Human Dignity vs. Autonomy; Reality vs. Fantasy

I heard a Catholic priest perfectly express something I think is deeply true. (This has happened more than once.) “Each individual person is a subject of infinite dignity but not the creator of value.” I want to unpack this within the framework of the kind of Christianity espoused by Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis I - all working within the tradition of St. Thomas. 

     To exist is to be loved, to be wanted, to be known by the One who is goodness itself. In every act of creating, God breathes life and grants dignity, bestowing worth that is not ours to create, modify, or revoke. This dignity is not bound to achievement, status, or merit, but rests in the bare fact of existence. Each created being, merely by being, reflects the goodness of the Creator who called it forth. And in this calling forth, God inscribes a value that cannot be changed or diminished, for it is rooted in His eternal will and love. While every uncorrupted created being has dignity and goodness insofar as it exists – its existence being the loving will of the Creator who keeps it in being at every moment – our human dignity comes from being created in the image of God: from being self-conscious beings capable of love and truth (in a finite way).

      We can understand what dignity means by thinking about our purest loves. Love is the joy that the beloved exists and the will that it continues to exist in the fullness of its being/reality. There are two senses of reality in play here: 1) real as opposed to what seems real to fantasy or desire; our love is a ‘rational’ or appropriate response to the independent reality of the beloved. 2) real in the sense of actualizing one’s inborn potential – as a rose actualizes itself when it blossoms a human being actualizes itself when he or she becomes virtuous, above all loving. We love the rose most fully as a beautiful blossom; we love the rose that failed to blossom (the soil was perhaps poor) because of what it is in potential, feeling sorry for this particular one that it did not bloom. Thus with beloved people: joyful love when our children become good, loving adults; compassionate love when they don’t. But the first sense of ‘real’ is prior: in any case, we love them means we affirm their lives, their existence. Sorry, this is a bit abstract.

      Parents cherish their children simply for being as well as for their potentials.  In this, there is a shadow of divine love – the source of dignity, a concept that imaginatively extends the preciousness we experience in those we love to others we do not know and so cannot love in a personal way. The child’s life, precious and irreplaceable, does not need to earn its worth; it is worth that radiates from the heart of love itself. Just as this love makes the child’s life feel infinitely meaningful, God’s love makes our existence carry infinite value. In each person’s existence, we glimpse something of the divine, something beyond the boundaries of time and space, grounded in God’s own self-giving nature.

    Everyone is the intelligible object of parental love, and so of dignity. (I think of the mothers of condemned murderers who still love their children; the dignity of the murderer is connected to this.) In the end, of God’s love grounds our dignity. We are all corrupted from the purity of the newborn baby at some point (sin) – few of us blossom fully. Indeed, in Christian belief, we fall so short of what we were created to be that we cease to be intelligible objects of human love – as a result of sin (or ego-centered fantasy consciousness that dissolves bonds of love and distorts reality), we cannot see ourselves as intelligible objects of a lucid love as we are.  Strange as it seems, we cannot see ourselves as we are unless we imagine ourselves as created and loved by God, who is Love-Goodness-Being-Truth himself (these words being synonyms that reveal different aspects of the same). Thus we cannot see the dignity in others, really. Thus talk of ‘human dignity’ tends to remain abstract. That is why I focus on the purest experience – loving children or other human beings (or whatever) – to help me see what ‘dignity’ amounts to. Our finite minds grasp these profound truths through real, lived experience. Concrete acts of love — patient care, compassionate presence, quiet sacrifice — reveal the unshakable dignity of the other, and in doing so, they reveal something of God. These acts are small reflections of the infinite, echoes of a love that is deeper and more lasting than any human affection, more constant than any earthly value.

    Great art, too, unveils these mysteries. In the brushstrokes of a master, the notes of a symphony, or the lines of a story, we find love portrayed, dignity unveiled. Art becomes a language of truth, conveying the beauty and depth of human existence, the unearned and enduring worth of each person. It invites us to see what is otherwise invisible: the sanctity of a life, the beauty of a soul, the so-called dignity rooted in the love that called it into being.

    I recall being moved by the movie Spartacus (directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Kirk Douglas, Jean Simmons, and Peter Ustinov) as a boy. That scene in the dungeon where Spartacus – in gladiator school – is offered a slave woman to ravage and the owner and trainer look down from below into the cell to enjoy the pornographic spectacle. But Spartacus retains (amazingly) some of his original innocence. In that dungeon, as Spartacus cries out, "I am not an animal," he resists being reduced to something less than human, refusing to accept a view of himself as an object or a mere tool for another’s ends. He ennobles human sexuality. His cry is an affirmation of his intrinsic dignity, a dignity that, although trampled by the structures around him, cannot be erased. The slave woman Varinia’s quiet, “me neither,” echoes this recognition of their shared humanity — a bond that transcends their status, power, or circumstances. Here, dignity is not something created by either Spartacus or the woman; it is simply present, a truth waiting to be recognized and respected. The damn Romans are of course blind to it.

   The artistry of this scene amplifies this revelation of human dignity. The dim, almost claustrophobic lighting contrasts with the boundless freedom inherent in their dignity, which no chain can truly contain. The music swells to evoke empathy, urging us to see the humanity of Spartacus and the other slaves, calling forth emotions of solidarity and sorrow. Kubrick’s use of close-up shots in that scene also places the viewer intimately with Spartacus and the woman, highlighting their expressions of defiance, hope, and recognition. It’s as though the camera invites the audience to participate in their inner realization of self-worth, underscoring that their dignity — though denied by society — is profound, inalienable, and rooted in something deeper than social status.

    This moment in Spartacus pictures true human dignity, pictures how it exists independently of societal recognition and power. By refusing to be reduced to porn stars (animals), Spartacus and Varinia reveal a truth about the human person — that each person has inherent worth, simply by virtue of being human. In this sense, the film provides a glimpse of dignity as an objective reality, unshakable and shared, portrayed vividly through the medium of art. 

    In love, in the depth of our encounters with beauty, we come closest to understanding that dignity is not ours to bestow or to remove. It is a gift, written into the very essence of being. And to contemplate this is to touch upon the eternal — to glimpse a reality in which all things are held together by a love that does not fail, a goodness that does not fade. In this light, to love is to honor what already is, to see each other and all creation as God sees us: infinitely worthy, “good, very good.” All these are pictures, like Spartacus. I think this is all either an illusion or a leak from another realm. They are a response to a reality that eludes our concepts but not our imaginations and our hearts.

. . .

    A philosophy that champions individual autonomy as the creation of one's own value, truth, and reality is radically incommensurable with a worldview in which dignity and value are intrinsic to being itself. In a self-created framework, value becomes fluid, reliant on personal choice and preference, detaching from any enduring essence or objective measure. Such a philosophy severs the individual from a shared reality, transforming dignity from a universally given gift into a subjective assertion, contingent upon personal assertion rather than grounded in a transcendent source. The result is a profound instability, as each person becomes both the source and arbiter of truth and value — an isolated project of self-definition cut off from any inherent connectedness to others. This ultimately leads to a fragmentation of meaning, where truths cannot be shared and value becomes provisional, threatening the very idea of human dignity, which in an objective framework rests on the infinite love and goodness of a Creator who calls all things into being.

. . .

     The Christian understanding of human dignity inverts the original Roman understanding of Dignitas. While Roman dignity was closely tied to social status, honor, and rank — reserved for the nobility — the Christian perspective democratizes dignity, asserting that every human being possesses inherent worth regardless of their social standing, achievements, or personal characteristics. This shift reflects the core Christian belief that all people are created in the image of God, thus endowed with dignity that is universal and unassailable. Christianity teaches that all people have inherent dignity. This dignity comes from being created in the image of God. It is not based on social standing or achievements.

   Nietzsche, the popularizer of the modern conception of autonomy (taking over the principle characteristic not of the real nobility but of the figure of Satan, as depicted by Milton), hated this inversion. He sees it as a form of slave morality. This morality values traits like humility and meekness. Nietzsche prefers master morality, which values strength and creativity. He believes the noble should define their own values i.e. be autonomous. Modern culture reflects these ideas. It promotes individualism and the idea of autonomy. People are encouraged to create their values and truths. This connects to Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch: we are all little Übermenschen (supermen). In other words, narcissists.

    Sartre also shares similar thoughts. He says people exist before they have a purpose. They must create their own meaning. Both thinkers reject moral reality, the reality of people and other beings. They see morality as shaped by individuals. My love for my children is my choice, not a response to their independent reality. I can choose not to love them and no violation of their reality would happen. He emphasizes so-called authenticity and the need to live true to oneself. But not as the person you are but the person your ego-consciousness imagines you to be, wills you to be. [This expresses the form social consciousness takes within a particular mode of life: capitalism-science-technology.]

    Narcissism is a cousin of Nietzschean/Sartrean autonomy, where the ideal of self-creation becomes a self-centered fantasy detached from reality. While Nietzsche champions the idea of the Übermensch, an individual who asserts their will and creates their own values, narcissism focuses on self-gratification and rejecting the most profound truths. Instead of being attuned to reality, the narcissist constructs a false self that craves admiration and validation while disregarding the perspectives and the reality of others. Self-indulgent fantasy ultimately leads to isolation and a shallow existence as opposed to attending to real people and things – and deepening that attending.

    From the perspective of the fantasizing ego, this is the way the world looks. From the perspective of love, the Catholic view is how the world looks. 

    The tragedy of narcissistic autonomy is that it is a defense mechanism, a reaction to the inability to find oneself love-able, to find oneself precious, good, worthy of existence. That is the black hole around which narcissistic fantasy revolves – the bigger the black hole the more powerless to escape. Trump is what happens when the black hole becomes as deep as Hell. (Hitler. Mussolini. Musk. I could go on.) The desperate need to construct a self that others will love – indeed in the extreme case worship – reminds me of the Tin Man (The Wizard of Oz) who wanted a heart: he had it the whole time but needed external validation to believe in it. The autonomous self is turned toward external validation. So it reveals itself as utterly dependent on the perceptions of other narcissistic selves, not autonomous at all. The solution to the problem of narcissism is to attune yourself to reality. We are all, objectively, precious, loved. And if someone says that they reject that reality for a fantasy in which they are worshipped (e.g. as cool), well, we should know who they follow then.

  This is the spiritual crisis of my country. As I say, it has sociological grounds. Autonomy – this false autonomy – is the primary form of social consciousness generated by capitalism-science-technology at this stage of its dominance. Particular ideologies, whether on the Woke or MAGA (or some other) spectrum all reflect this underlying form of social consciousness, this alienation from reality, this blindness to truth. Having your own truth is to be blind to the truth. And if this is the social consciousness generated by the regime capitalism-science-technology (the synergy of all three working as one unholy trinity), then it reveals the essence of that particular regime.  It is all a kind of idolatry. 

p.s. I don't think liberalism as a philosophy is Satanic. It contains some important truths: the individual as the foundation of a political order, limited government, consent of the governed, free flow of ideas, etc. - all good ideas. But what was wrong with liberalism is that it interpreted these ideas in a way to make them compatible with capitalism (e.g. the individual is understood as basically self-interested and rational in that sense i.e. homo economicus). But it is capitalism, not liberalism, that is the essence opposed to human nature.