There is much about humanity that could be complained about. There is much that is harsh, biased, infuriating, and even unjust. It would be nice if there were some other way of being in the world, some other kind of creature that we could be, some new man and new woman. And much of what many sacred and secular religions, from Buddhism to Christianity to Post-Modernism to Scientific Humanism to Marxism, promise is the arrival of this new kind of person. A new way of being in the world that will fix whatever is wrong with what we are.
Setting aside the validity of those claims, and none really disagree about the fact that there is a problem with humanity and the world as such, only on what the crux of the problem is and how to solve it; there are two general instincts about what must be done. Before I focus on them I must admit that there is a third type of approach, the religions and philosophies that either don’t really believe there is a problem to be solved, or that don’t believe there is any solution. The world is what it is, we are what we are, whatever that is.
The old pagan religions tend more in this direction. The world is a wheel that turns, it has always been this way, it will always be, and wasting any tears regretting it or any effort trying to alter it is pointless. Take your place on the wheel and grind out your bit of it. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die, and the gods (the immutable forces that make up the world) give little thought to our lives. Face your lot with heroic courage and don’t bother asking why, because such questions are just a chasing after the wind. I wouldn’t dismiss this point of view out of hand merely because it is distasteful to those of us who live in modern times. Such a view of the world reflects the lived experience of thousands of generations of humanity. This was the world and life as it presented itself to them, and their own best attempt to live within it.
But, setting aside the static view of human nature for now, there are, as I said, two main instincts in the approach that believes it can fix whatever it is that is wrong with the world or humanity. The first instinct I would call the reconstructive approach. This is the conviction that whatever is in place is corrupt, and it can only be fixed by taking it apart and building something new in its place. It is an ambitious plan, because it believes this to be possible. That the negative aspects of humanity and the world are not necessary or fixed but are removable and replaceable. We can change what the world is. We can change what humanity is. And if we just get it right and go through with it, remove the cancers and replace them with proper tissue and structures, then the new age will dawn.
The second instinct is what I would call the redemptive approach. It does not believe that that the negative aspects of humanity are merely bad and can be replaced with good. It believes that they good, but have been subverted, and they must be restored.
There is a great variability of temperment within both camps. Which you belong to is partly a matter of belief, but it is also clearly a matter of inclination. The first position seems more optimistic on the face of things. All that is wrong with the world is correctible. If you could cut out the useless and interfering cancer everything else would flourish by nature. Because this theory commits yiu to making such sharp seperations of sheep from goats, through, it requires you to experiment on humanity. You need some living subjects to carry out your surgeries on. Society is your Frankenstein’s monster. It is meant to be a thing of beauty. Yet somehow we have yet to hit upon the winning formula.
The redemptive approach is more dismal, because it must admit to the flaws in the best of us. There are no simple and easy surgeries or interventions to be made. The very goodness in us is what can be corrupted and sickened to produce disease of the heart and of society. Nothing and no one is safe forever, and no final solution can be found. However, nothing is beyond redemption, because everything and everyone contains the seed of goodness distorted. We cannot operate with such confidence as we can under the prior system, because there is always something that must be preserved and cured, rather than merely eliminated or replaced. Disease is a condition, not an identity. As is health.
Is this also something like the difference bewteen a shame and a guilt culture? Hope within a shame culture resides in the hope that your shame will be forgotten. Hope in a guilt culture resides in your guilt being forgiven. Because sin and identity are separable in a guilt culture, there is a chance to be free of it without denying either all identity or all mechanisms of moral judgement (both of which are necessary and valuable parts of humanity, as individuality and choice are).
Making Nobody Happy 