An interconnected and interdependent world in the age of globalisation invites Christianity to a different understanding of sin, which has been individualistically understood, because individualistic understanding of sin is impotent to address injustice or oppression caused by collective sins, wherein human beings have been collectively involved in. In order to overcome individualistic understanding of sin, this article is critically engaged in the concepts, such as concrete totality, which sees both individuality and socialness as constitutive parts of human beings, tyranny of collective identity through which oppression and injustice is carried out to unspecified others and retreat from truth to omnipotence, which is a concretised example of tyranny of collective identity in a nation-state building of the United States. Retreat from truth to omnipotence means that the United States covers its blamable history with relation to Native Americans and immigrants and justifies the discrimination and exclusion of others using untrue social, political, hygienic and economic reasons. Retreat from truth to omnipotence is not a temporal aberration but a constant repetition in the US history. To address discrimination and exclusion of others necessitates a new understanding of sin, that is, sin of human beings as concrete totality rather than an exclusively individualistic view of sin.
The article explores a necessity of emphasizing collective dimension of sin to address injustice and oppression caused by tyranny of collective identity in a globalizing world. It provides a theological foundation for building a welcoming political community to immigrants who have been unjustly discriminated or excluded.
Globalisation challenges our individualistic understanding of sin. There are two distinguishable kinds of sin: personal sin and collective sin. Personal sin is related to private affairs, which seldom affect the life of others, whilst collective sin is connected to social matters that affect the life of associated individuals (Min
Globalisation has brought about many changes in this world. There are various opinions on globalisation, but Steger (
Such an understanding of globalisation, intensifies interdependence and challenges our understanding of sin. Sin is a state of a human being estranged from God, from other fellow human beings and nature. Sin is a relational concept that reveals brokenness between God and a human being, between an individual and her fellow human beings and between human beings and nature. Because of broken relationship with God, a human being is unable to lead a healthy and sound life both spiritually and socially, indulging in domination of others. Although I accept that there is personal sin, which is about broken relationship with God and which does not affect lives of others and whose absolution is crucial for Christian faith, such absolution is meaningless as long as a saved Christian brings no peace to his or her fellow citizens and nature, ignoring precarious lives of the vulnerable. Whilst an individual focuses on absolution of his or her personal sin, he or she is prone to ignore an interdependent dimension of sin. We are accustomed to understanding sin exclusively individualistically. Understanding sin from an individualistic perspective, we regard sin as sin of an individual or sin of an immediate group. We have such a narrow-sighted understanding of sin because we think ourselves as isolated, ontological beings. As an isolated, ontological being, he could not see the effect of his act on those who are in intensified interdependent relationship with him.
As isolated, ontological beings, for example, we seldom talk about the sin of our nation-state as our sin. When we discuss the sin of our nation-state, instead, we usually think that the sin of our nation-state is totally unrelated to our individual sins. Let us think of war in Iraq. As we criticise the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, for instance, we criticise those who are directly involved in making such foreign policies, overlooking its citizens who elected the Bush administration and allowed it to adopt such destructive foreign policies. On the other hand, as we take blame upon something other than us such as the Bush administration with relation to war in Iraq we feel that we are acquitted of the charge of waging such an unjustifiable war.
A theological anthropology seeing human beings as isolated, ontological beings allows people to have such justification of innocence. Firstly, the anthropology enables people to legitimately reject their responsibility, because they have no responsibility for such a war in which they are not directly involved. Because people have no responsibility, they are not obliged to challenge an unjustifiable war. The unjustifiable war, therefore, remains unchallenged. Secondly, it enables people to justify their innocence by blaming something other than themselves, such as the Bush administration, because as isolated, ontological beings they can easily assert their disconnection with such an administration. Rejecting our responsibility and blaming something other than ourselves, we can hardly address such a structural sin as the US imperialism. A theological anthropology that regards human beings as isolated, ontological beings thus is inappropriate to address such a structural sin. A different theological anthropology is requested.
An alternative theological anthropology is the concept of concrete totality, which is coined by Kosik (
The being of a human person is not primarily that of an isolated soul, an individual subject, or an existential self who subsequently and accidentally enters into relations with others. It is primarily – ontologically speaking – that of a being who finds oneself ‘always and already’ existing ‘in’ the world. This world [
Min clarifies that a human being is not just an isolated, existential self. A human being is also a self that is socially, historically and ontologically conditioned. Put differently, a human being is an interconnected, ontological self. With the understanding of human beings as concrete totality, exclusively individualistic view of sin is inadequate. Let us compare sin of an isolated, ontological being with that of an interconnected, ontological being. For an isolated, ontological being, social and structural sins have no importance; only brokenness of individual relationship with her ontological foundation, that is, God, is of great concern to her. For an interconnected, ontological being, on the other hand, both social, structural sins and broken relationship with God are interconnected and inseparable.
In a globalising world, the worsening injustice ushered by intensified interdependence can be addressed not by the conception of a human being as an isolated, ontological self but by the concept of a human being as concrete totality: Whilst an isolated, ontological self can be legitimately indifferent to the worsening injustice, an interconnected, ontological being is obliged to care about such injustice.
Considering a human being as concrete totality, there arises a question: Is there a purely individual sin? Putting it differently, is there a sin that does not affect others, in an intensified, interdependent world? I would say that it is theoretically possible but practically impossible. In our normal life, our broken relationship with God cannot help but affect people interdependent upon us. Saint Augustine (
The concept of a human being as concrete totality raises another question: How deeply is an individual affected by her given society? There is no one who selects her ethnicity, nationality and economic status, before she is born. Every human being is born into a certain society. How then is the relationship between group identity and individual identity? The importance of group identity is evident through Arendt’s (
If a human being loses his political status, he should, according to the implications of the inborn and inalienable rights of man, come under exactly the situation for which the declarations of such general rights provided. Actually the opposite is the case. (p. 180)
According to Arendt, if we lose our group identity, we lose our basic human rights, not to mention equal rights. Benhabib (
Statelessness, or the loss of nationality status, she argued, was tantamount to the loss of all rights. The stateless were deprived not only of their citizenship rights; they were deprived of any human rights. (p. 50)
Individual human rights is meaningless if a person loses her group identity, specifically, her nation-state identity. Arendt shows that how vulnerable a human being without her group identity is. It is no exaggeration to say that a group identity protects an individual identity. Individual identity exists on the basis of a group identity.
The importance of a group identity leads an individual human being to a dilemma. A group identity can protect individual human beings within the group, but it creates out-group individual human beings and allows infringement of out-group human rights. As long as one is in a group, she is protected; however, as soon as she belongs to an out-group, she becomes vulnerable. It is a tyranny of collective identity. Nazism, which Arendt experienced, exemplifies a tyranny of collective identity. In a globalising world, tyranny of collective identity abounds: tribal conflicts, domestic warfare and regional hatred, to name a few. In our days, a salient example of a tyranny of collective identity is imperialism. A tangible imperialism is that of the United States. In what follows, I will discuss how a tyranny of collective identity is persistently working throughout the history of the United States.
Imperialism can be understood in many different ways. One definition of imperialism is ‘an extension of the sovereignty of (a nation-state) beyond (its own boundary)’ (Hardt & Negri
Imperialism of the United States, according to Behdad (
The United States started building its nation-state with its brutal extermination of Native Americans. The United States, however, forgot such brutality. According to Renan (
The fact that a nation-state begins with its brutality means that any nation-state has an original sin from a Christian perspective. Nation-state as a coercive system brutally excludes those who disagree with such a coercive system. Every nation-state, however, is inclined to forget its brutal beginning. Forgetting its brutal beginning, the United States justifies its occupation of North America, asserting that Native Americans are inadequate to live in the land. One of the thoughts that justifies expulsion of and genocide of Native Americans is the concept of land, which is different from rude soil. Behdad (
Following Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, the American claims the land as his property by mixing his labor with it. In this narrative, America is not a paradise found but a wild and primitive stretch of earth in need of cultivation. The soil is now described as infertile and rude, and it is the farmer’s labor, cultivation, and therefore rightful possession of the land that constitute his freedom and power. (p. 41)
Rendering a soil into a land that needs cultivation, founders of the United States could justify their occupation and hide their brutal removal of Native Americans from the cultivated land. Tocqueville (
[
Tocqueville gives us a peaceful image of Native Americans’ evacuation and European colonialists’ occupation of North America. Referring to divine providence, Tocqueville justifies Europeans’ occupation of North America, without indicating brutal beginning of the United States.
Tocqueville (
What Tocqueville does is a salient example of retreat from truth to omnipotence. It is an undeniable fact that European colonisers in their nation-state building wiped out Native Americans. In order to reject the fact of Native American genocide, European colonisers (founders of the United States) asserted that land is given to those who cultivate it and accordingly they blamed Native Americans as indolent and labour-hating people for losing their lands. In that way, the truth that European colonisers massacred Native Americans is hidden; omnipotence that European colonisers are morally innocent but Native Americans are blamable comes to the fore. In this way, Tocqueville’s narrative reveals retreat from truth to omnipotence.
The pattern of retreat from truth to omnipotence is recurrent in dealing with immigrants. According to Behdad (
The benevolent discourse of immigration in the United States is a stereotypical discourse that reproduces the cliché of newcomers as huddled masses only to shore up such exclusionary sentiments as national pride and patriotism, while reaffirming America’s exceptionalism. Xenophilia is thus entailed in xenophobia, just as hospitality toward immigrants involves a certain degree of hostility toward them. (p. 77)
The benevolent discourse of immigration means that the United States is a nation-state, which accepts the oppressed and refugees of the world. Such a benevolent discourse allows the United States to retreat from truth, as it hides the harsh treatment of immigrants. As the benevolent discourse of immigration is accepted as a truth-claim and new immigrants are recognised as huddled masses, citizens regard themselves as exceptionally good people but new immigrations as defective others. Although citizens are responsible for socioeconomic injustice against new immigrants, they blame new immigrants for such injustice, regarding themselves as benevolent people: It is not our problem but theirs. Blaming others is another type of retreat from truth to omnipotence.
In general, in terms of social ills blames were poured out exclusively on immigrants. Immigrants were made scapegoats for the US social ills. Handlin (
The American social scientist approached their subject through the analysis of specific disorders: criminality, intemperance, poverty, and disease. Everywhere they looked they found immigrants somehow involved in these problems. In explaining such faults in the social order, the scholar had a choice of alternatives: these were the pathological manifestations of some blemish, either in the nature of the newcomers or in the nature of the whole society. It was tempting to accept the explanation that put the blame on the outsiders … [
According to Handlin, the American social scientists found faults with immigrants for social ills. Immigrants were biologically inferior others who were responsible for every evil. The tyranny of collective identity estranges out-group people, blames them and instead asserts innocence of in-group people.
Chinese immigrants, for example, had been one of biologically inferior out-groups. Chinese were discriminated from the beginning of their immigration. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 disallows Chinese immigrants. Even after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Chinese were mocked as groveling worms (Higham
Whilst some immigrant groups such as Chinese immigrants were portrayed biologically inferior people, immigrants in general were presented as politically, hygienically and economically inappropriate people to the United States. Immigrants were portrayed as politically inferior and inadequate people to the United States. Thomas R. Whitney asserts with boldness that immigrants are harmful to the political system of the United States. In justifying political inadequateness of immigrants to the US political system, Whitney first denies that all people are equal. Whitney (
American Republicanism recognizes the principle that all men are created on a moral, political and social equality but it does not recognize the principle that all men reach the condition of manhood, having within them the same moral, political and social capacities. To declare that would be to declare a palpable absurdity. (p. 42)
Denying equality of every people, Whitney contends that naturalisation of immigrants, which allows equal rights to immigrants, is suicidal for the United States (1856:149).
Immigrants are described as a political threat to the United States: Immigrants have a latent intention of subverting the basic political system of the United States. Whitney (
Whatever the natural or acquired rights of foreigners in the United States may be, they are certainly unqualified to govern the American people, and generally incapable of understanding the principles upon which the American Republic is constructed. (p. 150)
According to him, immigrants are unable to understand the US political system. What is worse, Whitney (
Immigrants are depicted as political others totally different from citizens of the United States. Furthermore, immigrants are equated with Native Americans who were unable to adjust to political system of the United States. As Native Americans were expelled, immigrants have the same destiny, whether they are to be rejected or deported.
To justify rejection of immigrants, Whitney denies their equal human rights, portrays them as subversives and refutes their ability to adapt to the US political system. Tyranny of collective identity abuses political conceptions and justifies rejection of immigrants.
Immigrants in general are not allowed to land in the United States. There is, however, a class of people who are eligible to immigrate into the United States. Whitney (
Tyranny of collective identity takes a form of hygienics. There had been such nativism that renders immigrants as politically and socially inappropriate to the United States. In the late nineteenth century, according to Behdad (
Not only physical disease but also mental illness is used to justify rejection of immigrants. In other words, immigrants are the cause of mental illness and of physical illness. Reed (
Behdad (
In our days, nativism of the United States, based on economic reasons, asserts that immigrants are inadequate to the economic system of the United States. One of the well-known scholars who advocate more restrictive immigration policy is George J. Borjas. I will argue that his view on immigrants shows retreat from truth to omnipotence.
Borjas (
Firstly, Borjas (
Secondly, Borjas (
Thirdly, Borjas argues that ethnic ghettos prevent immigrants from escaping from their enclaves. He means that ethnic enclave delays and prevents immigrants’ assimilation to mainstream of the United States; those who live in a disadvantaged ethnic enclave will perpetuate their disadvantaged socio-economic life from generation to generation (Borjas
Borjas’ three arguments demonstrate retreat from truth. He uses the limited, distorted and unsustainable knowledge to support his arguments that national origins are strongly linked with economic performance, immigrants are harmful to the least skilled citizens and immigrants will perpetually reside in isolated, socio-economically disadvantaged enclaves. He has the reason of such retreat from truth: Immigration policy of the United States should ‘(maximize) the economic well-being of native-born population’ (Borjas
I have shown that tyranny of collective identity is evident in imperialism of the United States. Tyranny of collective identity of the United States chooses a useful tactic to justify its imperialism: retreat from the truth to omnipotence. The United States hides its brutal removal of Native Americans as it introduces the concept of land of which only cultivators have the ownership and portrays Native Americans as indolent, labour-hating people. When it comes to immigrants, they are presented as the biologically inferior, politically inappropriate people to the political system of the United States, hygienically dangerous groups to citizens of the United States, or people who are economically detrimental to the economy of the United States. Imperialism of the United States justifies such exclusion of Native Americans and immigrants through retreat from truth to omnipotence. The retreat from truth to omnipotence is not an aberration in the history of the United States. Rather, it is a persistent phenomenon of a nation-state, the United States. The persistent retreat from truth to omnipotence is a concretised form of tyranny of collective identity. Tyranny of collective identity cannot be addressed by exclusively individualistic understanding of sin. In the light of exclusively individualistic understanding of sin, tyranny of collective identity is not discernable. As long as Christian faith is unable to discern tyranny of collective identity, it is unintentionally backing such tyranny: it perpetuates injustice caused by a group identity. If Christian faith understands sin in the light of human being as concrete totality, however, tyranny of collective identity is no longer foreign to Christian faith. Rather, tyranny of collective identity becomes a salient sin of human beings, which should be addressed through Christian faith. As a case of grave sin of human beings, retreat from truth to omnipotence should be challenged and changed in such a way that human beings recover from omnipotence to truth. Considering persistency of tyranny of collective identity, it is urgent to have an understanding of sin in the light of human beings as concrete totality.
The author has declared that no competing interests exist.
I declare that I am the sole author of this research article.
This article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new date were created or analysed in this study.
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