On October 26th, 2020, non-profit Christian publisher Crossway released The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Dr. Carl Trueman. Released during the most confusing year of many people’s lives, it sought to identify how America has reached the strange cultural moment that it has, where holding to a traditional understanding of gender is considered justification for public outrage and social consequences. “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self” became Dr. Trueman’s best-selling book, earning the praise of nationally recognized figures such as Rod Dreher, Senior editor of The American Conservative and Ben Shapiro, host of the fifth most popular podcast in the world. Shapiro called it “…the most important book of our moment.”
Buoyed by the success of his first book on the topic of America’s obsession with individuality, Dr. Trueman has written a new book entitled Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution. A successor to The Rise and Triumph, Strange New World was written to communicate the important ideas of the first book in a more accessible way to those less familiar with philosophical history. As Ryan T. Anderson puts it in the forward of the book, Strange New World is meant to be a
“…shorter, more accessible version of the basic argument for nonspecialists who would benefit from the essential narrative, to better understand the historical moment in which they find themselves, and to inform the work they do in ministry, culture, politics, business, and, most importantly, raising the next generation.”
As with the first book, Strange New World is primarily intended to explain what “the self” is and why so many Americans are obsessed with it. I sat down with Dr. Truman to ask about the self and its reaching its state of prominence in American society. The conversation proceeded as follows:
ML: Your new book takes on the challenge of explaining “expressive individualism,” specifically how it is connected with modern LGBTQ+ issues. Individualism has been a large part of the American’s identity since the country’s founding, with the lure of the frontier offering a chance for individuals to leave their family and community behind to start a “new life.” In the modern world where one can reach anywhere on earth with only a week of travel, there are no frontiers. Do you think that the turn towards internal expression is an attempt for individuals to find a new “unexplored frontier” in a world that seems so tame and well-understood?
CT: I suspect that is part of the issue, but a larger role is played by individualism in American culture. Italian philosopher Augusto Del Noce predicted in the late 60’s that, despite its Puritan origins, the United States would be the place where the sexual revolution would really take hold. That was because he saw America’s focus on the individual as tilting the culture against forms of external or corporate authority. And expressivism finds fertile soil in precisely such a context.
ML: When discussing the movement behind the Sexual Revolution, you often refer to them as the LGBTQ+ movement. Some writers like Andrew Sullivan, who were advocates for the expansion of gay marriage, have taken a hard stance against some of the more radical assertions of transgender activists, such as gender theory’s claim that all gender is fluid and on a spectrum. Do you think, as certain gay rights activists would claim, there is a meaningful difference between the push for rights for homosexual couples of the past and the push for rights for transexuals of the present?
CT: Yes. There are a number of differences. First, the L, the G, and the B all assume the importance of biological sex for identity. Thus, Sullivan has stated that he is not sexually attracted to women who have transitioned to being men. The push for trans rights is an assault on the authority of biology and of the body at the most fundamental level. It is a demand for a complete reconfiguring of reality. Second, it is clear that the push for trans rights is far more socially disruptive and intrusive than that for gay rights. Private spaces are being threatened, as in school trans bathroom policies. Speech codes are being enforced in workplaces. Women’s sports are under serious threat. And the push for the teaching of gender theory to young children both places a huge burden on them and is also creating a highly antagonistic situation between the rights of parents and the claims of schools.
Plus, we are seeing the government and the medical establishment supporting trans rights in a way that will lead to traumatic and life-changing surgeries and treatments given to the very young — treatments that are not reversible. One might describe that latter point as government-sponsored child abuse. That is how it will be regarded in the future, to our era’s deep and lasting shame. Even as a critic of, say, gay marriage, I would say that that has not in itself done the kind of catastrophic damage to society that the trans issue has and will.
ML: The idea of “expressive individualism” has long been an attractive theme for movies and books, especially movies for kids, such as Disney movies. Do you think this is just because these kinds of stories, due to their value-neutrality, have broad appeal, or is it because those making the movies truly believe in the transcendence of self-expression?
CT: I think your question begs a prior question. We need to ask why apparent value neutrality has such broad appeal. After all, expressive individualism only appears ‘value neutral’ in a world where it is the pervasive way of understanding what it means to be fully human. So what is it about our culture that has brought us to the point where such themes and stories resonate so deeply? It is because the West has, slowly, but surely come to a point where external authorities — at least traditional forms of such — have become intuitively implausible to us, and our inner feelings have become the most significant factors in our understanding of who we are. Various factors play into this — not least the sense of power over nature that the technological imagination cultivates.
ML: Somewhat related to that question, do you think that one reason for the popularity of “expressive individualism” is the high place that celebrities and artists hold in our culture? If those that have the most influence over the American public, are those who stake their livelihoods on their ability to express themselves creatively, isn’t a society of individuals obsessed with self-expression the natural result?
CT: The authority we grant to entertainers and celebrities is quite remarkable. Pascal would see it as a sign that we cannot face the reality of our own mortality and the emptiness of lives focused on purely material things. There is truth to that. I also think that the power of entertainers lies in the fact that they typically trade in stories, and human beings respond to stories. From the time of Homer to today’s Hollywood, human beings have always enjoyed good narratives. They shape our sense of the world and our place within it. And the stories they now tell are those that set forth self-expression as the means of personal fulfillment. Personal reserve and understatement are rare commodities in movies and shows today. They project a reality that reinforces our own desire for autonomy and freedom.
The problem, of course, is that these stories are false. We are not free and autonomous. We are creatures who always exist in relations of dependency and obligation towards others- from the moment of conception to the day of our death. But we do not like to be reminded of that.
Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution is available for purchase on Crossway’s website or from any other major bookseller.
This piece was originally published in Cogitare’s Spring 2022 Print Edition.
