Samantha Torrence - American culture is in an uproar between warring factions that have very different notions on how to achieve ultimate happiness. One faction is the Christian Right which comes under much scrutiny for being heartless and hard. The Christian Right has defended itself by stating their beliefs come from values such as self-control, self-reliance, personal responsibility, and perseverance. The influence of fundamentalist Christianity on American culture is irrefutable and one of its major contributions to American society is the romanticizing of suffering, sacrifice, and its rewards.Where does the impression come from that suffering builds character and therefore is desirable? Many times Christians point to God as the source of the inspiration so to understand the foundation of valuing stress the Bible must be consulted. When God created Man in the Garden of Eden, humans lived a life with no stress, worry, or care. This type of life is what God had meant for us but as the book of Genesis goes on to explain, man committed sin. The price paid for this transgression was the introduction of stress into the world.
Genesis 3:16- 19
To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
Simply put, for Original Sin, man was condemned to sorrow, pain, toil, and ultimately death. It is accepted in the scientific community that stress is the major factor in illness and ultimately death of the human body. So how did this curse become associated with positive values? Perhaps it was Man’s self-defense mechanism that transferred this transgression into a simple lesson in the value of hard work and reward? The Bible has much to say on the subject of suffering and faith. Many times the stressful trials in the Bible are tests from God to strengthen the faith of an individual. These examples of trials rewarded by the grace and mercy of God seem to be inspirational to many of the Christian Right.
The attempt to find value in stress and suffering has become an almost zealous pursuit in America. Many churches praise those who go through trials and hardship as people oppressed by the evil of Satan for being pious and righteous. Even outside of the church in other aspects of life pain and stress are seen as precursors to achievement, and this perception does have some merit. Take the concept of muscle strength and exercise for example, one must tear muscles and tire the body so it knows to repair and become stronger. Another example is in the financial sector, you must sacrifice time and money into an investment to receive a growing return. On a more basic level, to survive an encounter with danger an animal must experience great stress and overtax its mind and body to escape its stressor. In all of these aspects the hard work and stress put in comes back with rewards. These are examples of eustress or positive stress that can motivate people.
Eustress can be a positive influence but in certain cultures the instances that cause Eustress are looked at as necessary trials for all to overcome. So body builders are not satisfied with just tearing their muscles a little at a time they overdo it and cause injury to their body. Some people over invest and lose greatly with no returns. Animals die because their bodies were too weak to fight off an attacker. In these cases, Eustress becomes Distress. Americans take Eustress and form it into Distress utilizing the same attitude which caused Eve to first sin, the need for complete control.
Faith churches, which are growing faster than almost any other Christian faction, put great distress on people who are already going through hardship by preaching that people with horrible situations simply do not have the faith in God they should and that is why they cannot overcome. This could almost be considered a form of mental abuse which contributes to the cycle of abuse in churches, families, and communities. The Church’s need for control to enforce the value of suffering and protect people from hopelessness has morphed into a need for control to keep a flock in line. The conditioning Christians receive to accept and practically seek stress has become a detriment to a society as they condemn others for not accepting the stress in a willing manner.
A recent example of this seeming lack of compassion for not accepting unnecessary hardship comes with the Right’s attack on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) initiative. OWS has the catch phrase” We are the 99%” referencing the percentage of people who do not control the majority of the wealth. The Right has come back with its own anti-advertisement with the catch phrase “We are the 53%” The stories on the website sponsoring “We are the 53%” reference personal stories of people who claim to have been through horrible trials and hardships and still have many but they persevere and accuse the OWS of not being able to suck it up and take it. Many of the stories could be inspiring by showing how self-reliance, self-control, perseverance, and personal responsibly can help one overcome the mountains before them. They could be examples of how accepting ones situation and meeting the problem head on without relying on the help of others can build personal strength and character which are valuable in the American individualistic society. These stories could be used to inspire and teach people frustrated and down trodden by their lot in life. Truly the people who write them and the people who agree are inspired and have a very positive reaction to the age old saga of overcoming hardships. Those who overcome are inspiring individuals and at the heart of it wonderful people. It is the method of imparting the stories onto others that has made them seem heartless. They make the lesson of overcoming to be a lesson of seeking out hardship and stress rather than what may be the more pointed lesson, that perceiving a hardship in a more positive manner is the surest way to find contentment and to prosper.
Occupy Wall Street is protesting the diminishing quality of life for the 99% around the world who have very little of the world’s wealth under their control. The movement has taken on socialistic undertones as non-affiliated liberal crowds join in the protests. Many liberals who are accused of wanting socialism and communism maintain that they want the world community to come together to provide for one another the very basic necessities of life that can be found on the bottom two tiers of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. These bottom two tiers are said to have to be fulfilled so one can have the opportunity to peruse happiness which is a corner stone of the American culture. Incidentally Maslow agrees and shows that happiness and the ultimate goal of enlightenment cannot be achieved without the first two tiers being met. By eliminating the struggle for basic needs one could eliminate the stress caused from the pursuit and thus promote health and happiness.
So who has it right? And what would God want for his children?
Certainly God wants humans to be self-reliant and accept problems as they come so they can in the end overcome these problems. Existence itself is hypothesized by spiritual philosophers to be a lesson and a test to reach enlightenment. However, one cannot forget that God created man originally in paradise, and designed the human body to function optimally in situations of happiness rather than situations of distress. In the Bible God continually commands the human race to ease the suffering of one another, to perform charity, and to display love. All of his commands on how to treat others and the concept of “You reap what you sow,” are meant to inspire man towards a life of happiness and love rather than hardship and toil. God does not want humans to be ‘stressed out,’ and perhaps it is a time to challenge the ingrained American love for hardship and replace it with a love of happiness. If the Christian Right let go of its value of all things distressing how much could be accomplished towards the goals of God, Jesus, and the great philosophers that have for centuries been trying to teach the simple lessons of the value of love.