At the mercy of our desires
Many of the ideas in this essay are from, or formed by the book “De Onzichtbare Maat” by Andreas Kinneging. His work - to my knowledge only in Dutch so far - is a great source of knowledge for those who wish to familiarize themselves with Old Greek/Christian ideas to counter the emptiness of the modern ones.
Introduction
Modern ideas glorify ancient vices. This leads people down a path of embracing the behaviors that damage their souls.
Many companies profit from destroying people’s wellbeing. The Bunkerized Christian doesn’t seek to change these companies. He seeks to protect his soul. So it’s important to understand why people participate in their own destruction. Companies spend billions to make us addicts. Why do their efforts find fertile ground in our souls?
First we need to understand what a human being is, how he functions, and which ideas form him. Only then can we understand why people are aiding in the detriment of their wellbeing.
This essay explores Plato’s/a Christian understanding of human nature to reveal our inner workings, and compares it with the modern Romantic idea of the self-god. It argues that the loss of these Old Greek/Christian ideas has made us slaves to our desires because we have lost the ability to strive towards an ideal that exists higher and outside of ourselves.
Let’s get into it.
Plato about human beings
According to Plato, human beings have reason, will, and desires. Correctly ordered, they flourish. Ordered wrongly, they don’t.
In a virtuous person, reason leads. Will and desires follow. In a person who isn’t virtuous, the desires reign, and will and reason are used to satisfy them.
Those who let reason lead, can battle their desires. When tempted, they use will and reason to suppress the desire. Such a person literally becomes “reason-able”.
If the desires reign, will and the reason serve to fulfil the momentary desire. Such a person becomes “un-reason-able” and isn’t great to be around. They fall victim to vices to the detriment of themselves and those around them.
But the virtuous, reason-able person isn’t born. He is forged. A person can transcend their natural tendencies towards the bad and make choosing the Good their second nature. This requires reason to participate in something higher.
Participation in something higher
Reason can participate in something that is outside and higher than itself. Timeless truths. Plato calls these Ideas. They also contain Ideas about morality, about what is Good. He writes,
“The sun illuminates, bestowing the ability to be seen by the eye with its light, as goodness illumines the intelligible with truth.”
It is thus by participating in these higher Ideas - by using our reason - that we can figure out what is Good.
A similar theme exists in Christianity. Those who believe in God also see a higher realm in which a Being - God - resides. The participation of God in man is also clear. Genesis 1:27 states,
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
After the fall, the human being became a sinner. It is only to the amount that we walk with God - i.e. know and act in accordance with the Good - that we are able to live virtuous lives.
Romanticism and the self-god
Romanticism removes the idea of a higher, external God. It gives us a god that is deeper and within ourselves. We need to uncover this deeper, unique self before we can truly be ourselves. Reason must follow the desires in this process. As David Hume writes,
“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them”
Modern thinking correctly observes the original state of the human being. Hoever, it chooses to let it be. Instead of calling to forge a second nature that focuses on the Good, it applauds those who submit to their desires.
The assumed existence of the unique self-god leads to a massive problem. One cannot look for a source of wisdom that is higher and outside of oneself. The unique Me is completely dependent on itself to self-actualize. Following advice would be a direct attack on the uniqueness of the self-god.
The flawed person thus remains a slave of their desires. No outside source, be it God, timeless philosophy, or even parents can be trusted and used to override the desires. Such an act would go against the deeper self. It would damage the actualization of the self-god.
Disconnected from timeless wisdom, people are doomed to repeat timeless mistakes.
About the consequences, Kinneging writes,
“What does this lead to? A whole heap of pathologies. First of all, as mentioned before, a restless, passionate experimentation. And because man actually isn’t so unique, those are experimentations with similar things: sex and relationships, food and drinks, drugs, education, jobs and life-philosophies.” (164, Onzichtbare Maat, translated from Dutch)
Kinneging then explains what this leads to in the end,
“Most people are done with experimenting before they turn forty and settle. But the unrest remains. Do I have the right partner? Do I have a job that suits me? Shouldn’t I get more from life? All those experiments never lead to certainty. On the contrary, it creates existential confusion, indecisiveness, restlessness and all kinds of pivots in life, because even when your feelings at one moment tell you with the utmost certainty: ‘This is good!’, later the doubts always return.” (165, Onzichtbare Maat, translated from Dutch)
This is a life in which one is slave to the desires. Reason and will are used to fulfil momentary desires, but the person remains forever restless. Always looking for more and new. A life in which desires lead can - by definition - never be satisfying because the desires can’t ever be permanently satisfied.
The modern human is at the mercy of his desires
Since the desires cannot ever be permanently satisfied, the modern human is ripe to become an endless consumer. Every temptation is a chance for short-lived happiness, yet also carries within it a hope to find lasting peace.
Cut-off from something that is higher and outside of themselves, they drown in the strong desires within them that they are told to follow. When companies offer food, gambling, social media, porn and quick fixes, they are the mercy of their desires.
If one would have access to older sources, one would understand that this is a problem as old as time. For in the Bible we read,
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)
There is a clear understanding that man and his desires are weak. But the spirit - that which can participate with the higher realms - is willing to do good. And by praying - seeking guidance and strength from a God higher and outside of yourself - you can battle the desires.
Conclusion
Part of the reason people willingly aid in their own destruction is because they can’t battle their desires. Companies exploit this human weakness, and with clipped religious wings, the human being can do very little to transcend his lowly desires.
Modern society acts as if it magically appeared around the 1970s. As if modern ideas are the bedrock of our societies. What if they are not? What if modern ideas are slowly destroying the societies built on Christian ideas? What if we are witnessing the fall of a people who reject their ancestors in a display of pride? It comes before the fall.
If one looks around, doesn’t one witness a slow-motion fall? Obesity and addictions are rising. People are blinded by screens and deafened by headphones. Churches empty. Therapist’s offices fill. Divorce rates sky-rocket. People are focused on the Me.
If the ideas that fuel a society are bad, it must decay. The battle of ideas of the past decades is strange. It wasn’t really a battle at all. Ancient wisdom got nuked. It’s misrepresented and laughed off the stage.
What you can do is save your own soul. Bunkerize. Try as bestyou can to live according to Christian principles. See where it takes you. Expect to fail. Keep going. Aim up. Focus on what is higher.
Trying to lead a good life is a difficult path to take in a world that seems hell-bent on making you live a bad one. Matthew 7:13 tells us,
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
May you find the gate that leads to the path of life. The directions are in books nobody reads. The misdirections are all around you.