That Modernity Has No Value In And Of Itself

Modernity has no value in and of itself. The setting aside of prescribed, traditional roles, coupled with the recognition of each person’s psychological qualities as the foundational constitution of the human person, carries with it no agreement about either the relative or absolute worth of the myriad social ideologies which compete for people’s attention today in the world. Most notably, modern people are not even in agreement with those closest to themselves, let alone with their own thoughts and concerns in general, let alone with those who are more distant others and their societies, let alone with the absolute epistemic differences between themselves and people who adhere to traditional roles in traditional societies in distant places scattered across the globe.

Mostly what we need to recognize as modern Christian contemplatives is that our common problems even among others who are like ourselves cannot be solved merely by logic. In other words, it is important to value our identities as modern contemplatives - who have distinctive, unique, individual characteristics, psychologically speaking - is that we need to be diligent in not deceiving ourselves. The personal satisfaction that we may find by being in sync with our era is certainly not a charism. Much less does it carry any sort of weight of superiority concerning am assurance of of God’s special blessing upon our ways of being in the world. It is, after all, quite possible to live in very traditional societies full of role expectations and to experience God in the same way and with equal validity.