The New Dualism: Public vs. Private Life
By Kevin J. Schriver
[Dr. Kevin J. Schriver is Chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri.]
Within the American mind-set, there are few privileges more greatly esteemed than the "right to privacy." As set forth in our Bill of Rights, the right to privacy is the guarantee for all Americans guaranteeing that government will not intrude unduly in an individual`s private life. While technically the Fourth Amendment centers on search and seizure, it also encompasses a vast domain of privacy issues, including the behavior of the individual. It is at this point that morality and legal issues become entangled, thus issuing in the debate about public life and behavior and private life and behavior.
Consider the matter of people trying to separate their private lives from their public lives. Star athletes state that they do not want to be somebody else`s role model and celebrities note that what they do on their own private time is their own business, thus demonstrating their views about their right to privacy. Yet, the question is raised time and again, and especially in politics, does the record of one`s private life have any bearing on the public life one is to lead? That is to say, can public life and private life be kept separate so that the only thing by which one is measured is by what pubic good is done? It is this separation that appears as the "New Dualism."
Historically, dualism referred to the belief or philosophy that two types of energies existed; one in a physical/material form and one in a more mental/spiritual form. It was this sort of dualism, for example, that the Apostle Paul sought to refute when dealing with first century converts. The Greek and Roman worlds were filled with this understanding of dualism so that the personal affairs of men and of the gods always made for good stories. So much was this so that early believers, coming from that culture, sometimes continued visiting the temple prostitutes for sex. And since this was only "physical" and as long as they kept their minds/spirits in tune to God, they seem to be have assumed that their souls would still be pure.
Well, Paul would not and could not stand for this and argued for a total integration of their faith with who they were and what they did. This integration is quite evident in the Scriptures, everywhere from the early Jewish beliefs in the Pentateuch to Paul`s writings to the Romans, the Galatians, the Colossians, and the Ephesians, and in James` epistle. Christianity certainly emphasizes the unity of the person and that this unity flies in the face of the contemporary American mindset on privacy and the current embrace of dualism.
The Christian ethic must indeed include this integration, as supporting a harmony between a person`s public and private life. Inconsistencies must not exist. Yet, when they do, the typical response is "my private behavior is not harming anyone." The Christian response to this necessarily points out the congruency that must be exhibited in both areas of life.
This is the challenge that is set before us, for as the old dualism of mind and body had to be fought, so too must the New Dualism of private and public life.
Why is this crucial? It can be found in God`s command for us to be perfect even as He is perfect. Something perfect is consistent throughout. Something perfect is not marred by inconsistencies. Something perfect has purity through and through. This may cause some to fear, because demonstrably we cannot attain this perfection in this life. We are nevertheless mandated to be everlastingly striving for it. Making our lives consistent is a component of this divinely ordered perfection. But the New Dualism attempts to call for making distinctions between public and our private lives. Some may argue that they are doing well in their own public affairs, as long as they are doing good and helping others. At the same time however, they may be letting their private lives be marked by frustration, hurt, and sexual immorality. This New Dualism excuses taking eyes off of our very purpose in life.
Addressing this New Dualism requires continued reflection on the Christian ethic and making it applicable in public affairs. Striving for integration of our hearts, souls, and minds, is the unification and completion of our humanity that God requires. This is foreign to the world`s system of belief and is also becoming more foreign to the American way of life. The private vs. public debate still allow someone to feel good about accomplishments for the benefit of humanity, but then hide in the shadows of privacy where personal failures and downfalls are not on display for others to see.
The Christian ethic, however, brings God into the picture; and God, by His very nature makes things light so that the private parts will be revealed. Trying to hide behind the privacy issue does not negate the fact that in God`s providence all that is hidden will ultimately be uncovered. Our Christian responsibility is to be persons of integrity, combining personal morality with social or public righteousness, and to assisting others in developing this unity of heart, soul, and mind.
The question is "How?" We seek to understand the process of how we come to know more about the world, how we know more about ourselves, and how we know more about God. This is where we must start if we are going to counter this New Dualism.
We come to know the world through our experiences. Our direct interaction with the environment and the phenomena of sensation and perception is the basis for this type of knowledge. Philosophers, long ago, addressed the nature of knowledge and this led to what came to be perceived as a mind-body problem. Dualism was the issue, and the attempts to reconcile how the mind and the body interacted became the focus. These early thinkers did not have the technology we have today. Since their early reasoning, much as been learned about the basic nervous system and how we experience the world around us.
But, as good as our technology is, it only addresses one piece of the puzzle. That is, how we respond to the stimuli of the environment. Psychology in its behavioral form locked into this reflexive explanation, and much of our American mind-set can be seen from the philosophy of such figures as John Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B.F. Skinner. The medical model deals only with the underlying mechanisms of biology and biochemistry in this process of responding. To say that we are merely reacting to things in the world is correct, but only to a point. We certainly react to the things around us but then must come the next part, that of our minds.
Again, the ancients used their concept of dualism to explain the separation of the physical world and the nonphysical world. In the nonphysical world, the mind and its processes then became a focal point. The study of consciousness was then taken up as a philosophical issue. It is when the combination of the physical nature of sensation and the nonphysical nature of perception became the subject that psychology was born. Searching for the mind-body connection was the basis for the theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and other psychoanalysts, even though their focus was on the unconscious mind. Other pioneers of psychology searched for the mind and body connection, and a current trend in psychology is to unearth the principles by which the mind and body operate.
How do we seek to know more about God. From the Judeo-Christian perspective, we seek to know more about God through prayer, the reading of the Bible, and through our personal experiences that we can then interpret as revelations of God in our lives. But, the more one seeks, the more one finds the emphasis on integration in even these matters. For the Scriptures tell us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, which gives the basis for what our goal of integration should be. Integration is concerned about the whole package and not just the separate parts. In order for us to get to know more about God, we actually need to get to know Him better in all of the areas of our world and ourselves.
It would be appropriate for sermons to be developed on this theme so as continually to remind us that believers need to be Christians, every day of the week, not just on Sunday. We need to be Christians in our private lives as well as in our public lives. There is a lot of energy wasted in our trying to hide our private side because it is so inconsistent with our public side. We should focus that energy in the direction for which it was initially intended. Focus it towards knowing God, loving God, and walking with God and in loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. It is only with this focus that we can victoriously confront this New Dualism, which is leaving multitudes fragmented and scattered, in the name of privacy and freedom. When Christians experience this focus, we can be integrally at peace and abundantly fulfilled with ourselves, wit h our world, and with God.
