Editorial: Death is one of the poisons of individualism

Individualism appears to be an unavoidable fact of life because each of us seems to be an individual, but when it is treated as an absolute it introduces a variety of poisons into personal and social life. The problem was well illustrated in an article by Zoltan Kovacs in the weekend edition of our morning newspaper entitled “To be or not to be is an individual choice”.
The headline betrays the argument because nobody makes the individual choice ‘to be’. Regardless of what philosophy or science we adopt, we do not give ourselves life.
The article accepts the value of altruistic actions which may lead to death and likewise accepts that the reverse actions are held in contempt. It then claims, “we accept that a life given up for altruistic reasons belonged to the person who made the sacrifice. We accept that he or she , as the owner of that life, was entitled to make the decision to end it.” (We are left to wonder what ‘we accept’ about a life ordered otherwise.)
Firstly, very few of us think of life as something that we own; to do so would be the ultimate surrender to materialism. Life becomes a thing.
Secondly, few if any acts of altruism involve a decision to end one’s life. The decision is to risk one’s life. And what is worth that risk? The answer always is, ‘the other’ – another person or persons, or a whole group, or society itself. One risks oneself not for death, but for life, the life of others. It is the constant testimony of those who perform and survive heroic acts – whether charging a machine gun post on a battlefield or running in front of an oncoming vehicle to rescue a child – is that their remarkable bursts of action are motivated by life, not death.
There is another example of this sacrifice of self for others, another way of laying down one’s life for one’s friend, and it is the dedication that women in particular show in preserving the life of the young in times of war and famine. It is what Pope John II called the genius of women that they show remarkable strength and endurance to preserve life itself, to preserve the future. Those who are not familiar with this need only to look at the remarkable efforts of women in Sudan over the last 40 years, or in any other of the world’s too numerous trouble spots.
Whether in acts of heroism or dedication to others, we reveal that we are not merely individuals, but rather we are also part of the group, united to others. If we try to define and understand ourselves solely as individuals we will never come to the truth of ourselves, because the truth is that the best of ourselves is always expressed in relation to others. Whether we think of ourselves in relation to the great ‘other’ (God) or only in relation to other people or even the environment, we make a nonsense of ourselves if we define ourselves as individuals.  To think of ourselves as individual owners of life is inevitably to motivate ourselves that way.
As The West article put it, “If a person is of sound mind, he or she has to be deemed to own his or her own life and to have responsibility for making decisions about it; there is no feasible alternative in a secular, liberal democracy.” Granted that this sentence was written in relation to the Chief Justice’s decision in the Rossiter case, the article nevertheless makes it clear that it is not referring only to the moment of death. It goes on to say, “A system of secular law in a democracy cannot take away from people the ownership of their lives without breaching the very freedom it is designed to uphold.”
One can never be sure what anyone else means by the word ‘secular’ these days; it could be non-religious, irreligious, immoral or amoral. It could have some philosophy or none at all, it could be rational or arbitrary, it could have an understanding of human nature or merely have the numbers on the day.
Whatever else it is, ‘secular law’ goes even further than the individualist’s claim to be allowed to do whatever he likes ‘so long as it does not harm others’. Secular law allows individuals to do great harm to others. Take the matter of divorce, for example.
Two people make the most solemn vows of their lives to share, to mingle, to unify their lives for life. But under modern law, ten, 20 or 30 years along the road when those two lives are united in every aspect, one person can simply walk out and abandon the covenant. It is known beyond any possibility of doubt that divorce causes great harm to adults and even more to children, but nowadays ‘that’s okay if it’s what the individual wants’.
Likewise, we can kill babies in their mothers’ wombs, despite the great harm it does to the babies and frequently to the mothers, and we can all be made to pay for it, which must represent some part of taking away from people ownership of their own lives.
Which leads to the final question: Who says we have a “secular, liberal democracy”? The Labor Party spent the greater part of last century trying to turn it into a socialist democracy. They didn’t succeed, but at least they were entitled to try and were open and democratic about it.
The secularists don’t tell us where their idea comes from and they have no coherent understanding of human nature that might enable our democracy to function rationally.