When we, in the post-modern, post Christian West, burn our traditional societal maps, discard the Divine compass and cut transcendent anchors; when our egos usurp God’s authority and become central to decision making, what is left in this egoistic space to inform and shape our values, principles and priorities?
To help us frame, what I believe is the answer to that question, I want to use a term that is now somewhat dated; that term is MUT. Though dated, this resiliently accurate colloquial is most definitely apt (if not unkind) description of what would traditionally be referred to a feral, badly behaved, mongrel bred dog! This unfortunate canine’s very essence is an eclectic mishmash of unplanned, unstructured and poorly considered (if at all) ‘instincts’ – processes and actions, more the result of chaotic elements with little semblance of order. Generally, it is the outcome of an unsupervised response to stimulus: Sounding familiar?
It should; we can see the increasing manifestation of such processes emerging at alarming rates in our growing relativist and subsequently eclectic culture. This growing basis, this new ‘platform’, on which decisions are made and directions are taken by the emerging generation, both engages and further ‘breeds’ these MUTS: Mood, Urge, Taste and Symptom.
These MUTS are becoming the new ‘guide dogs’ of the now spiritually blind, wilfully ignorant and increasingly soulless technophiles. As self-appointed deities of their own worlds they declare themselves entitled to whatever these MUTS demand.
Due to this post-modern hubris led now only by sensate drivers, the hapless souls becomes more unable to see the real need, the substantial existential need they have, and instead settles for any assuaging or stimulating mode, as long as it generates pleasure and/or comfort – even if that is only transitory. The real need, the longing of the human soul, is buried under the avalanche of the ‘felt need’ pursuits that mood, urge, taste and symptom will relentlessly dictate, as long as the significant and substantial of the supra-cultural is left un-engaged.
These old pagan modes (but freshly discovered possibilities) for the affluent West, now must be enshrined as human rights; After all, I am ‘human’ and I have the ‘right’ to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with the only (and ever weakening )caveat of ‘as long as I don’t directly hurt someone else?’
Our new individualistic and relativist sovereignty and its moods, urges, tastes and symptoms, go unfettered, unquestioned, unevaluated as to their mind there is no objective ethical or moral standard that exists by which any evaluation can take place.
Clive Lewis poignant insights in his essay The Abolition of Man bear notice, particularly this pearl of wisdom; “A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary for the idea of rule that is not tyranny of an obedience that is not slavery.” Without the dogmatic belief– principled adhered to and sustainable ideals – that are objective, we will end up with both tyranny and slavery; this, of course, is the logical reversion to, and manifestation of, pagan ideologies and naturalist/materialist world-views.
Both Edmund Burke and Stuart Mills, who vary significantly in their philosophical platforms, actually concur on the need for humanity to be governed by something beyond and above the self.
Sir Edmund Burke declared that, “Human Beings are qualified for liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites... Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
John Stuart Mill, even after aggressively espousing the value of personal liberty, still saw the outcomes of unfettered ‘selfism’; “No person is an entirely isolated being; it is impossible for a person to do anything seriously or permanently hurtful to himself without mischief reaching at least to his near connections, and often far beyond them.” And, “If he deteriorates his bodily or mental faculties, he not only brings evil upon all who depended upon him for any portion of their happiness, but disqualifies himself for rendering the services which he owes to his fellow creatures generally, perhaps becomes a burden on their affection or benevolence; and if such conduct were very frequent hardly any offense that is committed would detract more from the general sum of good.”
In short the first world has become bored, weary and in its own estimation, out grown the need for the one who created them. The One who gave them not only the framework, but capacities to discover much of the intricacies of His creation, and build the very knowledge that has now been hijacked for self-determination. This new ‘Board’ it would seem, have voted to dismiss the major shareholder and CEO. In His place the ‘kids with the chemistry set’ have taken over the process of government. What will ensue is already becoming abundantly clear.
The hope, the only hope, for humanity is the re-establishment of another Kingdom; A Kingdom of light, truth, love and holiness; a Kingdom that starts in the hearts of individuals, yet recalibrates them to focus on ‘the other’. When we seek this Kingdom and its King’s Righteousness, then the things we need to truly experience life, not merely its peripherals, will be released to and through us all.
The grotesque irony of all this is that this is exactly what we are all longing for, but we will never find it when we remain the blind rulers of our own arenas, led only by the metaphorical guide dogs that are our MUTS.
S.W. Varcoe