The Surprising Link Between Radical Individualism and the Trans Movement

Cameron (00:01)

Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host Cameron McAllister.

Nathan (00:05)

and I'm your co-host Nathan Rittenhouse.

In previous podcast, we talked about the fact that we don't think we're post-peak trans because individualism is alive and well. Some of you said, no, the trans movement has more to do with Marxism or neo-Marxism. And we do a whole nother episode here saying, no, we really do think it's about individualism and all of us have to deal with it. If you like our content, like it, share, subscribe. And if you want to support the work we do, you can do so by visiting www.toltogether.

Cameron (00:07)

All right, let's talk about individualism again, because it, again, it can be subtle, but some of you have responded to a recent episode we did on, where we touched on the trans movement. We talked about whether we were past the peak trans moment, but we talked about, both of us did, an underlying strong, radical individualism that isn't going anywhere.

Cameron (00:36)

And some responses ran along the lines of what does individualism have to do with the trans movement? This is usually associated with collectivist forms of thinking and Marxism and so on. All right. Let me just immediately say, I think that this misses the mark in a number of different ways, but I want to explain why I think it misses the mark and then kick it over to Nathan. let's just state out loud.

an assumption of thinking that comes from something like the trans movement. It would say something like this, nothing determines who I am, not biology, not my set of cultural conditions, not my family, not my country, not custom, not even law necessarily. Certainly not the expectations that are placed on me. I get to define

all of those things and nothing will hold me back, not even biological markers. So when we state it like that, or in those terms, that is self-evidently a highly individualistic way of thinking. And it goes back a long way. It's a key aspect of the radical enlightenment that basically has the driving assumption that human beings are in charge.

We're rational people in charge of our destiny. But I also, I always come back to a quote and I've, you listen, if you're a long time listener, you've heard it before that comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson because it states it so clearly. And I need to give credit where credit is due, not just to Emerson, the connecting this quote to current day contemporary, even not evangelicalism, contemporary individualism. That was not me. That was Roger Lundin who

the late Roger Lundeen who taught English at Wheaton College for a while. He's come to this quote in a number of his books and I'm indebted to him for this insight. But Emerson says, history is an injury and history is an impertinence and an injury to me if it be anything more than a cheerful epilogue of my own being and becoming. So in other words, whatever I want to be,

All of the circumstances of my life, all the friends, family, all of those who shaped me, all of that is completely incidental to the main project of my life, which is self-defining. That comes from his essay.

Nathan (03:09)

And what year would that essay

have been written?

Cameron (03:14)

that would have been in the 1800s. I don't know the precise year. You've asked me that before and I should have prepared this time. It comes from, yeah, it was a long time ago. It comes from his most famous essay, Self-Reliance. So most of us have had to read that at some point in our schooling and even if we haven't, we've absorbed that moral bicultural osmosis. So I'm saying two things here. I'm saying that the trans movement,

Nathan (03:17)

Yeah, no, but it doesn't matter, other than the fact it's well over 150 years ago.

Cameron (03:43)

is self-evidently highly individualistic, just when you think about it. Now those comments were political in nature and what occurred to me and I'm going to speak for Nathan here, what occurred to Nathan as soon as I relayed them was sort of, okay, these sound like talking points that you have about a particular movement. they are, they're self, the trans movement is self-evidently highly individualistic in its very essence.

Two, and here's the harder pill to swallow, but we need to swallow it, I think. We all are a part of that hyper individualistic project. That is we've all been shaped by it. Now we don't all express it in the same way, but this is the very air we breathe. I said in that episode, I believe it was, that I fight a continual battle against hyper individualism in my own life.

this is something that we need to take some ownership in. All right, Nathan, I shall invite you in now that I've painted a big target on my head.

Nathan (04:45)

⁓ Yeah, and well

Well for anybody who didn't catch the previous episode the summary argument was that in light of recent Surveys and kind of at least in the western side of things suggesting that maybe there was a peak to ⁓ non-binary or trans identification that those numbers have been decreasing Cameron and I were saying we don't think that that is Indicative of what those survey of how people have been interpreting that

that the idea that we're somehow scaling back on our pursuit of individualism isn't going anywhere because it is the main cultural ethos in which we live. And so we were saying that ⁓ the trans movement makes a lot of sense. It's just kind of a logical next step progression and sort of the core ideology and yeah, moral and sociological framework in which we all as Americans live. Some people then were pointing, pushing back on that and saying, no,

Trans doesn't have anything to do with individualism. has to do with like Marxism or Neo Marxism or something like that and that's where Cameron started getting a little like wait a second How are we how are you not communicating clearly enough here on this point? So this is sort of a second layer of paint ⁓ to Convince you that rather than having a kind of a handy handle and be like they over there have this problem that We're saying actually if you're thinking

with and you've been formed by the Western educational system and culture. If you speak English, let's put it, can we say it that bluntly maybe? You think in this way and you need to wrestle with some of the things that perhaps you're condemning other people for, which is fine. You can point out problems in other people's lives, but it's disingenuous not to slow down and wrestle internally with some of the same issues that are probably happening in your life, but are just manifesting themselves.

In socially or subconsciously more acceptable ways than the trans movement. I I think back to a time Cameron I was listening to my grandfather who's counseling a guy who had a particular addiction and the guy was kind of talking about the uniqueness of his situation and My grandpa was listening. He's like, well, he said, know, he said I've I've never had that particular struggle in my life But he said I can tell you that every single day I wrestle with the desire to be my own god and I've had to fight that

every day of my entire life and I can identify deeply with you and that area and here's and then on to a productive conversation about how do we both collectively as men live in a world in which we don't think of ourselves as the primary orienting reality ⁓ of our lives and so it was it's in that ability to step back and say hey you're wrestling with this type of a thing I haven't but I have wrestled with the same type of the thing that underlies that therefore can we make

progress forward together. So I think the role of the church is going to be missed if we don't clearly label what some of these underlying conditions are and we just think, well, that's odd over there, but we don't recognize maybe the deviations, ⁓ perhaps even theologically, within the cultural assumptions that we have imbibed while we're making critiques in the world around us.

Cameron (07:56)

What I really appreciate about that story, Nathan, is that it doesn't, your grandfather doesn't allow this to devolve into an us and them. Well, this guy's addicted to heroin. So heroin addicts are like that. They behave this way. But instead, because he recognizes we're all sinners, we're all sinners, and so therefore we may not all share the same struggles. We won't. But we do all struggle with our fallenness, and we do all struggle as sinners before God.

Nathan (08:12)

Who

Cameron (08:26)

And there's that, that's an, there's an amazing leveling of the playing field. I don't remember who said it, but Alan Jacobs and his cultural history of original, original sin, a cultural history gets this really wonderful phrase, the, the co-fraternity of fallenness, I think it is, or something like that, where it's a kind of dark point, you know, unifying feature of human life. If we can admit we're all fallen creatures. Not, of course, not everybody admits that, but as Christians, we would say that we have

Nathan (08:41)

Hmm.

Cameron (08:55)

Our anthropology would say, human beings are fallen. Well, if human beings are fallen, that's going to make us a little bit more circumspect. Not in, not in identifying specific problems. Sure. But in saying us and them, you know, the trans people over there or the Marxist, you know, the cultural Marxists over there, the neo-Marxists over there. I think we want to, we want to steer away from that. Not from being clear on problems and addressing problems and trying to offer answers and trying to be a help.

But in trying to somehow distinguish ourselves as, here we are on this sort of, we're here in this safe kind of category where nothing touches us and here's everybody else, all the dark people. We want to be careful about that. Very careful about that. Cause it creeps in a lot.

Nathan (09:43)

So two things here Cameron one is that so you can say hey there there's the person who's addicted to this thing or pursuing this thing as a way of finding satisfaction in their life. Okay, who doesn't enjoy? pleasurable things and meet like avoiding pain We all do it or instant gratification. We all love it and so whether or not that person's drowning their sorrows with an illicit substance or Oreos and doom scrolling on YouTube

Both of those are responses to... Now, the outcomes of that are wildly different on the impact that it's going to have on your... ⁓ Maybe you want to depend on the substance. Which outcome... It's going to change the way that your body and your brain and your relationships work with everybody because you're focused on a different set of conditions than you otherwise would. So, there's a way in which these things are similar. Obviously, we can say that the degree of the radical nature of the outcome of them for a communal living...

Different but we're we're trying I mean, it's it's the way of Jesus. Hey, did you hear about the tower that fell and killed these people? What's Jesus saying Luke 13 unless you to repent you also will perish that late. There's this persistent human temptation even within the religious language to look over there look over there look over there and Jesus is continuously like but look in there look in there look in there in your own heart ⁓ How are you? processing this and so that's the

This isn't like, you know, we're trying to justify anything. We're actually saying, no, there's a critique that's at play here that all of us have to deal with. So that's that's thing number one. Difference of outcomes sometimes from the same impulse. The second thing is, and this one's a little touchier for us, is that the Bible is highly collectivist. In its framing of the of a person. ⁓ And so there's a the.

⁓ Well, I've already quoted him once. It's like, grandpa's line about our salvation is personal, but it isn't individualistic. If you're looking at this from a New Testament perspective, they had an experience with Christ, and then that radically translated in the way in which they thought of themselves as the people of God. So, there isn't such a thing as an individual...

eternally isolated in salvation kind of like that and and I think we are also lost in the fact that a large chunk of the use the word you why you in the New Testament are plural you like the old like King James has ye and there so it used Val singular you ye Plural you I think there have been some Not Kanye West ye ⁓ Like really you need a y'all in your translation

Cameron (12:22)

Not Kanye West. Just kidding.

Nathan (12:28)

Like y'all work out your salvation with fear and trembling ⁓ is is more of the sense in which there is a a broader definition of a communal expectation in conformity with the image of Christ rather than the individual becomes the paradigmatic lens through which we see our participation in the community and and this is where I think there are passages in the New Testament or the Bible as a whole as you're reading it where you feel like maybe there is a tension between

Emerson in Ephesians. ⁓ And as a Christian in modern culture, we live in that balance.

Cameron (13:08)

Well, we can't be understood apart from our relationships. That is who we are through and through first and foremost as creatures made by God, but also as sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, friends, coworkers, human beings are inherently relational. Now that should be a truism. We all, we all know that, but we're also in saying that and trying to live

along those lines were working against some very deeply entrenched ideas that have been around since, for a while, but since the 1700s in earnest. And from people like Hobbes and John Locke and others like that who have painted a kind of atomistic picture of human life. Now, before we go too far down there, this is also very on brand.

When I talk about individualism in a negative sense, I try to use words like radical individualism or hyper individualism. So let's, let's say a few words in favor of individualism because individualism itself is not always bad. individualism, yeah. So, well, so it's in its, its best instantiations, individualism recognizes the inherent worth.

Nathan (14:23)

Convince me. Let's go.

Cameron (14:34)

of a human being. Now, I'm not speaking in biblical terms right here, so just I know your heckles are up with the word individualism. are too. But just in the sense that individualism and its healthy outworkings was part of what sponsored the efforts of the abolitionist movement, for instance, where you would look at the individual dignity and worth of a human being. Now, ultimately, the precedent for that is every person being made in the image of God. But there are good

So also individual responsibility, human beings taking responsibility, whether that's as a citizen, as a neighbor, as a friend, as a family member, whether in matters of politics, these are good things. So when it comes to a healthy, balanced vision of individualism, one that takes for granted that human beings are inherently relational and yes, communal in the best sense of that word, creatures.

Nathan (15:05)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (15:32)

then I'm happy with it. think it's good when it goes in a direction that says that we're adamant, atomistic, sort of monadic, you know, completely isolated and we define reality in ourselves. Obviously. Okay. I don't think that's good.

Nathan (15:34)

Okay.

Well, the reason it's not good is because it inherently and necessarily leads to isolation and loneliness. If you're the only which is where we're at. So so to clarify that I there's really helpful what you just said because it helped me see our disagreement, which isn't a disagreement. It's that if you're meaning individualism with an external and sacred referent. Fine, so but if you're meaning individualism in which the individual.

Cameron (15:54)

which is where we're at as a culture in many ways. Yeah. ⁓

Nathan (16:15)

the definer of reality. An internal and personal reference, not an external and sacred reference, then it is very difficult, Cameron, and I've, you know, I'm 39 now. I have tried and I can't quite wrap my head around...

a bottom-up morality rooted in the ground that justifies the value of the individual. It's very difficult. ⁓ And when you look at the the history of just like

massive amounts of people being killed by people or whole entire populations of people being wiped out or abused or used or mistreated or sacrificed or used as cannon fodder or starved or It's none of that had a sense of there's any actual value to these people other than they're taking up resources in there in the way and we don't like them. ⁓ Humans have not really been able to and even if you go back Aristotle Plato all of that all of those we might say are misguided external reference to

Intrinsic value, but they still are external References to him individual value. It's we don't walk up the site if you meet somebody you say maybe They're not purely internal. It's it's a it's it's considered in an affront if you so if you walk up to somebody and say How are you doing? Okay, that's that's nice. What's your name? It's a different thing to walk up to somebody as they justify your existence

Cameron (17:27)

but not purely internal,

Nathan (17:43)

And if you find yourself living in a paradigm in which you have to perpetually justify your existence, that is a heavy burden to bear. That's a lonely spot to be.

Cameron (17:53)

Let me

press into that for a second here, Nathan, because I think that's really helpful. So we use a phrase like justify your existence. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means that practically speaking, if you can't take your identity for granted, I've said this before in the past, I think we both have, under healthy circumstances, you can just take your humanity for granted. You can take your, the fact that you're a man or a woman, you can take that for granted. You don't have to worry about it.

It's just who you are. And think about other dark historical circumstances where that's not the case. So let's say if you're living during a time where chattel slavery is widespread and you're black. So those are horrendous circumstances where because of the nature of the cultural setup, you're constantly having to justify your existence and your worth. It's horrendous. It's heinous.

Nathan (18:23)

and don't have to try to prove it.

Cameron (18:51)

And then in different settings at different times, you might be in circumstances where we think, okay, well, all human beings should be free. Thank God for that, by the way. That's a real breakthrough. But all human beings should be free, but we should have no constraints whatsoever on our self-expression and our identity. So that sounds on the face of it, maybe somewhat liberating at first, but it is not when you get to a place where you think, okay,

I can't just be me. I have to somehow construct myself. I've got to come up on this blank slate. I have to come up with something. And not only that, it has to be something that people have to love me and accept me. I want love and acceptance, but I have to make myself. I have to somehow shape myself into something lovable. That's a burden no human being has ever had to shoulder. And no human being should have to shoulder that.

Nathan (19:42)

Well, actually...

There are two sides to that. One is that I construct my external, my Instagram, my TikTok, or even the way that I dress, style myself in conformity with what I think will make me likable, even though I know that that's not truly how I feel internally. So that's conformity to an external standard in order to please other people. That's rough. So I can see the desire to say, actually, I'm going to...

the one that sets the standards and expect everybody to conform to my version of myself. I can see how that would be an appealing and nobody thinks through it in these categories of like this is what I'm doing but I'm speaking with a broadly here of and this is and this is not about being again to be clear we're not talking about being trans here we're talking about a much broader understanding of how it is that we see ourselves fitting it so

Cameron (20:29)

We're spelling it out.

⁓ yeah, this is all of us.

Nathan (20:42)

That's the whole point of this

Cameron (20:43)

Yeah.

Nathan (20:43)

podcast is this is all of us trying to wrestle through this. ⁓ Welcome to the ride.

Cameron (20:49)

Think about how Christians, yes, Christians do this in evangelical circles. How do I put together a respectable and acceptable Christian image that reflects my politics, that reflects my taste? To a significant degree, we're all shaped by this impulse and we're shaped by this tendency to want to define it also in consumerist kind of terms.

in the sense of here are the products that I identify with, here are the books I read, here's what I listen to. But also, yeah, the impulse, I like that you drew attention to the other side of that, Nathan, which is I want to do away with all external standards and I want to try to be the author of my own script. But again, we're describing habits that also can't, they can't but lead to

loneliness and isolation, and a sense of feeling misunderstood.

Nathan (21:49)

Well, okay.

Well, let's talk about some of implications of this and other categories of our lives. Let's go political here for a second. So, your Emerson types are going to talk about the disillusionment with external constraints because they believe in a system in which you could self-govern in order to live in community well. That's not the same. So, that's liberty, but that's not liberalism. Liberty is about self-

control, self-restraint, self-governance in order for the value of the good of the community around me. Where a different view of liberalism is to say that actually the script has flipped there and that the role of government is to preserve for me the freedom to express myself however I want. So it's not about me governing myself in order to contribute to the collective. It's about the collective supporting

individual choices. there's a... and I think this is why you see these almost... ⁓ these political conversations that are talking past each other so much, because those are two very different visions. One is, ⁓ do I have a set of moral principles and boundaries and external reference to the political system that shape and form the way in which I live my life? And then I use that to contribute to the collective. Or is the collective there in order to preserve the space in which I can

Articulate my own desires and wants in the best possible way. So you end up with the government and technology Serving the dual-purpose roles of helping me actualize what it is that I desire to see happen in my individual life and if we can think in those terms then we can see that that is a different vision than what we've had historically culturally, but also more importantly biblically speaking that there's a way in which

Cameron (23:36)

Hmm.

Nathan (23:49)

And we know how this goes just Practically speaking is that you can never receive yourself into feeling like you belong You only belong when you find a way in which you can contribute to that group or that community That's when you know you're in if you show up to the church for dinner You're only there you eat and you leave that's different than if you eat and then you stay and stack the tables and you had made a casserole beforehand and you helped do the dishes and Laughed with everybody while you're mopping up the floors. Those are two different ways of engaging something one is you're receiving from it one is you're contributing to it

And if you can have a broader vision of the thing that you're contributing and that you're producing so that you see yourself as a producer rather than a consumer then the there's a satisfaction as the individual in participation with something that is broader than ourselves that we as humans crave at all levels whether it be interpersonal or religious that Gives us I think a hint on to which one of these provides the most stable out

Cameron (24:24)

Mm-hmm.

when you're a part of something, a movement or something that's larger than yourself. So what would it mean for us? I think this is a question worth wrestling with for all of us. What would it mean to live practically in light of the reality that we are made by God and for God and that our

Nathan (25:06)

Or how about, you are not your own, you are

bought with a price, therefore honor God with your bodies.

Cameron (25:11)

Yeah, what does it mean practically to live in the light of that fact that we actually can take our identity for granted or for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God and when Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. These are wonderful truths to internalize. so what would it mean as we work together as Christians

for a common cause. We're rooted in a common mission to serve our Lord and our neighbor. We're to do that where we are in the particular place that we call our home. If that is the practical reality of our day-to-day existence, it's going to be a tangible hope for many.

who want that, it will be immensely attractive, but in the best sense of that word, not in the sense of you trying to do some sort of a bait and switch or trying to adapt to the Christian message for the culture and accommodate, none of that. In fact, all of that that I've named, although it sounds so wholesome, it's profoundly countercultural. I mean, it flies in the face of so much around you. But if we do that, if we're working and we're taking our, and honestly, and here's the other interesting

Nathan (26:11)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (26:39)

interesting feature here, Nathan, and we all know this is true. But if the more you live for yourself, the more you start to lose yourself and the more you start to thin out because you actually don't have the rich in

Nathan (26:52)

Wait a second, there's a sentence about this, like whoever

wants to lose his life, what's the, hmm. Wants to find his life.

Cameron (26:56)

Yeah, some wise guy said, whoever wished shall lose it, whoever seeks me will gain it.

right. But that's practically true. But even in non-Christian terms, there are plenty of musicians and artists who have said something along these lines. it's true if you live for others. Now, you want to live for others for Christ's sake, ideally speaking. But if you

If you devote yourself to others, you'll get yourself thrown in. You'll find yourself in those pursuits. That's how you're, so I'm saying that there are unique features to you. That's the beautiful thing about Christianity. You do have a unique personality and you don't have it on accident. It's not displaced. The Lord has made you weird and given you quirks for a reason, but those weird features, those idiosyncrasies are there for the service of God and for the service of others.

Nathan (27:54)

⁓ okay. Let's get.

Cameron (27:54)

And unless you're

being a servant, you're not going to find them. You won't see that, but you'll find yourself by pursuing God and others.

Nathan (28:02)

So just to back that up a second, you look at the idea of spiritual gifts and the different gifts, different talents, different abilities all over the New Testament that's talked about. Why? For the edification of the body, for the building up of the other, for the strengthening of the church, the equipping the saints for ministry. Every gift is given for an external. So the quirks that you have in your individual oddities

Cameron (28:05)

Emerson's wrong.

Nathan (28:29)

Are not made for your tik-tok channel. They're made as a gift to the community around you And so I mean it's just it's the way in which you ask the question. What does it look like for us to start doing this? One is to recognize that if your greatest Cultural engagement action is voting and typing you're missing it and it it starts at the point of Not my will but yours be done So that thy will be done is the most terrifying prayer in scripture

But, this is the secret, I think, to the surprised delight and joy that people find in coming into the church, is that there's more freedom within the boundaries of the will of God than there is within a boundless castle that I've created on my own. ⁓ There's something that just doesn't work about that. There's a practical, almost as if I was created for something else sort of reason in which that never manifests itself. ⁓

in a way that's long-term palatable.

Cameron (29:37)

confident we have only scratched the surface. But the goal is to inspire thought. And I think we've done that. I hope we haven't made you too irritated, maybe a little bit irritated because thinking involves being irritated sometimes. It just does. It involves being uncomfortable. It involves wrestling with tensions. These are good things for us to do. They're good. Sometimes they're good like eating your broccoli. Sometimes they're more fun. But hey, we got to do it. But thank you.

for being a thoughtful listener and a thoughtful audience. And in case you missed it somewhere in all of this, you've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events in Christian hope.