Self and Universal Humanness

To what extent are personal experiences universally shared (or potentially universally shared)
among all humans?

Is it valuable to write about self, because personal experiences might be relevant to others? Or
is it "self-indulgent"? Can we write meaningfully about anything else? Might it in fact be more
humble to write only about one's own experience, and arrogant to claim to know anything
more?

Is it better to write in more general terms about one's own experiences, because the more you
move to particular details, the less likely what you write will have relevance to others? Or does
including the particular details make it more interesting?

Lately, I've been writing in very general (and, yes, vague) terms about processing a new
emerging leading. I have wondered whether writing in that very general way is useful, or is just
maddeningly cryptic. I am starting to think that it might be more maddenly cryptic than helpful.
And so I apologize. (I will probably be sharing more of the details as the leading unfolds.)

I myself really like to learn about people's inner struggles with life: how they process leadings;
how they deal with anxieties and fears; how they pray; what their spiritual experiences are like;
how they decide what to do, or how they decide what is right and what is wrong. I like the
honesty of facing experiences directly and fully. I like to see where people struggle to
understand something on its own terms, instead of being quick to throw over it a ready-made
interpretation borrowed from our commonly inherited patterns of thinking. I find it most
exciting when I see people taking those commonly inherited patterns of thinking, and holding
them up to actual lived experience, and asking: "does this really fit?" Very often the answer
turns out to be, "not exactly," and it is the exploration of the parts that don't match up that
often yield the new insights that have the ring of authenticity.

My sister and I once said to each other as we were catching up on each other's lives: "Life is not
at all how I expected it to be." We both found this a bittersweet realization. At the time, it was
more bitter than sweet. But over time, I have found that I bear the bitter parts better, for the
most part, and this is a relief. It doesn't shock me any more, like it did in those earlier days of
first venturing out into the world beyond that of my upbringing.

But I have been surprised, lately, to find myself going through new hard times, just as it seems
things should be opening up for me, and even lightening for me. I feel clearer than ever before
about a lot: who I am; what I am called to do. I've had very important insights about my
relationship to my work, and my relationships with people. And yet I feel more powerless than
ever to change in ways that I think would be helpful and healthier.

I think what I am learning is something important about the relationship between individuality
and culture. I think I am feeling the press of my culture's power upon me. I think what I am
really learning is how very hard it is for individuals to stand against strong cultural pressures.

So much is expected of me -- and of us all. Our world is demanding and complex. Most of us, I
think, feel embedded in networks of competing demands.

The assertion that personhood is independent of the status of the

This essay postulates that human social order recognizes the personhood of human
beings within two competing constructs—an existential construct that personhood is a
state of being inherent and essential to the human species, and a relational construct
that personhood is a conditional state of value defined by society. These competing
constructs establish personhood in both individual and interpersonal contexts.
Within the individual context existential personhood may be posited as a distinctly
human state within the natural order, intrinsic to human life, and independent of the
status of the human being. In the interpersonal context the existential construct
holds that personhood is not a creation of the society, is not a right, and may not be
altered or removed by human fiat. Relational theory presents contra assertions in
these two contexts. The Christian view is taken as a particular case of existential
personhood. Arguments concerning the nature of human personhood are
metaphysical and consist of philosophical beliefs which may be properly asserted in
either construct. The interpersonal context of personhood lends itself to
comparative analysis of the empirical results associated with both the existential and
the relational constructs. This essay provides an overview analysis of the existential
and relational constructs of personhood in the interpersonal context and finds a
broad range of results that are manifestly superior under existential theory. Such
empiricism supports a normative conclusion that the good rests in the existential
construction of human personhood, and gives credence to a claim of truth that
personhood is an essential characteristic of the human species and is not a
conditional state dependent upon circumstance, perception, cognition, or societal
Arguments concerning the nature of human personhood are metaphysical and
consist of philosophical beliefs which may be properly asserted in either
construct.2 The interpersonal context of personhood lends itself to comparative
analysis of the empirical results of both the existential and the relational constructs.
This essay provides an overview analysis of the existential and relational constructs
of personhood in the interpersonal context and finds a broad range of results that
are manifestly superior under existential theory. Such empiricism supports a
normative conclusion that the good rests in the existential construction of human
personhood, and gives credence to a claim of truth that personhood is an essential
characteristic of the human species and is not a conditional state dependent upon
circumstance, perception, cognition, or societal dictum.

Existential personhood places certain demands upon a society. It calls upon a society
to recognize the dignity and worth of the individual by reason of the life of the
individual. It places the dignity and worth of the individual above the collective power
of the society, as a superior virtue and it demands prima facie a societal rejection of
the relational construct of personhood.
Certainly many have argued against such demands of the existential construction.
Lindsay (1935/1992) maintained that Plato would assert ‘the distinction between what
man is in himself and what he is in society’ as “invalid and unreal”. Cooley
(1902/2009, 37) similarly spoke, holding that ‘“society” and “individuals” do not
denote separable phenomena, but are simply collective and distributive aspects of the
same thing’. Others more expressly believe that society maintains a “super organic”
role, holding power to actually determine what constitutes a valid person. 30 Mauss
(1985) proposed that the concept of self had “slowly evolved” through a succession of
forms in different societies. Mauss (1985, 20) said of the notion of the person that “far
from existing as the primordial innate idea, clearly engraved since Adam in the
innermost depths of our being, it continues here slowly, and almost right up to our
own time, to be built upon….” Karl Marx (1875, 1998) used a relational construct of
personhood as foundational to his thought, stating that “the essence of man is no
abstraction inherent in each separate individual. In its reality it is the ensemble
(aggregate) of social relations.”
The construct that the individual is indistinct from the greater society and that
personhood is a relational state within society—being granted by society on terms
agreed upon by the group—has observable and measurable associated results. This
construct allows the person to be respected and valued by society in a subjective and
variable ethic. It allows political structures, even those founded in democratic
principles, to produce decidedly anti-democratic results—establishing distinctions
among persons by fiat and validating arbitrary class hierarchies. And in so doing, the
relational construct undermines justice and corrupts its application.
The relational construct found an early expression in Aristotle's views on slavery.
Aristotle held that some persons possess certain natural characteristics—a childlike
demeanor, for example—that make them slaves by nature (Rist 1982). And he held
that other individuals are masters by virtue of being a certain type of person by nature,
and not by virtue of knowledge or skill (Schofield 1999). The society is, in
Aristotelian thought, acting properly and intuitively in establishing slavery based upon
these differences. A more recent expression of this application of relational
personhood was found in the nineteenth century United States Supreme Court ruling
in Dred Scott v. Sanford, explicitly affirming the ability of a “dominant race” to grant
rights to “a subordinate and inferior class of beings.”31
The concept that the powerful members of a society may declare a class of individuals
to be an “inferior class of beings” bereft of constitutional rights and privileges
demonstrates a relational construct of personhood in political application. Here, an
ostensibly democratic society turns to its fundamental conception of persons as the
explicit basis for political subjugation of individuals.
Socialism and communism both rest on a similar subjugation of the individual, but
subjugated to the state as opposed to some superior class of persons. In Marxist social
structures, there is no conception of existential personhood. There is no recognition of
the existence and authority of God, nor of the imago Deiof persons. As Marx said, a
“higher phase of Communist society” would exist “after the enslaving subordination
of the individual to the division of labor, and…after labor has become not only a
means of life but life's prime want…” (Marx 1875/2008). In Warning to the West,
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn struck directly at the ends derived from the relativistic origins
of communism and its arbitrary class structures when he noted that ‘Communism
considers morality to be relative, to be a class matter. Depending on circumstances
and the political situation, any act, including murder, even the killing of hundreds of
thousands, could be good or bad. It all depends upon class ideology’ (Solzhenitsyn
1976).32
Conclusions
The personhood of a human being is a foundational concept for all that we are and all
that we do. Throughout history, personhood has been a topic of human inquiry, a
subject of philosophy, and basis of political power. Each society finds in its accepted
construct of personhood the font of its government and laws. Application of the
construct of personhood finds social expression in multitudes of daily decisions
affecting the lives and welfare of all individuals.
The existential construct of personhood as a distinctly human state within the natural
order, intrinsic to human life, and independent of the status of the human being, forms
a competing metaphysical construct to the relational construct of personhood.
Analysis of the existential construct in the interpersonal context finds a broad range of
associated results that are manifestly superior to those of the antithetical relational
construct. Such empiricism supports the normative conclusion that the good rests in
the existential construction of human personhood, and gives credence to a claim of
truth that personhood is an essential characteristic of the human species, and is not a
conditional state dependent upon circumstance, perception, cognition, or societal
dictum.