Part 1: Human Nature
Chapter 1: "Virtue needs some cheaper thrills"

1.
Are humans good or bad? From the dawn of human self-reflection we have wrestled with this question. Are we naturally inclined toward self-interest and violence? Or does society and environment only make us so? Intrinsically, who are we? What is our essential nature?

Obviously, many reject these questions out of hand. Perhaps these questions are ill-formed or nonsensical. Perhaps humans have no intrinsic nature. Perhaps it is inappropriate to evaluate human nature in moral terms. Is a rock or a squirrel "good" or "bad"? If such questions are inappropriate for these aspects of nature what makes us think they are applicable to human nature? No doubt our actions can be morally evaluated, but our nature?

And yet, we can't seem to shake the feeling that something is wrong with us. That we are not as good as we ought to be. We ask: It is obvious to all that goodness and virtue are best. But if this is so, why is being good so hard? Why is vice so easy? Why is being bad so much fun?

2.
If Calvin and Hobbes has a central theological core it centers on these questions. Many Calvin and Hobbes strips directly pose the question: Are we good or bad? (As always, click on the strips for a closer look.)



Oftentimes, the question is explicitly posed from within Christian theology:



For readers new to Calvin and Hobbes it is difficult to overstate just how much this question dominates the strip. This should not be suprising given the names of the two lead characters. Calvin is named after John Calvin, the 16th Century theologian who strongly endorsed St. Augustine's notion of Peccatum Originale, what Christians refer to as "original sin." Notoriously for some, Calvin preached a doctrine of the "total depravity" of man. The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther framed this doctrine in an interesting way, stating that "every good work is a sin." That is, human self-interest contaminates all human endeavors, nothing we ever touch can be "clean." We are all stained.

This view of human nature is echoed in the character of Hobbes. As most know, Watterson named Hobbes "after the seventeenth-centruy philosopher with a dim view of human nature." (1) Thomas Hobbes's great work Leviathan is famous for his grim commentary and diagnosis of human nature, that the life of man in his "natural state" is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Similar to the great philosopher who is his namesake, Calvin's Hobbes often functions as a political or philosophical commentator upon human nature:



Thus, Calvin and Hobbes function as a dialectic. Calvin is "human depravity" and Hobbes provides the diagnostic color commentary. Further, the irony of the commentary is highlighted by the fact that the "animal" is commenting upon the "human." As Watterson has said, "I use Calvin...as a way to comment on human nature." (2)

3.
What is the commentary on human nature? As noted, given the fact that the two lead characters are named after John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, Calvin and Hobbes presents a dim view of human nature. As discussed above, a running theme in Calvin and Hobbes is why virtue is so hard and vice so fun:



This notion that "being bad is so fun" even allows Calvin and Hobbes to pose interesting questions for Christian theology:



4.
Alan Jacobs, in his book Original Sin: A Cultural History, notes that the doctrine of original sin is often rejected, even by Christians, as a repugnant notion. No doubt the doctrine can be formulated in excessive ways. But Jacobs notes that may Christians find the teaching of original sin "utterly indispensable." (3) As G.K.Chesterton wryly noted, original sin is the only Christian doctrine for which we have ample empirical proof. (4) As Jacob notes, "Any moderately perceptive and reasonably honest observer of humanity has to acknowledge that we are remarkable prone to doing bad things--and, more disturbingly, things we acknowledge to be wrong. And when we add to this calculus the deeds we insist are justified even when the unanimous testimony of our friends and neighbors condemns us--well, the picture is anything but pretty." (5)

Why are we this way? Are the answers to be found in theology or in our genes? Regardless, most agree that we seem to be "wired" this way. Watterson, in his 10th Anniversary Book, underneath the "Virtue needs some cheaper thrills" strip shown above, makes the following comment: "I don't know why we're wired this way, but we are." (6)

In short, Calvin and Hobbes stands within a long tradition of commentators who have articulated a dim view of human nature. But is such an articulation useful? Isn't it just empty cynicism? No, I think Watterson would answer. This dim view of humanity is important for self-understanding. As Blaise Pascal has written, "Certainly nothing jolts us more rudely than [the doctrine of original sin], and yet but for this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we remain incomprehensible to ourselves." (7) Watterson has echoed this sentiment: "I wouldn't want Calvin in my house, but on paper, he helps me sort through my life and understand it." (8) Further, Hobbes's constant diagnostic commentary upon human self-interest helps move us toward deeper moral reflection.

As Watterson has written, "I don't know how much Hobbes helps Calvin gain perspective, but Hobbes certainly helps me." (9)

Notes:
(1) p. 22 The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book
(2) p. 21 Ibid
(3) p. ix Original Sin: A Cultural History
(4) p. x Ibid
(5) p. xv Ibid
(6) p. 203 The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book
(7) p. xviii Original Sin: A Cultural History
(8) p. 21 The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book
(9) p. 202 Ibid

1.
Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, has credited Peanuts (along with Pogo and Krazy Kat) as being a significant influence upon Calvin and Hobbes. As Watterson has said, "I collected the annual Peanuts books all through childhood, and it's probably impossible to overstate the influence Peanuts had on me." (1) For essays attempting to find the "theology" within Calvin and Hobbes it is perhaps important to note here at the beginning that what Watterson got from Peanuts is the notion that comic strips can provide serious commentary about life and the human predicament. "I think," Watterson has written, "the most important thing I learned from Peanuts is that a comic strip can have an emotional edge to it and that it can talk about big issues of life in a sensitive and perceptive way." (2)

In many superficial ways, Calvin and Hobbes looks a lot like Peanuts. The protagonist is a young boy who has an animal sidekick who possesses unusual abilities. Both Hobbes and Snoopy play with our sense of realism (as always click on the pictures for a better look):




Physically, Charlie Brown and Calvin have large heads and tend to speak with a vocabulary well beyond their years. Both strips have a leading female character, Lucy and Susie, who frequently come into conflict with the young boy. Both strips move with the seasons, going from winter into spring through summer and into autumn. Each year we are regularly confronted with school episodes and the making of snowmen:




In both strips we see the leaves fall in autumn. Peer violence inhabits both worlds as Calvin and Charlie Brown are repeatedly assaulted. Both strips have existential moments beneath night skies. And, of course, both strips specialize in humorous but sharp commentary on contemporary life and human nature.

But beyond these superficial comparisons, the inner life of Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes couldn't be more different. The distinctions are due to the vast differences between the characters of Charlie Brown and Calvin. Charlie Brown is, to put it bluntly, deeply neurotic. He is morose and self-loathing. He worries and beats himself up.



Calvin, by contrast, is almost wholly lacking in introspection. Calvin is narcissistic and self-absorbed.



Where Charlie Brown is his own worst enemy Calvin finds himself surrounded by enemies. Shoot, Calvin goes looking for enemies. Witness the great G.R.O.S.S. club (which first appeared in May 1989):



Charlie Brown's negative affect swirls around low self-esteem where Calvin is mainly frustrated that he can't get others to fall in line with his plans or recognize his genius. In short, Charlie Brown and Calvin are polar opposites.

Or are they? When St. Augustine diagnosed the root problem of the human condition he used a metaphor, Incurvatus in se which is Latin for "curved in on itself." For Augustine human sinfulness is due to the fact that our selfhood is bent in upon itself. All arrows point toward me. This self-focus lies at the core of sin. Thus, despite the vast differences between Charlie Brown and Calvin they both illustrate Incurvatus in se. Charlie Brown thinks too little of himself while Calvin thinks too much of himself. But in each case the self sits at the root of their preoccupations. And we smile at Charlie Brown and Calvin because we see ourselves so clearly in them.

2.
But are these observations appropriate? Can Calvin and Hobbes be read as a theological text?

No doubt there are risks in attempting an academic reading of a comic strip:



However, Watterson is clearly an intellectual and he didn't hesitate to deal with deep philosophical and existential material in Calvin and Hobbes. No doubt Calvin and Hobbes has philosophical threads, but what about theological ones? Unlike Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes is not overtly religious which exacerbates the question. So let me give an apologia for attempting The Theology of Calvin and Hobbes.

First, Watterson has stated that he's never attended any church (3). And yet Watterson clearly has theological sensibilities. He has described some of his strips as "little sermons" (4) and he uses the Christmas strips for "Calvin to wrestle with good and evil." (5) Calvin's school teacher, Miss Wormwood was named after the character in C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. (6) Further, many strips themselves bring up theological questions:



And, finally, we can note the obvious: Watterson explicitly named his lead character after "a sixteenth-century theologian who believed in predestination." (7)

And yet, it must be stated stated that Calvin and Hobbes does not present an overt and systematic theological worldview. Rather, Calvin and Hobbes is best read as posing theological questions rather than providing answers. One of the themes of Calvin and Hobbes is Calvin's continual confrontation with epistemic horizons. He is often attempting to forecast the future while rushing, with Hobbes, headlong down a hillside in a wagon. He is continually terrorized by what lives under his bed. These are not theological propositions but they speak to our theological situation.

In short, what I will try to do in the coming essays is to enter the world of Calvin and Hobbes and ask what theology looks like from inside that world. I think it is a world that poses more questions than answers, but I think they are interesting questions, worthy of being teased out. I have no idea if Watterson would approve of this project, theological inquiry might not be how he would like his work to be approached. Regardless, I'm attempting it. The key to my success will be how faithful I remain to the world and sensibilities of Calvin and Hobbes.

In the end, the fans and admirers of Calvin and Hobbes will be the ones to judge the success of this project.


Notes:
(1) p. 6 The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
(2) p. 17 The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book
(3) http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/calvinandhobbes/interview_text.html
(4) p. 201 The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book
(5) p. 198 Ibid
(6) p. 25 Ibid
(7) p. 21 Ibid

Regular readers here already know Tracy Witham from his posts this summer sharing his work and thought in his online book Into the World. Tracy has now formally entered the blogging community, bringing out his book and other thoughts on the new blog Metaponderance. Check it out and be sure to add Metaponderance to your readers and feeds.

I've been reflecting on Susan Neiman's book Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. To recap, one way Neiman frames the problem of evil is as a disjoint between virtue and happiness. Consequently, a theodicy is an attempt to show that virtue and happiness are linked. See my prior to posts on this topic for a review.

According to Neiman, Immanuel Kant had a bit of a different take on the possibility of theodicy. Although Kant believed virtue and happiness were linked he expressed concerns about the possibility of virtue should those links become transparent. According to Kant, for virtue to be virtue it must be pursued as an end in itself. The minute virtue becomes a means to an end it ceases to be virtue. Take courage as an example. If in a difficult ethical dilemma moral courage is demanded of me and I knew, with 100% certainty, that my actions would lead to a good outcome then what place is there for courage? Courage is virtuous precisely because I don't know the outcome, that I have no guarantees that my virtue will result in happiness.

For Kant, then, virtue can only exist in a world where there is "a problem of evil." Consequently, any proposed theodicy must take care not to rob us of authentic moral action by making the links between virtue and happiness too apparent and predictable. In short, if a final theodicy were given to us then the causal links between virtue and happiness would become completely transparent and known. In this fully realized theodicy we are assured that, eventually, virtue is always rewarded and vice is always punished. But in that kind of world virtue vanishes. All that is left is self-interested calculation. We do good because it pays.

But for Kant goodness, to be authentic, must be its own reward. True goodness acts with no guarantees. Goodness, it seems, requires an incomplete theodicy. A world with no evil, no virtue/happiness loose ends, reduces life to behaviorism, where each action, eventually, has a discrete and entirely predictable reward/punihsment outcome. For Kant there is no virtue or courage in such a world. Just rats in a maze working out self-interested calculations. Heaven becomes The Cheese, reward.

As I read Neiman's account of Kant my mind drifted back over the emotional topography of the psalms. Take, for example, Psalm 1, a song of praise:

Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

In Psalm 1 there is no "problem of evil" as there is no disjoint between virtue and happiness. The world of Psalm 1 is governed by moral symmetry: The righteous flourish and the wicked are punished. By contrast, lament psalms are governed by moral asymmetry: The righteous are punished and the wicked flourish (see Psalm 13 as an example). The problem of evil, per Neiman's scheme, emerges in the lament psalms as the disjoint between virtue and happiness is clearly articulated.

Now take these observations about the psalms and think back about Kant's critique of a completed theodicy. Specifically, think about this question from Kant's perspective:

If you dwell excessively in the world of Psalm 1 and never live in the world of lament can you be living an authentic Christian life?

Kant says no. His reasons, as we've seen, are clear. If you live with a view of God that guarantees that your faith and virtue will be rewarded then, for Kant, your faith is simply self-interest. Again, virtue cannot exist for Kant if the outcome is guaranteed. If reward and eternal bliss are sure bets, well, can you really be praised for taking a non-existent risk?

This is really a profound critique of much of what is happening in Christian culture. For example, many have lamented (no pun intended) the excessive praise-orientation in much of popular Christian worship. Much of Christianity is triumphalistic. Health and wealth visions of the gospel are also very popular. By being a Christian we can get Our Best Life Now!

We often see these trends as symptoms of superficiality. But Kant's critique hits harder. It is not just that these forms of Christianity are emotionally shallow. Kant shows that these praise-dominated faith systems are void of all authenticity. For when the links between virtue and happiness are fully in hand faith demands nothing of us. Religion reduces to expressions of human self-interest and selfish calculation. Kant calls this idolatry.

The flip side of the equation is that true authenticity is found in a faith full of lament. It's not just that lament is emotionally "deeper" or more "real" than the emotions of praise. Rather, lament is expressed in the face of evil, in a world where the links between virtue and happiness have broken down. Thus, to have faith or to act with virtue in a world of lament calls upon something more than self-interest. Faith and virtue have no guarantees in the experience of lament. Thus, for Kant, only faith and virtue expressed from lament are truly authentic.

What all this means, for me at least, is that for Christianity to be authentic it must play out against a backdrop of doubt and lament. Faith, to be real, needs doubt and lament as constant companions. By contrast, to live in a world dominated by praise and certainty is to not live by faith at all. Religion, in that instance, is just one more example of human self-interest.

I think all this is what Søren Kierkegaard was after when he said this:

"If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith, I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith."

Kierkegaard would not allow his faith to "come ashore." He would not allow his faith to slide into comforting knowledge. He had to work to keep doubt in his faith. Only then, he knew, would his faith be authentic and not a form of self-comfort or self-interest.

In my last post I outlined the basic scheme of Susan Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. Specifically, the problem of evil has to do with a disjoint. One way to frame that disjoint is the gap between virtue and happiness. We would like to think that virtue is causally and systematically associated with happiness. There are no guarantees of course, but we'd like to think that the pursuit of virtue wasn't a self-defeating task. But evil disrupts this hope. Evil appears to radically dislocate virtue and happiness. Innocent and good people often suffer horrificly while vile and hateful people flourish. Consequently, it would appear that, in the face of evil, virtue and happiness are not linked.

Given the appearance of evil many thinkers produce a theodicy, a way to show that despite appearances there are links between virtue and happiness. We might not be experiencing those links, but that is a failure. The links exist even if unrealized. That might not be much comfort, but it gives some assurance that the Cosmos is orderly and that suffering could, potentially, be overcome.

After presenting these formulations regarding evil and the goal of theodicy, Neiman goes on in Evil in Modern Thought to group thinkers into one of two camps (some thinkers can't be so grouped and these odd ducks are discussed separately in the book). The first camp of thinkers has contended that a theodicy was possible. That is, they felt reason could show the links between virtue and happiness. Some of these thinkers were theists (Leibniz) while others were not (Marx). Regardless, according to Neiman's scheme each felt that human flourishing was causally associated with human virtue.

In contrast to this first group is a group of thinkers who felt that a theodicy was impossible. The argument was that reason is impotent in the face of human suffering. Understanding the rhyme or reason of existence was impossible. These thinkers might differ on why theodicy fails, it may be due to the scope of reason or a flaw within it, but they agreed that the human experience stumps reason.

An interesting case study in this latter group is Neiman's take on the Marquis de Sade. You'll recall that the word sadism was coined to describe Sade's violent and depraved pornographic works. Interestingly, Sade considered himself to be a philosopher. His two major novels were Justine and Juliette. In these two novels Sade recounts the stories of two orphaned sisters who were separated at birth. Justine pursues a life of virtue but meets with nothing but misfortune, violence, and trauma. The subtitle of Justine is, appropriately, Good Conduct Well-Chastised. By contrast, Juliette pursues a life of vice and sadistic pleasures. And the more depraved Juliette behaves the more she flourishes, in wealth, power, body, and esteem. The subtitle of Juliette is Vice Amply Rewarded.

I've not read Sade's work, and from what Neiman describes I don't want to. I only bring up Neiman's take on Sade's novels because they make a point, albeit obscenely so, about the possibility of theodicy. Again, Neiman groups Sade with thinkers who felt no links could be drawn between virtue and happiness. The associations were not to be found. Sade's novels, violently and pornographically, were meant to show that virtue has no association with happiness.

Actually, it's a bit worse than that. For Neiman, Sade is helpful because he represents the nadir of theodicy. It's not that virtue and happiness are randomly and unpredictably associated. Rather, they go in opposite directions. And Sade follows those dark trajectories as far as one could go: The universe is antagonistic toward virtue and blesses vice.

Now I bet we've all, at some point, felt this way. Felt that the universe or God was sadistic. Actively seeking to punish goodness and innocence. I doubt we've sat in this place for long, but I know it's a common feeling. It is probably the most extreme form of lament there is.

Given all this, we can make a sketch as to the theodic options before us. I made this slide to illustrate:



This slide illustrates the tensions between the problem of evil and the aspirations of theodicy. The experience of evil moves us from left to right on the graph. It suggests that virtue and happiness are dislocated at best or inversely related at worst. Conversely, theodicy is an attempt to move us from right to left. An attempt to show that virtue can reliably produce happiness. True, these links are fragile and can be tragically reversed. But in a "normal" state of affairs the links exist. They may be like cobwebs, but still they shimmer.

I've just finished reading a very good book, Susan Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. I'd like to devote a post or two to Neiman's book coming at her argument from a Christian vantage.

Neiman's subtitle An Alternative History of Philosophy is just that, a different way of telling the story of modern philosophy. In most Philosophy 101 classes the story of philosophy is usually told as a drama in epistemology. There are rationalists (Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza) and there are empiricists (Hume, Locke). Kant comes along and does his critical work upon both traditions. Etcetera. Alternatively, Neiman suggests that the dialogue between modern philosophers can be fruitfully seen as conversations less taken with epistemology than about the problem of evil in human existence. This is a bold move by Neiman. Most philosophers would claim that evil is a theological category. Yet Neiman persuasively makes the case (by connecting the works of Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Rousseau, Marx, and Freud to name a few) to show how modern thought, even when God is declared dead, has been wrestling with the problem of evil. Neiman even makes a nice argument showing how the work of contemporary thinkers such as John Rawls can be seen as a part of this dialogue about theodicy.

Now many of you might only have a fuzzy notion of who all those philosophers were and what they wrote about. Never fear, my posts will try to simply sketch Neiman's thesis leaving it for the interested reader to dip into her book to explore how these modern thinkers fit into the scheme.

The heart of Neiman's book is how she frames the problem of evil and theodicy in non-theological terms. For Neiman, the problem of evil has to do with the intelligibility of nature. It goes to our ability to understand and therefore trust the Cosmos. Evil stumps these attempts to make sense of the world. And making sense of the world is less about getting the answer to why it rains than about our place in the universe. Can we lean on reality, trusting it to support us? If we live a life of virtue is there any assurance from reality that I'll reap good outcomes? Will our plans to build just societies be nurtured by the Cosmos?

Or is it all just randomness and confusion?

Thus the heart of the problem of evil is a disjoint that, throughout the book, Neiman frames in different ways. It is the disjoint between:

Reality and Reason
Virtue and Happiness
Truth and Goodness
Ought and Is

The problem of evil occurs anytime we confront reality and feel "Things ought not to be this way." This feeling can be felt by both the atheist and the theist. Evil and theodicy are not uniquely theological or religious categories. Further, the problem of evil occurs when we feel that there should be clear and causal links between virtue and happiness. We feel that living a good life should, generally, produce fulfillment and flourishing. Somehow there should be links between how the world is and how it ought to be.

Consequently, a theodicy is an attempt to heal this disjoint, to show that reality can be understood by reason. That virtue is linked to happiness.

For Christians the link has always been God's Providence. God is the link between virtue and happiness, the bridge between ought and is. Believers claim that, despite appearances, what is happening to us is connected, via God's Plan, to goodness. As the bible claims in Romans 8.28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him." Romans 8.28, deployed as a theodicy, links goodness to virtue. Further, even if God's plans are unfulfilled on earth (via human rebellion) believers know that in the Final Accounting in heaven or hell virtue and happiness are finally and fully linked.

For philosophers less interested in overtly theistic accounts the links between virtue and happiness were to be found in the rationality of the cosmos. The argument would be made that the natural and moral order were linked. Human flourishing was possible, if only we could follow the dictates of Reason. A better world awaits us if we would just fall in line with the grooves laid down by both Reason and Nature. Utopian thinking, thus, is a form of theodicy. It is a demonstration that there are links between virtue and happiness. That reality would submit to the force of reason. The difference between the theodicy of, let's say, Marx and a Romans 8.28 Christian has to do with human activity and the role of eschatology. The theodicy of Marx demands that we act, now. The theodicy of the Christian demands that we wait for the Final Judgement. Regardless, both think virtue and happiness are systematically linked.

Stepping back from history we also find that everyone is engaged with theodicy. Deep in the human psyche is an intuitive theodicy. It is called just world belief and it has been amply demonstrated in the psychological literature. Summarizing, we intuitively think that the world is just, that the hand of Providence is in play, that ought and is and virtue and happiness are indeed connected. Thus when tragedy strikes something in the human psyche seeks to link it with virtue. Might those people deserve what happened to them? Might I be being punished (by God or the Fates) for what is happening to me? Might my sins be haunting me? In short, we can see in all this how we try to bridge the divide between ought and is. Can Hurricane Katrina be blamed on anyone? Perhaps the French Quarter hedonists and homosexuals? If not, if hurricanes are just random killers, if they crash upon the just and the unjust, then is there any link between virtue and happiness? This is what evil, natural or moral, does to us. It suggests that my life of goodness and virtue can be thrown away, like a dirty rag, by God or the Cosmos. And if this is the Way Things Are, well, why not eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die?

To summarize, Neiman claims that the problem of evil haunts every soul, not just the religious. And that the more generic root of the problem of evil isn't the old conundrum of If God is so good and powerful why does He allow evil? Rather, we seek some assurance from Nature (a fool's hope?) that virtue and happiness are linked in some systematic way. If they are not, how can we go forward with our plans to live a life? How are we to raise our children if we know that goodness is disconnected with happiness? Thus, theodicy is an attempt to show us the links, to assure us that if we pursue a life of goodness Nature or God will meet us halfway and make our life a happy one.

150.

When you get right down to it, that's the problem.

150.

i.
One of the most famous papers in cognitive psychology is George Miller's paper concerning the capacity of short-term memory. The paper was entitled The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. Miller's research was important in establishing the capacity or bandwidth of short-term memory. We can hold about seven (plus or minus two) pieces of information in short-term memory without any mnemonic device. About the length of a phone number. Most people given a phone number can hold it in memory and repeat it back. Past 10 digits you start seeing significant memory errors.

I'd like to use The Magical Number Seven to suggest that diverse lines of research are converging upon a different kind of magic number. This number seems to be associated with our moral capacity, our moral bandwidth. It is the number that identifies the number of people we tend to count as "family and friends," the people I pull out from the world of "strangers" as worthy of altruistic attention. This Magical Moral Number isn't seven. The Magical Moral Number appears to be around 150.

How are psychologists coming up with this number? Well, to begin, if the brain has an adaptive history we can expect the information-processing faculties of the brain to display certain biases associated with the adaptive challenges the brain faced during that history. Adaptive pressures tend to produce conservative solutions in organisms. Take memory again as an example. For whatever reason the brain didn't invest massive amounts into short-term memory. Apparently, long-term memory was more important that short-term memory. Which makes sense. So the brain is like an investment banker, it has finite resources and has to allocate them according to adaptive need. It is true that these investments can be changed through experiences. The left hand of an expert guitar player has more neurons devoted to it than do non-guitar players. Experience does rewire the brain. But this plasticity isn't infinite in scope. There are constraints. You don't want the brain taking away connections from, let's say, the neurons controlling your heartrate.

When it comes to our innate moral psychology we see something similar to what we observed with memory. Upon birth and throughout development the brain needs to be able to identify and recognize the people inhabiting its social world. We saw this in the last post. The brain carves the world into "family and friends" versus "strangers." The question is how big can the "family and friends" group get?

Given that the brain spent most of its adaptive history in small, kin-related hunting-gathering bands it seems reasonable that the brain, like with short term memory, would not devote infinite memory resources to keep track of all social relations. It seems reasonable to expect that the brain would allocate memory resources to the social faculty of the brain that roughly correlated with the size of these hunting-gathering bands. There would be no real need for the brain to devote memory resources past this point. Thus, it is argued, the brain developed a moral/social bandwidth, it has a natural limit to how large the family/friends group will be. The limit roughly correlates with the actual size the family/friend group found during most of the brain's adaptive history. And how big were those hunting-gathering bands? Most anthropologists have it around 150.

This number grows more intriguing given the following:

If we correlate size of neocortex and social group size in the animal kingdom we find a regular positive trend: As group size grows so does neocortex. You need more brain to remember agents in your social groups as well as a memory for all the "relationships" in the group (who hates who, etc.). For primates like chimps the group size is 55. Extrapolating from human cortical size our social groups should be...you guessed it...150.

The average of number of Christmas card lists tends to be around 150.

The average number of entries on personal address books is around 150.

Organizations under 150 can be managed via face to face interactions without creating an organizational hierarchy.

The size of a military company, the basic military unit, where face-to-face command and communication is used, is between 75 and 200.

The point is, humans appear to have a social and moral bandwidth of about 150. Our memories can keep track of groups about this size. Beyond it our interactions become more anonymous. Past a group size of 150 we start needing formal organizational structures to handle interactions. Further, the group we consider "friends and family" clusters around this size.

ii.
So our brains have a natural moral capacity of 150. Given the Christian call live in a world without strangers this creates a bit of a bandwidth problem. We are constantly fighting an inclination to focus our love and welcome to a group of 150.

This situation creates a lot of problems in the church. Preachers find it very hard to get people to care about more than 150 people. Plus, once those clusters get set up its hard to break into someone's tribe. Humans are naturally cliquey. Churches around 150 can function as one large family. Past 150 the church will have cliques.

Further, as we make calls for social justice it is hard to mobilize congregations to care about people worlds away. The appeals have to be pretty emotional and impactful to get our attention. This is difficult to do on a regular basis. Thus commitment to the poor waxes and wanes.

iii.
What can we do to combat this inclination? Well, here is a humble start. We need to practice what I'll call the rituals of hospitality in everyday life. Most of the people we encounter during the day will be strangers, they will be outside my 150 group. Consequently, I need to cultivate practices of welcome, greeting, kindness, fairness, humility, grace, and openness (among others) to have this interaction be deeply human and humane. I'm probably not going to be best friends with the girl taking my order at McDonald's but I can do everything in my power to treat her as a sister and a friend. I can refuse to dehumanize her. I can look her in the eye. I can smile. I can treat her mistakes with humor and compassion. I can compliment. I can be patient. I can personalize an impersonal interaction.

This is why I think hospitality is so important. It gives us rituals of social interaction that allow us to extend our moral bandwidth to the whole world.

The great moral problem facing humankind is actually very simple to describe. It is the great source of our sin, the psychological root of evil. You can see it for yourself in this YouTube clip I found. The fundamental problem of humanity can be seen right around the 1:35 mark. Watch, tremble, and weep for our species:



Did you see it? Up until the 1:35 mark the child is happy and lighthearted. Then, at the 1:35 mark we see him looking into a room of strange people (many of whom sound like children). Suddenly, the child grows quiet and hesitant, not wanting to go into the room.

Psychologists call this stranger anxiety. It is a normal psychological development in all children. And yet this feature of human psychology is the root of human evil.

Why do I say this? Well, early on in development, while we are infants, children don't display stranger anxiety. You can pass a baby around a room of strangers and the baby won't generally mind. But eventually, as a developmental milestone, stranger anxiety will emerge. When it does the child will resist being in the company of strangers or at least display a dose of hesitance or wariness. This onset can be shocking to grandparents. The last time they visited the child was warm and welcoming, but now she is standoffish and shy.

The reason stranger anxiety is the root of human evil is because it shows how the brain during the natural course of its development begins to carve the world up into two groups, family and strangers. Family, as we see in the YouTube clip, are treated warmly while strangers are approached with wariness and suspicion.

This aspect of human psychology--a natural inclination to carve the world into "family" and "strangers"--persists into adulthood and provides the foundation for the dark side of group psychology. Most -isms sit atop the psychological foundation of stranger anxiety. Racism, jingoism, sexism, and classism all are rooted in stranger anxiety. As we can see, most of these -isms tend to cluster around observables, skin color, language differences, physical differences, attire. And given the psychology of stranger anxiety this makes sense. Observable differences between you and I immediately mark you as different, as not a part of my tribe. This is why humanity always fractures along these lines as these observables are the trigger for stranger wariness. And this is why I call stranger anxiety the root problem of human morality. Deep in our human psychology there is a bias, a moral soft-spot, a psychological tendency to locate the stranger and pull back. This bias is generally managed. But it always is lurking, like dry kindling waiting for a spark. When group psychology grows bad it cracks along this latent fault line, pushing upon this moral weak spot in human psychology. Stranger wariness grows into fear and fear into loathing or hatred. The progression is fairly predictable.

This is why I think hospitality is so critical to the Christian ethic. If stranger anxiety is the root cause of human evil then hospitality, welcoming the stranger, goes directly to the heart of the issue. Many in our church can be dismissive of hospitality. How is welcoming people going to change the world? The intervention seems so mild. And yet hospitality is the key ingredient in changing the world for it confronts and seeks to transform the facet of human psychology that, as I've argued, is the source of most of what ails us.

My church is currently thinking through what it means to be a person and a community of hospitality and welcome. One of the key ideas we are discussing is the notion of encountering God in the stranger. It is one of the great biblical motifs that God is encountered when we extend hospitality to strangers. I could give many examples of this (Rublev's icon--the Hospitality of Abraham--depicting the events in Genesis 18 is a common place to begin) but my personal favorite place to begin is in a particular reading of the resurrection narratives.

When you read the resurrection narratives a consistent theme in them is how Jesus is never recognized. The most famous example of this comes from the gospel of Luke:

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him...As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

Weird, huh? But this isn't the only instance of Jesus not being recognized after the resurrection. In the gospel of John Jesus is not recognized by Mary:

Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"

"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. "Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

The disciples also have trouble recognizing Jesus. Again, from the gospel of John:

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. "I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?" "No," they answered.

He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, "It is the Lord," he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish you have just caught." Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." None of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord.

In this last account it could be suggested that Jesus was not recognized because of distance, the disciples were out on the water and Jesus was on the shore. But John adds this weird little note that, even when sitting right next to Jesus, "none of the disciples dared ask him 'Who are you?' They knew it was the Lord." Why add this curious note? Perhaps they were still not convinced it was Jesus. And yet, John states that this was the third, not the first, time the disciples encountered Jesus. So why are there lingering doubts?

This gets even more curious in the final verses of the gospel of Matthew at the giving of the Great Commission:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Why were some doubting? Clearly they doubted that man in front of them was Jesus. Why? Didn't they recognize him, even after this close contact?

So here's one way I like to think about these texts: The post-resurrection Jesus never appears to us as Jesus. Thus, the post-resurrection Jesus is chronically difficult to recognize, then as now. The post-resurrection Jesus comes to us as a stranger. More strongly, in some mystical ontological way, Jesus is the stranger.

Thus, one way of reading the post-ressurection ethic for followers of Jesus is for Christians to always find Jesus in the stranger. To live in the world as if there were no strangers, with Jesus standing in for everyone I encounter in life. As Jesus said himself:

They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

I want to expand on and illustrate my observations from my review of Rapture Ready! concerning neurosis and pop Christian self-help. Let's take, as an illustration, Joel Osteen's best-selling book Your Best Life Now.

First, I'd like to note how Osteen's book isn't a crass "health and wealth" message. Osteen's book is less material than psychological in nature. Its contents easily parallel pop psychology self-help books only with a theistic twist. (Speaking as a psychologist, much of Osteen's book is just a watered down version of cognitive therapy, again with a God twist.) This psychological focus illustrates the point I was making in my last post. American Christians are approaching their faith to meet psychological needs. What kinds of needs? I claimed the needs were mainly neurotic, a distress that is largely self-inflicted from rumination, introspection, self-consciousness, worry, social comparison, and idiosyncratic obsessions or compulsions. Osteen's book helps confirm this diagnosis. Your Best Life Now can be largely seen as a manual to give a neurotic person the confidence, energy, and self-esteem to decisively step out of low self-esteem, lack of confidence, self-defeatism, and emotional rumination.

Take, for example, Osteen's Seven Steps that help move you toward Your Best Life Now:

1. Enlarge your vision.
2. Develop a healthy self-image.
3. Discover the power of thoughts and words.
4. Let go of the past.
5. Find strength through adversity.
6. Live to give.
7. Choose to be happy.

Psychologically, I'd like to quibble with some of this list (How does one "Choose to be happy"?). Theologically, I'd also like to quibble (although I like "Live to give"). But my point here isn't to argue with or make fun of Osteen, rather I want to use his book as diagnostic of the prevalent neurosis within Christianity and America generally. Look at Osteen's Seven Steps and then imagine the person they are offered to. That is, imagine someone with the opposite frame of mind from each of the steps. What does that person look like, psychologically speaking?

Neurotic, that is what they look like. Unhappy, low self-esteem, emotional baggage, negative self-talk, confused, a sense of malaise, and a feeling of underachievement.

Now let's be clear, this isn't just a Christian problem. Wander over to the self-help section the secular psychology books and you'll see that this is an American issue. Osteen's product is just aimed at a niche. Just add some God-talk to the routine pop psychological offerings found on Oprah and you have Your Best Life Now.

Now, is there anything wrong with all this? No. Low self-esteem is painful. So I'm for anything that can help people get out of these ruts. My concerns here are more about how books like Your Best Life Now can help us think about trends in the larger Christian culture. And when we do this what we find is that here in America we approach faith as therapy. Now therapy is a fine thing, but there are consequences for this focus. American Christianity is a therapeutic culture. And the trouble with this therapeutic milieu is that it is ego-centric and reduces the cross of Christ to a feel-good, psychotherapeutic intervention (Jesus Loves Me!, 1 Cross + 3 Nails = 4 Given, and the Jesus's footprints in the sand parable).

No doubt there is a therapeutic facet to the gospel, it is wonderful to feel loved and to self-identify as a Child of God. The concern is when the therapeutic focus is make the focal point of the Call of Jesus and, ultimately, getting stuck there. Church leaders know this. People flock to churches for emotional healing but rebel if church starts, after a time, making discipleship demands. We come to church broken and want to stay broken. We want to be comforted. Always. Who wouldn't?

And this situation creates problems when the Christian message begins to be filtered through the media and markets. Why? Because these outlets are consumer driven. We, then, via consumer choice, get to pick the gospel. Our needs shape the product. It becomes the message that I want to buy.

Again, it's not just the market facet that worries me, but the consumer needs (which I've argued are psychological) that are driving the market. Because the problem with the market is that it cannot shape or challenge those needs. It just meets the needs. It just reflects the needs. The market is not a master but a mirror. And that's the root problem. The market cannot challenge or shape us, it cannot produce Christ-followers. This is the problem with Christian retail. When I walk into a store I'm unlikely to find Christ there. Unlikely to purchase the true cross. Rather, as I slowly turn 360 degrees in my local Christian bookstore, I'm more often than not immersed in human needs, the gospel reflected through what will make me happy.

I just finished a wonderful book entitled Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture by Daniel Radosh. Rapture Ready! is by turns hilarious, disturbing, and thoughtful. I highly recommend Rapture Ready! to anyone interested in sociological insights, informally presented, into the intersection of Christianity and American culture.

In Rapture Ready!, after an encounter with Contemporary Christian Music, Radosh, a journalist, sets out on a year long journey to explore the world of Christian pop culture. During his journey he visits Creationism museums, Christian music festivals, seminars on marital sexuality, Christian bookstores, Bibleman shows, Christian publishing houses, Christian professional wrestling matches, Christian skateboard and BMX festivals, Halloween hellhouses, and Christian themeparks. Radosh even participates in the The Great Passion Play, the largest outdoor passion play being done in America.

What makes Radosh’s journeys so interesting is that he approaches each experience as an intelligent and curious outsider. Radosh is culturally Jewish but theologically he is a non-theistic humanist. Given Radosh's metaphysical disjoint with much of what he is observing you would think that Rapture Ready! would be a scathing and sarcasm-filled account of the worst of Christian pop culture. True, there is sarcasm aplenty in Rapture Ready! but it is largely deserved and appropriate (and hilarious). But overall the tone of Rapture Ready! is sympathetic and thoughtful. Much of what Radosh encounters is ripe for criticism, but when he finds a thoughtful answer or conversation partner he honestly listens.

Much of Rapture Ready! is a meditation on the consumeristic and materialistic nature of Christian pop culture, from the creation of “Jesus Junk” to specialized study Bibles to Christian bands who imitate the sounds of the latest secular pop sensation. Radosh rightly notices the theological paradox in all this. Consumption and Christianity aren’t supposed to mix. Yet Christian pop culture is awash in it.

As a review, I want to offer a few parallel observations based on my reading of Rapture Ready!, observations related to the consumeristic paradoxes within Christian pop culture but approaching them from a psychological vantage.

As I read Rapture Ready! one of the things that struck me about the Christian retail world is the nicheyness of it. Take, as a first example, Radosh’s explorations concerning Bible publishing (p. 65):

At the Christian Booksellers Association show in Devenr, I saw such innovations as the Outdoor Bible, printed on indestructible plastic sheets that fold up like maps, and The Story, which features selections from the Bible arranged in chronological order, like a novel. There is a Men of Integrity Bible and a Woman, Thou Art Loosed! Bible…There are Bibles covered in duct tape, faux fur, simulated diamond plate, and holographic paper…R&H offers a Build-a-Bible, which has removable covers that can be swapped out depending on your mood or the dictates of fashion.

There is a Bible for every need and a need for every Bible. This needs-driven trend is also observed in the wider world of Christian publishing. As Radosh observes in the largest Christian bookstore in the nation, Christian bookstores regularly fill their shelves with needs-based books (p. 89, 90):

The health section includes titles such as Body by God, Fit for Eternity, and What Would Jesus Eat?...You can find The Purse-Driven Life under humor and God is My CEO under business, unless it’s the other way around. Not only is there a sports section, there is a subsection within that just for golf, where you can pick up In His Grip and Finishing the Course: Strategies for the Back Nine of Your Life…The most space is given over to “Christian Living.” That’s the category known in the non-Christian world as self-help…

This needs-based approach to Christianity also manifests itself in how Christians read the Bible. A great example of this comes from Chapter 15, Radosh’s explorations into marital sex self-help resources, ranging from books to seminars. Many of these resources employ awkward readings of the Song of Solomon, turning that text into a “how to” manual for better sex. Radosh’s commentary on this use of the Bible is, it seems to me, spot on (p. 275):

In a way, understanding the flaws of the Christian sex advice movement helps make plain a problem that many people have with conservative evangelical philosophy in general. Can all the mysteries of sex and marriage really be answered by a two-thousand-year-old book? There is wisdom in the Bible, certainly, but how reliable is it as a universal instruction manual?

Paradoxically, by trying to read the Bible as all-encompassing, pop-Christianity actually diminishes it. There’s something disappointing about reducing the transcendent poetry of the Song of Solomon to a mere self-help book…While there is no doubt that many, if not most, couples can benefit from sex advice, perhaps it would be better to leave the Bible out of it, for the sake of the Bible as much as anything.

(It's a bit depressing how a Radosh, a non-Christian, has a higher view of the Bible and a better sense of its use than, I expect, the majority of Christians do.)

Although many will come away from Rapture Ready! with strong indictments of consumerism and materialism within Christian culture I’d like to focus on something that can be noted in the examples from the book I gave above. Specifically, I'd like to note the sheer neediness manifested within American Christianity. American Christians come to their faith with a host of needs, needs for stress-relief, better parenting skills, business strategies, and sex advice. And the Christian marketplace has stepped up to meet these “needs.” It is the vast needs-driven appetite that is driving much of pop Christian consumption.

I'd like to contend that unless we understand why Christians consume pop Christian products we’ll simply be left with the empty indictments of “consumerism” and “materialism.” People consume for a whole host of reasons so unless we understand those reasons we’ll hold only a diagnosis without a sense as to what the cure might be. Radosh does a wonderful job in Rapture Ready! exploring the motivations behind pop Christian consumerism and I'd like to add my analysis to his.

As mentioned, Rapture Ready! exposes how many American Christians approach their faith as need-satisfaction. I need and God steps in—via some Christian product—to satisfy that need. This is consumerism, but it is more psychological than economic. In the end, God satisfies me, fills me, supports me, completes me, guides me, encourages me, and fulfills me. This is how many Christians envision their faith, God as uber-product, the Divine Snake Oil.

Where does this neediness come from? I think Freud had part of the answer when he noted that to exist as a human is to exist as a neurotic animal. To be human is to be neurotic. If we were not neurotic we’d be living without an internalized conscience. But to have a conscious is to be human, which means we live neurotically. We feel shame, guilt, and remorse. We obsess with how people feel about us and if our breath smells bad. We check our hair in the mirror and wonder if we are living up to our potential.

Yet when we are busy with the necessary activities of life we find neurosis to be a luxury we can ill afford. Hence the Amish notion of keeping busy. Activity--honest work and play--leaves little time for neurotic obsessions. But as American leisure time has grown we’ve also grown progressively more neurotic, both Christians and non-Christians. This neuroticism is symptomatic of the leisure class and it manifests itself in pop-cultural products.

In short, as American Christians enjoy their leisure time they begin to think, and as they think they grow progressively neurotic, obsessing over their orgasms, their home décor, their socio-economic status, their parenting skills, the intelligence of their children, and, most ominously, their "relationship with God.” As a consequence, these neurotic Christians seek solace in a faith aimed at managing their neurotic obsessions and compulsions. Shopping is just a way to fill time and soothe oneself.

Although many will read Rapture Ready! and walk away disgusted with how American capitalism has contaminated our churches I think that might be missing the point. Mistaking the symptom for the underlying disease. And I think the disease is not materialism or consumerism but the underlying neuroses governing much of American Christianity and modern life generally. The shopping is driven by the neurosis. And this neurosis is largely the product of American leisure time, the luxury of having time to obsess about ourselves. If the brain doesn't have an external task to focus on it turns inward and we grow, as they say, self-conscious.

What, then, is the answer? None come simply to mind, just a suggestion about where to start. The problem, as I see it, isn’t “materialism” or capitalism but the neurotic core of modern life. And it’s not just a Christian problem, most Americans are infected by it. As Radosh notes, secular pop culture isn't much better than Christian pop culture (think Paris Hilton). Thus, you attempt to “fix” the excesses of pop Christian consumption by reconfiguring the self-image and psychology of American Christians. Jesus, famously, said he had no home, no pillow to rest his head on at night. This might be read as a renunciation of wealth, but I see it as a facet of Jesus’ non-neurotic personality. He could live simply and for others because, at some deep level, he just didn't care. Didn’t obsess about his hair or how “effective” he was (and how Seven Habits might help). You turn your back on consumerism only when you turn your back on self-consciously obsessing. To live with less or to shun fashion (Christian or secular) is difficult for psychological and social rather than economic reasons. To stop caring about what people think is the great achievement, one lauded not only by Jesus but by all the great moral and religious thinkers. True freedom is being free of the neurotic web of society.

Recently, I was honored to have been asked by Jeff Christian to present a paper at this year's Christian Scholars Conference held at Lipscomb University (where I taught for a year). Jeff hosted two symposia on the topic Constructing a Hermeneutic of Culture. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to my trip to Germany, which saddened me as so many friends, many of them new friends formed through the blogging world, were in attendance. However, my paper--The Moral and Psychological Landscape of Chit Chat: Toward a Theological Hermeneutic of Everyday Conversation-- did make it in my place. Again, a warm thank you to Jeff for letting me participate.

Since its presentation in June I've reworked the paper and have submitted it for publication. But I wanted to share a bit of it here. In the paper I attempt to use some psychological theories to create an interpretive structure that might help us analyze our motives in everyday conversation. Once those motives are made salient the hope would be that moral discernment could be better informed. The two motives I focus on are called in the psychological literature agency and communion. Informally, they describe the tension between "getting ahead" (agency) versus "getting along" (communion). I use the interplay of the agency/communion motives to analyze three ubiquitous features of everyday chit chat: Lying, gossip, and humor usage. Presented below is a part of the paper showing how I work through the case of gossip:

Most Christian communities have a low view of gossip given that gossip is roundly condemned in both the Old (e.g., Proverbs 11.13, 16.28) and New Testaments (e.g., 2 Corinthians 12.20; Romans 1.29). And yet the biblical accounts present us with a more complicated picture of gossip than is typically assumed. For example, both the Old and New Testaments tout the value of cultivating a good reputation in our communities (e.g, Proverbs 31.31; I Timothy 3.7). Reputations, good and bad, require a backdrop of gossip. More specifically, reputations are gossip.

In short, with gossip we encounter a social phenomenon similar to the one we observed with lying. Our knee jerk judgment is that gossip is sinful. But on reflection we realize that we are awash in gossip and its existence might not always be evidence of wickedness. Consequently we quickly find ourselves back with sticky discernment issues. When is gossip appropriate and when is morally problematic?

To answer this question we should back up and define gossip and discuss its social functions (see DiFonzo & Bordia, 2007). At its most basic gossip is sharing evaluative statements about individuals. These evaluative statements can be negative (e.g., “Bill is lazy.”) or positive (e.g., “Susan is a wonderful mother.”). The sum total of the evaluative statements being shared about you in your social world (mostly behind your back) is what we call your “reputation.”

Although no one likes being negatively talked about, social psychologists have long noted that gossip serves both strategic and social functions. From a strategic stance I need good evaluative information about my social world to navigate it successfully. Who should I trust? Who can keep a secret? Who can be depended upon? These evaluations are necessary and important. So we gossip. From a sociological stance, gossip helps communicate and enforce important group norms. A business treats its customers fairly for fear of cultivating a bad customer service reputation in the community. This motive for being fair may be self-interested, but this case does illustrate how gossip very clearly communicates the values and standards a community demands from its participants. All in all, then, gossip is vital to both our social and moral well-being.

How, then, are we to determine when gossip is morally problematic? Again, I think the agency/communion hermeneutic gives us a good first round of questions to ask of ourselves. Specifically, when I am sharing socially evaluative statements am I doing it for agenic and self-interested motives? Or are my goals communal in nature?

In the case of lying the answers to these questions were relatively straightforward. We have all told lies for self-interested motives (e.g., getting away with something); so self-interested lies are relatively easy to spot. But what does self-interested gossip look like? When I gossip it always appears that my goals are other-oriented. After all, we get nothing out of gossip. We are simply passing on information that my conversation partner “needs.”

So where is the self-interest to be found in gossip? The Bible gives us a clue. First, Proverbs 18.8 says, “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels.” Also, in the New Testament the issue of “idleness” is associated with sinful gossip (1 Timothy 5.13). In sum, the issue boils down to this, are we taking joy in the gossip? Is the gossip entertaining?

To be concrete, imagine a single female asks her Christian co-worker and friend about a man in the office who has asked her out on a date. The Christian knows that this man has been sexually exploiting women in the office. Should the Christian share this information? Should she, in a word, gossip? I think she should. More, I think she would be morally culpable for not sharing her concerns based on what she knows. But there is a thin line here. And it is largely an emotional one. That is, will the Christian enjoy and relish the sharing of this information? For it is this enjoyment, this delight in the dirty laundry of the world, that leads us to share things beyond any benefit that might be gained by the person we are sharing with. In those cases the gossip has become idle, pointless. The only function has become entertainment.

There is no single English word for this emotion of taking delight in the misfortunes and misdeeds of others. But the Germans have a word for it, Schadenfreude. In short, when applying the agency/communion hermeneutic to the case of gossip we are looking for Schadenfreude as diagnostic of agenic motives. In the presence of Schadenfreude information is being shared that is uniquely, and wickedly, for us. Again, as with lying, the agency/communion hermeneutic is not the final word in discerning the rightness or wrongness of gossip. But it does recognize gossip as being ubiquitous, socially valuable, and complicated. And, given these factors, the model asks important initial questions for moral evaluation.

Reference:
DiFonzo, N. & Bordia, P. (2007). Rumor psychology: Social and organizational approaches. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.