Expressive Individualism

Nevertheless, and despite the fact that the Renaissance spirit took centuries to become mainstream, one cannot underestimate the role and the impact that the rejection of religious and monarchical authority and perhaps authority in general had in the overall transition from Medieval Europe to Modern Europe. As one scholar wrote:

“The essence of the Renaissance lay not in any sudden rediscovery of classical civilization but rather in the use which was made of classical models to test the authority underlying conventional taste and wisdom. It is incomprehensible without reference to the depths of disrepute into which the medieval Church, the previous fount of all authority, had fallen. In this the Renaissance was part and parcel of the same movement which resulted in religious reforms. In the longer term, it was the first stage in the evolution which led via the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment. It was the spiritual force which cracked the mould of medieval civilization, setting in motion the long process of disintegration which gradually gave birth to ‘modern Europe.’”

Religion became “limited to the realm of private conscience” and conventional belief and thought gave way to the novel belief and thought that “humanity was capable of mastering the world in which it lived.” Man could unveil “God’s secrets” and in turn grasp control of his own fate. In short:

“Here was the decisive break with the mentality of the Middle Ages, whose religiosity and mysticism were reinforced by exactly the opposite conviction – that men and women were the helpless pawns of Providence, overwhelmed by the incomprehensible workings of their environment and of their own nature. Medieval attitudes were dominated by a paralyzing anxiety about human inadequacy, ignorance, impotence – in short, by the concept of universal sin. Renaissance attitudes, in contrast, were bred by a sense of liberation and refreshment, deriving from the growing awareness of human potential. Speculation, initiative, experiment, and exploration could surely be rewarded with success. Intellectual historians examine the Renaissance in terms of new ideas and new forms; psychologists would look more to the conquests of fears and inhibitions which had prevented the new ideas from flourishing for so long.”

Nevertheless, religious fervor “profoundly affected the progress of the arts.” The fact of the matter is that:

“The history of civilization is a continuum which has few simple stops and starts. The Roman Church was already being overshadowed by the rise of secular powers; but it did not cease to be a prominent feature of European life. The ideals of the Counter-Reformation continued to be pressed for centuries. Its institutions are still in operation nearly 400 years later. Indeed, the mission of the Roman Church will not have ceased so long as the pilgrims crowd into St. Peter’s Square, pray before St. Peter’s Throne, and mingle with the tourists under Bernini’s Colonnade.”

Hence, even to this day, progress in the arts and sciences will have to run into the efforts and counterefforts of not just religious authorities but of authorities in general to thwart such progress. Expression of the inner self is at the very heart of such progress. Hence, the resistance against authority which in the past was figure-headed by Luther and Rousseau and the like is underpinned by the belief or the conviction that “the inner self is good or at least has the potential for being good; it is the surrounding moral rules that are bad.” In a sense, there are two “streams” or “versions” of basic identity politics in the social world, as Fukuyama contended. For one, there is the demand for “the recognition of the dignity of individuals” on one hand, and on the other hand there is “the dignity of collectivities.” Individual autonomy is at the “core” of the entire modern initiative or project. Moreover, the importance and significance of individual autonomy extends well beyond our ‘Bill of Rights.’ As a matter of fact, the emphasis on individual autonomy that is the “core” of the entire modern project revolves around “a ‘plenitude’ of feeling that was suppressed by society” which then leads to “an unhappy consciousness that was deeply alienated by the society and struggle for liberation.”

Tradition views the inner self as “the site of original sin” and in turn “we are full of desires that lead us to contravene God’s law” and as a result “external social rules, set by the Universal Church, lead us to suppress these desires.” But of course, art is all about the expression of this inner self. Tradition – with its emphasis on religious and monarchical authority – then runs into art and vice versa, hence the rejection of all kinds of authority in the very end which is at the “core” of the modern western project. And we are now very much at a “fork” in the road, in the sense that the general emphasis in international society and the social world will be placed on either individual autonomy or the collective with all its various modes of repression.