The Sensate Culture

Greetings All!

     Today I struggled long and hard to know what "thought" to post.  So many books, so little time to read through them all!  But I finally settled on this one from Harold O. J. Brown's book "The Sensate Culture."   It was published in 1996 and has to do with the three stages nearly every major culture passes through as it moves from it's initial rise to power to eventual collapse.  Having read it in 1996, and just skimming it's pages once again today, I realized it is not only full comprehensive research, and wise insight, but is also rather prophetic -- since what he predicted 20 years ago has come into fuller measure today.

     After taking a class with him, I must tell you he is one of the most intelligent people I ever learned from (with John Frame, in my opinion, coming in a close second).  I say that because I want you to know he knows his subject well.  He is well-studied, knows history, gives attention to detail, and sees things from a somewhat non-biased (since no one is unbiased) big-picture perspective -- and combines it with an incisive understanding of culture and human nature. I highly recommend the reading of his book (if you truly care to gain an understanding of where we are at culturally speaking, and why so much upheaval is taking place). That's why I share this little taste of what his book has to offer. Enjoy.

     "Sorokin (in his book Social and Cultural Dynamics) identified three distinct phases through which cultures pass: 1.) Ideational - This is where a culture is willing to sacrifice pleasures and immediate goals for the sake of higher principles. Self-denial, asceticism, and martyrdom are natural behaviors from the ideational point of view.   2.) Idealistic - This is a compromise stage between Ideational and Sensate, where spiritual truths and values are still rated above all others, but it appreciates the realities and values of the sensory world and does not treat them as meaningless or non-existent.  3.) Sensate - At this point, the culture tends to be interested only in those things (usually material in nature) that affect the senses. It seeks the imposing, the impressive, the voluptuous and it encourages self-indulgence... No apology is made for encouraging people to squander their resources on self-indulgence...

     The great democracies of the ancient world (e.g., Athens and the Roman Republic) arose during an idealistic culture and did not survive the shift to sensate culture. Democracy requires self-discipline and self-control on the part of the masses -- qualities that are derided and destroyed by sensate culture...  Our present sensate culture [the phase the U.S. is in right now] increasingly lacks one of the most important conditions for a vibrant democratic government, namely, moral responsibility and integrity on the part of the majority of the citizens. Democratic institutions necessarily presuppose that people will govern themselves in many areas of life, but this is precisely what is discouraged and impeded by the sensate attitude of "eat, drink and be merry."  The idea that there are certain eternal or divine principles of justice that most people will respect without compulsion (which is characteristic in both the ideational and idealistic cultures) disappears in a sensate culture where people are interested only in things that give pleasure, avert pain, and provide immediate gratification.  When people do not have ideals and principles that move them to act without compulsion for the good of all, no government functions smoothly or well.  In the sensate phase of society, it is extremely difficult to maintain faith in the moral legitimacy of government, whether monarchical or democratic....

     Democracy presupposes a consensus of values or widespread agreement concerning what constitutes the morally good and desirable life. These are features of an integrated culture, but they become lost as a culture disintegrates in a transition phase. Consequently, one can predict with certainty that the democracy that we in the West profess to value is doomed to die if the sensate phase continues without any fundamental reorientation. When any form of government functions well, without the need to resort to extensive compulsion (by force), it is a sign that the citizens it governs have an adequate degree of personal responsibility and integrity. In an overripe sensate culture, governing a large multitude of people becomes progressively more difficult no matter what the political system, whether monarchy or democracy, oligarchy or dictatorship, because people interested only in that which gratifies their own senses find it next to impossible to act spontaneously and without compulsion, for the benefit of the community...

     In his inaugural address in 1961, President Kennedy made an appeal to the remnants of the idealistic mentality among the American people: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Unfortunately for the Kennedy's hopes, the remnant was not hardy enough to accomplish what he expected of it, for the culture was already too sensate, and the influence of the mass media and mass communication was rapidly exterminating virtually every memory of earlier idealistic attitudes...  Events of history -- "historical accidents" so to speak (ie: the murders of John Kennedy and his brother Robert, Vietnam, segregation, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., just to name a few) - have all contributed to the increasingly acute crisis of democratic theory in Western society, although its fundamental causes lie in the nature of the sensate culture itself, not in historic incidents, however dramatic...

When a sensate culture is wealthy and luxurious, as Western culture now is, it becomes increasingly difficult to motivate people to exert the self-denial and effort necessary to overcome dangers and avoid economic catastrophes...  It is difficult for the population of a democratic society in a late sensate culture to generate its own moral sense, or build the morale necessary to produce endurance under difficult and trying conditions. In such a culture, Jesus' words, "not to be served but to serve" (Matthew 20:28) strike most people as pure foolishness. Idealistic societies prize service; sensate societies cherish gain... As the sensate mentality becomes more pervasive, democratic politicians are forced to become nothing but demagogues, flattering the people and offering them easier and easier acquisition of more and more material goods and pleasures, as the Roman emperors provided the plebs with bread and circuses."

     This is not a political rant.  I don't belong to any party.  Nor do I indulge in politics.  I never bring them into the pulpit because I have never seen governmental systems as the answer to the human problem. I tend to follow Jesus on this and leave what is Caesar's to Caesar.  In fact, that's what impressed me about Prof. Brown -- after an entire course with him, I had no idea of his political affiliation, be it Democrat, Republican, or any other party (if he even belonged to one).  In fact, his general attitude seemed to be the one I espouse: That the Gospel of Jesus Christ was too radical to be held captive to any humanly devised political system or party.  That's about as political as I get!

     No, this "thought" is about the rise, and eventual demise, of any culture.  What brought it to prominence, and what will eventually lead to its downfall.  And I offer it to you simply as wise thoughts to consider, as well as soul-food to guide you in your prayers. Because cultural collapse, as our increasingly recurring glimpses have shown us, is a matter worthy of our earnest intercession.

In His Service, Pastor Jeff   

The Sensate Culture

Greetings All,

     This week's 'thought' comes to you from a fascinating and insight-fully penetrating book called "The Sensate Culture" by Harold O. J. Brown.  Written in 1996, it is amazingly "prophetic" in the sense that he predicted beforehand, based on the trends he saw then, much of what we now see happening around us today. If you want a good read, written by a very wise, intelligent and well-informed Christian individual, this is it.
     Today's selection has to do with the rise of the sensate culture, through the demise of Christendom and the adoption of Pluralism and Multiculturalism in its place. The word "sensate" means "a culture dominated by materialism, sensuality, and self-indulgence (It's the last stage a culture passes through before either destruction or transformation).
     The book helps one see how we have arrived at the place where we're at in Western European/American culture. It is very helpful!  And for those who might read this, and desire to know more, his book is well worth the price. Enjoy!

"The man who does not believe in God does not believe in nothing; he will believe in anything." 

G. K. Chesterton

     "Until recently the majority of people in the West still embraced the civilization that grew out of resurrection faith. Western culture grew out of belief in some definite religious truths, but now Western sensate man (sensual, materialistic and self-indulgent) does not believe that religious truth exists. Can it long survive?

     The centuries-old tendency in the West to extol the value of Christian civilization without necessarily believing in the truth of Christian doctrines has finally proven unworkable. Two key passwords or slogans in this development are pluralism and multiculturalism.

     The term pluralism was first used descriptively for a situation in which many different religions and philosophies were present side by side, with no single religion having official or factual predominance. Recently it has become prescriptive -- to mean a situation in which no religion or philosophy may be allowed to claim that it is true. In practice, in the West, pluralism is often invoked to prevent Christians and Christianity from claiming the right to determine the course of culture, to favor certain developments and trends, and to oppose or suppress others. Pluralism denies to Christianity the right to exercise its traditional normative or stabilizing function in the society that it shaped and formed.

     Multiculturalism also began as a descriptive term and has become a prescriptive one. Unlike pluralism, which can result when there is massive migration of ideas, multiculturalism describes the situation that arises when the migration of people results in individuals from a variety of cultures living side by side. In the past immigrants into a culture have generally been willing to adapt themselves to the host culture, either accepting it or at least living in harmony with it... Normally a host country assumed that immigrants would respond according to the proverb, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."

     Yet, since World War II, multiculturalism has become prescriptive rather than descriptive. The movement of populations, including large numbers of refugees as well as those moving for reasons of business, education, or employment, from non-Western cultures, has become immense at precisely the time that Western culture has undergone a crisis of self-confidence. It was in the West that the two most destructive wars in human history began. It was a Western demagogue, Adolf Hitler, who proclaimed a doctrine of Nordic racial superiority so odious it made other Nordics, and Caucasians in general, begin to apologize for their existence on the planet.

     It was the paramount Western power, the United States, that unleashed weapons of mass destruction in Asia, wiping out whole cities by atomic and by conventional firestorms. It was the United States that utilized all sorts of modern technological weaponry against a much smaller Asian country and ultimately withdrew from Vietnam in disgrace. Under these circumstances, people in several Western countries, especially the United States, promoted the view that all cultures are equal -- with the exception of their own Western culture, which is inferior.

     It is denounced as cultural imperialism for Western countries to try to preserve (most critics would say "impose") Western cultural views even within their own borders. Non-Western religions brought into the West by immigrants and accepted by some Westerners must be given a hearing and treated with respectful courtesy, including the acceptance of their cultures, mores, social standards, and religious holidays, while traditional Western customs, mores, social standards and holidays derived from Christianity must under no circumstances be imposed on the newcomers. Indeed, out of respect for the newcomers, these traditions must be shoved into the background even among those who normally hold and practice them.

     Pluralism and multiculturalism, then, lead to a phenomena that may be called the demoralization of the majority in the nominally Christian lands of Western culture. This is demoralization in both senses of the term -- in that it involves a loss both of morals, which in the West have been derived principally from the Christian religion, and of morale, which is lost when one is obliged constantly to apologize for the fact of one's existence... 

     During the centuries when the sensate worldview was active primarily in the realm of ideas -- motivating people to think less in terms of spiritual and divine super-sensory realities and values, and more in terms of this world, human reason, and material things -- the churches could struggle against it in the intellectual arena on more or less equal terms and could continue to influence believers, win new converts, and maintain an idealistic element in an increasingly degenerating sensate culture.

     [But] a crucial change came in this century... The sensate culture has passed beyond the realm of philosophies, ideals, art, and music, and has taken firm hold of morality and personal conduct. The ambient culture lives for its pleasures, denying and ridiculing the Christian concept that after death comes judgment. It easily seduces multitudes from paying attention to super-sensory realities and spiritual values. In a situation in which many leading representatives of the Christian religion have lost the conviction necessary to argue against this trend, the attraction of hedonistic indulgences will not be widely resisted...

     The progressive dismantling of the principles and ideals that have created Western culture has reached a point where the society will soon cease to be self-sustaining. If that happens, either the social fabric will unravel, plunging the culture into chaos, or a complex system of controls will have to be instituted to preserve order at the expense of freedom."

     I wish I could also share his insightful take on the influences of Marxism in leading to the present situation, and how it has all lead to religious and cultural Syncretism.  But selections that are too long lose people before they even start reading!  This one was pushing it -- though I hope not.

     I trust you might pick up a copy of his book. The chapter on "The Final Stage of Sociocultural Disintegration" is worth the price of the book.  Part of seeking to love the Lord with all our mind, or all the powers of the intellect, is to be well-informed, and then use what we learn to further Christ's saving and redeeming purposes in this world.

In the Bonds of the Gospel,  Pastor Jeff