I had planned to post a series of essays on how we as Pagans can look at the horrors around us and see that they do not reflect badly on the sacred. However, several of my readers expressed concerns over  my approval of compulsory national service as providing a kind of necessary initiation in American life, as I would have myself not long ago.  So I decided to expand on that part of my post on initiation. I think it will be clear that in my view my Pagan perspective has enriched my understanding of this issue.

The argument that follows  has substantial spiritual relevance, although it is a secular argument. Its spiritual relevance is that it challenges the dominant post-Reformation extreme individualism that has its deepest roots, I think, in John Calvin, but has attained its most noxious form with Ayn Rand’s followers. Opposed to this egoistic view, whether religious or secular, is one that sees us as being both individuals and as expressions of our society and of our world.

My favorite pithy expression of this better insight is an African proverb: “I am because we are.”

In my view and experience, each one of us is an individualized self-conscious expression of relationships we share with others.  Being self-conscious, we can examine, enrich, or deny those relationships,  We cannot pretend they do not exist and that we are who we are because of them.  I suspect what is unique in any of us is the gestalt of those relationships, and the choices we make as an expression of that self-conscious gestalt. So each if us is a unique and non-repeatable expression of the sacred as it manifests in this world. But we can do a better or worse job of realizing who we are and what our relationship with others is. This perspective honors individuality and the context that makes it possible. No context, no individuality.  I think that is one of the best things about the sacred manifesting in a dual universe,

With those brief remarks, I leave the metaphysics aside and turn to the social science.

I. A Valid Conservative Insight

Back when conservatism had intellectual and moral content, the most insightful conservatives emphasized that individuals exist in a society that both precedes and long outlasts them. We are who we are in no small part because of the efforts of our ancestors. And we ourselves will be ancestors someday. We exist in a chain of relationships, not as isolated planets surrounded by empty space before encountering another planet.

Much of what we value in our lives arises from the unintentional actions of previous generations.  This is the individualist argument at its best – that if we do a good job pursuing our self interest, the future will benefit. It is not so much wrong as incomplete. Much of what we value is also because others gave of themselves, their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, to refer to one important example.  From those who volunteered to defend their country and never returned to those who turned down better paying jobs in order to “give back” some of what they received, these motives also made us who we are.

Americans today have benefited enormously from the efforts of many people who believed they were doing something for the society that made them possible.

The Randian individualists and those modeling themselves on them, pursue what never existed and never will.  The John Galts, Howard Roarks, and such are theoretical constructs with little to no evidence in reality.  For example, Frank Lloyd Wright is often considered Rand’s inspiration for architect Howard Roark in We The Living.  His politics were far from Roark’s– they were very much left of center.  My point is of more than biographical interest.  The kind of historical individualist heroes admired by ultra individualists rarely have the views their admirers think they do.  They are too perceptive of reality.

So in my view, any decent person wants to give back as well as to enjoy the lives we live.  Each of us has to determine how to accomplish this, but we are way off the mark of we ignore one or the other side of this statement.

II. Individuality vs. Individualism

Point two is that today’s America suffers from a lethal excess of individualism, which is very different from honoring the free expression of individuality.  In my experience individualists are drearily similar, the ones I have met anyway, with highly predictable views and an aversion to considering anything challenging those views.  I have found that getting an extreme libertarian to enter into a discussion regarding serious questions over their philosophy is as difficult as getting a similar discussion out of a Christian rightist or a convinced Marxist Leninist. Mostly they ignore inconvenient arguments and focus on how they are separate from others and owe others nothing. That’s been my experience anyway.

Individuality by contrast is located in the wonderful variety of people and ways of life once people are free to live their lives as they would like, which means living in a society which makes that possible.  Individualists focus on themselves as distinct from others whereas those honoring individuality tend to recognize their embeddedness in relationships making their individuality possible..

Consider inheritance as a symbol of this difference between an individualist perspective from one honoring individuality.

The individualist says that what a person made during life is theirs to do with as they wish, even after they are dead.  If that means creating aristocratic families exercising enormous power over society, that is their right.  Those who honor individuality are more likely to say that after a person dies the personal wealth they leave behind should be used to enhance the lives of others as it once enhanced theirs.  There is lots of disagreement about how best to accomplish this, but the difference in emphasis is clear.

For example, in one case hundreds of millions can be left to a few people who gain special entrance into Ivy League schools because of their family’s wealth and connections and not by their own qualities. Think George Bush.  And he is far from alone. They then use these connections, if they wish, to cement their wealth and power over others.

From the other point of view the same wealth could be used to finance the education of many thousands who otherwise would be unable to afford it, enhancing the possibilities for life fulfillment, for individuality.  The rich man’s son or daughter would have a far more even playing field on which to find their way in life.

So a society that honors individuality will seek to make it possible for all individuals to enrich their lives and so enrich the opportunities they can explore.  As they do so both they and their society will usually benefit.  (I am not suggesting absolute egalitarianism and never have.  But that’s a separate issue and one not worth exploring here.)

III. Society Makes Individuality Richer

We can accomplish much of what we do because of the society in which we live. Had he been adopted by people in a tribal society in the Amazon rainforest Albert Einstein would not have given us a theory of relativity.  As we benefit in particular ways from the society that existed when we were born, so we have a responsibility to those who come after us.  The entire universe did not come into existence just so this generation could have a good time. We are part of a long stream of life, and if some are correct, have dipped into and out of it in the past and are likely to do so in the future.

We therefore have an obligation to benefit our society in some way, as others have acted to leave an enriched environment for us.

IV. Avoiding universal service is not improving our society

Abolishing the draft did not create a more peaceful America – it has turned our wars on others into spectator sports: “Shock and Awe” and other Hollywood phrases capture how we regard war elsewhere.

Today our military has been u  During WWII everyone paid a price, some very high, some less so, but no one could sit back, consume, and watch.  Today our military is used  irresponsibly because we have many young people without decent life opportunities, often unemployed, for whom the military is their only opportunity out of a culture of poverty.  Politicians and others know they have a free supply of voluntary cannon fodder, and they make the most of it.  They can be “war presidents.”  Some of these young soldiers and countless others die as a result of their sociopathic egoism.

Most people join our military, I would imagine, out of a mix of patriotism and a hope to get out of their trapped lives.  Certainly that is true for some I know.  Few if any have the mentality of mercenaries, but under current circumstances they are often called as such by opponents to our imperial adventures.  This dishonors them while avoiding the economic realities that many actually do face, realities leaving joining the military as an attractive way out of poverty.

With military service as one dimension among many of universal service, soldiers will be genuine volunteers even to the blindest outsider.  Being volunteers with options, the politicians and others who praise them while they battle only to turn their backs on them once they are wounded or leave active duty will no longer be able to take them for granted.

Some might wonder whether we actually need a military.  That is a separate discussion.  While I do not think we need a military anywhere near as big as the one we have, I think there is little doubt that in today’s world, we do.

V. The Need for Initiation for many is not being met, with bad results for all of us.

My recent argument about initiation. It speaks for itself, although a number of comments have deepened it.

VI. Individuality is Enhanced in America

The opportunities for every American to live a full and rich life, in so far as society can make that possible, is enhanced.  The people who are likely most to fret over having to serve may well be those who most need the experience, because they will have their horizons widened, meet people very different from themselves and get to know them, and will know that what they accomplish in their lives will be far more based on who they are than who they know and where they grew up.

They will have a stronger sense of themselves as Americans, which these days I think is very important, as our country fragments around us.