I just finished reading The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution by Carl Trueman. This was one of several books I bought with Christmas money last December. I’ve been reading and digesting it for several weeks. I made a point of underlining portions that seemed significant, but it was kind of futile because, as you can see in the photo below, there were many places where I underlined entire pages. The book is that good. It’s the most informative, intellectually stimulating book I’ve read in a long time. (This is a book where even many of the footnotes are required reading.) I learned a ton, and feel I have a better handle now on how our society got to this place in which progressive ideas about sex and gender seem to be taking over (incidentally, Trueman made his case without using the term progressive much at all, if any).
This is not an easy read, at least not until you take the time to immerse yourself in the thought worlds and terms Trueman uses. In order to present his thesis Trueman relies on the work of three conservative 20th century philosophers–Philip Rieff, Charles Taylor, and Alasdair MacIntyre—and adopts their terminology to talk about what’s happening in our culture. The author defines his terms in the Introduction and the first two chapters. I wound up reading the Introduction and Chapter 1 twice. That really helped, because by then I felt I had a better handle on the categories and was able to proceed.
Trueman begins by saying his goal is to explain how the statement “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body,” has become accepted as “coherent and meaningful” in the 21st century. He says if someone had said that to his grandfather, who died in 1994, a mere 30 years ago (and my own grandfather died the same year), his grandfather would’ve laughed and found the statement incomprehensible. So how, Trueman asks, did we get to the place where a statement like this is now understood by everyone and accepted as a credible claim?
Following Rieff and Taylor, Trueman argues that such a statement became believable because our culture has come to emphasize above all else the importance of the self and what Taylor calls expressive individualism. Of chief significance in our culture is the right of individuals to create and define their identity on no one’s terms but their own. Moreover, individuals now expect everyone else to affirm and agree with their chosen self-conception as a way of validating their sense of identity. This is why mere tolerance of their views is no longer sufficient for advocates of the LGBTQ+ agenda; they now demand that everyone in society approve and agree with their preferred gender and sexual identity. The author also says the self has become psychologized such that victimhood is no longer seen merely in terms of physical harm or deprivation, but much of society now views criticism of one’s chosen identity as itself a form of psychological abuse from which individuals have a right to be protected.
In the rest of the book Trueman traces the history of this exaltation of the self in Western culture over the last three centuries. The story is a fascinating tour-de-force. The author finds the beginnings of the modern focus on the self in the writings of 18th century philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. He traces the development of expressive individualism from Rousseau through the writings of 19th century Romantic poets like Percy Bysshe Shelly, the thinking of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the nihilist philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, the psychology of Sigmund Freud, and the philosophy of mid-20th century Marxist thinkers like Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse. Trueman also notes the influence of the surrealist movement, and the pornography of Hugh Hefner. Trueman shows with convincing force how many of these thinkers saw sex as the key to authentic self-expression, and how they therefore viewed Christian teaching on sexuality as the chief obstacle preventing individuals and society from fully and freely expressing themselves (so you see where the animosity toward Christianity and the church comes in, and how early it comes in). Furthermore, Trueman explains how key Supreme Court decisions also helped shape our current situation.
Not being that familiar with the specifics of philosophy or literature, I’m unable to critique Trueman’s thesis to know where he may have missed the mark or what he may have overlooked. I found his arguments very enlightening and overall convincing. I think he’s done Christians a tremendous service by acquainting us with developments in the secular world we may not have been aware of, and showing how they linked together to bring about our current cultural situation. The most helpful aspects of the book for me were the sections on Marxism. I feel I now have a better understanding of just how much Marxism undergirds progressive thinking.
Despite how impressed I was with this book, I do see a few weaknesses in it. I don’t think Trueman succeeds very well in explaining how the thoughts of philosophers and poets whom the average person may not be that familiar with came to exert such influence on society at large. For example, in one of the later chapters Trueman expounds on how influential he believes the surrealist emphasis on sexual iconoclasm was, and then suddenly jumps to talking about Hugh Hefner and pornography, but doesn’t show any direct connecting link between surrealism and porn. Also, Trueman only occasionally hints at the impact the media and the entertainment industry had on culture. I think he could’ve explored this aspect a lot more to show how liberals utilized media and entertainment to achieve their ends.
Another weakness of the book is that it doesn’t talk much about the progressive emphasis on racial justice, which is arguably every bit as important as the progressive focus on the politics of gender and sexuality. However, an entire separate book could probably be written tracing the history of progressives and race, which is likely why Trueman didn’t try to tackle it in this book. Maybe he or someone else will attempt such a work in the future.
At the end of the book Trueman looks at the dynamics within the LGBTQ movement and shows that it’s really not strongly united or cohesive, but instead is a loose and fragile coalition based around the common goal of overturning heteronormativity in our culture. Trueman makes much of feminist/lesbian critique of both male homosexuality and the transgender movement. However, the sources Trueman relies on to make this case are 25 years old and more, so I don’t know how accurately it reflects feminist and lesbian thinking today. I think he could be vulnerable to a charge from his opponents that he’s commenting on a phenomenon that is no longer a factor.
In his epilogue Trueman makes some sobering predictions about the future which nonetheless seem pretty accurate. He believes the LGBTQ movement has won the day and he doesn’t expect things to get better any time soon. He also predicts that attacks on religious freedom will likely continue and may intensify. There may be a ray of hope, though, at least regarding transgenderism, depending on how the conflict between feminists and transgenders plays out.
In the introduction Trueman notes that Christians are likely to explain our current cultural situation merely in terms of human rebellion against God, but he says his goal in the book is to delineate the specific ways in which these developments happened historically, the pattern of events that brought about this particular outcome in the culture. I do find it helpful, but all the same I think in the end it does come back to humanity’s tendency to avoid God and seek autonomy from Him.
If you’ve read The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Trueman has just published a new book entitled Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution, which I understand deals with the same material in more accessible form. Those who are interested may want to try that book instead of this one. Trueman says it’s also been updated to speak to the situation today. I may read it for that reason. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt me to review these ideas a second time.
Morgan Trotter 