nuns there, a collection of lay workers in Africa or Asia: there are
still magnifi cent exemplars of the teachings of Jesus throughout the
world. But in our culture of the Self, religion is often merely a Sunday
aff air, or a way of life that affi rms the rule of the Father and his list
of stiff prohibitions. Often when people say the name Jesus, what
they mean is God the Father, God the commanding patriarch. But
Jesus brought something new into the Western world, though it was
already old in the East: the gospel of mercy.
The wager of the Gospels is that compassion can make life worth
living. Perhaps this is so, perhaps not. Maybe Nietz sche is right
when he says that Christian values invert heroic values and leave us
all weaker, prizing sickness of body and spirit when we once prized
strength and health. Freud says, pragmatically, that he could not
imagine loving everyone equally because most people simply do not
deserve his love. He adds the Darwinian point that the basic atti-
tude of one human to another is competitive hostility. But Freud and
Nietz sche, geniuses though they were, may be wrong. Compassion
may be an ultimate standard, a time- transcending ideal. Each gen-
eration of men and women ought to have the chance to review the
evidence: they ought to be able to decide for themselves.
Courage, compassion, and serious thought: these are the great
ideals of the ancient world. And though their lights are dimming in
the pragmatic, Self- seeking West, there is still time to revive them,
to examine them, and, if one is so moved, to bring them to one’s own
life. These ideals are available to almost all of us. Though their fi rst
exemplars tend to be male, the ideals are there for men and for
women alike. (What could feminism be if not the strug gle to give
women and men both fair access to the best chances that existence
off ers to us?) The ideals are there for members of all races and for
every class. The warrior needs strength, yes; the thinker needs the
chance to develop intellect, certainly. These facts may eliminate cer-
tain individuals, though not as many as one might imagine. But the
The Triumph of Self 9