The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self:
Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism and the Road to Sexual Revolution,
The other week Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick was interviewed on Times Radio. It's the job of journalists to put government Ministers on the spot by asking them tricky questions. But the nature of what constitutes a 'tricky question' changes. In this case Jenrick was quizzed on whether he agreed with his colleague, Liz Truss, the International Trade Secretary that you need to have a vagina to be a woman (see
here). The Housing Secretary replied,
'I think there's a matter of biology, of course, what is a woman. I mean absolutely, I agree with Liz Truss. That's the point that she's made in the past.' Given the constraints of collective responsibility, how could Jenrick say otherwise? He knew, however, that a trap was being set and not wanting to offend the perpetually offended trans lobby, the minister qualified his words saying, 'Undoubtedly, of course we want to ensure that those people who are trans can live their life comfortably. I want everyone to be able to live their life the way they want to and be happy and to find love wherever they can do.'
Expressive individualism
You may be wondering how on earth we got ourselves into a position where journalists put government ministers through their paces by asking them whether women have vaginas. Since when did the basic facts of biology become a matter of political debate? Charles Taylor speaks of the 'social imaginary', a set of underlying assumptions that make beliefs plausible at any given time. In a less secular age faith in God was part of the 'social imaginary'. While a minority may have dissented, most people assumed the existence of a divine being and lived their lives accordingly. Now, not so much. These days the 'social imaginary' is limited to the immanent frame, haunted only on occasion by the sense of a transcendent realm. Similarly, the idea that a man can become a woman and just as much a woman as someone who was born female would have been regarded as nonsense until relatively recently. But now it is part of the 'social imaginary' and to dissent from that view is to attract accusations of 'transphobia', which Robert Jenrick for one was so keen to avoid.
In this book Carl Trueman sets out how the 'social imaginary' of the Western world lent itself to the belief that a man can become a woman, or vice versa. Transgender ideology didn't emerge from nowhere. The writer traces its roots back to the 18th-century Romantic movement. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the father of Romanticism. He held that people are born free and innocent, but are corrupted by society which imposes its oppressive values on the individual in order to force to them into conformity with accepted standards of behaviour. English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley agreed. He wanted to break free from from societal norms that were based on monogamous marriage so he could practice sexual self-expression. That was the only authentic way to live, free from outward constraints. The Romantics expected society to uphold basic moral values for the good of everyone concerned, but the emphasis was on the psychological fulfillment of the individual.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson might call it 'cakeism', a case of 'having one's cake and eating it'. The Romantics granted the benefits of Christian ethics for society as a whole, but reserved the right to transgress the elements that hindered their self-expression. Friedrich Nietzsche saw things more clearly. If God was pronounced dead, then faith-based values ceased to have any validity. Heroic self-invention is the only way forwards. Add Karl Marx and Charles Darwin to the mix and all sense that human beings are distinct creatures with a nature bestowed upon them by God is lost. We are plastic people in a fluid world.
Then along came Sigmund Freud to sex things up a bit. He basically thought that everything is about sex. Society enforces the suppression of the sex drive of the individual by insisting that desire is channelled through monogamous marriage. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, but if marriage is simply a social construct, people are free to deviate from its constraints if they wish. Freud had no time for belief in God, rendering marriage as a 'divine ordinance' meaningless. Taking their cue from Freud, Marxist thinkers such as Herbert Marcuse began to see patterns of oppression more in psychological than economic terms. People with sexual proclivities that deviated from the norms of society weren't so much 'depraved deviants' as victims of heteronormative oppression.
The Romantics taught the primacy of psychological self-expression over and against the norms of society. Freud emphasised the primacy of the sexual in the realm of psychology. Marx argued that rather than being a fixed entity, human nature is shaped by the economic tides of history. Industrialisation had a profound effect on how society viewed the role of women. The rise of the machines meant that women as well as men could be employed in factories, eroding traditional gender-based distinctions. Modern medicine has made further erosion possible. Men may be given female sex hormones. They may submit to sex change surgery so that the body of a natal male is refashioned to resemble that of a woman. (DNA and internal reproductive organs aside). Expressive individualism demands that if a man feels he is really a woman, but trapped in the wrong body, his psychology trumps his biology and his gender identity must be validated by society. 'Trans women are women', get over it.
That's what you get when the 'social imaginary' is the product of expressive individualism. Robert Jenrick's nod towards trans ideology cited earlier is a perfect case in point, 'of course we want to ensure that those people who are trans can live their life comfortably. I want everyone to be able to live their life the way they want to and be happy and to find love wherever they can do.' In this context the idea that sex is immutably rooted in biology and that biology should have something to say about sexual expression is regarded as oppressive.
Tensions
And so it is that in England the LGBT pressure group 'Educate & Celebrate' seeks access to schools so it can advance its mission to 'smash heteronormativity' (see here). Children are taught they can choose whether to be a boy or a girl, based on how they feel inside. Expressive individualism for kids. But there are pushbacks, especially from feminist groups whose whole outlook is based on women being oppressed by a patriarchal society on the basis of sex differences. Feminists resent the downgrading of their biological reality by men who demand to be recognised as women. They are also outraged that biologically intact males who identify as female are given access women's toilets, prisons and refuges. Parents are alarmed when it becomes apparent that their children have been exposed to the kind of trans propaganda promoted by groups such as 'Educate & Celebrate'. Even that bastion of 'muscular liberalism', Ofsted is now concerned about the influence of lobby groups on sex education in schools (see here).
Adding the 'T' to the LGB lobby has also resulted in tensions. The gay lobby traditionally fought for rights on the basis that people don't choose to be gay or lesbian. Sexual identity, they claimed, is fixed and society should't regard same-sex attracted people as deviants who should be made to conform heterosexual norms. Trans ideology promotes the idea that sexual identity is not fixed, but fluid. If they wish, people should be able to identify as a gender that is different to their birth sex. 'Trans women are women' and woe betide anyone who says otherwise. But lesbian sexuality is based on attraction to people of the same sex, not male-bodied people who identify as women. The LGBT lobby group Stonewall is being dropped by government departments because of its attempts to silence gender critical voices and the misleading advice it gives on the Equality Act with regard to female-only spaces etc. (see here).
True identity
In an Unscientific Postscript Trueman looks at how things may pan out in Western culture, captured as it has been by expressive individualism. With the trans lobby labelling gender critical feminists as a bunch of no good 'TERFs' (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists), intersectionality isn't exactly providing a recipe for a more harmonious society. Free speech and with it freedom of religion is likely to come off worst when Christians voice their opposition to the LGBT agenda. After all, the 'heteronormativity' represented by traditional Christians is part of the problem and we can't have people voicing opinions that would disturb the phycological wellbeing of others. But we must stand firm and not allow the world to press us into its mould. Contra expressive individualism, people are not free to create their own identity. Human identity is a given thing, rooted in our being made in the image of God as male and female. Marriage can't simply be redefined so as to ignore that reality. The identity of the believer is not located in their sexuality, or gender identity, but in Christ. Our task is to preach him and all things in relation to him, Colossians 1:28-29.
