Tacit Knowing, Culture, and Lived Values
“We are goldfish swimming in Christian [I would suggest Judeo-Christian] waters.”[1] Tom Holland’s colorful description of Christianity’s influence on the western mind left me smiling. Throughout his Theos Annual Lecture, Holland gave illustration after illustration of how the dogmas of Western, secular-humanism are implicitly rooted in the Christian narrative. What has been tacitly assumed by the West to be universally valued and simply part of human nature, is now coming under interrogation as the philosophical liberalism that has nurtured and sustained Western democracies is losing its place of authority in both scholarly circles and shifting global politics that give rise to increasing authoritarianism. Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay explore the scholarly circle dimension of this in their discussion of “Cynical (Critical) Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity and Why This Harms Everybody.”[2] Jeffrey Sachs delves into the impacts this is having on global politics.[3] But Tom Holland brings the wide arc of history from antiquity to the current era to bear on this topic. It is the focus of his book, “Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind.”[4]
In his lecture, he focuses on the influence Genesis has had on the Western conception of human dignity and the development of universal human rights. He argues that though Genesis is held in contempt by secular humanists, their argument that universal human rights are self-evident in the human condition falls apart upon a closer examination of antiquity. Religions of the ancient world did not give any reverence to human beings. They were more typically understood to be slaves of the capricious gods of the times. This same disregard for human dignity is seen in more current times as well. Holland specifically quotes leading Nazi Party member Heinrich Himmler, “There is nothing particular about man; he is but a part of this world.” This understanding rationalized the genocide of millions during World War II.
Holland argues that the values and ethics of Christianity are so deeply imprinted into the bones of Westerners that it even influences atheists. Friedrich Nietzsche frequently lamented what he saw as the negative influence of Christianity on Western society. In Holland’s article, “The Way of the Cross: The Debt of the West to Christianity is More Deeply Rooted Than Many Might Presume,” he gives this example from Nietzsche: “Because of Christianity…’the measure of a man’s compassion for the lowly and suffering comes to be the measure of the loftiness of his soul.’”[5] Holland continues: “The commanding heights of western culture may now be occupied by people who dismiss Christianity as superstition; but their instincts and assumptions remain no less Christian for that. If God is indeed dead, then his shadow, immense and dreadful, continues to flicker even as his corpse lies cold. The risen Christ cannot be eluded simply by refusing to believe in him.”[6] Holland’s convincing historical exegesis of Christ’s death on the cross included in this same article is the grounding for his previously quoted assertion.
In both this article and his lecture, Holland refers to the assumption in Western culture that those who are vulnerable or otherwise disadvantaged “…have claims upon the privileged.”[7] In his lecture he expands on this, describing a development in Medieval Christendom jurisprudence. It was widely understood that there was an ethical obligation on the rich to give alms to the poor. The addition was a recognition rooted in scripture that the poor had the entitlement to the necessities of life. This was called the “matching principle.”[8] One can see how Sachs’ listing of the United Nation’s sustainable development goals emerges out of this history of the church and its surrounding culture grappling with and seeking to embody the values and ethics narrated in scripture.[9] At the same time, as one listens to the arguments over how to respond to those who are forced to migrate from their countries of origin by either human-caused or nature-caused disasters, it seems there is not agreement within current Western culture over the poor being entitled to the necessities of life. Even the arguments over how to work with and respond to native-born citizens who are caught up in poverty and homelessness reveals deep divisions over this supposed assumption in Western culture.
It leaves me wondering about how the corrosive influence of anxiety, as articulated so well by Edwin Friedman in “A Failure of Nerve,”[10] impacts what has been tacitly valued in Western culture. Michael Polanyi frames the challenge well when he wrote, “We must ask whether intellectual powers, grounded in tacit knowing and descended from evolutionary emergence, can exercise the kind of responsible judgement which we must claim if we are to attribute a moral sense to man.”[11] I think that Holland would respond to Polanyi that such a moral sense must somehow move from tacit knowing to an explicit acknowledgement and engagement with the influence of Christianity on how Westerners understand responsible judgement. “The wellspring of humanist values lies not in reason, not in evidence-based thinking, but in the past, and specifically in the story of how a cult inspired by the execution of an obscure criminal in a long-vanished empire emerged to become – as the great Jewish scholar Daniel Boyarin has put it – ‘the most powerful of hegemonic cultural systems in the history of the world.’”[12]
And, perhaps the challenge that lies ahead for Western Culture, and for those of us who lead in this context, is a return to those biblical texts and myths (to borrow from Joseph Campbell)[13] in order to discover a way that can better guide and sustain us into a future where Christianity does not hold the same kind of overt hegemonic power and influence as it has for a significant period of time. Perhaps we need to sit more deeply with the weakness Christ chose in the cross, the rejection it meant, and listen for the implications this has for our posture in the world today. Holland writes, “Christians in the Middle Ages, when they looked upon an image of their Lord upon the cross…did not feel contempt, but rather compassion, and pity, and fear. That the Son of God, born of a woman, and sentenced to the death of a slave, had perished unrecognised [sic] by his judges, was a reflection fit to give pause to even the haughtiest monarch. This awareness could not help but lodge in the consciousness of medieval Christians a visceral and momentous suspicion: that God was closer to the weak than to the mighty, to the poor than to the rich. Any beggar, any criminal, might be Christ. ‘So the last will be first, and the first last.’”[14] The medieval church certainly did not translate this consciousness into action with consistency. Perhaps there is opportunity for our generation to take up this consciousness with refreshed commitment, sustained by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this would open the way for a disentanglement of the bride of Christ from the power structures of politics so that the humble service of Jesus and his followers would once again be noted and wondered about by the wider society.
[1] Theos Think Tank. 2022. Theos Annual Lecture 2022: Tom Holland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYGQ6FIFLps. Accessed 02-20-2023.
[2] Pluckrose, Helen, and James A. Lindsay. 2020. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity-and Why This Harms Everybody. First Edition. Durham, North Carolina: Pitchstone Publishing.
[3] Sachs, Jeffrey. 2020. The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions. New York: Columbia University Press.
[4] Holland, Tom. 2020. Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. Paperback edition. London: ABACUS.
[5] Holland, Tom. 2019. “The Way of the Cross.” The Spectator. April 17, 2019. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-way-of-the-cross/. Accessed 02-20-2023.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Theos Think Tank. 2022. Theos Annual Lecture 2022: Tom Holland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYGQ6FIFLps. Accessed 02-20-2023.
[9] Sachs, 196ff.
[10] Friedman, Edwin H., Margaret M. Treadwell, and Edward W. Beal. 2017. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. 10th anniversary revised edition. New York: Church Publishing.
[11] Polanyi, Michael, and Amartya Sen. 1966. The Tacit Dimension. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 56.
[12] Holland, “The Way of the Cross.”
[13] Campbell, Joseph. 2008. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed. Bollingen Series XVII. Novato, Calif: New World Library.
[14] Holland, “The Way of the Cross.”
About the Author
Elmarie Parker
12 responses to “Tacit Knowing, Culture, and Lived Values”
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Elmarie,
I found your post to be very insightful.
You wrote, “Perhaps this would open the way for a disentanglement of the bride of Christ from the power structures of politics so that the humble service of Jesus and his followers would once again be noted and wondered about by the wider society.”
It is abundantly clear that for the last eight or nine decades, politics and corporate America have leveraged “Christianity” for the benefit of power and wealth. See Kevin Kruse’s “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.” Do you think the most recent iteration of White Christian Nationalism will finally jolt Jesus’ followers to see its failings?
Hi Andy. Thank you for your interaction with my post and for the question you posed: “Do you think the most recent iteration of White Christian Nationalism will finally jolt Jesus’ followers to see its failings?” I think this will continue to depend on several factors. One of the greatest, perhaps, is how individual Jesus followers and communities of Jesus followers manage anxiety and fear…especially within white communities, as those are the communities I know best. Too many religious-political leaders leverage anxiety/fear for agendas that have nothing to do with God’s kingdom, let alone Christ’s humble posture, but are wrapped in the familiar language of ‘church.’ This seems to get acted out a bit differently depending on which theological and political end-of-the-spectrum is ‘speaking.’ I remain committed to seeing what might be possible through centering the posture of Jesus in our conversations (so powerfully captured in the Philippians 2 Christ hymn), rather than centering fear/anxiety.
Elmarie I appreciate your response to Andy’s question. I am not sure Holland cares to address things like fear/anxiety in his unpacking of history. Based on what you have gleaned from his writing, what might be your assumptions about the ways fear/anxiety have manifested in Christianity or in Humanism?
Elmarie, I really enjoyed reading and thinking about the connections you made with this week’s reading and Polanyi. I did not see the pervasive influence of Christianity as a version of tacit knowledge, but I believe you are spot on with that observation. I was intrigued by what you wrote here about Christianity needing to “discover a way that can better guide and sustain us into a future where Christianity does not hold the same kind of overt hegemonic power and influence as it has for a significant period of time. Perhaps we need to sit more deeply with the weakness Christ chose in the cross, the rejection it meant, and listen for the implications this has for our posture in the world today.” What kinds of actions do you see the focus on rejection and suffering would induce in the life of the Western church versus the power position it previosouly held?
Hi Roy. Thank you so very much for your interaction with my post. And, I really appreciate your question: “What kinds of actions do you see the focus on rejection and suffering would induce in the life of the Western church versus the power position it previously held?”
I think it needs to start with a posture/attitude shift and that is a challenge, because we (the white protestant church) have such a strong tacit understanding of having been in a position of culture-shaping power. We are used to being the majority in so many ways and that tacitly shapes us. I find myself returning regularly to the Christ hymn in Philippians 2 (NIV):
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
The Message says it this way:
5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
This leads me to ask:
1. When am I tempted to cling to the advantages of my status/place/role in society?
2. Am I even able to recognize the advantages I have?
3. In what way do I ground my security and/or identity in those advantages?
4. In what ways do I use these advantages for my own benefit?
5. When am I tempted to ask for or demand special privileges because of the advantages I have? Or when am I surprised when the advantages I have and the privileges I think that should confer upon me aren’t recognized and acted upon by others and I find myself offended, upset, anxious, or fearful as a result?
6. Where and when have I caught myself in acts of obedience and selflessness where I’ve actually surrendered my privileges (versus serving because of my privileges)?
I think these questions can be asked at a communal level as well. I don’t pretend to have any answers that fit everyone, but I find that these questions challenge me to stay aware of my own temptations to cling to/protect my status and privilege such as they are, rather than surrender them in obedience and sacrifice. Death/dying can be understood in so many ways and is never comfortable or easy. Becoming obedient…even unto death…indeed, how would such a posture of humility transform our actions as individual Jesus followers? As a community of Jesus followers?
I’ve seen some of that embodied in the life of the church here in the Middle East. It has been the most profound discipleship experience of my life. I hope, when it comes time to return to the USA, I am able to live at least a modicum of the humble posture I have born witness to here in the Middle East.
Elmarie, thank you for taking time to write a thorough response to my question. I must confess, I am jealous of what you describe in the humble expressions of faith you have been able to experience in your journey in the Middle East.
Elmarie: I liked how you connected numerous parallels from other books we’ve read in this program to Holland’s book. We have covered a lot of ground these past three years, and I also enjoy making connections between these texts. I feel like I have come to understand this world better than I ever have before.
Hi Troy. Thank you for your comments on my post. You wrote: “I feel like I have come to understand this world better than I ever have before.” What has been your most significant ‘aha’ about this world? And, by ‘this world’ do you mean a particular map layer we have explored or do you mean our globe and its history and the many different perspectives it contains? Or, something else?
Wow, Elmarie!
Great post. You grabbed me with the first paragraph, and the rest did not disappoint. It is filled with well documented points and clear assertions.
I wonder what your thoughts are on, the possibility of legislating morality or “charity”? If it is required, is it true compassion or charity? Are compassionate responses possible to be free of corruption and power grabbing without some kind of concept of God?
Hi Denise. Thank you so very much for your thoughtful engagement with my post and for your thought-provoking questions. You asked: “I wonder what your thoughts are on, the possibility of legislating morality or “charity”? If it is required, is it true compassion or charity? Are compassionate responses possible to be free of corruption and power grabbing without some kind of concept of God?” To your first question about legislating morality…this is something I’ve pondered for quite some time. I think societies do legislate morality in different ways…most societies have laws against murder, assault, fraud, abuses of various kinds, etc. We legislate the boundaries of marriage and processes of divorce amongst other family law issues. Laws almost always have some kind of a moral basis underlying them and seek to cultivate a healthy communal life. At the same time, most societies don’t legislate all the dimensions of morality.
One of the things I’ve been pondering further from this reading is what influences a society to legislate some moral issues and not others? Especially around this issue of ‘charity.’ What is different about the Western/Northern European context that has resulted in the development of generous social democracies where the matching principal I noted in my blog seems to be embodied in a deep way? And how is that different from what has developed in the USA where this matching principal is so divisive and seen usually through a very individualistic lens rather than a communal lens (and Western/Northern Europe is also pretty individualistic)? It makes me ponder the influential role of Catholicism in Europe…more pervasive for a longer period of time than in the USA where Protestantism has had a stronger influence…perhaps that is one theological/cultural difference. It’s also interesting to me that out of the French revolution, in addition to the civil liberties enshrined in the US Constitution that emerged out of the US revolution, the French constitution also includes a sense of communal responsibility. This is far more implicit in the US constitution and is thus overshadowed by the overt individual freedoms–especially these days. So, I remain curious about how these different historical dimensions have influenced the different takes on this matching principal. And, then there is the fact that different philosophies influenced the thinking in the US versus continental Europe (Locke vs. Rousseau, etc.).
So…our European counterparts believe it is not only possible, but necessary to legislate the matching principal because everyone, especially the poor, are entitled to the necessities of life.
You asked: “If it is required, is it true compassion or charity?” I would wonder rather, how is it that laws shape the consciousness of a society? Families have rules/laws around expected behavior. Part of the function it serves is to ‘train up a child in the way they should go, so that when they are mature they won’t depart from it.’ Would a child’s respect for and obedience to their family rules be considered ‘true’ or genuine if accompanied by a bad attitude? Probably not. But I imagine many of us are surprised by how implicitly formational our family rules have been in shaping our attitudes and actions into adulthood…for good or for ill. So, I wonder if a society’s laws function in a similar way at a communal level? Perhaps following taxation laws that allow a society to be generous to the impoverished and create an overall improved communal standard of living would be bitterly resisted for a generation or even two….in a country like the USA that is…but perhaps eventually it would become a part of our implicit national consciousness. We have over 200+ years of DNA to the contrary, so it may not be possible. But our current paradigms are clearly not working with ever widening gaps between the super wealthy, the shrinking middle class, and the growing number of women, men, and families who cannot afford safe or any housing or medical care (and are often impoverished because of an unexpected health crisis or loss of insurance due to a job lay-off or more businesses hiring just under the hours required for implementing benefits or hiring contract workers as a way to get around paying benefits, etc,., etc., etc.).
And then you ask: “Are compassionate responses possible to be free of corruption and power grabbing without some kind of concept of God?” I’m not sure having a concept of God is insurance against corruption and power grabbing…after all, we do inscribe “In God we trust” on our USA coinage…that demonstrates some concept of God, but it sure hasn’t prevented a tremendous amount of power grabbing, and we have managed to legalize various forms of corruption (speaking of the power of legislating morality). Tax loop holes for the super wealthy being one such example in my opinion. As I travel here in Iraq this week and listen to my Iraqi friends discuss the corruption in their country, and as I live in Lebanon and hear my friends there talk about corruption in their country, and as I reflect on the short-comings of my own country of citizenship, I do think that the principals of good governance (transparency, accountability, the honoring of human dignity, etc.) that have emerged out of philosophical liberalism (and rooted in the best of what institutional Christianity has promoted in the world) have a lot of worth and value in the fight against corruption and power grabbing. Other faith traditions uphold similar values and I think is part of why the declaration of human rights has been meaningful to contexts outside of the Western European/American setting that first developed these principals in the wake of WW2. Though the pushback from other contexts is that the principals are too individualistic in nature and don’t take into consideration communal cultures with much awareness…this is on-going work these days. These same good governance principles need to be applied with more intentionality when it comes to large-scale humanitarian relief efforts following massive natural and human-created disasters as well. The collective compassionate response of millions is a prime target for corruption and power grabbing…even when millions of lives are at stake for basic necessities.
That’s a long response to your questions, but they were such great questions…they got me thinking of these different interacting layers…thank you for the opportunity to reflect. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what I’ve shared. What does it push you to further consider and/or ponder?
Elmarie: No question from me. Simply an encouragement that you are such a well-spoken author and communicator and I always enjoy reading your posts. They are consistently thoughtful and intentional.
Thank you, Kayli, for your encouraging feedback! Your posts also help me to see connections I haven’t considered! It’s good to be part of a mutual learning community!