the Romantics. Not at all. We could say, rather, that the Romantics, reconnected with already existing streams of value and interest, from which their immediately prior cultural settings had become disconnected. Trueman can often be informative and insightful, especially in his discussion of Nietzsche, Marx, Darwin, Freud, and all those then influenced by their thought, often unwittingly (which these days, like it or not, think it good or not, at least to some extent includes almost all of us). The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self is perhaps the most significant analysis and evaluation of Western culture written by a Protestant during the past fifty years. If you want to understand the social, cultural, and political convulsions we are now experiencing, buy this book, and read it for all it is worth. Highly recommended.” That society seems to have decided that a—perhaps the — major way to achieve this is sex means that any attempt to enforce a code of sexual behavior is an assault on the individual, a means whereby individuals are forced to be inauthentic and, indeed, unhappy. And anyone who therefore tries to enforce sexual codes is oppressive or a “hater,” to use the cheap and lazy means of delegitimizing any critic of the moral mess that is late modernity. Institutions and Their Discontents Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) is a key source, with his provocative notion that human learning—the “ arts and sciences” of his First Discourse — is actually that which corrupts us and hinders us being truly ourselves. Uncultured instincts and feelings are really who we are; civilization merely hinders, twists, and perverts these, making us conform to its demands and rendering us inauthentic.

The fourth and final part looks at three ‘Triumphs of the Revolution’, each of which offers an illustration of how the changes traced in the previous parts can be seen in modern society. It is here that Trueman speaks of some of the realities of which we may be aware in the world around us, including wide acceptance of pornography, approval of same-sex marriage, and a pro-transitioning response to transgender experience. An impressive achievement Sometimes there is no clearer way to put it: our culture has gone mad. But while its insanity is irrational, it’s not illogical. Trueman has convincingly shown why we are in the place we are as a culture; the next step is to demonstrate not only the moral absurdity of secular progressivism, but also the moral superiority of Christianity. Man is born free", Rousseau declared, "but is everywhere in chains". What — everywhere? Yes. For his protest was not exclusively against the royalist absolutism of Louis XV, but against the socialising process itself, and the constraints it places upon the sovereign individual. All societies, therefore, come within the purview of his condemnation. In this entire—yes, call it “Romantic”—mind-set, the Human vocation is understood not to be just a mirror, but also that of an extraordinary lamp. My point is that this mind-set is radically different from Expressive Individualism, as Trueman describes it. Lamps are there, after all, to illumine something else. Expressionism, on the other hand, just says, “Look at me.” It’s a serious mistake to conflate the two.

In this timely book, Carl Trueman analyzes the development of the sexual revolution as a symptom—rather than the cause—of the human search for identity. Trueman surveys the past, brings clarity to the present, and gives guidance for the future as Christians navigate the culture in humanity’s ever-changing quest for identity. Why bother, now that we have the “scoop,” to read Wordsworth at all on our own, if he’s just a stepping stone to Hefner and Kardashian? (And wasn’t he just another of those Dead White European Males—a devoted Christian, none-the-less—from whom we’ve heard far too much of, anyway?) Of course, few people read Reich and Marcuse, let alone Rousseau and de Sade. But the idea that happiness is personal psychological satisfaction—“self-fulfillment”—is the staple of sitcoms, soap operas, movies, and even commercials. And this narrative, this illusion, has powerful implications. When the goal of human existence is personal psychological satisfaction, then all moral codes are merely instrumental, and therefore continually revisable, to this subjective, psychological end.For example, Debbie Hayton states ‘I have never been a woman. Womanhood is not a feeling in my head or anyone else’s. I was certainly driven to transition, but not because I was trapped in another body. I now realise there is only me in here, and that I have always been here.’ Debbie Hayton, ‘ Trans Parent: Debbie Hayton Shares Her Journey Exclusively with Hood’, Hood. Accessed 6 May 2021. Debbie has also spoken out against the kind of understanding that Trueman outlines, e.g. Debbie Hayton, ‘ I May Have Gender Dysphoria. But I still Prefer to Base My Life on Biology, Not Fantasy’, Quillette. Of Carl Trueman’s work, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, I regret to say that my assessment of it has to be: “weighed in the balances and found wanting.” This and other factors—for example, postcolonialism, and the rise of non-national identities such as nativist, regional, feminist, LGBTQ—pose serious challenges to those national narratives that have given nation states so much of their legitimacy in the popular mind. Part 2 focuses on developments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, beginning with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, then advancing to a number of prominent poets of the Romantic era. It turns finally to the world-changing ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Charles Darwin who each “in their different ways provided conceptual justification for rejecting the notion of human nature and thus paved the way for the plausibility of the idea that human beings are plastic creatures with no fixed identity founded on an intrinsic and ineradicable essence.” It is through these men that society’s notion of the self became psychologized. Such was the case in the second century. Christianity was utterly marginal. Its members were under suspicion of indulging themselves in immoral shenanigans such as incest and cannibalism. And the same laws that banned fire brigades banned churches from meeting, because such gatherings were seen as seditious and subversive of the common good. There is our historical precedent. Catholic traditionalists might lament for the loss of the 13th century, but those who want to respond to our situation rather than merely indulge in the masochistic pleasures of lament will reflect on the second century and how the church then behaved. 3. The church should form strong communities where Christians care and support one another.

I note with concern that Trueman has not engaged—or even referenced—any serious scholars of the Romantics, or indeed of literature and the arts in general. Not even Meyer Abrams’ classic study, The Mirror and the Lamp, which—to a limited extent—might be thought to have bolstered Rise and Triumph’s argument (but which I think does not, or at least not that much). Fidelity in Politics: Hallmarks of Christian Political Activity in the Tradition of Reformed Protestantism May 8, 2023

An impressive achievement

First, I would imagine that at one time or another we have all asked the question that led Trueman to write this book. How in the world did our culture get to the point where the statement, “I am a man trapped in a woman’s body” makes logical sense? The changes have happened so fast that we can easily become disoriented. But if you have ever been confused, frustrated, or exasperated by the strange logic at work in our culture, this book will at least give you categories to make sense of what is happening.