Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Politics and Religion
Politics of the Promethean Self

Politics of the Promethean Self

Last updated on: November 26, 2019 at 6:00 am by Gene Veith

0 Comments

Politics of the Promethean Self 2019-11-23T14:27:53-05:00 Gene Veith

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We’ve blogged about Josh Hawley, who is not only a U.S. Senator (at 39, the youngest member of that body) from Missouri but a trenchant Christian cultural critic. Known for his attempts to bring the big tech companies under anti-trust law and his efforts to make the Republican party more populist, Hawley gave a speech that is attracting attention. In it, he develops the concept of the “Promethean Self” and its cultural, political, and governmental manifestations.

Conservative writer Michael Brendan Dougherty in discussing the speech says that Hawley “might be the most interesting thinker the U.S. Senate has seen since Daniel Patrick Moynihan.”

For basically my entire adult life, the default mode of Republican speechifying has been a kind of reheated “optimism” with lots of waxing poetic about the great reserves of American can-do waiting to be tapped. These attempts to recapture “Morning in America” have been delivered through clenched, Prozac-like smiles by men who promptly enter black SUVs to be hurried off back to their gated communities. I’ve always accepted that this is the way of electoral politics, which doesn’t have much to do with a conservative intellectual disposition that tends to be more dour, or at least skeptical.

But Hawley’s speech went from. . . baleful statistics [about inequality, the loss of community, the struggles of the working class, and the soaring suicide rate] to a prophetic critique of a cult of the individual and self that is “so thoroughly ingrained in American culture.”

I’m going to quote the speech at length. Notice too the theme of vocation, which I’ll draw your attention to by bolding. From Senator Josh Hawley’s Speech at the 6th Annual American Principles Project Gala (Nov. 20, 2019):

For years we have been told that to be truly free is to be without the constricting ties of family and place, without the demands of faith or tradition.

We’ve been told that liberty means release, separation. And this view has had its effect. . . .

This is the individual as creator, as self-creator, maker of meaning and author of reality—rather like Prometheus who in the ancient myth created all mankind. So call this view of the human person the Promethean self.

As it took hold in twentieth-century America, the Promethean ideal taught that the individual self exists apart from all social ties and relations. Our family, our religious society, our neighborhood and town—these communities don’t constitute one’s identity, because who one truly is exists separate from all of them.

Instead, the Promethean self creates her own reality, her own truth. She forges her own meaning. And this effort at self-creation is a solitary business. The demands of community too often get in the way.

For the Promethean self, the only time community is truly worthwhile is when it is freely chosen, and then only on the individual’s own terms. For the claims of community must never inhibit the individual’s powers of self-expression. Or so we are told.

This Promethean idea has by now become so thoroughly ingrained in American culture, so ubiquitous in our public life, it’s impossible to escape it.

It is preached in our universities, celebrated in our music, rehearsed in our literature and film. It’s even the stuff of judicial decisions.

Remember this? “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” That’s Justice Anthony Kennedy in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 1992. I doubt you needed the citation.

And you can see how this idea of the Promethean self, the self-creating, self-sustaining person, suggested a particular kind of politics—a politics centered on the solitary individual.

In this kind of politics, individual choice, and even more, individual achievement are what count. And that makes sense: if our personhood is something we create and not discover, if it is something we assemble entirely for ourselves, then personhood is an achievement; it is something we do.

And place and home don’t matter much. And civic participation is beside the point. And church, synagogue, family—these are fine, but only as groups of individuals, and only if they don’t have too much say in society and don’t control too much of your life.

The Promethean vision has an economic side as well. It gives us an economic policy focused on individual advancement, where advancement means making more money and consuming more stuff. So in popular culture billionaires become heroes, and the everyday working man becomes just some guy who never realized his potential.

Both major parties have embraced some version of this Promethean politics. And both have made it central to their agenda, for decades.

But if you want a life built around home and family; if want to live in the place where you grew up, with the people you love and know; if your ambition is not to start a tech company but to serve on the PTA, well, this politics doesn’t have much to offer you.

And that’s the problem with the Promethean self. It’s an idea that rewards the privileged and entrenches the powerful. And here’s why.

If freedom is about creating your own reality, then those with the greatest access to power will be the most free. And in today’s society, that means those with the most money, the most credentials, with the most influence.

And let’s be honest, a society that prizes the self-creating and the powerful will prize fame and fortune and status, and look down on, or just ignore, those who don’t have them.

And if this sounds like 21st century America, it should. Because our society increasingly rewards credentials and degrees, it lionizes wealth and the size of your social media audience, and it calls these things “merit.”

As if getting them makes you more valuable than anyone else. As if success is a matter of what we can amass.

And where does this leave those without power or money? On their own.

If you’re a worker with a high school degree in the urban core who can’t get a good job, you’re told it’s your fault and you should work harder, get more education, stop being lazy.

If you’re a farmer or working a trade in the middle of the country and can’t support your family on what you bring home, you’re told you should move, that smart people live in cities, and you should have made better life choices.

It’s no wonder so many Americans feel so unappreciated and unheard.

It’s no wonder so many young people feel desperate to get another credential, another good grade, another like on Instagram—so that they can matter.

It’s no wonder so many of our fellow citizens feel so desperately alone.

Because here’s the reality. The Promethean self, splendid in his isolation, needing nothing from others but the space to create, doesn’t exist. The Promethean ambition leaves us lost and unmoored. And the market worship and cultural deconstruction the Promethean vision has inspired have failed this country.

The collapse of community in America has been underway for decades now, and as it accelerates, it threatens our common liberty.

Our families and farm cooperatives, our churches and labor unions—they bring us together, they relate us to each other, they tell us what we have in common. And they tell us a story about ourselves, as Americans.

They tell us that what unites us is not race or ethnicity or religious confession. What unites us is the deep conviction that every life matters, that you matter, that every person is uniquely called and uniquely gifted.

They tell us that you don’t have to be rich or famous to be important, that ordinary life—the life of work and marriage and family and worship—that life is valuable, it’s wonderful, it’s what we were meant for, it’s what changes the world.

Our communities of home and worship and labor tell us all this because they draw us into living these convictions together. And this country is built on those convictions. Which means the future of this country depends on rebuilding the communities that make us who we are.

Because in the end, it is community that makes authentic individual life possible.

It’s community that gives individuals strength. It’s community that helps us find moral purpose. It’s community that joins us together to exercise control over our lives.

And so as it turns out, our cherished belief in the liberty of every individual, and the dignity of every person, is rooted in the life we share together.

For in the words of an old theologian, “We do not exist in isolation, [but in] a world of love and hate, blessing and curse, service and destruction . . . where nobody, fundamentally speaking, belongs to himself alone.”

That’s something the Promethean vision has never understood. But then, the Promethean vision never really understood the individual—or love, or liberty. And it is time now to leave Prometheus where he belongs, in the myth of the past. . . .

We must forge in this century a new politics of family and neighborhood—a new politics of love and belonging—a new politics of home.

Photo: Josh Hawley by Natureofthought [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)] via Wikimedia Commons

Previous Post

November 25, 2019

Home Alone

Next Post

November 27, 2019 Responding to Criticisms of Christianity

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"While she worked for Trump she was a tool's tool!"

reg

Luther on Tools

"I know wired earbuds are making a comeback (I never stopped using them as I ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

"VCRs, tape decks, and cassette players are all having a revival among a segment of ..."

Tom Hering

Luther on Tools

"As a (retired) lawyer I see potential liability from sharing things like power or sharp ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category America Apologetics Art baseball Bible Blog Christ Church crime Culture Economics Education Ethics Family Food Football Government History Holidays Holy Week Humor International Islam Language Law Life Issues Literature Media Medicine Movies Music Nature News Personal Philosophy Politics psychology Reformation Religions Sacraments Science sex Social Science Sports technology television terrorism Theology Uncategorized Vocation war

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In the Parable of the Sower, what does the seed represent?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The Law Judgment Money The Word of God

Books by This Author Books by Gene Veith

See All Titles »