434 becoming more human by becoming more godlikeTh e confusion of an intangible and vital empowerment with the
prizes of the world remains, however, a permanent danger in the inter-
pretation and enactment of any such view, threatening to corrupt it.
Th e safeguards against this corruption are both po liti cal and imagi-
native: the po liti cal and economic institutions that engage us— all of
us— in the revision of the regime of society; the dissemination of a way
of teaching and learning that gives access to alien experience and the
tools with which to engage it; and the infl uence in the public culture of
democracy of an idea about who we are acknowledging the condition
of situated and embodied spirit.
A third objection to the view of the conduct of life, proposed under
the aegis of the struggle against mummifi cation, is no mere misunder-
standing. It presents the major diffi culty in this approach to the pursuit
of our overriding good: the relation of greatness to love, of transcen-
dence to connection.
Th e requirements of the struggle against mummifi cation and muti-
lation fail to defi ne a comprehensive ideal for the conduct of life. Th ey
are incomplete in at least one crucial respect: they speak to our great-
ness, or to the increase of our share in some of the attributes of divinity.
Th ey do so without addressing our relations to one another. Th e task is
to view our connections with others in a way that does not begin and
end in the theoretical altruism of the moral phi los o phers and does jus-
tice to the possibilities and the dangers of life in society. As we set out
to perform this task, we come to recognize that the move toward recon-
ciliation with others, through love, diff erence- based community, and
the higher forms of cooperation, forms part of our ascent. An intracta-
ble tension nevertheless persists between the aim of greatness and the
goal of reconciliation.
Consider the sources of the problem in the enabling conditions of
self- assertion, as they are represented in the twin orthodoxies about
spirit and structure, as well about self and others, that represent part of
the enduring legacy of the struggle with the world.
To become a self and to enter more fully into the possession of life,
each of us must fi nd a way of living in the world that honors the truth
about spirit and structure. He must engage in par tic u lar social and
conceptual orders and acknowledge that they shape him. He must also,
however, recognize that there is more in him than there is in them: a