Recently, I have been thinking about the whole individualism versus communalism debate, and while they are not mutually exclusive, individual expression is an important value for Christian communities to develop.
One of my favorite Eastern Orthodox theologians, John Zizioulas puts it this way:
Uniqueness is something absolute for the person. The person is so absolute in its uniqueness that it does not permit itself to be regarded as an arithmetical concept, to be set alongside other beings, to be combined with other objects, or to be used as a means, even for the most sacred goal. The goal is the person itself; personhood is the total fulfillment of being, the catholic expression of its nature. This tendency of the person, like freedom, is the ‘two–edged sword’ of existence. For applied to man it leads to the denial of others, to egocentrism, to the destruction of social life. As in the case of freedom, so with the unique and hypostatic nature of the person, a relativisation appears to be indispensible if chaos is to be avoided. Thus uniqueness is relativised in social life, and man becomes–in a greater or lesser degree but nevertheless assusredly so– a useful ‘object,’ a ‘combination,’ a persona. But it is precisely this which constitutes the tragic aspect of the person. Diffused today throughout all forms of social life is the intense search for personal identity.
John D. Zizioulas in Being As Communion:Studies in Personhood and the Church. Crestwood, NY,St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002. p.47.
I hear over and over that we are made in the Imago Dei, that every human life is sacred, unique, and of limitless value. My question is, then, “Why is conformity so popular?” Is it because conformity is easier, that social norms are actually laws that go unenforced but rule human behavior, nonetheless?
I think so. For instance, as I think about it, I almost fell into conformity, wanting to do the scholarly work that everyone else was doing, regurgitating Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism for the 21st century or desiring to mimic the latest popular fad preacher; however, that was just not me. It is more difficult to be a self-critical and original thinker, to apply one’s creativity to express oneself. It is a narrow road, but I will try to travel, even if I am the only one I can see taking it.
