Understanding the ‘Self’ and ‘Community’

The modern world is rife with examples that demonstrate the dominance of the ‘self’ over the ‘community’. People are increasingly becoming selfish in their acts and thinking only about themselves when it comes to development and progress.

It thus becomes important to make people understand the importance of living for others and doing well. The principles of the Catholic Social Thought (CST) provide that base from where people could realize the value of living for others. Catholic doctrine upholds matters of common good and human dignity in the society, which comprises the CST. Pope Leo XIII laid the foundation of CST during the 19^th century when he wrote the letter titled Rerem novarum in 1891. The letter contained matters of economic distributism, criticism of capitalism and socialism and the Bible concepts and cultures of the primeval Near East.

The CST has nine principles that propagate living for others and doing good through the nine principles. These include the Common Good, the Dignity of Human Person, Subsidiarity, Participation, Preferential Option for the Poor, Stewardship of Creation, the Promotion of Peace, the Universal Purpose of Goods and Global Solidarity. The purpose of explaining the interrelation between the ‘self’ and ‘community’ could be served by explaining the four CST principles. However, prior to explaining this interrelationship, it is important for the readers to know the two concepts in details. Then, the four chosen CST principles that are the Common Good, Promotion of Peace, the Stewardship of Creation and the Universal Purpose of Goods shall be discussed.

The ‘self’ is the embodiment of several ideas and thoughts that might include the transcendental self, the momentary self, the objective self and the biological self amongst others. Other than that, the self could be said to be the reflection of the individual person and his consciousness. The self is thus, “a reference by a subject to the same subject” (Badetti 2016). Community, on the other hand, is the combination of different selves forming a slam or large social group having certain common values and ideologies. Community has three types, suburban, urban and rural. Apart from these, community can be categorized into other types based on ethnicity, religion and class. It is evident that the various selves constitute a community and the community helps the self grow.

”I am what I am because of who we all are”. This quote refers to the African concept of Ubuntu, which provides a deeper understanding of the interrelationship between the self and the community (Chitumba 2013). It is essential that people understand the true meaning of the quote and apply it in their lives for the benefit of the community. It also helps explaining the ideology of living for others. The realization that the self is the culmination of the community as a whole goes a long way in ensuring the realization of the Common Good.

 Ubuntu might also be related to the concept of the Golden Rule, which states that people should treat others they expect themselves to be treated (Jonas 2017). In simpler terms, it means that people should do good for others to ensure that good is done to them. People should realize that if they expect to be treated well, they must treat others well too. This reciprocity of doing well ultimately leads to the good of the entire community.

The Importance of Living for Others

Now, it is imperative to discuss the four CST principles in order to have a deeper understanding of the interrelationship between the self and the community. The first principle is the Common Good. As the name suggests, it is all about ensuring good for all without discriminating against the vulnerable. The doctrine of Common Good as per CST has three essential elements – “respect for the individual, the social wellbeing, development of the group and peace” (Loyno.edu 2018). These three elements clearly explain the relationship between the self and the community. The self must respect every individual in order to ensure social wellbeing and development of the community to restore peace.

The Promotion of Peace is the principle of CST defined not just as the absence of conflict but presence of mutual understanding and respect amongst nations and communities. According to the church, there are three pathways to attaining and promoting peace (Carlson 2014). The first is the universal common good, second is human solidarity and the third is responsibility or accountability to develop peace. The individual as well as nations together can only take these pathways to promote peace.

The other principle of CST is the Stewardship of Creation, which states that all human beings must play the role of ‘stewards’ to take care of God’s Creation. Here, God’s Creation refers to all the living beings on earth irrespective of community, cast or religion (Catholicsocialteaching.org.uk 2018). The government has the responsibility to implement and maintain laws that take care of the earth and the individuals have the responsibility to cooperate with the government.

Next is the principle of the Universal Purpose of Goods according to which, all good things of the earth are God’s gifts that are meant to do good for all. In the words of Paul VI, “god intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being and people” (Beyer 2014). All men thus should make sure that the goods produced through human labor and the trade benefits reach every human being and serve the purpose of God.

Examining the principles reveal that overall good of the society can be established only through the collaboration of every individual that comprise a community. When every individual understands the value of human life, it leads to ‘human flourishing’ and the ‘good life’. Humans would flourish when there is continuous exchange of good deeds and respect and understanding. A good life refers to Aristotelian view of life that one would love to live by performing activities that benefit others (Hauser 2018).

“The final end of human life is to flourish, to live well, to have a good life”. 

References:

Badetti, L., 2016. Self and Community: The Importance of Interdependence and Its Shadow Side. Journal of Disability & Religion, 20(3), pp.154-162.

Beyer, G.J., 2014. The meaning of solidarity in Catholic social teaching. Political Theology, 15(1), pp.7-25.

Carlson, M., 2014. Aquinas on Inclusion: Using the Good Doctor and Catholic Social Teaching to Build a Moral Case for Inclusion in Catholic Schools for Children with Special Needs. Journal of Catholic Education, 18(1), p.n1.

Catholicsocialteaching.org.uk 2018. Glossary. [online] Catholic Social Teaching. 

Chitumba, W., 2013. University education for personhood through ubuntu philosophy. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 3(5), pp.1268-1276.

Hauser, G.A., 2018. Aristotle on Epideictic: e Formation of Public Morality. In Fifty Years of Rhetoric Society Quarterly (pp. 110-128). Routledge.

Jonas, H., 2017. Philosophical reflections on experimenting with human subjects. In Human Experimentation and Research (pp. 3-31). Routledge.

Loyno.edu 2018. Catholic Social Thought (CST) and the Common Good.