Philosophizing

This is the essay I wrote for the final exam in my Christianity & Modern Mind class. It talks about how various Christian and secular thinkers explain -- or fail to explain, in my opinion -- human sexuality. Since sexuality is an essential part of who we are, whether one be a Christian or not, I thought it'd be interesting to engage in a conversation. Given the length of the essay, I did not make my case as clear as I could have. You are welcome to critique. I appreciate your thoughts.

(P.S. That was the best class I have ever taken at UF. I learned a lot and was personally enriched by the experience. I encourage everyone to go attend Dr. Horner's class at Christian Study Center, no matter who you are. He is such a fascinating and engaging lecturer.)

Describe the understanding of sex that Camus portrays in his novel, The Fall. Compare this understanding with the views of Sigmund Freud, C. S. Lewis, and one other thinker of your choice. How do these thinkers frame or understand human sexuality? Whose view do you find most compelling and why? Please be substantiative and specific in developing your essay.

In his novel The Fall, Albert Camus captures modern view of sexuality which disregards any consequences “for a ten-minute adventure” and finds its fulfillment in sole sensuality. “My relationship with women was natural, free, easy, as the saying goes,” Jean-Baptiste confesses (57). True love is rare: the modern man’s marriage springs not out of love, but out of one’s necessity to cure boredom or to fulfill vanity. For one to escape terrible monotonousness of modern life, Jean-Baptiste states, “Something must happen – and that explains most human commitments” (37). Yet even out of the context of “true love”, sex provides the only possible means of escape from the problem of diversion that Pascal and Freud describes: as Jean-Baptiste says, “I have never been bored with the women I liked.” This escape comes in defining oneself in another self. Let it be noted that Jean-Baptiste does not view sex as a means to achieve happiness, but as a simple assertion of his power over women – an assertion of self. The modern man can define himself through his success with women, “to look upon [himself] as something of a superman” (28). In sexual intercourse without attachments, one can explore the unique mystery of the opposite sex without any cost to himself. Camus asks us – “who will deny the modern man his pleasures?” – and embodies in Jean-Baptiste the idea of sexuality rampant in America today. As Jean-Baptiste remarks, “true debauchery is liberating because… in it you possess only yourself.”

Having defined sex as mere pleasure, the modern man tramples upon something essential that gives sex its meaning. Jean-Baptiste mentions that indulging in sensuality leads to lack of desire, and that the lack of desire, ironically, leads to boredom which he sought to conquer. The modern man also finds himself in a peculiar bind – because unlike other pleasures, sexual intercourse has its due residues. Sex links oneself to another self; neither party can completely abandon ties. Furthermore, the woman who violates Jean-Baptiste’s some sort of transcendence (found in the sexual act) enrages him – a cruel treatment of the woman follows. Only aggression and “bitter mortal taste” remain.

Sigmund Freud undoubtedly regards man’s untamed sexual instincts as the starting point of explaining current human condition. While Jean-Baptiste views sex as purely raw and primordial in purpose, Freud views the entire human being as raw and primordial in essence. To Freud, pleasure pursuit – particularly in sex – becomes a pervasive rubric of life. In economics of libido, humans defer instinctual gratification of sex to obtain other gratifications through sublimation. Reality and civilization resist our happiness; and aggression turns inward to create guilt and discontent. The problem lies not with sex but with aggression; the civilization controls this aggression through ethics and ultimately works in the service of Eros. The “ideal” state of man lies in “the feeling of happiness derived from the satisfaction of a wild instinctual impulse untamed by the ego.” Freud seems to imply that “untaming” instincts is the ultimate solution to aggression and that sexual liberation opens up the way to true happiness. While Freud’s sociological observation based on the pleasure principle seems reasonable, his framing of sexual experience through primordial view of man remains rather unsatisfying.

Walker Percy sees sex as the “only mode of intercourse by which the self can be certain of its relationship with other selves” (181). In a post-religious materialistic world, reductionistic sexuality (pornography, etc) becomes a scientist’s means to fulfill one’s scientific experience. One’s immanence and transcendence meet in sexual experience, where the subject objectifies oneself by entering another object. The objectification required in scientific experience is complete in sexual intercourse; hence the “re-entry” is complete. The material self meets the immaterial self in sex – the physiological act gains a spiritual meaning and the spiritual self uses a physiological re-entry. Then the sensuous-erotic becomes what Percy calls “the spirit of the flesh”, which provides a quasi-religious experience in a scientistic world. Sex points to an understanding of self and remains one of the last hopes of humanity. Percy recognizes the dangers of reductionistic sexuality in today’s America; “What if then even the erotic becomes devalued?” he asks. Percy fears that sex might diminish in significance, and that even this last hope to define self might be extinguished in the future.


C. S. Lewis regards the present tendency to view sex as mere pleasure as erroneous. Sexual instinct, Lewis argues, is not in itself evil but is in itself good, which has gone spoiled in the modern understanding of the human experience: “Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth – that sex in itself is ‘normal’ and ‘healthy.’” The original purpose of sex was to guard the profound meaning of the union of male and female, and this meaning has been lost in modernity. In Christian marriage, the element of promise adds to ‘being in love’ to preserve not only the eternality, but the meaning thereof, true love. A Christian exercises restraint and patience to fulfill the true meaning of marriage and sex; one however achieves chastity not by his own efforts but by “the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God.” Lewis excellently articulates Camus’ statement on centrality of pleasure and Jean-Baptiste’s consequent boredom with sex when he says, “It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill… if you decide to make thrills your regular diet… you will be an bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life”(64). Here Lewis persuasively frames the modern view of sexuality posed by Camus and Freud as having gone astray. Percy regards sex as a peculiar resort to discover oneself in modernity, but he does not offer a solution in the face of dangers that the current sexual trend poses. All four thinkers agree that there lies a peculiarity in sex that has given rise to the current situation, but Camus, Freud, and Percy do not define or frame this peculiarity according to their understanding of human experience. Only sociological observations remain in their arguments. Lewis alone demonstrates that sexuality de-natures as to point nothing beyond itself in the modern understanding. It is then in Lewis’ Christian understanding of human experience, sexuality finds its fullest expression and meaning.