Human Nature, Onions, and Labels

When I was in high school, I was a fan of structure, and indeed I still am. I love the organization of structure, especially social structure, but making a life for myself these last few years as also awakened in me an innate sense of my humanity, and the humanity of others, the fact that, despite structure, we're all essentially similar.

As a high schooler, I balked at those who would go around rejecting "labels." I didn't understand...if Susie was a cheerleader, then what was wrong with calling her one? If Chad was a football or track star, what was the problem with saying it? Now, more aware of what it means to be human, I understand the problem a little more: it's not in the traits, but in identifying oneself by the traits, where the problem lies.

A young person I know doesn't like the fact that I teach against homosexual activity in youth group. Despite the fact that I have made it clear that such traits do not mean that we should not love those who possess the traits, young people often take the Church's teachings on such matters as insulting. Why, I wonder?

To borrow a simile from Shreck, human beings (not just ogres) are like onions. I'm not referring just to college males, who often smell awful and make others cry, but to all human persons, and in a deeper way. Onions have layers, humans (not just ogres) have layers. At the core is the thing all human kind shares: human nature itself, and in that, God's fingerprint is made most manifest. The next outermost layer: male or female. Why? Because it is the next most commonly shared thing among all humans. Next, I would argue, comes religion (which is not to say that our faith is less important, but that it is a less common and less intrinsic value to our humanity...the need for religion, as well as gender in itself, is found in the central layer of human nature, but the specific mode, male or female, Catholic or anything else, is found in an outer layer...you get the picture). As we continue outward, we find traits that are less and less intrinsically common to human nature. We can conclude that we are at once common and individual. There are certain things which unite us with the rest of humanity in our nature, and yet those things are played out in different ways in each of us, distinctions. This is a key component in the philosophy of the human person considered by 20th century Judeo-Christian philosophers (this is all dealt with quite nicely in The Selfhood of the Human Person by Dr. John Crosby, my own philosophy professor from my alma mater).

Now, labels are meant to distinguish one person from another, and this is all perfectly fine. Naturally, if that is their purpose, they will be based on traits which form the outermost layer of the human onion, traits which are more distinct and individual, less intrinsic to the human person. Again, that's all perfectly fine.

The difficulty with the current generation of youth and young adults is that they use labels to point to their identity. Gone are the days of agere sequitur esse, the age old maxim that action follows being (or in other words, who or what you are determines what you do), a maxim deriving from ancient philosophy, which simply said that if a chicken is a chicken, it clucks, if a dog is a dog, it barks, etc. In regard to the human person, a human who is a doctor heals, a human who is a teacher teaches. Nowadays, however, these traits are being used as identification through labels and, as I pointed out already, these traits are the outermost factors, not intrinsic to the person. The outermost traits of a person are the things that can change: that layer of the onion which slowly shrivels up, cracks, and falls away, things like styles and tastes and activities. If a young person listens to punk rock, his peers call him a punk. If a young person dresses in all black, her peers call her a goth. These are labels based on changing things. What's the problem? The problem is that they identify the person based on what the person does. Instead of action following being, young people see being following action. You are what you do. This produces a two-fold problem: 1) young people do not see themselves so much on the level of human person as they do on the level of goth, punk, preppy, or any other label, and 2) these labels make young people identify themselves by these transitory things, making them often unable to move on. Which of my readers hasn't seen a 30-year-old cheerleader before? You know the type...can't leave the glory days of high school behind...has identified herself as a cheerleader, not a human person, since she was 15...

What's worse is that more intrinsic things, such as religion, are becoming more and more external traits. If we do things right, God should reside in our human nature and His life should flow through ours, filling all the layers of our onion with divine meaning. Those students who are Christian through-and-through are labeled as such because it is not only an internal reality in them, but an external sign. That's all good; we label the saints as Christians. The problem is that when sense of identity is based on what you do instead of who you are, then anyone who doesn't feel up to being a Christian can simply say, "Christianity just isn't what I do." The Christian argues back, "well of course it's not what you do, but it's what you should do because of who and what you are." To that, the well-labeled young adult simply replies, "I am what I do, and I don't do the Christianity thing."

Labels are not bad in themselves, but they have the ability to numb the heart to Christ and to the Gospel message. They also have the ability to give us mixed up ideas of who and what we are: a human person who engages in homosexual activity is labeled as gay, and bases his sense of identity on that. Sooner or later, when a Christian comes along and tries to convince him, even with the best reasoning, that the homosexual lifestyle is wrong, the person takes it as a personal insult, a jab at his identity, not at his actions. This is an extreme case used to make a point, but the truth of the matter is that many youth are afraid of conversion, fearing that allowing God in their lives will change what they do, and therefore confuse them even more about their identity. They take the idea of change as an insult, not as an opportunity to become what they were made to be.

What we need is an authentic understanding of human nature. We need to understand that human dignity is based on the call to communion with God (CCC 27) and that our actions should be based on that dignity, that identity as God's people whom He calls to Himself. Only with a better understanding of who and what we are can we convince ourselves to become who and what we were made to be.

His Servant and Yours,

Micah Murphy