Christ and Individualism

It is a common accepted truth that the sacrifice of Christ was a simple act of altruism and of selflessness. I believe that the message of Christ was never about such a superficial concept as altruism. There are lot of issues pointed out in the Gospels, never superficial. I believe the true essence of Christianity is about Individualism.

The connection between Christ and Individualism has sometimes been unearthed, usually on cultural, sociological and political planes, by philosophers such as Larry Siedentop who asserts that Individualism, Western Liberalism, even modern secularism, is a creature of Christianism. Many anti-State conservatives and libertarians see Christianism in contrast with Statism, with the latter being a new religion that has replaced the former.

There is a lot to unpack on the connection between Christianism and Individualism. It is often a very intuitive concept that many people can perceive, even when they don’t understand it completely. One can find clues everywhere reading the Gospels. But here I want to write only about one point, a very deep and essential point, more psychological and sociological, less political. The issue that seems the less individualistic ever, the issue of self-sacrifice.

Carl Jung had an intuition about the Christ figure as a representation of the individual true self. What does it mean? The true Self is a way to define the individual’s own individuality that which distinguishes her from the other people. But what has this to do with Jesus Christ? The narrative of the Gospels is essentially the narrative of an innovative and disruptive individual who ends up being crucified because of the anti-conformism of his message. Christ was a prophet, prophets are people who have a new message to give to humanity, a message that nobody else has sent before, a message that very few may understand, especially at the beginning, a message that very few may agree with. A message that aims to disrupt the world as it is, it aims to change the world. The black sheep individualist in a homogenous crowd wants to offer to the people a new vision that is present in his own unique individuality. But the crowd doesn’t welcome it.  A very old and common pattern in fact, see Socrates for example. The individualist doesn’t seek the agreement and acceptance of the crowd, doesn’t try to reassure people’s established opinions. He rather tells to people what they do not want to hear, the truth they do not want to see. The prophet is disruptive: he destroys established mental frameworks and orders, and seeks to create new ones. Crucifixion is a natural conclusion.

Many people tend to confuse individualism with egoism, and therefore they see a big contradiction between individualism and self-sacrifice. The individualist is egoist they say, therefore the individualist cannot surrender to sacrifice. It is true that individualism is related with egoism, but people do not understand egoism neither. They do not understand that there sometimes there isn’t any difference between egoism and altruism, the altruism is just a subset of egoism. Humans, all creatures actually, are egoist by nature. Their altruist and self-sacrificial acts are fundamentally egoist acts. When your ego is identified with your own will, with your mission in life, and self-sacrifice is the best way to achieve it, self-sacrifice is the most egoistic and logical thing to do. The prophet doesn’t bother about hedonistic futilities, he wants to change the world, to spread his message. And the prophet is not really different from the message. Often the prophet is the message: a message that is the Messenger. The prophet thus has to give himself to the world, to be eaten. And the prophet is fundamentally a rebel, the rebel does not explain himself, the rebel does not apologize, the rebel would rather die, because to apologize is to surrender, is to give up the rebellion. Christ never explains himself after being accused and never tries to prove his innocence. He never says “I’m innocent” or denies his ideals. To do so is to deny the own Self, the own individuality, is to give up own mission, to surrender. The prophet doesn’t surrender, self-sacrifice is a triumphal act, a victory. A sign that the message will be spread out, the mission will be completed.

The crowd wants to assimilate the prophet, to make him mimetize himself among them. To make him just one of them, not different from them. To make him deny his own individuality and become like everyone else. No change, no disruption can occur as a consequence. This is the reason why he must explain himself, this is the reason why he must try to prove his innocence or apologize despite being already innocent. It is a mistake when many people think that such kind of execution is about justice, security or deterrence from crime. The execution of the outsider, for the only reason of being an outsider is a form of protection from change and novelty. This is very beautifully showed in “The Stranger” of Albert Camus. The main character, Mersault, the stranger, is accused for a crime that he did as a self-protection, and trialed for it. But during the trial, Mersault behaves very strangely, he shows himself of being a weird outsider who doesn’t understand or follows the society conventions. He doesn’t apologize or defend himself, doesn’t speak the language of the common people who are trialing him. He is a stranger. He is proclaimed guilty and executed not because of the crime he committed, but because of his behavior during the trial. Mersault is very different from Christ, he is just a hedonist who wants to live a normal life and taste its pleasures, but yet he is very similar from Christ: he is an apologetic outsider who ends up crucified as Jesus Christ.

Sometimes, to defend your own individuality, you have to sacrifice yourself.