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May 15, 2007
by Dinesh D'Souza

I invited Charles Taylor years ago to give a lecture at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. I asked him to speak on the topic of how we in the West went from the ancient idea of the soul to the modern idea of the self. He gave a beautiful talk and answered questions, and then we had a small dinner in his honor.

Several conservative luminaries were present: Irving Kristol, Charles Murray, Ben Wattenberg, and Michael Novak (who also won a Templeton prize). It became clear to all present that Taylor's political leanings are left of center. Later someone said, "We have to overlook the guy's politics. He's Canadian!"

Taylor's political slant may be the price he pays for maintaining his intellectual credibility in a very liberal academic climate. But even though he would never put it this way, Taylor's philosophical work is profoundly conservative and Christian. In fact it illuminates the spiritual landscape on which most of us traditional Christians drowsily dwell. It provides intellectual ammunition for our convictions. The only thing it doesn't do is offer a strategic plan of action.

Taylor's magnum opus is Sources of the Self, a magisterial account first published in 1989 of the origins of the modern identity. This book is an education in itself, and I suggest reading it twice, once to grasp the powerful and sweeping scope of the argument, and then a second time, to digest the rich morsels. Here you will see how traditional Christian morality was supplanted in the West by the morality of the inner self, so that we now have two rival moralities contesting the public sphere, with Christian morality on the defensive and what Taylor calls the morality of authenticity in the ascendancy.

Taylor's book The Ethics of Authenticity is a wonderful short account of why our young people today attach such a high value to such things as "sincerity" and "self-fulfillment." Somehow Polonius' advice to Laertes—"To thine own self be true"—has become a kind of contemporary gospel. Taylor describes it this way: "There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way and not in imitation of anyone else's. This gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life, I miss what being human is for me." Taylor traces the intellectual lineage of this way of thinking, and shows why some of the most enthusiastic backers of modernity fail to appreciate the deeper moral sources that modernity draws and indeed depends on.

I first encountered Taylor in the mid-1990s through his book Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition. Accustomed as I was to having my own critique of political correctness challenged by academics educated beyond their intelligence, I was astounded to find in Taylor a much more profound account of the rise of identity politics than anything I had encountered. Basically Taylor makes the case for the universal application of fundamental liberal principles while at the same time making room for recognizing group identity and group claims where only secondary liberal values are concerned. I apply some of Taylor's insights to the Muslims in my most recent book The Enemy at Home.

Taylor's work has become more explicitly religious in recent years, and perhaps not surprisingly, so has mine. Taylor's most recent book, published in 2003, was a new interpretation of William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience. Taylor shows why James is still relevant and that even though some forms of the old-time religion don't make much sense today, in other ways religion is more relevant than ever to make practical sense of our lives. I don't consider this book Taylor's best effort, but that still makes it very good.

I wish I could read Taylor's forthcoming book on secularism now, since I am in the process of finishing What's So Great About Christianity. But Taylor's A Secular Age is not out until September. This is Taylor's eagerly-awaited study of how we came to live in a secular age. At one time virtually all of the orbit of life in the West was shaped by religion and specifically Christianity. But now we live in a time and place where our political, economic, scientific and cultural activities are largely removed from the sphere of religion. I want to learn from Taylor what we have gained and what we have lost, and whether it is possible to retrieve some things that have been hastily left behind.

Taylor's Templeton award will, I am sure, free him to be even more productive in the future. This is one of the best things that philanthropy can do: find a man of genius like Taylor and then liberate him to focus completely on his work. Don't even let the man make his own bed or clear his dishes. This is how the dukes and earls of old got so much work out of the artists they patronized. The Templeton foundation is in this great tradition. Eventually I think this prize will come to be seen as more important than the Nobel. Charles Taylor is one of the reasons why.

Responses to When "I's" Become "We":

My Parents were an excellent example of Spousal Cooperation. Both of them worked, they were both teachers. So once I was old enough to go to school, they were free when I was free. My mother always said that from the outset, my father said: "Since we both work, we both need to work around the house too. It wouldn't be fair for my wife to have to work as hard as I do during the day and be responsible for everything at home too." My father did the laundry, Vacuumed, and did the dishes. All by choice, because he felt that as a married couple, sharing life together meant sharing the chores fairly also. In a good marriage, the two do become as one. I would no more say that's a job for my right hand it does all the yard work, my left had does all the house work than I would say that, "That's "woman's" work, or that's "mens" work. If the two do become as one, no job is beneath either partner. Many times when I was young, I was sick from my allergies, If I got sick, my father never said, "Mary, you clean up after 'Your' son." While mom was putting me back to bed dad would start to clean up, and mom would go back and help. I thank God for the love and witness I saw in my parents, for the truth in my fathers belief that Marriage was an equal partnership, and that there was nothing in that partnership that was beneath him if mom needed help. - Richard Sweeney

I have thought for many years that, as women have been more accepted in the workplace, and as they have been able to stand in society as dignified people in their own right...and not just because of who they happened to marry; as all of this has happened, women have been trapped in the same cage men have always been prisoner to. I have heard women talk about how it was in the 70's when they could not get credit for anything if they didn't have a husband to sign for them. I have heard women tell of the pitiful wages they earned then for the same or even more prestigious work than men earned. You could make a good case for saying that teachers, for example, recieve such low salaries because it is still considered to be women's work. On the other hand, women who chose to go to work thirty years ago are now forced to go to work in order to make ends meet. Many women today work because they have no other choice. What happened in these years to make women slaves to other things besides husbands? I applaud new feminist liberation and hope these women figure out what we men should have been working on for a couple of centuries now: how to free ourselves to be productive instead of be trapped by economic necessity. - John White

The success of the scenario you propose does not rest solely on the wife. There are women (and I am one) who committed to a lifetime marriage, trying working full-time, part-time, in the home full-time, raising two kids, all in my hope of developing a cooperative marriage that would fulfill both partners and provide loving security for our kids. However, my husband, a repeated philanderer, and abusive dominant, responded to each collaborative overture of mine with a rejecting insistence that I needed to submit further to him. Repeatedly, he rejected any responsibility or respect for my needs which were part of our needs. Our divorce, after 17 years of marriage and a total of 24 years of relationship was the last resort for me when I finally realized that marriage for him meant an open marriage which would also include my acceptance of his need to dominate me physically and emotionally, to the point of physical injury, in all areas of our life. There are limits. I found your article interesting intellectually, and I believe you made some excellent points, but your thesis presumes an emotionally safe and respected power differential that is not always present. Please be very careful about judging women whose survival depends on their ability to sense that their lives have worth beyond what an abusive spouse would lead them to believe. - K.C.

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse responds: I am always amazed by letters like this one. In my article, I specifically said that the problem is no-fault divorce, which benefits faithless spouses at the expense of innocent spouses. In this particular case, the wife has been the victim of serial adultery, as well as physical and mental cruelty. Any of these three things would have constituted a marital fault in just about any jurisdiction of the United States prior to 1970. Under fault rules, a spouse like this one would have had more recourse against her husband. As a side benefit, spouses who were inclined to stray were often constrained by the knowledge that the judge would take a dim view of their behavior. In 2005, the Center of Arizona Policy was able to promote a bill that would allow a family court judge to take marital fault into account in property and custody settlements. Notice the bill would allow, but not require, the judge to consider fault. This legislature approved this bill. Governor Napolitano vetoed it, at the behest of the family law bar. Her reasoning was that it would bog down the family courts, by “forcing them to adjudicate marital fault for the first time since 1973.” She completely overlooked the fact that courts just might face fewer divorces if people were held accountable for faithless behavior. As matters now stand in AZ, this wife would have to prove criminal conduct, which requires a much higher standard of proof, in order to have a judge consider her husband’s behavior in settling property or visitation. I do not consider this to be an issue of gender: it is an issue of justice. There are faithless spouses, male and female alike, who are taking advantage of the no-fault rules to violate the most elementary standards of common decency. The law should be changed. Until it is, women and men alike are going to be vulnerable to opportunistic behavior by their spouses.

I see the collaboration model described in the recent tothesource article as a very shallow version of marriage. The marriage covenant, as exemplified by Christ and applied in the Spirit's power, has more splendid outcomes. Perhaps collaboration is the best that a secular framework can provide. - J.W.

Thanks to Jennifer Roback Morse for sharing her wise insights about spousal cooperation. As the "bread-winner" in the house, with a stay-at-home spouse, I appreciate her affirmation of the "we" in marriage. A further expansion of Jennifer's concept is to go from two I's to "we three" as in recognizing God's presence as the "third strand" of the marriage relationship, with husband and wife. Never sever, always connect. Keep the excellent content coming! - Dave Pipitone

It seems to me that too many times over the parents go out and work for their own "self-preservation," instead of "marriage-preservation." This, in my opinion, is causing more and more problems in society because it is showing male and female children alike that you need to worry about yourself. The nurturing mother shows compassion towards the children and in-turn gives a great example of what the children should do, show compassion. On the other hand the male part in marriage should be steadfast and protect what he has helped create (through the help of the female). Divorce rates are being increasingly higher due to this perdicament, too. - Nathan Brokaw

Remember there are men who stay home with their children while the woman as the only "paying" job outside the home. - J.B.
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•Demographic expert: World's supply of children 'shrinking'
•Charles Taylor fact sheet
•Outside The Box
•Interior Life of Atheism
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•Atheism and Child Abuse
 
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We live complex lives. We strive to sort out priorities that sometimes conflict or seem incompatible. A moral framework is needed to help us understand the reality around us. Our Judeo-Christian heritage provides a framework to help us comprehend the choices we make and the conflicts that arise over them. It is not only the main source of our spiritual values, but also many of the secular values we depend on.

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  Dinesh D'Souza, the Rishwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, served as senior domestic policy analyst in the White House in 1987-1988. He is the best-selling author of Illiberal Education, The End of Racism, Ronald Reagan, The Virtue of Prosperity, What's So Great About America, and The Enemy at Home. His upcoming book What's So Great About Christianity will be released Fall of 2007.
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