Suffer the small stuff

Buzzfeed pointed me to a funny list of “27 Middle Class Problems.”  While I can’t help but laugh at some yuppie’s dilemma it does pain me a bit to think that my conception of suffering isn’t too far off. I frequently complain that earbuds really do hurt my disproportionately small ears, and this should be of concern to my wife, my colleagues, my cat, and Apple, who, to their credit, released  canal-conforming earbuds with the iPhone 5.

But seriously, we Western moderns hate suffering. We’re unwilling or unable to embrace suffering as a part of the human experience. Especially for Christians this is a serious problem. How can we take part in the Paschal mystery–the sacred rite of suffering and dying to oneself, physically and metaphysically– that prepares us for resurrection to the afterlife if we don’t know what it means to suffer?

In our increasingly secular society, Christians and non-Christians alike are more likely to be consumed by temporal existence. If our bodies are our end, then suffering and ultimately death is surely the greatest evil (see Hobbes). If suffering is the greatest evil then anything that eases suffering–and if possible, death– is the greatest good; or, at least, the greatest possible good. And so comfortable self-preservation has become our summum bonum by virtue of avoiding some perceived summum malum. 

Being modern and worldly, our remedy is found in medication and pharmaceutical technology rather than in salvation. This means we’re more than willing to cede our bodies to those who promise longevity at the expense of our dignity. You can see this attitude played out in our current health insurance debates: if the common good is defined solely as the diminishing or elimination of suffering, then it’s not hard to conclude that one of the government’s first duties is to provide our health care.

And we’re now so good at diminishing suffering that all we have to complain about are #firstworldproblems.

Yet, suffering is part of the human experience, and it’s dangerous to pretend otherwise. Russell Kirk says:

[The conservative] has no intention of converting this human society of ours into an efficient machine for efficient machine-operators, dominated by master mechanics. Men are put into this world, he realizes, to struggle, to suffer, to contend against the evil that is in their neighbors and in themselves, and to aspire toward the triumph of Love. They are put into this world to live like men, and to die like men. He seeks to preserve a society which allows men to attain manhood, rather than keeping them within bonds of perpetual childhood. With Dante, he looks upward from this place of slime, this world of gorgons and chimeras, toward the light which gives Love to this poor earth and all the stars. And, with Burke, he knows that “they will never love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.

Viewed through this lens our modern complaints are those of children, not of men.

I could hardly argue that suffering through famine, plague, and illness is good in itself, and that I long for a return to harder days of constant struggle, rampant illness, high infant mortality rates, and early death. Clearly these things are evil in themselves, and in our technological age, these tragedies and hardships are thankfully remedied. Shouldn’t I be happy that my greatest worry is the brightness of the back light on my iPad? Yes, I should.  But Romans does tell us that “[We] glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

The question then becomes, can we still suffer, not from the Black Plague, but from experiences that build character?  I think we can. Millions of Christians during Lent make an intentional decision to suffer through self-denial to remind ourselves of the passion of Jesus Christ and, more directly, to refocus the aim and purpose of our lives. Maybe by embracing the little sufferings that come with self-denial we can rediscover our humanity and remember that eternal life comes not in this world, but the next.

Again, quoting Kirk:

The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.

So for the sake of our souls, let’s try to suck it up a little bit, remind ourselves that suffering can be good, and, as my father always says  “keep our eyes on the Holy Land.”

If you want to read more on the topics of suffering, Power, and the problems of modernity pick up these titles:

St. Augustine, Confessions

Phillip Rieff, Triumph of the Therapeutic 

Romano Guardini, End of the Modern World

Peter Lawler, Modern and American Dignity

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Grand Inquisitor

[UPDATE] Another reading suggestion! Leon Kass, Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity