The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self
Carl Trueman on the makers of the modern revolution
“There is nothing to be gained from refuting a straw man,” writes historian Carl Trueman toward the start of his new book.
Christian authors, take note. Trueman has written a page-turner aimed at laypeople to narrate the historic transformation in how we see ourselves that led to the sexual revolution of the twentieth century and gives it such enduring power. And he’s done so with no ax-grinding asides or ad hominem attacks.
Pick up this book and you’ll actually understand Rousseau and Nietzsche, Marx and Freud, Marcuse and de Beauvoir. Trueman doesn’t walk in lockstep with them, but he makes you feel the force of their arguments and understand how others could.
The origins of Rise and Triumph lie in Trueman’s curiosity about how and why the following statement is now coherent and meaningful to millions of people: “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.” He traces the story like this (click the links for short talks from Trueman on each step):First, the self was psychologised by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other Enlightenment and Romantic figures who turned inward to find identity. Oscar Wilde's vision of human identity as a public performance looms large.
Then, the self was sexualised by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.
With some Marx swirled in, the self was politicised by thinkers from the New Left and contemporary critical theorists. Trueman seamlessly shows how each of these revolutions play themselves out in our public debates about pornography, same-sex marriage, and personhood. The book culminates with the triumph of transgender ideology and its uneasy fit with its LGB neighbours.
Few books that undertake such a sweeping historical task are as readable and illuminating as The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Whether you agree with Trueman's conclusions or not, the story he tells is deeply clarifying, even essential for grasping the roots of our current moment.
Read an excerpt or check out the book. Trueman is a brilliant teacher too, so don't miss "Makers of the Modern Revolution", a series of eight, twenty-minute talks that unpack the book's ideas.
Reading Genesis Well
Gavin Ortlund and Jack Collins on history, poetry, science and truth
When it comes to Bible reading, starting at the very beginning sometimes feels like a very bad place to start. Even before Leviticus comes around, Genesis 1-11 gives modern readers no shortage of hurdles.
In this interview with Gavin Ortlund, Old Testament scholar Jack Collins discusses whether the early chapters of Genesis are using poetic, scientific, or ordinary language. He delves into how C.S. Lewis can help us read Genesis responsibly and why our contemporary definition of "literal" veers from how earlier Christians used the word. (Gavin Ortlund has also done some illuminating work on this latter topic.)
The discussion centers around Collins' recent book Reading Genesis Well Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1-11. YouTube comments aren't always the best for book reviews, but the first comment is a commendation worth listening to: "Reading Genesis Well (RGW) is the single most important book I've read from a personal apologetic standpoint, ironic, as if I recall correctly Collins explicitly states that it's not an apologetic within the work itself lol."
Listen to "Jack Collins on Reading Genesis Well" or check out the book. For more irenic discussions of controversial issues, see Gavin Ortlund's YouTube channel Truth Unites.
What it Means to be Human
O. Carter Snead on remembering our bodies
What does it mean to be human? For many modern westerners, it means being an individual with a will, free to choose what we desire and unencumbered by other wills. None of our choices – a house, a job, a family – truly define us because we are always free to choose something else.
This popular perspective is frequently termed expressive individualism and Carter Snead insists that it is forgetful of something rather obvious: our bodies.
Each of us enter into the world as fragile, vulnerable, embodied being, radically dependent on the "uncompensated, unconditional, and often self-sacrificial care of others." Because expressive individualism leaves no place for our dependent bodies, Snead puts forward an anthropology of embodiment that calls for recognition of our vulnerability, gratitude for those who have loved us into life, and a moral compass shaped by obligation to dependent others.
If we did not create ourselves and depend upon others throughout our lives, the world and those in it are not simply materials for us to rationally order, harness, and exploit for our own projects. This “ethic of giftedness,” as Sandel called it, awakens the felt need to share with others—including especially those who were not as fortunate in the natural distribution of gifts and benefits. Embracing the gifts of one’s life with gratitude and humility makes one especially alive to the least advantaged who have not received the gifts they need to flourish on their own. ... This is a disposition of welcoming and hospitality towards others in all their uniqueness and particularity, a toleration of imperfection and difference. This is the opposite of raw choice, rational mastery, and control.
Read "The Anthropology of Expressive Individualism" or listen to a short, lucid talk from Carter Snead on the topic. For more, check out Snead's book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics.
Andy
When bored, Andy has an odd habit of downloading productivity apps for fun, but in the past few weeks he has gone analog with the discovery of a planner that has everything he needs to keep track of the week: enter the Passion Planner.
Reading: Andy is continuing his exploration of the work of Terry Real's framework for masculine and feminine roles in marriage with How Can I Get Through To You. If you're married, give it a read.
Listening: Here is Andy's "Best Songs of 2020" playlist.
Watching: The Queen's Gambit, a Netflix show about a drug-addled chess prodigy who finds her way to wholeness (and somehow manages to make chess thrilling).
Phillip
Phillip and family finally have a house in the UK! Fridge came last week, mattress tomorrow, so it's time to move in.
Reading: Jill Lepore's scary-delightful If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future has been keeping Phillip up late. He's also working on putting Francis Schaeffer's Pollution and the Death of Man in dialogue with Wendell Berry's Unsettling of America.
Listening: For some reason, The Music Man and South Pacific are all Phillip wants to listen to while washing dishes lately. The Jill Lepore book has also directed him toward the author's very fun podcast The Last Archive. So good.
Amazon "OneLink"
If you have ever clicked on an Amazon link in 3T, you may have noticed that you are taken to Amazon.com and not Amazon.co.uk. While very convenient for American readers, it is vexing for our UK readers. But those days are gone. Now any Amazon link should take you directly to the Amazon page of your own country with the aptly-named Amazon "OneLink."