"Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness" Book Club!

Not high self-esteem, not low self-esteem, but a third way, different from each of the others.

In George MacDonald’s tale, “A Double Story,” one of the characters who desperately needs to be able to see her own faults is confronted with… an unalloyed experience of… herself:

The moment she hated her, it flashed upon her with a sickening disgust that the child was not another, but her Self, her Somebody, and that she was now shut up with her for ever and ever—no more for one moment ever to be alone.

In a move that could have been from a Sci-Fi—but was actually from a Wise Woman as in a fairy tale—the child was placed in a spherical chamber constructed entirely of a mirror. At the beginning, the purpose of this experiment or demonstration was explained:

…she had cared only for Somebody, and now she was going to have only Somebody. Her own choice was going to be carried a good deal farther for her than she would have knowingly carried it for herself.

I found this book a great comfort at a time when I was coming to grips with my inability to escape my obsession with self. The horror of looking upon the entire world and all that is good within it—from those I loved most and whose hearts I knew so well, to lands and animals of great beauty, to technologies that grew, changed, and altered the world, to people who moved and went about their lives in complete ignorance of my existence—entirely with reference to me.

Everything I did for those I loved seemed to be self-interested, and everything I did for people I barely knew was tangled up with a hint of “feeling I will get to pat myself on the back.” Long before I read a grumpy excerpt from “The Last Psychiatrist’s” book, analyzing that ‘…the overwhelming motivator for devotion by choice is the rewarding reward of giving gifts of oneself, seemingly selflessly, because these publicly “count” more than discharging duty. The retort to this is that often times the selfless acts are done out of everyone else’s sight, so what possible reward could there be? But one doesn’t need to be seen by individual people, it’s enough to imagine being seen by a hypothetical audience,’ the struggle he described was already mine. I despaired, with thoughts like “I cannot stop looking at myself!”

So when I found that Tim Keller’s book “Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy,” was like $2.50 on Amazon some years ago, I was a prime (pun not intended) candidate for it. (It helped that it was short! Which says something about my lack of attention and patience back then, but possibly also about my cautiousness about the question “Can this help/fix me?” I was uncertain about making a large investment.)

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Part 1: Church fights in the ancient world.

The book’s conflict centers on a scripture with a kinda relatable problem. People in groups misbehaving. Well, I call it misbehaving. Some may view it as people acting in the only logical way. Some may view it as annoying-but-understandable status-jockeying.

But the context is that it happens in a church—so, from Paul’s view, if these are mortals uplifted towards God and His ways, why are they acting as mere men? So we come in right in the middle of Paul’s rebuke to some would-be-followers at the fledgling Christian church at Corinth:

So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

(1 Corinthians 3:21-4:7)

Backstory, Paul started that letter right off with bringing up the problem:

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas [Peter],” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

(1 Corinthians 1:10-13)

Tim Keller spotlights this. It’s causing grief, destroying beauty, and sapping everyone who joins in the status-game of the joy that should have been theirs:

Instead of everybody being happy that they had a relationship with Paul or with Apollos, these relationships are now the basis for power-play. Parties have arisen and divisions are tearing the church up.

But needing to grapple with this can send us in a good direction:

‘No pride, no boasting,’ says Paul. So we are after the trait of humility. And that means we get into the very interesting subject of self-esteem.

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Part 2: What exactly is the problem plaguing human society? Two answers popularly given.

Keller continues:

Up until the twentieth century, traditional cultures (and this is still true of most cultures in the world) always believed that too high a view of yourself was the root cause of all the evil in the world. What is the reason for most of the crime and violence in the world? Why are people abused? Why are people cruel? Why do people do the bad things they do? Traditionally, the answer was hubris - the Greek word meaning pride or too high a view of yourself. Traditionally, that was the reason given for why people misbehave.

Traditional cultures’ normalized instrumentalization of shaming to “get people in line” has often bothered me. The view of the world that’s relevant reminds me of a memorable interaction I’ve read of, though:

I am not so sure that low self-esteem is our greatest problem… I recall a conversation with a crusty old prison chaplain. I said something about all the people who were in jail because they suffered from a “warped sense of themselves,” and he quickly corrected me. “That’s horseshit. Those guys are not in jail because they think too little of themselves, but because they think too much of themselves. Every one of them thinks he’s a brilliant mind who is above the poor saps who obey the rules, go to work, follow the law…”

—William E Willemon, in “Sinning Like a Christian: a new look at the seven deadly sins” (chapter on pride)

On the other hand, the more modern, Western view of things troubles me a lot too. Keller goes on:

But, in our modern western culture, we have developed an utterly opposite cultural consensus. The basis of contemporary education, the way we treat incarcerated prisoners, the foundation of most modern legislation and the starting point for modern counselling is exactly the opposite of the traditional consensus. Our belief today – and it is deeply rooted in everything – is that people misbehave for lack of self-esteem and because they have too low a view of themselves.

This type of thinking has pervaded my thought for years—I treat other people as though I expect them to be fragile and I must be very careful in how I “grade” their performance verbally.

However—I think that we (and people in traditional cultures) have to watch out for BOTH problems! Even if shaming others goes against our ethic, we’re tempted to do it to those we dislike or those who irritate us—just more sneakily than a Chinese grandmother. Even if “pushing up” someone’s self-esteem goes against the mindset of the patriarch in a village in rural Uganda of “how to bring out the best in people,” won’t he do it for his friend who he wants to be liked by, and won’t he flatter someone important who’s useful to him and the people he is responsible for?

Well, “fixing this problem” for those examples people outside of yourself is a little beyond the scope of the book; that’s more to show how pervasive I think BOTH OF these two (seemingly-conflicting) frameworks are inside everyone’s heads, all day long.

Okay, i’ve run out of time. Expect me to add to this post in 1.5 hours, and at tau time. (6:28 CT.)

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Part 3: What exactly is the problem plaguing human society? continued.

Keller winds up that section with this conclusion:

You see, the thing about the ‘low self-esteem theory of misbehaviour’ is that it is very attractive. You do not have to make any moral judgments in order to deal with society’s problems. All you have to do is support people and build them up. In traditional cultures, the way you dealt with these problems was that you clamped down on people and convicted them and called them bad!

Ah, so two wildly-different answers to an extensive, complex, and ever-present problem. They’re “nice and simple, crystal-clear”—but that’s useless if they are both wrong!

Or, if not utterly wrong, what if they both yield “results” that only provoke superficial change, and which are fraught with unwanted side-effects for the recipient of the intended treatment?

Ah yeah—and I notice Keller points out that the “people need higher self-esteem” philosophy is very attractive to a society that doesn’t want to make moral judgments. (because if you try to do that, BOY are you gonna catch it!) Likewise, the “people need lower self-esteem” philosophy is very attractive to a society that wants to make moral judgements. (Because really, who doesn’t? Okay, maybe we do and don’t at the same time. Even if we don’t want to make moral judgments, we want answers that are “simple and obvious,” and frequently want moral judgments to be “obvious to everyone.”)

I’m really okay with finding a way out from either of those. It doesn’t have to be Approach A or Approach B—they can both be wrong!

Keller says:

…it [this passage in 1 Corinthians] gives us an approach to self-regard, an approach to the self and a way of seeing ourselves that is absolutely different from both traditional and modern/ postmodern contemporary cultures. Utterly different.

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Part 4: An intriguing assessment of the human ego.

This paradox of “someone having a big ego” also having a “fragile ego”… admittedly didn’t really come to my attention on my own. It seems maybe, just maybe some of these concepts filtered down even to our ways of talking about this in English.

Keller geeks out (usefully!) over the Greek word Paul chose to describe pride in verse 6. (“puffed up” in the excerpt quoted above.)

the word Paul uses here for pride is not the normal hubris word for pride, but physioõ. It is an unusual word. Paul uses it here and another five times in this particular book and once in Colossians 2. You will not find it anywhere else in the Bible as it is used only by Paul. Many commentators now realize it is a special theme of Paul.

physioõ?

By using this particular word, Paul is trying to teach these Corinthians something about the human ego. This word used here for pride literally means to be overinflated, swollen, distended beyond its proper size. It is related to the word for ‘bellows’. It is very evocative. It brings to mind a rather painful image of an organ in the human body, an organ that is distended because so much air has been pumped into it. So much air, that it is overinflated and ready to burst. It is swollen, inflamed and extended past its proper size. And that, says Paul, is the condition of the natural human ego.

Ah. “Full of hot air” is a metaphor I heard many times growing up!

And also… that level of detail in interpreting a single word for me, a layman? This is what I came here for!

Keller says:

I think the image suggests four things about the natural condition of the human ego: that it is empty, painful, busy and fragile.

With various examples, he fills in the detail. Empty: From Kierkegaard, he grabs the idea that “the normal state of the human heart to try to build its identity around something besides God.” But anything else will be too small to “fill up” a place into which anything of the enormity or wonder or scope of God …belongs! “It is going to rattle around in there,” Keller says.

Or, to quote a famous theologian …err, philospher, errr… well, someone famous:

Yes, I know it’s easy to make fun of the organized churches, but has it occurred to anyone to wonder why it’s so easy? What gets my goat is that religion should be the most exciting topic of all. Is there an afterlife? Can we have a real purpose to our lives? How can we love our enemy when it seems about as easy as levitating? To what extent is self-interest moral? Is there an experience of the divine that we can achieve? All the vital questions have been dumped in favor of half-baked po-faced rituals which are basically a form of middle-class rain dance..”

(It was John Cleese!)

Then Keller goes on to tackle the ego being painful… he notes that we don’t especially notice our toes if they are doing their job just fine! Good point. But the ego, on the other hand, is metaphorically screaming for attention, constantly.

It is always making us think about how we look and how we are treated… It is the ego that hurts – my sense of self, my identity… It is very hard to get through a whole day without feeling snubbed or ignored or feeling stupid or getting down on ourselves… It is never happy… always drawing attention to itself.

Next he talks about the ego being busy …always setting about build a résumé to recommend itself. It’s as if the ego stuck on its own unhappy treadmill of empty credentialism. “Look at me. I am good. Or I am good enough. Or at least… better than that person over there”:

The way the normal human ego tries to fill its emptiness and deal with its discomfort is by comparing itself to other people. All the time.

So you get the boasting that Paul was so troubled over.

Lastly, fragile:

…anything that is overinflated is in imminent danger of being deflated – like an overinflated balloon.

If we are puffed up by air and not filled up with something solid, then to be overinflated or deflated comes down to the same thing. A superiority complex and an inferiority complex are basically the same. They are both results of being overinflated…

Keller brought up the artist Madonna as an example of someone who is accomplished, wildly-admired, who’s pushed herself to heights of fame we can barely imagine… and yet her own words present a picture of an ego as empty/painful/busy/fragile.

She said:

My drive in life comes from a fear of being mediocre. That is always pushing me. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being but then I feel I am still mediocre and uninteresting unless I do something else. Because even though I have become somebody, I still have to prove that I am somebody. My struggle has never ended and I guess it never will.

Keller comments:

Madonna knows herself better than most of us know ourselves. Every time she accomplishes something, these are the kind of thoughts she has: ‘Now I have got the verdict that I am somebody. But the next day, I realize that unless I keep going, I am not. My ego cannot be satisfied. My sense of self, my desire for self-worth, my need to be sure I am somebody – it is not fulfilled.

He just talks as though normal state of an ego is that it’s insatiable. A black hole. “It doesn’t matter how much I throw into it, the cupboard is bare.”

And Keller’s empty/painful/busy/fragile characterization is not for the egoes of some special set of “especially-arrogant” people! Or “especially fragile” people!

Just like, any one of us, if you could see inside our heads at an inopportune moment!

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Chapters 2 & 3: Coming soon!

Please feel free to begin discussion about any part of the book in comments, though!!

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Quotes for what’s ahead:

Ajith Fernando:

I read a rather nasty review of one of my books by a respected Christian leader and scholar whom I had held in high esteem. His criticisms hit a sensitive spot in my life, and I struggled with anger over this for a long time…¹
<snip>
…Now, as I look back, I can say that this reviewer helped me immensely to become a better writer, even though I still think he was unfair in what he said. Truly, our critics are sometimes more helpful to us than our friends.

And where was the child (Agnes was the name of this one) from MacDonald’s fable left? Not long after, she is given some work to do, and afterward, her deeds are reviewed:

There stood the wise woman, looking all round the place, and examining her work. She fixed her eyes upon Agnes in a way that confused her, and made her cast hers down, for she felt as if she were reading her thoughts. The wise woman, however, asked no questions, but began to talk about her work, approving of some of it, which filled her with arrogance, and showing how some of it might have been done better, which filled her with resentment.

No, you aren’t expected to read it in Chinese for this book club! I just think it was more aesthetically-pleasing than the one for the book in English.

1. Here’s the part of Ajith Fernando’s words that I “chopped out” of that excerpt:

I would forget it, and then it would come back to torment me. One day as I was riding my bicycle (for exercise) and thinking and praying, I was able, through a conscious and definite act, to forgive this brother. Though this happened many years ago, I still remember it as if it were yesterday. I remember the place on the road where I was and the time of day when it happened. I felt a huge burden fall off my back. I still feel hurt sometimes over the review, but I think its sting is gone.