Social Structures and Laws based on Christian values
University Congress Lecture: Strathmore University, Nairobi, March 2000
A broad topic has been assigned to me - "Social Structures and Laws based on Christian values" - and my intention is to speak rather broadly to it.
I have read the guidelines followed by your study-groups. Focussing in on what has happened in the last two centuries, they remark "Western civilization has brought positive and negative aspects to the African culture", and go on, "What are those aspects? What can we learn from Western models and what can they learn from African values?" Important questions indeed; and I look forward to hearing the conclusions of your work-groups.
The same notes offer a tentative balance of the positive and negative Western contributions to Africa. "Individualism" is the first negative influence mentioned, while on the positive side the contribution noted in first place is Christianity itself. There is however no mention of the specific antidote to individualism that Christianity offers, which has been formulated with special clarity over the past sixty or seventy years, the present Pope being one of its major exponents. This is the philosophy called personalism which is itself a whole attitude towards individual fulfillment and social life. It is worth briefly describing personalism and the salient features in which personalism and individualism differ. The importance of this can scarcely be over-stressed because, to a superficial view, the two could seem rather similar and related, whereas there are in fact strikingly different and even opposed; and social strctures and laws vary very much according to whether they are inspired by one or the other.
Personalism and Individualism
In the personalistic view of human life and fulfillment, man, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, "discovers his true self only in a sincere giving of himself" (GS 24). Man's real fulfillment therefore demands openness and response: the free gift of himself. To what? To worthwhile things, to what we can call values, on a natural plane (truth, beauty, goodness), or on a transcendent or supernatural one (grace, faith, God). Man's dignity and greatness come precisely from his ability to know and distinguish worthwhile values, and from his freedom to choose them. He can freely realize the potential of that dignity and greatness, truly fulfilling himself. Or he can freely frustrate himself, and even do so totally.
Personalism maintains a keen awareness of the freedom and therefore of both the rights and the duties of each person, of one's self and equally of others. The discovery of values in others, and the readiness to respect them and respond to them, is a main challenge that personalism proposes. It is particularly through open and generously receptive relations with others that the person grows. The alternative is social isolation and human alienation.
This awareness of the values present in others obviously offers a powerful basis for building the social community. In true personalism there is a natural covenant between the person - the individual human being - and the community. Personalist participation in the community implies an adaptation not of mere interest to interest, but rather of person to person, founded upon the consciousness of the dignity and the rights that all have in common.
Individualism, in total contrast, sees the individual – each one’s own "self" - as the fundamental and highest good, and holds that the interests of the community and of society ought to be subordinated to those of the individual. Where the individual's interests do not correspond with those of others or of the community, the individualist will prefer his or her own interests. Personalism emphasizes the interdependence of individuals. Individualism rather proposes the autonomy of each one, as if each were or should be absolutely self-sufficient.
In a certain sense individualism could be described as a mutilated and false personalism. It also underlines rights, but not duties. It demands freedom, but does not accept the responsibility of having to answer for one's own actions. Its thrust is to turn the individual into an independent source and norm of morality, so undermining any genuine sense of human community. Its judgments tend to be subjective. It promotes arbitrariness in behavior, without being worried about the demands of social life. It is concerned for itself, but not for others - unless the interests of the latter coincide with its own.
For the personalist, fulfillment lies outside or above the person. The dignity of each one is inseparable from the power to respond, to come out, to rise, to grow: not around self, but around what is different to self (with a difference that complements self), and higher than self. The principle of individualism is protective self-interest, that of personalism is self-giving response. The paradox is that the personalist, in giving himself, realizes his own real interest, whereas the individualist, by not giving himself, frustrates that interest.
So, in the personalistic view, we grow not around ourselves nor centred just on ourselves, but by opening out and responding to values. Most persons are struck at the first view of the Rift Valley, and are capable of wondering at a solar eclipse or a marvelous sunset on the ocean. Such experiences at times even provoke what we call an ecstatic reaction, which literally means that a person is drawn out of himself, lifted above self - and actually grows as a result. It is just the opposite of individualism. If the contact and response is with true values, it makes a person grow strongly, and gives him or her real human stature.
Is a person who has money or power admirable on that account? No; although they may be envied or considered enviable because of their power or money. Someone who is just or brave or truthful or generous is admirable. If you wish, he is also enviable in the sense of provoking emulation, that is, the desire to imitate him and to acquire the good qualities he possesses. That personalistic reaction of wanting to be as brave or cheerful or generous as someone you meet, fosters community, because the more sincere and loyal people are, the closer they come to one another and the more they trust each other.
Put instead the individualistic reaction of envy of what a person has - power, property, money - and then the rat-race is on. If my predominant goal is to becomes as rich as So-and-So, I will probably have to make other people (perhaps So-and-So included) poorer because, given the limited nature of material values or goods, I almost certainly cannot get hold of the power or money or property I want without dispossessing others of them. It is so different when the values sought are loyalty, service or generosity, because such spiritual values can grow without limit, and can therefore be participated in or shared without limit.
If man is open to values, he finds them easily enough in nature. He should find values in people, and in the social life and structures which reflect the values held by people. It does not always happen so. Today the dominant personal and social ethos, reflected for instance in novels and movies, is rather of skepticism and even cynicism. People find little of value in others, little to admire or respond to; little in social life to admire, and much to exploit.
Law, freedom and values
One of the guidelines for your study groups was "Law and Values. Back to Natural Law". I don't know what conclusions you came to, but have the feeling you were on the right track. The fact is that many today regard "law" and "values" as in some sort of fundamental opposition. Such persons start off - rightly - by considering freedom as a preeminent human value. And they then immediately go astray by seeing law and freedom itself as necessarily opposed. They are not opposed however; they are interrelated and interdependent.
In a lawless society or in one where there is little freely-given respect for the law, property can easily be stolen or destroyed. The same holds for moral or spiritual values. If they are not safeguarded in social life, they can be undermined and lost; and that safeguarding of values is in part a function of the law. Freedom itself is a value that must be protected. Freedom to travel the highways needs to be regulated so that everyone can enjoy it. For that there must be a law according to which people drive on the right or on the left; otherwise there is chaos. Freedom of speech or religion at times cease to exist because are not given the protection of the law; and so people lose their legitimate rights.
If the family is a value, as well as a school of values, it must be protected by the law. If a clean physical atmosphere, free from pollution, is a value, it too must be protected. With all the more reason the law should protect a clean moral atmosphere conducive to mutual consideration and respect, in areas of sex, race, religion...
Here of course difficulties arise, some of them real, some more apparent than real. It would seem an evident lack of common sense to hold that everyone should have the freedom to drive on any side of the road they choose. But how about other areas: freedom of speech, for instance? Ought people or ought they not have the freedom to say anything they like? Is freedom of speech unlimited?
Does the law have the right to control people's thoughts? Certainly not; and in fact there is no way it can do so. Writers like Alexander Solzhenitsyn have pointed out that in totalitarian societies the most absolute freedom of thought is paradoxically to be found in the concentration camps.
Does the law have the right to control people's external expression of their thoughts? Yes it does - in certain circumstances. Just as, in certain circumstances, it has the right to control other external actions of theirs. Yes; but we are dealing with a delicate matter and one which will never be solved by the law alone. It can only be solved by a combination of clear ideas and sincerity, and a bit of courage perhaps, on the part of people governing; and, in their default, on the part of people like yourselves.
Let us examine this in the context of a commonly met argument. We are in a pluralistic society; and if, for instance, some people defend the public sale of pornography or the unrestricted showing of pornographic material on TV, saying that in their opinion there is nothing wrong in this, can they be democratically denied the right to hold that opinion?
To hold it, no. But it is not clear to what extent or on what grounds they have the democratic right to advocate and disseminate their opinion. The consideration of the matter needs to be pushed further.
If a person says, the solution to the parking boys problem is to round up all the boys from the streets and poison off the lot, or the best thing to do with mothers-in-law or fathers-in-law is to kill them once they reach the sufficiently ripe age of 65, are they entitled to hold such opinions? From the way we have thought out the matter it emerges that they are entitled to hold the opinion, but not to propagate it publicly. Thinking it out a stage further (and this extra bit of thinking is important), we might reach a more radical analysis - which is to wonder if the person who professes such opinions really holds them in his heart, really does believe them, or if he or she just says them without any real intellectual conviction. Then of course it is not clear how seriously you have to treat a person's "right" to express and propagate an opinion he or she does not seriously believe in.
While you cannot stop people professing a weird or silly opinion, you don't have to pay them the dubious compliment of believing that they really hold it. There are certain things a person can say, but just cannot believe - unless he or she is subnormal or just plain "nuts". If a person who seems sane and professes to be democratically-minded were to say that all school-children should be taught "safe drugs", so as to able to enjoy heroin without danger of infection from the use of non-sterile syringes, would you do them the compliment - or would it be more correct to say the insult? - of taking them seriously? Would you enter into dialogue with such person, or rather say to them bluntly that they are either a nitwit or an irresponsible exploiter or a tyrant?
Legal and human structures
Now, what has all of this to do with social or legal structures? Quite a lot, to my mind.
It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that in many countries today graft and corruption have become institutionalized social structures. How can that situation be remedied? Just through laws? Laws, no matter how good, are not enough. It will only be remedied by establishing a dominant system of values, a social mores, where people who practice graft, or drug-traffic, or sexual exploitation, realize that, even if they are envied by a few for their power and wealth, they are PITIED by many, especially by those closest to them, their friends, relatives, wives or husbands, and not least of all by their own children.
Reformed laws are not enough to change society; what is needed are non-deformed or reformed persons, persons who have learned to admire true values, and so can draw others to esteem those values and want to live them.
I believe that Africans are capable of particularly understanding this and of applying it in the practice of social, professional, business and political life. I am convinced of this among other reasons because there are so many young Africans. 50% of the population of Kenya is 20 or under. And young people are more naturally idealistic, are closer to true ideals, and have more energy to react when they see these ideals in danger, and also to recover them if they are lost.
A movement of justice has to be a proud movement, which looks with pity, not with contempt, on those whose minds are too small to be inspired by justice. The same applies to chastity.
Take "True Love Waits". Don't underestimate its power or its effect. It is not only a means of protection of one's own personal values. It is also a spur to others to listen to the nobler voices within them.
Do you remember the incident when the Irish singer Sinead O'Connor tore up photo of the Pope at Madison Square Gardens, before a huge audience of young people. She was booed off stage. She had misjudged the real mood of young people, thinking they had as little values as herself.
You young people are the ones most capable of effectively campaigning against pornography or condoms, etc. on the grounds that they are degrading the country, and that those who push them, whether in public life or in the media, merit, may come to realize what a despicable job they are doing (although, I repeat, they themselves are not to be despised, but to be deeply pitied...
"Social structures" could be understood just in the sense of formally institutionalized systems or organizations. But that is not necessarily an adequate analysis. After all, one could speak of inbuilt structures in traditional African societies, for instance in dealing with unjust behaviour, whose effectiveness sprung from moral sanctions. I have always been struck by the apparent lack of a formalized police force in your traditional societies. Yet it seems that there was pretty effective pressure to maintain just conduct. The penalty for transgressing acceptable behavior was ostracization, or at least the humbling experience of being condemned by those whose good opinion was most valued in the community.
As regards the Christian faith, its great contribution from the human point of view was to establish the idea of the dignity, the personal freedom and personal responsibility, of each person, at the centre of human values. It created a culture of life, raised woman to her rightful place as an equal partner in a monogamous marriage, put the family at the foundation of social structures, brought about the abolition of slavery, developed the idea of the "common good", and created the consciousness that each individual is inalienably responsible before an all-seeing justice. This led to the concept that fundamental human rights are the same, each one is basically equal before the law, no one can stand above the law, the law itself derives its legitimacy not from simple power - from the mere will of the person or persons holding power - but from the correspondence of the law to objective human rights.
The spirit of the common law, and of the civil service
The English common law system for long grew and worked from a fairly solid foundation based on a mixture of common sense and natural law. But the last century witnessed an acceleration of its decomposition. One cannot obtain a proper perspective on the coming to independence of the former colonies without adequately appreciating this point. The colonies achieved independence at a moment when a number of social or political institutions they inherited and which were designed to serve the common good, were already largely emptied of the spirit from which they drew their effective power to safeguard that good. This in retrospect could be dismissed as an irony of history, or considered one of its tragedies. However, if one looks forward, it could also be seen as offering an historical opportunity waiting to be grasped.
The West has largely lost that spirit which made its laws and its public administration work for the common good, and for the protection of fundamental human rights. The African countries are still in time to see what is good in the forms they have inherited, to see that these forms are in danger of remaining just outward shells, and to put back the spirit that has been emptied from them.
The common law system, with all the necessary adaptations to the local scene, can be an excellent system of justice. But you have to re-root it in natural values and in the natural law. Otherwise its very flexibility will make it an ideal system for exploitation.
Something as good as or perhaps even better than the common law system which the colonies inherited from the British (I speak as an exploited Irishman, but one who nevertheless wants to be objective), was the tradition of service in public administration. In the English civil service, the spirit of service, up to a few decades ago, was strong. Functionaries took pains to be helpful; and were proud to do their jobs well. Here again are admirable things in danger of extinction.
Nowadays civil service in many parts is neither civil nor is it service. People like to command but not to serve. A petty joy in making the little power one has felt, is a sign of a small mind, typical of the school bully. Contrariwise, there is always something admirable in the person with a real team spirit, open to his or her colleagues, who looks on the efficient and quick performance of his or her job as a personal contribution to building up a more human community.
Joyless materialism
In concluding, I would like to refer again to the guidelines used by your work groups. A major theme of study proposed by these guidelines was: "what can we learn from Western models, and what can they learn from African values?" When dealing with what western societies can learn from African models or spirit, the guidelines first mentioned a "sense of solidarity". This is indeed so; as instanced, for example, in the African concept of the extended family. It is up to each one of you individually not to lose this sense of solidarity, not to be brought to a social attitude where each one is totally individualistic, loses trust in others, and begins to act as if everyone were necessarily out just for self. One way of keeping your own solidarity with others is, I repeat, to show to those around you and especially to friends and relatives that by corruption in whatever form, whether sexual looseness or bribery or violence, they make themselves worthy not of admiration but of pity. It is sterile to react to corrupt situations with violence. Pray for those involved in corruption, and pity them. Pity can at times be a more powerful jab to conscience than any other reaction.
As models for the West, your guidelines also mentioned "love for children", as well as "joy of living; capacity for cheerful sacrifice". I would add "the joy of having young people around". In Europe you do not see so many young people, and not so many of them are very joyful. Young people are the wealth of a country, even if those people are living in poverty. They can come out of it through optimism, sacrifice and integrity. But a country will sink into a much worse type of impoverishment if its young people become imbued with nothing more than individualistic materialism, if they are young people just out for a good time, whose ideal is to live it up at night and are really sickened down to the ground next morning.
I remember the impressions of a friend of mine after a trip to a Scandinavian country some years ago. He was struck by the total lack of moral criterion among people and of the absence of any real ideals among young people in particular. In boys and girls of 18 or 19, he noted, you could see the same desire to enjoy life that characterizes young people everywhere. But since they set out on life with no ideals, with no criterion, with the idea that "anything goes", wanting not to give but just to take, the result he said (it was his final deep impression) was that in people aged 24 or 25 upwards, he never saw a single smiling face... At 25 one should not be old. But they had burned their youth and their ideals to the ground, and had nothing left. Or rather they had material things left, but no joy.
Structures demand planning. The most important structures you have to plan for, design and build, are the moral structures of your future personal, professional and social life; the moral principles undergirding it, the principles on which you can reach your own fulfillment, at the same time as you contribute to the just and truly human development of your society and your country.