Hierarchy, Equality and Orthodoxy

It seems like all the national experiments of the last several centuries have revolved around erasing the levels which show up with the inherent hierarchy of the world. They always try to accomplish this with reason apart from any notion of Christ. No matter how these philosophies are dressed up, they always lead to a certain outcome.

This particularly struck me tonight as we read James at church:

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet an cannot obtain.

As we read it, I could not help but think of this passage from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. I have changed a small number of words to make it apply today as it did then, but put the original words in parenthesis:

They have science; but in science there is nothing but what is the object of sense. The spiritual world, the higher part of man’s being is rejected altogether, dismissed with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The world has proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery and self-destruction! For the world says: “You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have.the same rights as the most rich and powerful, Don’t be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires.” That is the modern doctrine of the world. In that they see freedom. And what follows from this right of multiplication of desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor envy and murder; for they have been given rights; but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants. …

Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union, Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury and ostentation. To have dinners, visits, cars (carriages), rank and staff (slaves) to wait on one is looked upon as a necessity, for which life, honour and human feeling are sacrificed, and men even commit suicide if they are unable to satisfy it. We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness…

This part is also still very relevant and a strong warning for today:

But soon they will drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it. I ask you is such a man free?

It continues, very much speaking of every society which lives this way:

I knew one “champion of freedom” who told me himself that, when he was deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so wretched at the privation that he almost went and betrayed his cause for the sake of getting tobacco again! And such a man says, “I am fighting for the cause of humanity.” How can such a one fight, what is he fit for? He is capable perhaps of some action quickly over, but he cannot hold out long. And it’s no wonder that instead of gaining freedom they have sunk into slavery, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union of humanity have fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation, as the idea of the service of humanity, of brotherly love and the solidarity of mankind, is more and more dying out in the world, and indeed this idea is sometimes treated with derision. For how can a man shake off his habits, what can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has become less.

And lest we pat ourselves on the back, for not shedding blood, not becoming radical or falling into “horrible” perversions, how different are we when we give ourselves excuses for our own “innocent” cravings? This is normal spiritual struggle, and should be fought no matter how insignificant it seems:

The Orthodox (monastic) way is very different. Obedience, fasting and prayer are laughed it, yet only through them lies the way to real, true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God’s hep I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. …

Respecting what follows, I don’t know that this is confined to upper classes any longer. I see it on the posters of young people decrying everyone else in the world except themselves, blaming “generational injustice” etc.

It is different with the upper classes. They, following science, want to base justice on reason alone, but not with Christ, as before, and they have already proclaimed that there is no crime, that there is no sin. And that’s consistent, for if you have no God what is the meaning of crime? In Europe the people are already rising up against the rich with violence, and the leaders of the people are everywhere leading them to bloodshed, and teaching them that their wrath is righteous. But their wrath is accursed, for it is cruel.

And finally, the most significant key to the presumed problem with hierarchy is found among those who have not taken on the “secular experiment” in their lives:

I’ve seen it spite of the degraded sins and poverty-stricken appearance of our peasantry. They are not servile, and even after two centuries of serfdom, they are free in manner and bearing, yet without insolence, and not revengeful and not envious. “You are rich and noble, you are clever and talented, well be so, God bless you, I respect you, but I know that I too am a man. By the very fact that I respect you without envy I prove my dignity as a man.”