Introduction
The concept of human dignity is of paramount importance to society and individuals. Thanks to our ability to recognise our neighbour’s innate worth, we can cooperate with others even when we disagree with them. We do not resort to petty shows of aggression every time a rift occurs between us and someone else. We know how to resolve conflicts without brute force.
And yet, in our world, there is much pain and suffering that is inflicted on people by people. How much fear do we feel towards other people? It is impossible to fully trust another, for we never quite know what they think about us. What they might do to us. We are paralysed from forging deep connections with each other. Such is the extent of the fear we feel towards ourselves.
The concept of human dignity has always existed and has been expressed in a myriad of ways. Catholic Social Teaching is one example of a doctrine rooted in the principle of human dignity. The concept of the atman as the true Self could be interpreted as a metaphysical framework for understanding human dignity. So, too, could the concept of Buddha-nature.
Human dignity is not only a religious or spiritual idea, however. Many political ideas are also rooted in this marvellous concept. Both the left and the right claim to hold the keys to unlocking human potential – where they divide, it seems to me, is whether that human potential is at its most concentrated when expressed collectively or individually. Proponents of such concepts as socialism and capitalism, pacifism and militarism, and rehabilitation and punishment all seem to hold true that humans have an innate dignity. Otherwise, why go to such lengths to demonstrate a particular system as the superior means of government? The ultimate goal of any ideology, I think, is to uplift the dignity of a certain group of people – or all people.
Even those ideologies that posit certain groups as devoid of worth tend to portray another as the epitome of human excellence. As such, even racist and discriminatory ideologies accept the concept of human dignity – but not universal human dignity.
In this essay, I seek to explore the concept of human dignity in relation to human darkness. Both are universal features of the human race. Dignity and darkness transcend race, gender, and even generation. Wars have been fought since Time immemorial. Love has been shown since Time immemorial. I do not think there has ever been a time when a human has not harmed another. I do not think there has ever been a time when a human has not served another. Are dignity and darkness two sides of the same coin? Can we truly say that all individuals have an innate dignity yet are capable of tremendous evil?
The Tendency to Go Astray
Even in our oldest stories, we see the concept of Good vs. Evil. I refer to the creation stories in the Book of Genesis, where we see Eve betraying God to consume the forbidden fruit. I think the snake who tempts Eve symbolises our darker impulses – what Jung called the Shadow. The Genesis creation stories appear to be a fascinating analysis of the individual’s tendency to go astray: A person may engage in immorality if the temptation to do so is strong enough.
Both literal and allegorical interpretations of the Genesis creation stories lead us to the concept of original sin. That is, the idea that many years ago, someone broke a moral code that we shall refer to as the natural law – the rules of conduct that we feel compelled to obey by that strange and elusive construct that we call the conscience. Natural laws are the universal rules for good conduct that transcend culture, geography, and generation.
I find the concept of original sin to be of great interest to this discussion for the following reason: If we accept that the first sin was a choice made by an individual – and not simply an integral part of that individual’s nature – then we must also accept that there was a time before sin. In other words, sinfulness – which I define as including antisocial conduct and breaches of natural law – is not the normal state for humans to be in.
One might argue that this proposition must necessarily be accepted if the concept of human dignity is to hold good. I do not think that this is so. Suppose humans were initially in a sinless state, and an individual action corrupted the human race, preventing us from being unable to sin. How did that individual engage in such unprecedented and seemingly impossible behaviour? How could someone so untainted, clean, and pure be tempted away from their perfection?
Even if we accept that free will exists, which I believe it does, it makes little sense that a person ignorant of impurity could engage in it. Let us assume that perhaps there was a moment of first temptation. In other words, a person who had never had any knowledge of darkness and evil had somehow gained such knowledge. This knowledge then tempted them to engage in impure acts. How would this knowledge have been acquired? I can think of four ways a person could encounter immoral behaviour: by engaging in it themself, by seeing another person engage in it, by reading or hearing about it, and by imagining it.
If a person engages in immorality, they must be aware of it. They might not be aware that the behaviour is, in fact, immoral, but they are aware of the behaviour itself. As such, even if a person does not ascribe moral value or lack thereof to a particular behaviour, doing it means knowing it is possible. As such, it seems that someone unaware of immoral behaviour cannot acquire their first knowledge of such behaviour by engaging in it themselves.
If a person’s first knowledge of immoral behaviour is acquired by seeing another person engage in such behaviour, then the former is not the first to engage in immoral behaviour.
If a person reads or hears about immoral behaviour, then once again, they are obviously not the first person to discover its existence.
And what of imagination? I do not think a perfectly pure and clean person – a paragon of virtue – could imagine anything contrary to their own perfect nature. As such, a pure person’s imagination suddenly turning vicious could not be the first instance of humanity discovering its own tendency for darkness.
As such, I think the claim that humans were once without sin is without substance. How could we have been tempted astray if we were always pure and endlessly kind? The argument that we have free will to do as we please despite our (originally) pure nature (now corrupted by original sin) is unsatisfactory. Who corrupted the person who first engaged in original sin? How did the first impurity arise within the human spirit?
Perhaps one may answer “The Devil” to these questions. This answer does not satisfy me. The Devil, I believe, is a character that we have created to symbolise human darkness and evil. How could a symbol of human darkness tempt a human into sin before humanity had the capacity for darkness in the first place?
Keeping all this in mind, the most likely answer is that our species could always engage in antisocial, harmful, and unneighbourly behaviour. The proposition that the human race was once devoid of these tendencies is an absurdity I refuse to swallow.
The Conflict That Lurks Within
The concept of internal conflict is not a new one. Stories have explored it since Time immemorial, and I doubt there has ever been a human who has not had first-hand experience of it. Internal conflict is a primordial and universal part of the human condition.
Due to its lack of empirical support, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is no longer seen as an accurate model for human psychology. This essay, however, is neither scientific nor academic, so in composing it, I will not hold myself to the same high standards imposed on academic writers. I do not claim that this essay is anything but an opinion piece – one that, depending on one’s taste, may be poorly written and poorly reasoned – discussing abstract ideas by an unqualified writer – if I can even call myself that. As such, I do not think discussing Freudian psychoanalysis would be out of place in this essay.
It was Freud’s view that the human psyche has an unconscious component. He posited that unconscious desires and impulses are the true drivers of behaviour – something he referred to as the pleasure principle.
According to Freud, the mind consists of the id, ego, and superego. I will give a brief description of each of these components. For a deeper exploration of Freudian psychoanalysis, I encourage you to refer to introductory psychology textbooks, particularly those chapters that focus on personality theory.
The id is made up of our primal desires, particularly those of a sexual or aggressive nature. Many of these desires are repressed and unconscious. The id is not concerned with morality but with the fulfilment of desire. It operates on the pleasure principle.
The superego refers to one’s own conceptions of morality and those imposed on one by one’s parents and society. The superego is concerned with doing what is right. It operates on the morality principle.
It is clear that the interests of the id are incompatible with those of the superego, except in certain group environments where the group spirit causes people to act in ways they otherwise would not. The ego, as such, is the mediator between the id and the superego. The ego manages any conflict between the id and superego and generally does so by keeping such disagreements below conscious awareness. The ego operates on the reality principle.
However, the ego sometimes fails to keep the war within one’s psyche unconscious. It causes us tremendous discomfort when we discover that we are not as morally upstanding as we like to think. It is deeply disconcerting to know that there is a part of us – elusive and seemingly beyond our control – that dictates our actions and causes us to become a slave to pleasure, like the fruit fly’s obsession with sweetness.
It is precisely this phenomenon that makes psychoanalytic theory of interest to the topic I explore in this essay. I interpret the failure of the ego to keep id-superego conflicts below the conscious level as bringing to awareness the tension that exists both in the individual and the collective between innate human dignity and innate human darkness.
Any discussion of human darkness would be incomplete without referring to the Jungian shadow. The shadow is a conceptual framework that helps us understand the unconscious as a sort of hidden personality within us. The shadow is who we truly are but do not want to accept, and the persona is who we seem to be on the surface.
Is human dignity the persona? Is human darkness the shadow? Could it be that human dignity is not innate but simply a means of masking from view the darkness that lies within us? I do not think so.
I struggle to accept that human dignity does not exist in any true sense. If such a proposition were to be accepted, societal rules would collapse. Even if such a proposition is true, I think it ought to be dismissed for the good of society. As such, I will not entertain this idea in this essay. Instead, I will work under the assumption that dignity and darkness are innate features of the human spirit – I shall not challenge these assumptions.
Where does Jung’s shadow fit into all of this? The existence of a shadow side to our nature demonstrates that some aspects of the human spirit, however universal, are not acceptable in certain group environments. Over time, based on the feedback we receive, we repress those aspects of our nature from public view and often obscure such features of our personalities from even our own awareness.
Do individuals derive their dignity from the group, given that it is the group that imposes rules of moral conduct on the individual? I think not. To accept such a proposition would be to imply that the individual is not a sovereign entity with its own rights and responsibilities, and character independent of the group. We can safely dismiss this proposition as nonsense.
I want to refer once again to the Judeo-Christian idea of sin. In particular, the idea that sinful behaviour causes one to destroy one’s relationship with God. I think this idea interprets the conflict between our primal desires and our ideal self-image. We are all created in God’s image and likeness, yet we go astray from time to time. When we do so, we deny one aspect of our nature in favour of another. Catholics, in particular, it seems to me, espouse the view that despite our dignity that stems from being made in the image and likeness of God, we also tend to transgress due to inherited original sin.
While I do not believe there was ever a time when humanity did not sin, I think there is tremendous utility in the idea that the innate tendency to betray our need to act morally is in direct and constant conflict with the innate character of the human soul: one of purity and perfection – dignity. It seems to me that to accept the Judeo-Christian understanding is to endorse the view that darkness – however innate – arises because of specific thoughts and actions and patterns of thoughts and actions over time. Dignity, however, is simply a state of Being that transcends thoughts and actions. I wholeheartedly accept such a proposition, for it recognises that both dignity and darkness are innate characteristics while pointing out that shadows would not exist if not for the light that casts them. Morality is not disregarded; the issue is examined with feeling and spirituality. Such a viewpoint is not arrived at via philosophical or intellectual speculation. It is arrived at through a process of spiritual consideration, not always logical and not rigidly rational. Nonetheless, such a proposition seems to me to offer a superior explanation than that which could be offered by philosophical or scientific inquiry. As such, this less rigidly rational proposition is the one I accept.
Nothing Short of the Fullness of Human Potential
If Jungian and Freudian ideas help to ascertain that darkness is an innate component of human nature, so humanistic psychology can help to ascertain that dignity is an innate component of human nature. Rogers spoke of unconditional positive regard, and Maslow spoke of self-actualisation. Both concepts are of interest to the topic I explore in this essay.
To treat someone with unconditional positive regard is not to place conditions of worth upon their behaviour. In other words, we should refrain from stating or implying that our acceptance of a person is tied to their actions. An example of unconditional positive regard is telling one’s child, “Your behaviour is unacceptable, but I love you no matter what.” An example of conditional positive regard would be to treat a child with love and compassion when she scores highly on exams but with disdain and anger when she does not: scoring highly on exams becomes a condition of worth.
Why is this of relevance to our discussion of innate human dignity and innate human darkness? Because to state that a person’s value is not tied to their actions is to accept that there is a factor besides behaviour – a factor independent of behaviour, in fact – that determines a person’s worth. This factor should not have conditions imposed on its consideration in evaluating a person’s worth; that is, conditions of worth should not be imposed on a person; that is, a person ought to be treated with unconditional positive regard if they are to be able to enact positive change in their life.
In other words, people cannot change their negative behaviours unless their worth is not tied to their actions. This proposition may seem inconsistent, but it illustrates that dignity exists and is innate. The idea that a person’s value remains constant, notwithstanding their negative patterns, is consistent with the idea I discussed: Dignity is a state of Being and transcends thought and even action.
The paradox of unconditional positive regard is that Rogers used it as a psychotherapeutic technique. Psychotherapy generally intends to change a person’s behaviour. Why would unconditional positive regard be a useful technique in changing behaviour? I do not know, but the fact that accepting one’s innately good nature may motivate one to act in a manner more consistent with said nature may have something to do with it.
This leads us to Maslow’s ideas vis-à-vis self-actualisation. The idea is that human beings constantly strive to be their ideal selves. The anguish we feel from time to time stems from an inconsistency between our ideal and actual selves. According to Maslow, life may derive meaning from the journey towards self-actualisation: the journey towards making the most of one’s abilities. In essence, to ensure that one has no unfulfilled talents.
I find it interesting that the existence of the ideal self does not necessitate the acceptance of unconditional worth. This is because the ideal self is something we strive for, not something we are. It is a construct in our minds. The actual self has no value except insofar as it strives to become the ideal self. On the other hand, to say that a person’s worth is not tied to their behaviour is to say that no matter how incongruent their behaviour may be with who they truly are, the latter is indeed something of value.
The idea of self-actualisation seems to represent an economic approach to evaluating one’s worth. In contrast, unconditional positive regard is consistent with innate human dignity. I also think the concept of self-actualisation does not necessitate that human darkness is an innate quality. Unconditional positive regard seems to posit that behaviour will always be inconsistent, to a certain extent, with one’s true self and source of worth. I interpret these inconsistencies to be what I refer to as human darkness, the incongruence between a person’s innate state of Being and a person’s soulless deeds.
Construing these ideas through the lens of the Judeo-Christian concept of sin leads to an interesting conclusion. A person’s soul may be interpreted as the ultimate source of worth; the reason why they should be treated with unconditional positive regard. A person’s behaviours may be incongruent with their nature – such behaviours may be interpreted as sin. Nonetheless, a person’s nature – their soul – has worth in its own right. This worth should not be subject to change because of sinful behaviour. Similarly, the ideal self may be interpreted as a soul, albeit one that cannot truly exist. The actions that prevent the ideal self from emerging in the real world may be interpreted as sin. I think the concept of self-actualisation is quite valuable if we assume that human darkness is innate, as I do in this essay. Likewise, the concept of unconditional positive regard has tremendous utility if one assumes that human dignity is innate.
When we take only from both frameworks what is consistent with my assumptions in this essay, we arrive at this conclusion: A person’s worth is not tied to their behaviour, and their behaviour may be incongruent with their worth. The interplay between a person’s behaviour and worth is why dignity and darkness both exist within humans.
Virtue in Sin
War is a conscious decision made by one group of people to kill another group of people. War typically does not occur due to personal hatred or for the settling of personal scores. War is waged to uphold certain values and structures, so we are told, and as such, to partake in its conduct is honourable and virtuous. This proposition appears inconsistent with most of what we are led to believe, and nonetheless, it is held to be true, I think, by most people in most nations, including me.
Do not kill. This is a foundational commandment imposed on us not only by natural law but by man-made law. To take another’s life is seen as among the most heinous of crimes. To do such a thing leads to ostracization. To be placed behind bars, and once released, to be treated with suspicion by most people. And yet, we seem to view this commandment as meaningless in war.
How does such an inconsistency arise in society? There is both a practical and ideological component to this situation.
From a practical day-to-day perspective, there is a sharp divide between military and civilian life. What is considered acceptable conduct in one is not acceptable in the other. This makes perfect sense. If this divide did not exist, society would likely collapse – indeed, it appears to me that in nations where this divide does not exist as strictly as it does in mine, society does disintegrate into chaos, conflict, and violence. In civilian life, it is paramount that one is agreeable, conflict-averse, open-minded, ideas-based, approachable, peaceful, compassionate, and dignified. One should settle disputes through established structures that do not involve taking life or causing physical or mental harm. In the military, conformity and obedience are necessary for effective conduct, as is the willingness to kill on behalf of an ideal.
There is also a deeper, more ideological foundation to our acceptance of war despite our opposition to taking lives in other contexts. It is because we humans are addicted to the groups we belong to. The group spirit can wash over us and engulf us in tremendously intoxicating levels of emotion. These emotions may be positive or negative, but it seems to me that once a person passes a certain threshold of emotional intensity, they lose their capacity for critical thinking. I think nothing can cause a person to pass this threshold of emotionality more than group feeling. When surrounded by others with whom we feel a sense of belonging, maintaining that sense of belonging becomes more important than exercising individual creativity and thought. It becomes more important than maintaining a particular standard of ethical conduct. As such, we ostracise those who kill individuals in their individual capacities while glorifying those in our group who kill others who belong to opposing groups. Whether you like it or not, I think this will forever be a part of human nature.
The reason this is of interest to me with regard to dignity and darkness is simple. In certain contexts, we humans find virtue in sin. We create constructs with which we can interpret behaviour normally seen as an example of human darkness through the lens of human dignity. Is this because dignity and darkness are not innate and objective qualities? Or is this because certain factors can cause us to interpret morality in warped and inconsistent ways?
I think it is the latter. Given that our species thrives on social bonds and interprets human relations through a deeply tribal lens, it seems reasonable to conclude that our sociable and tribal nature may lead to us justifying unethical conduct because of its utility to our in-group. Moral standards are applied to the conduct of individuals within the same group. This helps to ensure the group’s cohesion and prevent instability from arising within it. By ostracising those individuals who do breach moral standards, thus leaving them unable to seek the safety and support of the group that once counted them among its members, threats to stability are neutralised, and those who may be tempted to act immorally are discouraged from doing so. However, these same moral standards are not applied to the group’s interactions with other groups, particularly those that pose a threat. As such, to kill another member of one’s own group is to disrupt social order and is therefore penalised. To kill members of an out-group that threatens to disrupt the social order of one’s in-group helps to uphold the social order of one’s in-group and, as such, is not penalised. It is even celebrated and glorified. We then interpret the glorification of the conduct, the fact that the conduct is not penalised, and the fact that the conduct has utility to mean that said conduct is moral.
The superego in Freudian psychoanalysis represents the morality principle: the part of the psyche that compels us to behave according to a certain ideal. These ideals of morality are imposed on us both from within (natural law) and without (parental and societal expectations, laws, governments, etc). It seems to me that group membership causes certain warps to appear within one’s superego. The group feeling begins to infect a person’s sense of morality until it disappears entirely: Morality becomes conflated with the benefit of one’s group rather than upholding universal standards of ethical conduct. Thus, human darkness becomes the dominant feature of a person’s existence within a group despite the innate human dignity of the individual.
Conclusion
Human dignity and human darkness will forever be intertwined with each other, for both are innate qualities. Many frameworks have sought to analyse the complex interplay between dignity and darkness as they exist within humans. I have explored some of these frameworks in this essay to see if we can draw any common themes from them. Doing so has helped deepen my understanding of what it means to be human. I have written this essay in an informal style. In addition to logic and reason, I employ emotion in constructing my arguments while leaving some assumptions unquestioned, for certain things are best left unquestioned.
I conclude this essay by saying that dignity is an innate characteristic of humanity, as is darkness. Both qualities lurk within every human being but give rise to themselves in different ways. Dignity is an individual’s state of Being. It is something innate that one is born with and that is never taken away: it is what makes one human. On the other hand, darkness is a person’s tendency to act contrary to their humanity, and is expressed through thoughts and actions, as well as patterns of thoughts and actions, repeated over time. The interplay between dignity and darkness is a cause for much anguish in individuals. The tribal nature of humans further exacerbates the anguish that can result thanks to the conflict between these two innate qualities. Groups – and what is useful to their survival – may cause individuals to interpret morality in warped ways, blurring the line between dignity and darkness. Neither is more or less important in shaping humanity, and the innateness of both qualities should be considered when seeking to make the world a better place.
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