Inventing the
Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism
By Larry Siedentop
Inventing the Individual: The
Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop is an
incredibly important book on political philosophy. Siedentop
is an American born political philosopher who has spent his entire life
teaching at Oxford University in England.
His thesis is that the liberal secular state and Christianity have the
same roots.
Basically, he argues that the
Christian emphasis on the individual soul and conscience ultimately led to the
need to create the secular state, not in opposition to religion, but in
partnership with it. Seidentop argues that it is our
ignorance of the historical reality of ancient Greece and Rome, plus a
distorted view of the history of the development of the church, that has led to
a misunderstanding of the connection between Christianity and the secular
state.
“What is the crux of
secularism? It is that belief in an
underlying or moral equality of humans implies that there is a sphere in which
each should be free to make his or her own decisions, a sphere of conscience
and free action. That belief is
summarized in the central value of classical liberalism: the commitment to
‘equal liberty’. Is this indifference or
non-belief? Not at all. It rests on the firm belief
that to be human means being a rational and moral agent, a free chooser with
responsibility for one’s actions. It puts a premium on conscience rather than
the ‘blind’ following of rules. It joins rights with duties to others.
“This is also the central egalitarian
moral insight of Christianity. It stands
out from St Paul’s contrast between ‘Christian liberty’ and observance of the
Jewish law. Enforced belief was, for Paul and many early Christians, a
contradiction in terms. Strikingly, in its first centuries Christianity spread
by persuasion, not by force of arms – a contrast to the early spread of Islam.
“When placed against this background, secularism does not
mean non-belief or indifference. It is not without moral content. Certainly
secularism is not a neutral or ‘value-free’ framework, as the language of
contemporary social scientists at times suggests. Rather, secularism identifies
the conditions in which authentic beliefs should be formed and defended. It
provides the gateway to beliefs properly so called, making it possible to
distinguish inner conviction from mere external conformity.” P. 361
The implications of Siedentop’s theory are
profound. It explains why native people in
the Arab world and in Asia might not see western impositions of democracy as a
beneficent act. By giving the history of
the development of the church and secular liberalism, Siedentop
makes it easy to understand different cultures still attached to family or
tribal structures, and even those who still worship their dead family members.
As Ho Chi Minh wrote: “C’est pourquoi, toute mission civilisatrice – qu’elle soit destinée
aux Antilles, á Madagascar, á l’Indochine, á Tahiti –
a toujours comme remorqueuse une mission dite d’évangélisation.”[1]
This means that native
populations, whether in the Middle East or Asia, may not see Western Liberalism
and the secular state as neutral entities.
This is not to say that the United States should stop trying to promote
democracy as the best way to organize a society, it just means that it should
not be done by force without expecting significant and continuous blowback.
[1] “This is why, all civilizing undertakings – whether in the Antilles, Madagascar, Indochina or Tahiti – always have in tow a so-called evangelizing mission.” Nguyên-Aï-Quôc (Ho Chi Minh pseudonym) in The Case Against French Colonization, p. 95.