Self-Assertion,‘Ignorant Backwoodsmen’ and the Experience of ‘(Un) Safe Spaces’

Abstract

I want to suggest that contemporary notions of individuality and self-assertion have been, to some extent, significantly influenced by the thinking of the 18th-century Genevan political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Although a committed Christian, Rousseau nursed an understanding of the inner self which clearly resonates with the rise in the 21st century of secularized accounts of the person and the prevalence of ‘identity politics.’ I argue these are frequently contextualized within the demand for equality and have morphed into strategies of protection, witnessed most glaringly in the promotion of ‘safe spaces,’ especially in modern universities. While in some respects these developments are to be lauded, since they are located in moral strivings for justice, I argue that a too obsessive focus on the individual self can result in harmful consequences. Biblical writers, Desert Christians and contemporary ascetics know this and have something important to teach in this regard. Their emphasis on the formation of identity, based on scriptural reasoning and historical tradition, imbibed in the body, promotes collective subjectivity and saves the person from descending into introverted, aggrieved individualism, which, ironically, makes the fight for social justice less effective.

Introduction

The modern cult of self-assertion and political correctness is a characteristic of our (post)modern culture. Its most recent display is witnessed in the rise of ‘identity politics’ which offers protective strategies of resistance against any perceived attacks on particularity and difference. I want to suggest that this trajectory, although highly commendable in some respects, has led naturally to the phenomenon of ‘safe spaces’ seen most dramatically in the modern university; the two, I point out, are deeply intertwined which is why I consider them together. I start with the political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) to highlight simply one influence (by no means absolute), on (post)modern notions of individuality and identity and then move on to show how biblical and monastic writings offer a counter to some of the thinking underlying this common cultural phenomenon. I am unashamedly critical throughout of some (post)modern thinking which is anti-universalist and, along with Eagleton, offer the view that religious thinking invariably posits a universal or common humanity; as he facetiously, but accurately, writes, ‘a God who concerned himself with only a particular section of the species, say Bosnians or people over five foot eight inches tall, would appear lacking in the impartial benevolence appropriate to a Supreme Being.’ ¹ He also adds, which is highly prescient to my argument, that universality clearly involves the concept of identity, since a person has no greater authority ‘than I just because your father happens to be Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire.’ ² However, much (post)modern thinking tends to pit itself against identity in relation to sameness (or one might use again the word universality) by its insistence on plurality, which it hails as an unequivocal good. This position is challenged throughout my argument.

Rousseau’s Legacy

Rousseau has been partly influential, by default, on modern understandings of the self ³ and consequently, on strands of contemporary thinking about ‘identity politics’ and the resultant practice of ‘safe spaces.’ He believed that in order to be happy, humanity must trust its own inner impulses and ‘plenitude of feelings,’ even though these have been corrupted by other people’s web of opinions and by society at large. He famously writes on the opening page of The Social Contract, ‘L’homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers’ (‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains’). ⁴ People are therefore encouraged to re-connect with their own inner natures. In Émile he exhorts, ‘qu’enfermé dans le tourbillon social, il suffit qu’il ne s’y laisse entraîner ni par les passions ni par les opinions des hommes; qu’il voie par ses yeux, qu’il sente par son cœur; qu’aucune autorité ne le gouverne, hors celle de sa proper raison’ (‘living in the swirl of social life it is enough that he should not let himself be carried away by the passions and prejudices of men; let him see with his own eyes and feel with his heart, let him own no sway but that of reason’). ⁵ Émile encourages readers to live their own lives and says that their ultimate happiness amounts to living in conformity with their inner core, which he argues amounts to being entirely themselves. The good is discovered through a turning within, consulting conscience, sentiments and inclinations. A person must turn to their own inner light and to the simple love of truth towards which their heart will lead. He believed that one’s inner voice or conscience was the nearest one could get to hearing the voice of God, a belief that was reflected in his Profession and Letter to Beaumont. But such an emphasis, as McDade contends, pushes ‘religion into a private religiosity within the self’ ⁶ and echoes much of where the (post)modern secularizing world is insistent on dumping religion—into the hidden location of the self, a place protected, but worryingly distant from, the public square. Rousseau believed that this turn inwards was a way forward for Christianity, since it reflected the authentic ring of personal experience. The problem is that the sacred scriptures and the Church are substantially bypassed, and by removing the Christian voice from public life, the de-Christianizing of Europe was inadvertently promoted. As McDade contends, ‘This is not a neutral programme of liberation, but an undermining of the project of Christendom. . . . We are all Rousseau’s children now.’ ⁷

Rousseau also believed that the senses can deceive in this world, so the Savoyard priest comments that he longs for the time when, freed from the fetters of the body, he shall be himself, at one with himself, no longer torn in two, allowed to be the measure for his own happiness. But in the meantime, God gave him conscience so that he may love the right, reason that he may perceive it and freedom that he may choose it. It should be noted here that Rousseau openly acknowledges the potential deceptions of the heart, for the priest does say that in his well-founded self-distrust, the only thing that he asks of God is to correct his error, if he goes astray. Any such self-deception he believes God alone will remove. Therefore, Taylor’s comment that Rousseau’s understanding appears ‘startling . . . in a declaration of religious faith’ ⁸ is, I think, a little harsh. But, certainly, his emphasis on the notion of an inner self as the supreme guide for happiness is at variance with orthodox Christian confession which acknowledges that the self is fallen and is subject to the consequences of original sin. Conversely, in Discours sur l’Origine et les Fondements de l’Inégalite Parmi Hommes (Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men), Rousseau argues that the first human beings were not sinful and that evil and error only came about after society had defaced an innocent self. Inevitably, this view had consequences for his understanding of Christian soteriology and it is one of the reasons, along with his other unorthodox views about religion expressed in Emile, that he was virtually exiled from France.

Rousseau and the (Post)Modern Cult of Individualism

With this in mind, it is not difficult to see why Rousseau might be considered to be at the origins of the modern cult of self-exploration and self-empowerment, which makes self-determining freedom the key to virtue and happiness. His rhetoric about the inner voice easily morphed into a secularization of the self, although he was himself far removed from this understanding. It is clear that his valorization of the inner self resonates with detraditionalized, secular culture’s estimation of the individual, and which finds itself at the very core of so much ‘identity politics.’ ⁹ It is markedly different from Christian ascetics’ attempts to eradicate distinctiveness and individualism, demonstrated most pertinently by their donning of identical religious clothing, their taking of new names and the subjecting and negating of their separate bodies and minds to a disciplined regime of community-forming, text-based spiritual practices. ¹⁰ Any falsely constructed individualism ¹¹ was to be replaced by a communal subjectivity formed in obedience to scripture and tradition. Christian ascetics were (and are) not primarily concerned about ‘identity politics.’ More of this later.

Rousseau’s conception of happiness (in addition to his view of an original innocence) is, therefore, at a tangent with traditional Christian understandings of the self which offer two primary avenues of contention against his thinking. First, the core of the ecclesial self (or the heart), always formed in community, is where we find God residing and it is He who prompts members of the body of the Church to seek the good and the true, reflected in the biblical notion of the Spirit in the depths of the human being (Gal. 4:6; John 17:23). This is echoed in St Augustine’s De Trinitate and Confessions, which teaches that God’s intimacy with humanity simultaneously entails His transcendence. ¹² This spiritual endeavour is never divorced from the community of the Church which assists individuals in finding the God located in the self. Second, the self is complex and inscrutable, characterized by a whirlpool of conflicting instincts, desires and longings. Although the priest in Émile claims that ‘my opinions, which seem to me true, may be so many lies,’ ¹³ there is never a suggestion that the inner self is a precarious place from which to start when deciding what is true. This is contrary to St Paul’s description of the person as divided and confused: ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Rom7:14) and is re-iterated famously by Pascal’s estimation of the person as a monstre incompréhensible. ¹⁴ Vatican Council II’s teaching in the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World endorses this viewpoint: ‘Torn by a welter of anxieties he is compelled to choose between them and repudiate some among them. . . . And so he feels himself divided, and the result is a host of discords in social life.’ ¹⁵ Hamlet would agree—he becomes angry when Guildenstern tries to analyse him: ‘You would pluck out the heart of my mystery’ (Act 3,2. 361–62). ¹⁶ Othello, too, is divided—he is torn between believing his wife is adulterous and simultaneously disbelieving that this could ever be the case. In the end, he strangles her in a fit of uncontrollable rage without really knowing. ¹⁷ Christianity offers the consolation that grace provides some relative understanding of the self, but it is not wise to give too much attention to the bare, instinctual self as a solid foundation for right action and thinking. Rousseau failed to realize this fully and that is why he was nearer the Romantic poets’ view of the self than understandings in scripture, St Augustine, Pascal, Desert Christians and contemporary ascetics.

In Observations, Rousseau claims that the source of unhappiness in civil society is inequality, a view commonly held today. He advises that the dismal order of humanity’s corruption was due to this injustice, followed by wealth, which in turn, made possible the growth of luxury and indolence. ¹⁸ This emphasis on inequality is often at the forefront of discussions about ‘identity politics’ which seeks recourse for the thousands of discriminatory practices and words which have invaded culture over time, assuming as well as preaching that some people are better than others. In the First Discourse, he berates intellectuals’ haughty attempts to separate themselves off from so-called lesser others, which is actually a rage de se faire remarquer, de quoi es-tu capable? (‘rage to make one stand out, what are you not capable of?’). ¹⁹ It is the desire to shine and show off through learning which undermines morals in civilized society and tempts us to distinguish ourselves from our neighbours and compatriots. ²⁰ It began with people agreeing to the land which was owned by others. The first (wo)man, having enclosed a piece of ground, thought this is mine and found people simple enough to believe her/him; this was the real founder of civil society. ²¹ Rousseau’s Discours sur l’Origine et les Fondements de L’Inegalite Parmi Hommes (Discourse on the Origins and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men or Second Discourse) asks us to reclaim our original innocence, when we showed pity to those who suffered, before the corrupting influence of unequal distribution of public esteem became devastatingly unleashed. ²²

While Rousseau acknowledges that ‘natural’ inequalities are inevitable, these same inequalities produced by Nature have been transformed into gross inequalities because they have been perpetuated and endorsed by humanity. He is adamant that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and the earth itself to nobody. ²³ His philosophy of history is clarified with reference to Plato’s description of the statue Glaucus, which had been stripped of the incubus of social history before it had been disfigured by the ravages of time. Morally depraved people look out for themselves by looking at others, wishing to be like or better than the rest. What is required is that law becomes a reflection of all and not the privileged few. In the eighth and ninth chapters of Book 1 of The Social Contract, he summarizes the position that humanity’s real passage from the state of nature to the civil state must not hinder true liberty, but realize it by transforming impulses of appetite into obedience to a law we work out for ourselves.

In many respects Rousseau’s vision of a new society is highly commendable but, as I have suggested, this soon changed during (post)modernity into a politics of self-assertive individualism, even as it claimed for its foundation the moral pursuit and hope of equality. It also encouraged the self’s right to be protected from harmful assault in the name of freedom and dignity. This again was (and is) very different from ascetics’ formulation of the person, which is based not on self-regarding individualism, but on a different kind of subjectivism formed by historical tradition and scriptural reflection. And as Flood comments, ‘. . . this inner transformation was dependent upon this degree of conformity’ to tradition and text. ²⁴ The expressive individualism of ‘identity politics’ and its concomitant desire to construct ‘safe spaces’ of escape where people can be saved from harm and ‘be themselves’ does not sit easily with the biblical and Desert Christians’ understanding of the self which taught that the cultivation of holiness (which in turn acted as a springboard to authentic political activity) is brought about through the toil and sweat of self-control, prayer, denial often in locations susceptible to temptation, whether they be the desert or the remote silent places of contemplation. This rigorous and hard-fought journey within and towards the deeper, authentic self was at the same time a movement into the truth of a meaningful, metaphysical cosmos and a step closer to God. ²⁵ It was not characterized by individual assertion as a response to inequality, but by a transformation of the body, mind, heart and will, which would in time, also lead to a transformation of society. Equality and peace are much more likely to prosper after the self has ‘been crucified with Christ,’ endured the painful vicissitudes of everyday living, the necessary if gruelling means, by which individuality becomes gradually erased (Gal 2:22). Nevertheless, Rousseau did share with the Desert Christians the desire to return to a lost paradise, a yearning to create a place of lost innocence. Since Rousseau believed that the social conventions which had depraved humankind were imposed by individuals upon themselves, it would never cease to be possible for them, even in corrupt societies, to re-establish institutions of a very different kind.

Equality, ‘Identity Politics’ and Safety

I am very sympathetic to the legitimate aims of ‘identity politics’ to attempt to correct endless years of oppressive discrimination. The phrase is frequently used to apply to claims of exclusion, exploitation, marginalization and rejection directed at the dominant axes of power in a given society. Critical race theory, feminism, queer theory, intersectionality, to name a few, have all sought to highlight distorted thinking and practice, and rightly influence Christian theology and moral action today (although the various Christian positions taken must be aware of falling into the same trap of much ‘identity politics’ by proudly postulating their own group-identity over others). Such morally driven, revisionist work lies at the origin of such politics and needs to be acknowledged and celebrated. ²⁶ My focus and contention is not with this history, however, but with its contemporary expressions, as I indicate throughout the article. I also appreciate that the term ‘identity politics’ might be used pejoratively by proponents of the status quo to delegitimize political claims made by disempowered groups; if this is the case, I abhor the move. What concerns me here is not these positive aspects, but how (post)modern ‘identity politics’ is at odds with a significant strand of Christian seeking to understand identity. Let me begin this criticism by unpacking the notion of equality.

Modern ‘identity politics’ is substantially about equality and the ‘unequal’ bifurcation between what one feels inside about oneself and the contrasting (perhaps damning) claims others make about and on you. As Fukuyama rightly acknowledges, ‘The foundations of identity were laid with the perception of a disjunction between one’s inside and one’s outside.’ ²⁷ When people’s sense of their own identity clashes with the role they are assigned by their surrounding culture, they are tempted to live a lie to conceal who they really are (and this can apply to Christian identity too); they feel alienated from and anxious about themselves in an unfair world. Therefore, those who combat such fearfulness and become involved in the fight for equality demand that others regard them in the same way they regard themselves. It also reflects a fight against the enforced, societal invisibility imposed on the marginalized by those in power. ²⁸ This challenge to injustice is a legitimate and moral stance to take, often entailing personal suffering on the part of those who feel aggrieved. Like Rousseau, they state that public perception has ruined their inner ‘innocent’ self and nature has been sabotaged by civil society, often sustained by the law. Things have begun to change gradually over time, as public recognition of the ‘other’ and the law attempt to keep pace with individuals’ perceptions of themselves, especially in matters of poverty, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability and so on, but there is still much for which to fight; this is why ‘identity politics’ continues to be an urgent matter to-day.

However, one of the downsides of this ‘progressive’ moral thinking is that it can lead, in some cases, to an obsessive focus on the question, Who am I, really? As I have hinted earlier, this in turn can produce two dominant reactions. The first trend is the need to continually secure public recognition of the self, honed in the hard-fought battle towards equality and second, the demand to protect oneself personally from any potentially harmful invasions on self-identity. The first is witnessed, for example, in gay people’s demand for marriage status. Gays were no longer satisfied with civil partnerships, but demanded a change in the law so that they could become absolutely equal to heterosexual married couples and thus publicly recognized as such. Often economists assume that human beings are motivated by what they label ‘preferences’ or ‘utilities,’ desires for material resources or goods, but they forget they are far more galvanized by Plato’s notion of thymos—i.e. they crave positive estimations of their self-worth and dignity. ²⁹ This can come from within as they develop self-esteem, or from without, as others come to acknowledge them (and their struggles) positively. When they absorb internally this response to themselves or by others (or ideally both, the former often dependent on the latter) they feel pride; if they are refused this, they feel anger or shame. The second trend is seen in the promotion of ‘safe spaces.’ For those who take a largely uncritical approach to ‘identity politics’ and who understand its function absolutely in terms of justice and respect (which clearly is one of its key motivations), ‘safe spaces’ is simply a subset of this to-be-admired politics. However, I regard ‘safe spaces’ as the natural consequence of one of the worst aspects of ‘identity politics’ and therefore by critiquing one, I critique both, although I spend a little more time on the latter to underline my point about the former’s effects.

Let me explain. When an obsessive focus about identity starts to take place, then any perceived assault on that identity, however nuanced, is strongly resisted; students seem to be saying, ‘Don’t encroach on my identity space—it has taken me a long time to get here. And I need prior warning if you are going to trespass.’ This is why some university lecturers put trigger warnings against those topics in advance of their lectures to make students aware of any possible unease their lectures might create; students are then free to choose to attend them or not. Such chosen ‘safe spaces’ are intricately connected with the politicization of the self as it buttresses and defends itself against the currents of latent or blatant discrimination. These trends reflect moral strategies of self-protection and therefore rightly earn respect, but sometimes they betray an element of ‘over-reaction’ which does not help their cause. I am not criticizing them per se, simply arguing that they are likely to emerge from a too obsessive focus on the politicized, inner self and that a religious understanding of the self encourages a more balanced and rounded perspective. Spiritually minded people do not tend to relish self-recognition to the same degree; instead, they seek primarily the recognition of God. It is worth noting here that Luther never craved any public recognition of his own private Christian struggle with self-doubt, uncertainty and identity.

The present debate about equality has come about partly because (as Rousseau foresaw) human beings tend to compare, contrast and evaluate themselves with other human beings; this is the beginning of human estrangement and unhappiness. In Les Rêveries du Promeneur Solitaire (Reveries of the Solitary Walker), Rousseau confesses how he himself became the victim of other people’s evaluation. ³⁰ In his Discourse on the Origins and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men, he denounces the shift from legitimate amour de soi (love of self) to amour-propre (self-love or vanity) which leads to feelings of pride and to the use of words like strong, weak, swift, slow, fearful, bold. ³¹ Modern ‘identity politics’ takes up Rousseau’s gauntlet in this regard and is to be admired; it builds on one key element of his sentiment de l’existence, an identity free from the unfair accretions of social convention, a characteristic which, it must be acknowledged, Christians also long for. And although Rousseau was, in some regard, intensely opposed to particularity, which he understood as an example of sub-social community (seen in his writings about the social contract whereby all individual wills are subordinated to the general will), he nevertheless held a privatized understanding of religion and thus influenced the demise of religion from the public square.

Where ‘identity politics’ also differs from traditional Christian identity is in its desire for public recognition—thymos. The insistent demand for social recognition of one’s identity (which governs much world politics and feelings of self-esteem today) cannot be met by economic means. It rests on far more existential and personal concerns—the need to be seen by others as absolutely equal to everyone else in all regards. Hegel’s claim that human history was driven by the struggle for recognition, only achieved by universal recognition (whereby the dignity of every human being was upheld), became replaced by an ‘identity politics’ which gave credence to particular forms of recognition in relation to, for example, sexual orientation, gender, nation, race and so on. Admittedly, Rousseau’s recovery of the inner self did not require this status of social regard based on tribal allegiance. As Fukuyama claims, ‘the solitary dreamer does not need anyone’s approval.’ ³² But it occurred by default. The Desert Christians did not seek this kind of public, clan recognition and were thus freed from the tendency towards pride and the valorization of individualization. A further problem arises, too, when ‘identity politics’ emphasizes individual experience to the cost of shared human experience. While a black person might increase her sense of solidarity with other black people through ‘identity politics,’ it may, as a result, emphasize distinctiveness of experience within the aggrieved clan, rather than common human experience. When a shared moral horizon based on religion collapses, individuals tend to fall back on identity-formation based on distinct and fixed categories—wealth, nationhood, gender, sexual orientation, race, disability, ethnic origin and so on. This forms the sine qua non of their existence and they sometimes find themselves becoming claustrophobically defined by it. One might also argue, ironically, that such ‘identity politics’ has a reductionist and limiting view of the human person, since it narrows the focus of who one really is to just one aspect (e.g. female, black, transgendered and so on). ³³ Lasch argues that narcissists rely on others to consolidate their self-esteem with the consequence that they tend to ignore the needs of others who exist outside that self. This in turn leads to an increasing depoliticization of society, in which struggles for social justice are invariably reduced to personal psychological problems. This dichotomy is reflected in the use of the German words Erfahrung, which refers to common human experiences, and the word Erlebris, which refers to the subjective perception of that which might not necessarily be shareable. It is also witnessed in the contemporary therapeutic and counselling culture, which gives precedence to individualized, ‘hurt’ understandings of the self. One Cambridge undergraduate bemusedly asked his fellow students if they had seen colleges’ notices which ask, ‘Have you been offended to-day?’ In medieval society, identity was inseparable from the social realm, so the question ‘Who am I, really?’ never arose. A person was defined by the social roles s/he undertook, which were governed by the Church. One only felt lost and confused about one’s identity if one had been excommunicated by the Church for grave sin.

There can also be potentially unsavoury consequences of a type of ‘identity politics’ based on distinct categories. Take wealth and nationhood as examples. Jesus frequently warns that an excess of money can result in despair and self-destruction. The rich young man made sense of himself, to a considerable degree, by the money he possessed and that is why he went away from Jesus anxious and ‘grieving’—he was unable to give up what so clearly defined him (Matt, 19, 22). For those who have watched Hugo Blink’s gripping BBC drama Black Earth Rising (2018), ³⁴ it becomes apparent that this attitude can, literally and metaphorically, swallow you up. The corrupt, rich lawyer, Blake Gaines, dies as a consequence of not being able to escape from the stifling accumulation of his E-Type Jaguars stacked up against each other in his garage—he chokes to the soundtrack of a gospel choir singing the lines from the parable of the rich man and his barns—‘This very night your life is demanded of you’ (Luke, 12, 20). With respect to nationhood, the violent vitriol against the former prime minister Theresa May, by those who think she was betraying British sovereignty in her Brexit negotiations, is similarly alarming.

‘(Un)Safe Spaces’ in Christianity

Let me now expand on how Christianity has a very different understanding from ‘identity politics’ with reference to the value of ‘unsafe spaces.’ St John tells us that Jesus ‘dwelt amongst us’; the Greek word for ‘dwelt’ is ἐσκήνωσεν eskēnōsen , which derives from the noun ‘tent’—it thus literally means ‘pitched his tent.’ St John was probably referring back to the tabernacle in the wilderness where God dwelt with Israel (Ex 25:8–9; 40:34). Not regarding ‘equality with God as something to be exploited’ (Phil 2:6), Jesus’ ‘pitching’ was deliberately in the heart of a very unsafe place—the sinfulness of the fallen world. That’s why the Pharisees advised Jesus to ‘get away’ or ‘flee’ (Lk 13:31) from those locations where Herod might kill Him. All this came about because Jesus had freely chosen to put himself in these spaces, just as He had chosen to cross the Kedron valley ‘to a place where there was a garden’ (Jn 18:1), the location Judas knew of, the venue where Jesus ‘was arrested and bound’ (Jn 18:12). And eventually, this transmuted into the devastating ‘Place of the Skull’ (Jn 19:17). They were anything but safe and Jesus choose them freely. Not surprisingly, He had, at times, a desire to escape from them, like the Desert Christians, and to be alone with God in prayer. It is not a coincidence, for example, that at his most vulnerable, the point of the greatest tyranny of the world, immediately before his passion, he went to the Mount of Olives, and ‘in anguish he prayed’ (Lk 22:44); ‘his sweat became like great drops of tears falling down on the ground’ (Lk 22:44). But by living through the terrors of the place, he redeemed those very spaces on which his enemies sought Him out, in order to expedite His death. The gospel thus challenges Christians to live selflessly in unsafety, so that they might redeem the space and make it safe once again for others.

Other Biblical teaching on safe spaces is illuminating. Psalm 55:6 uses a poetic image in its description of finding refuge: ‘And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest”’ וְאֶשְׁכֹּֽנָה׃ (wə·’eš·kō·nāh). This verse most likely refers to a rock pigeon who selects for its resting place high cliffs and deep ravines, far from the bustling noise of the world. The psalmist admits that his heart is in anguish and that fear and trembling has come upon him. ³⁵ This is echoed in Jeremiah 9:2 : ‘O that I had in the desert/a traveller’s lodge/that I might leave my people and go away from them!’ Jeremiah wishes to flee from those who are adulterers and traitors and who abandon truth for falsehood. It seems, at first blush, to contradict Psalm 11:1 ‘In the Lord I take refuge; how/can you say to me/“Flee like a bird to the mountains”,’ the Hebrew word flee נ֝֗וּדִי (nū·ḏî) reflecting the idea of trepidation characterized by the hurried flap of birds’ wings. But, in fact, they are complementary, since both are locations of rest and refuge away from the destructive torrents of the world where God can be found—it is simply that Psalm 11 explicitly mentions ‘the Lord.’ These ideas are repeated in Psalms 2:12; 64:10; 141:8 and all are associated with the notion of trust in the divine. The New Testament, too, takes up this theme of safety and rest. In Luke 13:31 even the Pharisees advise Jesus to ‘Get away from here . . .’ for he is in danger of being hunted and killed. He replies that He has offered rest to others by being willing to unite them to Himself ‘as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing’ (Lk 13:34). The most well-known verse on this matter is in St Matthew 11:28: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest’ ἀναπαύσω (anapausō). He is the location, the place where humankind will find peace in the midst of stress, anxiety and depression.

The Buddhist religion has a parallel teaching here. Buddhists are advised to seek refuge in three designations—the Buddha, the dhamma and the sangha. Here the taking of refuge is not primarily associated with a place to hide in, but with focussing the mind on those things which result in the purification, uplifting and strengthening of the heart. As Harvey writes, ‘Orientation towards these three guides to a better way of living is experienced as a joyful haven of calm, a firm ‘island amidst a flood’ in contrast to the troubles of life.’ ³⁶ They are also known as the Ti-ratana or ‘three jewels,’ spiritual treasures of great worth. As in Christianity, the teaching features as a central goal of spiritual practice, resulting in the positive transformation of the self. It is associated with establishing hesychia—contemplation/rest within the self by means of prayer and/or meditation, often in a harsh location of temptation. As the Benedictine monk David Foster tells us, ‘Prayer comes to mean giving the wordy labour of our minds a rest so that we have a chance to attend to God without worrying about what to say . . .’ ³⁷ All the above religious understandings suggest that rest and safety within the self is found by paradoxically journeying outside the self and not in an obsessive turning into oneself.

‘Ignorant Backwoodsmen’ and the Rough Spaces of the Desert

Let us now look in more detail at what one spiritual tradition within Christianity—asceticism—teaches about the value of ‘unsafe spaces.’ The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton advising his brethren on the fruits of reading Cassian, states that ‘According to Evagrius (Or, 49) the chief purpose of the battle waged by devils against monks is to prevent or to frustrate interior prayer. The devils tempt us to those vices most contrary to prayer, especially lust and anger.’ ³⁸ It is true Evagrius has much to say about prayer and its ability to rebuff the taunts of the devil. He writes ‘All warfare that is waged between us and the impure demons concerns nothing other than spiritual prayer, for this is extremely offensive and odious to them, but salvific and very pleasant to us.’ ³⁹ Humans’ wayward instincts and ‘passions,’ or what we might nowadays called emotional disturbances (or anxieties), prevent praying happening. ⁴⁰ And ‘Why do the demons want to produce in us gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, and resentment and the other passions? So that the mind becomes thickened by them and unable to pray as it ought.’ ⁴¹ However, prayer is never an easy counter-attack, for insidious and duplicitous means are harnessed by the enemy, akin to Iago’s clever use of syllogism in Othello, to tempt Roderigo into believing that lust, rather than love, governs the human condition. ⁴² He persuades him that Desdemona cannot be loyal to her husband because it is a self-evident fact that women like partners of their own age: ‘She must change for youth; when she is sated with his body she will find the error of her choice’ (Act 1.3, 350–51). Women desire mates of their own kind and age—Othello is an older man and a Moor, ergo she must betray him. As Evagrius writes, ‘Demons are jealous of the person of prayer and use every trick to frustrate his purpose.’ ⁴³ Remember how Desdemona was a person of prayer—Othello knows this because before he murders her he asks, ‘Have you said your prayers tonight?’ and she answers, ‘Ay, my lord’ (Act 5.2, 24). And earlier Roderigo admits that she is ‘full of most blest condition’ (Act 2.1, 247).

The Desert Christians sought a place where they could be become acutely aware of the temptations of the demons. What they wanted was not primarily an escape from them, but a progressive understanding of their insidious machinations in the wild location of the desert in order to overcome them. One cannot defeat the enemy one does not know. The world fell into this trap too often. This is why Merton says that Cassian was ‘very eager to get to Scete, the home of all perfect living.’ The location was a twin mountain range west of the Nile, near the coast, with two big desert valleys, ⁴⁴ the home of the most celebrated (tested) fathers of monasticism probatissimi patris. ⁴⁵ Merton tells us their aim was, ‘peace, liberty of spirit, purity of heart, freedom from all desires . . .’ ⁴⁶ And, quoting Mahieu, writes that they lived ‘without any more cares than a bird in the heavens . . . persevering in nakedness and cold, or scorched by the fires of the sun . . .’ ⁴⁷ ‘When the Desert fathers met one another, their greeting was “sotheries”—‘mayst thou be saved.’ ⁴⁸

Cassian in his Conferences talks about the ecstatic pain of withdrawal. This is not a safe place free from suffering, but one where ‘The hunger of fasts does not weary us. The tiredness of keeping vigil is a delight to us . . . . The unfinished toil, the nakedness, the complete deprivation, the fear that goes with this enormous loneliness, do not frighten us off.’ ⁴⁹ Many sought this place: ‘you travelled through so many countries in search of men like us, ignorant backwoodsmen who live the rough life of this desert.’ ⁵⁰ By withstanding the attacks of demons in remote unsafe paces, they sought a clarity, strengthening and sustenance of their identity in Christ. Their toil was not without rewards, for there was ‘an unwavering purpose in mind’ and like the famer there was a calming experience of what was to come in the future: ‘ . . . the restful ease towards which he is striving . . . foretaste of what he hopes to actually enjoy one day.’ ⁵¹ Holiness is the foretaste: ‘As a reward you have your sanctification and your goal is eternal life (Rom 6:22).’ ⁵² The danger is grasping for trivial things ‘. . . they still hold on to their old heart—longings for things that do not matter, things for whose sake they grow angry.’ ⁵³ The heart must be freed and not ‘puffed up,’ so that it becomes a ‘. . . continuous offering . . . that is perfect and truly pure, a heart kept free of all distractions.’ ⁵⁴ Therefore, Cassian exhorts, hold ‘hearts free from the harm of every dangerous passion and in order to rise up step by step to the high point of love.’ ⁵⁵ With reference to the New Testament passage about Mary and Martha, Cassian comments, ‘In saying this the Lord locates the primary good not in activity, however praiseworthy, . . . but in the truly simple and unified contemplation of Himself.’ ⁵⁶ But this is tempered with the view that ‘As long as this inequality rages in the world, these good works will be necessary and valuable to anyone . . .’ ⁵⁷ But ‘. . .all this will cease in time . . . when equality shall reign . . . everyone shall pass over to the love of God and to the contemplation of things divine . . . devote their energies to this.’ ⁵⁸

Experiencing the Body Being Made Beautiful

Thus, the ascetic life, however difficult, offers safety from the passions (primarily those of anger and lust) encouraging a reversal of the flow of the body, which is also an attempt to invert the flow of time. It involves a ‘range of habits or bodily regimes designed to restrict or reverse the instinctual impulses of the body and to an ideology that maintains that in so doing a greater good or happiness can be achieved.’ ⁵⁹ The body’s suspension of carnal instincts and absorption in eschatological time enables it to fend off those harmful thoughts and passions which invade the tranquillity of the mind and heart and to see things in a broader (and calmer) metaphysical perspective. Within religious frameworks this is largely done by shifting any constructed self-identity into a framework of tradition and sacred scripture and being taught by them over time. The self is trained, through the performance of memory and text. Pain and vulnerability, willingly accepted, become the method for the body’s transcendence. What results in the ascetic is a distinctive character, a habitus which responds spontaneously to the good and resists the bad, constituting a stability unswayed by the conflictual demands of daily living.

The subjectivity formed here is clearly at odds with modern notions of individuality. Once the Christian medieval notion of the self (made sense of in a divinely created cosmos) collapsed, individual attempts to make meaning out of an ‘emptied out’ universe produced an expanded (proud) individualized subjectivity. As Flood rightly contends, ‘Self-assertion and self-conscious autonomy are key features of modernity . . . modern inquiry moves from a theological absolute to a meaning-making subjectivity . . . and an inquiry into an indifferent, objective order through science.’ ⁶⁰ Since God is dead, who else, except myself, will give meaning to myself and to the universe? Conversely, the ascetic self is neither autonomous, being subject to the rule of tradition and sacred text, nor self-fulfilled in the modern sense of the satisfaction of experience. The ascetic’s life was geared towards a return to an original, undifferentiated unity; the demons, by contrast, represented the tendency toward separation, division and individuality. ⁶¹ Monastic identity consisted in re-establishing a lost spiritual unity. Antony of Egypt claimed that demons promoted difference on two levels: first, by encouraging vice and a movement away from the invisible unity of spiritual bonding (we are all the same and equal under God) and, second, through interpersonal strife the demons incited division within the social unity of the Church. Any monk’s existence as a separate individual implies the demonic pull of division. ⁶² Paradoxically, the multiplicity of individual selves that made up the monastic community became the context for the transcendence of that individuality. Thus, the ascetic self became radically distinguished from individuality; it sought the opposite of self-assertion. The latter privileges autonomous agency over the vulnerable agency of the ascetic self, formed by the history and value system of tradition. What the ascetic body had the potential to realize was a glorified state. Gradually freed from disturbances by the disciplining of the body, it was able to assume, as far as possible on earth, a resurrected body; just as in the Hindu tradition, the body formed by austerity through yoga—tapas—creates a perfection of the body, characterized by gracefulness, beauty and strength. ⁶³

Those who are unable to realize the reversals of the flow of the body find it difficult to conceive of the body resurrected and glorified in themselves and in others. Jasper argues that too often, asceticism is seen merely as deprivation, rather than transformation of the body. ⁶⁴ Ware notes Athanasius’s account of the transfigured beauty and vigour of St Anthony of Egypt’s body after he emerges from his cell where he had lived for any years. ‘Florensky, too, argues that asceticism produces not only a good, but a beautiful person and let us not forget how Symeon the Stylite was deemed beautiful although his foot was gangrenous.’ ⁶⁵ All this relates to the Christian notion that the body is the only place of the soul. Logically, therefore, sanctifying of the body through regularized, prayerful discipline is, simultaneously, the making holy of the soul. Thomas Aquinas knew—as did Aristotle before and Wittgenstein after him—that the soul is the ‘form’ of the body and its animating principle. As Eagleton wryly comments, ‘One of the greatest of all Christian theologians, then, turns out to be in some respects a full-blooded materialist.’ ⁶⁶ The denial of the body also prepares it ‘in anticipation’ for the life to come—the new resurrected body is not entirely new therefore. It also dwells in dispossession through hardship and prayer, finding its freedom in its deep encounters with the Absolute. One might say the body begins to dwell in ongoing, kenotic joy.

Spiritual practices never encourage a running away from the perils of the world. In the Christian tradition, any escape from the world is counter-balanced by a returning and giving back to that world. Ware rightly reminds us that asceticism has a double edge to it—it is both anachoresis (withdrawal) and the return to help others, summed up in St Seraphim’s exhortation: ‘Acquire the spirit of peace, and then thousands around you will be saved.’ ⁶⁷ Ammonas advises that only in the desert can the monk practice quietness and thus properly see the ‘enemy’ and overcome him with divine assistance; this, in turn, equips him to go back to society as a mature spiritual guide. Contemplatives and ascetics are most intimately connected to the world primarily by their prayer life—they embrace the world in their hearts, do not flee from it and encourage others, in the ‘outside’ world, to do the same.

Conclusion

What I have attempted to outline in this article is that while the contemporary cultural fashion for ‘identity politics’ and ‘safe spaces’ often reflects a deep moral intent (sometimes born out of thousands of years of discrimination), instances of individualized self-affirmation and protective strategies of identity are not always helpful responses to injustice. This is especially the case when it reduces humanity to narrow tribal notions and clan definitions of who we really are, which invariably forget the common humanity to which we all belong and the consequences of this recognition for encouraging authentic social and political change. Desert Christians and contemporary ascetics know this in abundance. That is why they live out a distinctive form of collective subjectivity based on the imbibing of historical tradition and sacred text within their bodies. This frees them from narcissistic self-absorption, which often finds difficulty in serving the common good. Future research might wish to develop further how Rousseau’s writings have promoted other key aspects of (post)modern thinking and practice and suggest how critical evaluations of such cultural phenomena might be informed by a Christian perspective.