Glorifying non-conformity

If one wanted to entertain any questions about such a noble sentiment, one question that arises is, is there a difference between welcoming dysfunction or deviance or brokenness and worshipping it? Is there a difference between the law being insufficient and needing to be transcended, and glorying in its rejection and repudiation? Is there a point where grace becomes so radical that it is no longer grace because it no longer acknowledges that there was ever anything to require grace for or a table to aspire to be worthy of? Is there a fine distinction there, and where is it, and on what sides of it do different parts of our culture err?

Surely some parts of the culture err on the side of the pharisees, building a false system of value and judgment to be used for themselves and against others. But is that really so different an error from a reversed value system that inverts the assignment of value, so that those in opposition to the structure are the righteous, and those who support it and fit within it are the wicked, an interpretation that specifically makes their moral system benefit and support them and allows it to be used against others (whoever they contextually see as the establishment)?

Is the sentiment of glorying in our identity either inside or outside the group, a righteousness defined either by conformity or nonconformity to an identity, really much different in practice whichever way you paint it? Isn’t it all just glorying in belonging to the right group and being happy to set ourselves against the other group? Whether you are part of the “table” group or the “outside the table” group is contextual and changes across time and place and circumstance.

So what’s the real difference, if the spirit is the same? Is it just being in the “correct” group, on the “actual” right side, that makes the real value difference? Because that’s sort of everyone’s argument. And it’s quite likely that what it means to be “the outsider” or “unwelcome” can change drastically over time and place, so it’s not a reliable measure of status. The dominant of today can be the underdog of tomorrow, and vice versa. And will either wield their hegemony any better if they define their moral status by such a contextual measure?

Will glorying in the feeling of specialness and unique identity that comes from setting ourselves apart and against others, having a psychological axe to grind, become problematic if we actually find ourselves in a position of influence and power over the others?
To put it simply, is the desire to be an outsider really any morally better than the desire to be an insider? Is it really anything more than a desire to be a different type of insider?

Is it any safer for your soul to define your value in opposition to someone else than it is to define it in accordance? Is worship of the cultural myth of the underdog fundamentally better or more correct than the worship of the overlord? Or are they just different kinds of extremes? Do not all kinds of tyrannies and dysfunctions begin themselves with the best intentions? Don’t they all see themselves as standing apart against the tide?

As I said, I don’t this quote was about that at all. It just made me think about all this because I have been thinking about it. I’ve been reading a bit of Neitzsche and Marx, and reflecting on how easily our noblest intentions can protect us from awareness of our weaknesses. Virtually all great evils, apart from those that were completely random and natural, were begun in the name of the good and the just and trying to right wrongs. So you can’t really discover much about any of those movements by that fact alone, by their identity as belonging to either the group for or the group against, the group that opens or the group that closes the door.

Neither answer, neither approach seems to be universal, or universally moral. If it was, morality wouldn’t even exist, because there would be no hard questions or answers, nothing to balance or negotiate or interpret or learn or decide. There would be no need for decision and choice. You would be born into your moral identity and your value fixed within it by your position relative to the group. Whatever group you define the relevant hegemony by (which is itself also a very usable value).

If the measure of morality is exclusion, then there is no limit to what can be excluded, no limit to what the law can keep out. If the limit of morality is inclusion, then there’s no limit to what can be included, to what grace lets in. Both terms become meaningless. In either case, by making the strategy the rule of value, the category expands to include all possible cases, and so becomes a meaningless term of no practical value at all. A category is only of linguistic or intellectual significance if it includes some cases and excludes others. If it doesn’t, it fails to contribute any clarifying value or information.

Anyway, Jesus loved the broken and the weak, but it wasn’t their weakness and brokenness itself that he loved about them. He didn’t let it keep them from him. He made a way. Because he wanted them to be healed, be accepted, and be complete. The problem with the Pharisees is that they loved themselves so much, thought themselves so secure, that they couldn’t see their own brokenness and used their confidence in their identity as a shield against confronting it, as a shield against their need for grace. They thought they were complete already, and so they were actually hopeless.

Is there a love and worship of difference and outsiderness and non-conformity that is not really so different from Pharisaism, that sees it as a heroic and justifying belonging that makes grace so unlimited that it’s almost unnecessary, that denies our own brokenness and protects us from it? Is a world without the law any less hopeless and meaningless than a world without grace? Both seem to be able to leave us completely stuck where we are. Did Jesus especially love being an outsider? Did he relish it? Did he prefer especially other outsiders? Or did he see everyone as being outsiders, and some just more willing to admit that they had failed to be worthy of the table and so more willing to come to him? Is a faith that rejects the value of the table any better than one that tries to keep everyone away from it? Don’t they both ultimately achieve the same ends?

I think these are the twin excesses of not only our culture, but of universal human nature. And which of them you’re most likely to embrace or err toward depends largely on personality, much like political affiliation. I think both groups would see themselves as heroically serving the good and saving the world. And saving it especially from their opposites. But I wonder if both won’t come to similar ends, much as political movements and their results become indistinguishable at their greatest extremes.

I just spent some time this afternoon listening to a discussion of politics and economics, and my final thought was, you are absolutely right, you have proved your points. But unfortunately, the people you thought you were proving wrong when you made your points, are also right about their points. You’re all right about yourselves and about each other, and both wrong, because each of you is only telling half the story, because life and people are complex, not simple, and that’s why we (consistently, in a universally recurrent way) have different types of people, to help us address this problem.

I don’t think you can make moral progress by favoring either the insiders or the outsiders, because neither is really a moral category. You can be going right or going wrong with either. And chasing either as a moral category seems to be part of the problem. Only by setting aside such concerns, wherever we find ourselves, can we actually our use the good, pursue God, and escape the blindness of our own insecurity and our own self-righteousness.