Do not gratify the promptings of the flesh Galatians 5:16; hate the urgings of self-will. (Rule of St. Benedict 4. 59-60)
What is “the flesh”?
“The flesh” is a Christian metaphor. The struggle represented by “the flesh” consists of our efforts to do good and to reject evil. It’s this vital spiritual struggle that builds the moral exoskeleton of formal behaviors that define right living.
This spiritual struggle is not a fight against our own physical bodies. Sexual desire isn’t evil, nor are the desires for food, warmth or sleep. Desires only become “the flesh” when they impel wrong behavior. “The flesh” tempts us to do things that would violate a command of God, if we yielded to the impulse. For example, a struggle against an angry impulse to hurt someone is a struggle against “the flesh,” even though bodies may have nothing to do with it.
The part of us that opposes “the flesh” is our conscience. Your conscience informs you when you’ve breached a norm of your Creator. It’s the spiritual organ that corresponds to your physical nervous system. Just as your nerves react when you’ve injured yourself and produce a sensation of pain, your conscience reacts when you’ve incurred spiritual damage by doing wrong. The feeling your conscience produces is called remorse. Most importantly, remorse is meant to help you survive spiritually. Like physical pain, it indicates when and where you have a problem.
Neither your body nor your soul will function if you numb them with substance abuse or perpetual escapism. Your conscience will sicken if you bathe it in evil influences. Temporarily you may feel relief if moral limits disappear from your habitat. But soon the murky haze of a featureless landscape disorients your conscience, which continues to lash out at evil without knowing where evil is anymore.
So those who seek holiness immersed in toxic waste shudder daily from the shocks of brutality let loose in their midst. No stops remain to signal small aggressions. Suddenly grotesque violence explodes without warning.
What happens to communities when moral boundaries disappear?
For generations the West has employed a blast fishing approach to material progress at the expense of spiritual infrastructure. Blast fishing uses dynamite to stun fish so quantities can be netted quickly. As a result, the blasts destroy the nearby coral and eliminate its reef habitat.
The ban against idolatry was exploded to make room for the supersize ego. Holy sabbaths crumbled in the vanguard of economic expansion. Refraining from adultery blew up when personal bonds got in the way of individual satisfaction. Of the Ten great commandments, not one remains sacred.
To clarify: not all of the destruction is accidental. A campaign to erase all formal boundaries has explicitly targeted moral restrictions. Big players blast away at ethical barriers in the name of their personal freedom. For large egos, freedom requires the total elimination of any hindrance. Nor do they permit anyone else to live free. All in their path must yield.
Coral polyps are fleshy creatures that form exoskeletons to survive. They take in colorful algae to farm for nutrients. Coral communities create vast structures called reefs. The intricate spaces of the reef formations provide shelter to fish and invertebrates seeking refuge from predators. Large predators cannot penetrate the narrow fissures of the reef structure.
Similarly, human beings are vital souls whose efforts to repel evil and cultivate goodness produce the formal systems that support a thriving culture. Comedy, tragedy, eroticism and remorse all require fixed boundaries to exist.
What happens when you take the bait?
The sales pitch has been a promise to eradicate pain. It is as a form of pain that remorse was slated for elimination. The lure of numbness generates enormous profits as drugs and distractions achieve insensibility for all. Millions too zoned out to react to their own destruction float into the nets of unscrupulous profiteers.
No boundary: ergo no transgression. No transgression: ergo, no guilt. And without guilt, there can be no remorse.
In this wasteland devoid of impeding structures, Homo neuroticus thrashes about. Anything and everything in the cloudy murk triggers a spasmodic reaction, inflicting harm on those nearby. Neuroticus used to be a rare breed and was called “crazy” in the vernacular. Psychologists of a previous age had observed an association between neuroticus and remorse. But they didn’t have many specimens to analyze. Freudians assumed that neuroticus must be the offspring of remorse, since the two were often seen together.
Neuroticus is insensitive to humor, grief and contrition. It must contort itself to get a sexual thrill. It expends furious energy to control everything in its environment. But it cannot control itself. Neuroticus experiences its own impulses as irresistible. Its large ego prevents it from admitting that it could do anything wrong. With no cultural reef of formal boundaries to limit its movements, neuroticus produces specimens with larger and larger egos. No joke can survive in the shadow of neuroticus. No sorrow throbs. Mercy moves not. These have all fled.
But remorse is not the parent of neuroticus. Remorse is its guide through the deep. When you have a sense of where the boundaries are, you can direct your actions purposefully.
Bring the reef back. We could all laugh again. We could weep again. Real thrills could move us. We could live again.