Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

Tag: individualism

To Become Real — Affirm Others

The heresy of individualism: thinking oneself a completely self¬sufficient unit and asserting this imaginary “unity” against all others. The affirmation of the self as simply “not the other.” But when you seek to affirm your unity by denying that you have anything to do with anyone else, by negating everyone else in the universe until… Read More ›

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“I”

The shallow “I” of individualism can be possessed, developed, cultivated, and pandered to, satisfied: it is the center of all our strivings for gains and for satisfaction, whether material or spiritual. But the deep “I” of the spirit, of solitude and of love, cannot be “had,” possessed, developed, perfected. It can only be and act… Read More ›

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The Problem of Individualism

We have to recognize that a spirit of individualism and confusion has reduced us to an ethic of ‘every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.’ This ethic, unfortunately sometimes consecrated by Christian formulas, is nothing but the secular ethic of the affluent society, based on the false assumption that if everyone is… Read More ›

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Heresy of Individualism

The heresy of individualism: thinking oneself a completely self-sufficient unit and asserting this imaginary ‘unity’ against all others. The affirmation of the self as simply ‘not the other.’ But when you seek to affirm your unity by denying that you have anything to do with anyone else, by negating everyone else in the universe until… Read More ›

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