The Twisted Self 

by Carl Trueman

     "Karl Marx took definitions of what it means to be human and molded them to assert bold, new "realities." For example, marriage between one man and one woman for life was not really "natural" at all. Rather, it was a social arrangement to serve the economic interests of the ruling class. 

     "That has so many parallels in the modern progressive movement. These days, arguments against the traditional family - whatever the diatribe of the month may be - abound. Other 19th-century thinkers also helped undermine the notion of inherent morality. 

     "Charles Darwin denied that humanity had any special purpose or meaning. The implications with Marx were very similar. 

     "Friedrich Nietzsche argued that all moral systems were merely power plays by one person or group designed to manipulate others. The very notion of 'human nature' was only an invention, a sly construct. 

     "Nietzsche's dark view of human psychology found a scientific counterpart in the work of Sigmund Freud. He saw human beings as dark and destructive, characterized above all by sexual desires. 

     "Few today have read Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche, Darwin or Hegel. So how did their ideas become the instincts and intuitions of society at large? Technology panders to the myths that fallen human beings want to believe about themselves. First that we are free, answerable to no one, and masters of our own destinies. Second, that human nature involves no accountability to some set of objective moral standards."

Thursday: the digital self