MAN AND VALUES
A personalist Anthropology
Cormac Burke
Personal and interpersonal fulfillment
The first part of our study has spoken in general of appreciation of values and of response to
them, as main determining factors in the human fulfillment of each one. If our discourse tended to be
somewhat abstract, it must now become more particular, for it is to values as they are presented (or
can be discovered) in the concreteness of life that we need to respond. And life in the concrete is
never more humanizing or dehumanizing than in its interpersonal aspects, that is, in the various ways
in which we relate to others.
This would no doubt be questioned by the extreme individualist for whom self-sufficiency is
the norm and goal of fulfillment. In the individualistic view, other people, like the rest of the
surrounding world, are simply raw material to be instrumentalized for a person's own self-centered
development. But is the totally self-sufficient person capable of true human fulfillment or real
happiness?
Is it possible to achieve happiness without any commitment to or appreciation of others? It
would seem not, at least if we accept that there can be no genuine happiness without love; for love
requires the existence of others. Thus, Julián Marías holds that happiness "finds its principal source in
other persons ... personal being is intrinsically pluripersonal. Unamuno was one of the first thinkers to
give clear expression to this concept: 'An isolated person would no longer be a person: for whom
would he love?'"1. Most people are made unhappy by isolation or loneliness (which is why solitary
confinement is generally regarded as an intensified form of punishment)2.
We have a radical need of others, not only to love or to be loved by them, but to learn from
them. We are put to a particular test by values - accepting or rejecting them - when we meet them
present in others, by whom they are both incarnated and personalized. "Incarnated" values: with the
advantage of the concrete form this takes, and with the limitations that any particular human
presentation of a value inevitably offers.
1
La Felicità Umana: un impossibile necessario, p. 302.
2
Jean-Paul Sartre pushed the contrary thesis to the limit, seeing the presence
of others and the futile endeavor to "communicate" with them as the essence of
unhappiness and frustration. Hence his well-known phrase, "L'enfer, c'est les
autres": "hell is other people" (Huis Clos, Sc. 5). The person who sees others so
- unable to stand them, finding nothing good in them, nothing to appreciate or to
rejoice at - indeed lives in a sort of hell.
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Responding to values in other people
In chapter three, we referred to the question of the adequate response to values, noticing that
to know how to respond properly to each individual value is proof of criterion, maturity, and depth.
We also noted the phenomenon of a frankly reduced or negative response to great and evident values
even, and at times specially, in the case of a person well placed to appreciate all the wealth of that
value. The phenomenon is curiously interesting and important enough to examine further.
Let us consider a work of art or a piece of music, with such clear and tangible beauty that it
would seem impossible not to feel moved and elevated on seeing or hearing it. Nevertheless, in such a
situation we at times meet intelligent and cultivated people with the tendency not to acknowledge the
value: underestimating or ignoring it, and perhaps even completely rejecting it. We can go farther in
these reflections.
First we note that such phenomena - of reduced or frankly negative responses to great and
evident values - rarely occur when a work of Nature is involved. We find everyone more or less in
agreement about the beauty not only of Niagara Falls, but also of an autumn landscape or of a flower
as simple as a violet3. This leads to a point which seems valid and worth noticing: the element of
partialness or imperfection almost inevitably present in every concrete value seldom gives rise to
difficulty in its appreciation - except when the value itself has to be credited to a person.
Let us join the group of tourists enraptured before Niagara Falls. Curiously enough, the
judgment about Niagara could become an object of controversy if someone looking at the falls were
to remark: how beautiful are the works of God; praised be the Lord! To so trace Nature back to God
can certainly be annoying to the professed atheist, but that is not the point which interests us here.
Atheism apart, it is peculiar to find that the attribution of a work to a person seems to act as a factor
modifying the judgment passed on the work itself, at times provoking an uncalled-for negative
reaction.
This is odder still if we consider that a great part of man's dignity consists precisely in his
capacity not only to shape values in works of his intelligence or his hands, so (as we have seen)
incarnating them, but also to personalize them, so that they come alive according to his own peculiar
way of being. This human capacity to embody and personalize values creates the climate and basis for
interpersonal, social and cultural life. When a person finds in another some value "incarnated" with
particular effectiveness, a favorable situation for dialogue is produced. If a person has the capacity to
A quibbler might object: but a violet cannot compare with a rose; a rose is
much more beautiful. Agreed: but the contrast does not take from the fact that
both are beautiful! Would we be richer if we only had roses?
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appreciate values in others (and if no other factor exists that can or should prevent a response), this
fosters a situation of intellectual and spiritual participation or communion which easily becomes a
communion of wills; thus mutual appreciation, friendship, solidarity, or love are born4.
The logical reaction before any value, either in a work or in a person, should be one of
admiration. As we are seeing, however, it is not infrequently easier for us to admire a value when we
can prescind from the person. It often happens that, although rather easily satisfied at the great or
small beauties of nature, we adopt a more severe and demanding judgment when the activities of
people are concerned (an artistic work, a professional success, an athletic triumph, etc.); and it even
seems that our judgment becomes more critical precisely because it is the action of another person
that is in question. When admiration involves a tribute to a person, envy seems to enter, threatening to
upset the judgment.
In the same line of curious things, and as a phenomenon not difficult to verify, a critical
reaction is likely to be more intense if the person is living rather than dead, if he or she belongs to our
own generation rather than to one past; and more so still if he or she is an acquaintance, someone we
know personally, rather than a stranger.
Envy or admiration
Envy is connected with admiration. In fact, it seems unlikely that someone not capable of envy
would be capable of admiration. There is a positive envy which, properly channelled, can be a
stimulant to a person's development. And there is a negative envy which rather marks the
degeneration of admiration, and shuts a person within his own limits. Envy accompanied by
admiration can provoke emulation, i. e. the desire to acquire some good quality possessed by another
or to measure up to his actions. It opens new horizons of personal challenge and becomes a source of
purpose and joy, as long as the person is prepared to rise to the challenge and seek that higher level of
competence or performance.
When we admire someone for a quality, the quality attracts us to the person; our mind is
centered on both the quality and the person. When we (negatively) envy someone for a quality, the
quality is appreciated but not the person; the quality serves rather to separate us from him. Overconcerned at our own lack, we are tempted to reject or dislike the person, as if his possession of the
quality drew attention to our deficiency. Sensing that we cannot be better than we are, we would be
4
Karol Wojtyla writes: "The distinctive characteristic of the personalistic
approach is the conviction that to be a person means to be capable of
participation" (The Acting Person, p. 275); "I conceive participation in The
Acting Person as a positive relation to the humanity of others ..." (Person and
Community: Selected Essays, p. 237).
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happier if he was not as good as he is; happier to live in a poorer world so that we could feel less
humbled.
Envy without admiration can stifle emulation and paralyze personal growth. It is a mean
disposition which finds a cause of sadness in the talents of others and would happily be convinced
that they are not so talented, so as to be able to rest in self-satisfaction without challenge or
disturbance. There should be little difficulty - so one feels - in extending (even in increased measure)
the appreciation, surprise, or enthusiasm provoked by a work of value to the person responsible for
the work; a reaction that, as we have mentioned, can begin or strengthen a well-grounded
interpersonal relationship and perhaps a close friendship. "I want to know not just the work of art but
also the artist; so as to offer my congratulations". However it is not always so; the personalized aspect
of the value, instead of generating an enthusiastic rapprochement of people, can provoke disturbance,
separation, and distance.
Of course, this negative reaction does not always take place. Yet it happens so frequently as to
suggest a certain law of appreciation: "To admire, without paying attention to the artist or creator, is
not difficult; but to recognize a creator often poses a challenge". The difficulty in responding to a
value when this involves the acknowledgment of a creator or author is indeed curious. Why should
the presence of the artist produce a negative effect? His presence seems even to lessen the
appreciation to be made, and so is a disturbing factor that upsets the discernment of the value itself5.
Why? Is it that we all would like to be unique as creators? Whatever the reason, the fact is when the
"I" finds itself faced with a "you", admiration - even when it is fully merited - is not always easily
given. The positive and enriching reaction of admiration does not always prove stronger than the
negative and impoverishing reaction of envy.
To judge others is dangerous, though at times necessary. When it is necessary, then one must
judge humbly, with the conviction that there is much in each one that escapes my personal and limited
appreciation. One must judge positively, seeking to learn without dwelling unnecessarily on what
seems negative. One must judge actions and not intentions, for we can seldom grasp intentions. An
action may be good, although the intention is bad; an action may be bad, despite a good intention.
And one must judge with discernment, distinguishing in my contact with another what is good for him
and/or for me, from what may be bad for him, or for me.
Appreciating others
On the level of intellectual discourse, perhaps we can perceive something of
this in Pascal's remark: "One is normally more convinced by arguments one has
thought out for oneself, than by those coming from the minds of other people".
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4
We would all like to be unique, and to be appreciated and admired by others for our
uniqueness. But if we are not capable of admiring the uniqueness of others, such an aspiration is not
reasonable. It is not by striving to be unique that we will be unique, it is by striving to be ourselves.
And - revealing paradox - it is by striving to appreciate the uniqueness of others and forgetting
ourselves, that we realize our own unique potential and become ourselves.
To be capable of appreciating our own talents and experiences but not those of others, reveals
a narcissistic trait that has an immensely reducing effect on life. "To be able to enjoy life in a process
involving a growing identification with other people's happiness and achievements is tragically
beyond the capacity of narcissistic personalities"6.
In any case, if the only good things I am able to rejoice in are those I can credit to myself, it
should be obvious that the number of good things I'll meet in life is going to be woefully reduced.
So, to achieve greater self-esteem - to esteem oneself more - is dubious evidence of real
personal development. To be esteemed more by others might seem to offer greater confirmation, but
remains ambiguous. To grow in esteem for others is the more genuine test.
There have been in the course of history, and there are today, people of quite extraordinary
human calibre, with rare gifts of mind and heart, of understanding and openness, of courage and
nobility, inspired by the highest ideals and living up to them through their lives. Among those who
have known such exceptional personalities, probably not all possessed the capacity to recognize their
calibre fully, and fewer still the receptive openness to draw full enrichment from the
acquaintanceship.
To come to know and to be able to benefit from one single person in whom practically all
human qualities are embodied, remains an unlikely eventuality for most of us. The challenge is rather
to discover and appreciate the whole range of human qualities and values, as they are spread out in
partial embodiments in the many different people we do meet.
It is therefore a serious limitation if a person is so unresponsive, so closed on self, as not to be
able to appreciate and be enriched by a value not only in nature or in art, but particularly in the people
around him. It is a limitation of a different order if a person is in fact capable of appreciating a value,
but refuses to do so because he would then be led on to the acknowledgment of the special merit or
power of someone else, the artist or creator behind it. How many people live next to inspiration and
yet are not inspired!
Christopher Lasch: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of
Diminishing Expectations, p. 41.
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Therefore the contemplation-acceptance of "ideal" values, of values "in the abstract", is not
sufficient in order to develop as a person. We could withdraw into a life of pure contemplation of
Being; but it is not the normal or adequate way for the majority. Man is not only spirit - mind and will
- ; he is also body. It is not, we repeat, in a world of abstractions that we develop our life, but rather in
the concrete world of animate and inanimate objects and beings. Exceptional values, present in a very
pure form, exist in some of these, and to discover or respond to them should not be difficult. In others,
values are diminished or hidden; and nevertheless it is important to learn to discover and appreciate
them. In others still values are disfigured or perverted. In this case there is special need for a reaction
of deep discernment, so as to reach the healthy nucleus which is probably still there, a prior stage for
any possible attempt at redeeming or rehabilitating the value itself and the person who exhibits it, both
of which are in a process of dissolution.
The discovery of values - openness and receptivity toward them - takes place in the
surrounding world: values in material things, in (good or bad) events, in art, and especially in
interpersonal relations with other people7. To a large extent, it is a capacity of admiration for others
which most makes a person develop. There is a real potential for development in the person who feels
"small" beside someone "great", but does so without jealousy or a sense of frustration or self-pity,
being rather inspired to grow himself. There is truth in the statement that "no sadder proof can be
given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men"8. Admiration offers a way of escape
from that dungeon of self-induced conceit which we all tend to build for ourselves, and from which
moments of truer self-awareness make us turn in abhorrence. "No one can live without admiration. A
spirit dwells within us that feels horror at ourselves"9.
This of course lies in direct contradiction with the central tenet of modern popular psychology,
a tenet that is gospel to the "I-generation": self-realization means self-contentment. Self-esteem or
self-confidence may have a legitimate basis; but that does not take from the fact that they are
characteristics which easily lead people astray in both judgment and action. The importance
psychologists attach to them may indeed encourage the shortcut to "maturity" parodied in one of
Virginia Woolf's works: the quickest way to acquire "the invaluable quality of self-confidence" is to
think that "other people are inferior to oneself"10. In the Forsyte Saga series, John Galsworthy only
slightly attenuates this cynicism as his "modern young things" express their contempt for Victorian
The process intensifies in regard to the daily actions of people around us:
employees, superiors, rivals. Very often, the closer the relationship, the more
critical the reactions. Moreover, the positive appreciation of what is good
seldom keeps abreast of a negative reaction to what is, or seems to us to be,
defective.
7
8
Thomas Carlyle: On Heroes and Hero Worship.
9
Paul Claudel: Le Soulier de Satin, I, Sc. 7.
10
A Room of One's Own, ch. 2.
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class snobbery: "No one nowadays takes anyone else as better than themselves"11. Is it not the eternal
return of what T. S. Eliot describes12: "people who want to feel important ... Absorbed in the endless
struggle to think well of themselves"?13
Without the capacity for admiration of others in their worth or merit there can be no real
personal growth and little true social bonding. Yet one not infrequently comes across calls for a "new
consciousness" that "rejects the whole concept of excellence and comparative merit ... [It] refuses to
evaluate people by general standards, it refuses to classify people, or analyze them. Each person has
his own individuality, not to be compared to that of anyone else. Someone may be a brilliant thinker,
but he is not "better" at thinking than anyone else, he simply possesses his own excellence. A person
who thinks very poorly is still excellent in his own way. Therefore people are in no hurry to find out
another person's background, schools, achievements, as a means of knowing him; they regard all of
that as secondary, preferring to know him unadorned. Because there are no governing standards, no
one is rejected. Everyone is entitled to pride in himself, and no one should act in a way that is servile,
or feel inferior, or allow himself to be treated as if he were inferior"14.
Is individual "pride in self" which is not based on some objective worth likely to make a
person more "accepted" by others? Should I never feel or admit that someone else is "superior" to me
in this or that quality? Does the acknowledgment of another's superiority necessarily prove that I have
a "servile" outlook, or could it not show that I am enthused at discovering someone to admire and find
myself personally motivated by having a higher model to emulate?15
We hold by the point made in the last chapter: unqualified self-esteem - the happy selfcontentment of the modern age - paralyzes personal growth. Moreover it is an attitude which may
indeed impede conscious admiration of others, but can seldom stave off eventual self-disgust.
11
The Silver Spoon, Part III, ch. 10.
12
The Cocktail Party. Act 2.
The power struggle of politics is especially intense. Perhaps that is why
vindictiveness seems so strong at times among politicians. Along with Thomas
More, Abraham Lincoln is a notable exception: cf. William L. Miller: Lincoln's
Virtues: an Ethical Biography, pp. 406-426.
13
14
The Greening of America, p. 243.
Individualism does not take kindly to the notion of having or needing a
"model" to emulate. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, in an article on "Selfanalysis" [in art], thus describes the canons proposed by the 19th-century
Romantics: "Forget the 'model', for there is no such thing; avoid conformity;
discover your true self, the buried child; be authentic and sincere". Since then,
it notes, there has been no lessening of the tendency to seek our "originality"
from within, and adds a comment worth pondering: "Introspection naturally implies
an inner life worth looking into".
15
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For each one's genuine development, therefore, a response to impersonal values is not enough.
It is necessary (and indeed critical and definitive) to recognize, discover, and respond to personalized
values, also as they are found in others. Indeed, the very fact that values connected with people are so
often more difficult to recognize or admire than those which prescind from people, suggests that the
acknowledgment of person-related values indicates or induces greater self-realization.
Let us look further into these peculiar difficulties which tend to appear whenever the response
to values is placed in an interpersonal context.
Learning from imperfect persons
Perfect people do not exist. I am an imperfect person, and I am surrounded by imperfect
people. Each of us finds it hard not to play down our personal imperfections and limitations, and just
as hard not to exaggerate the imperfections of others. Yet people will manage to get along only if they
establish their relations on objectivity and truth. Indeed, it seems no exaggeration to say that the
greatest obstacle to harmonious social or interpersonal life - and to each one's personal enrichment
through social life - is a critical spirit which is over-ready to recognize the defects of others and to
remain closed to the values they possess (even, I repeat, if these values are present in a defective
form). This interpersonal relationship - with other people endowed with values but also with
limitations or defects - is necessary so that social communion can lead to the person's development,
openness, and fulfillment. And in this process an effort of discernment or understanding is necessary;
as is a struggle against the self-centeredness of envy, ultimately rooted in pride.
We said earlier that man cannot grow and come to be truly great except in the conscious
presence of what is greater than him. Hence the difficulty in growing humanly which is experienced
by a person whose attitude is that he will not admire anything, or - worse - will not admire anybody.
Such "self-protective" jealousy blocks growth and diminishes the person.
There is a view among economists that "wars and economic depressions or recessions have
historically resulted in increases in protectionism, while peace and prosperity have tended to
encourage free trade"16. Be this as it may, social and personal peace are certainly favored by free trade
in values, something which naturally develops when the protective barriers of jealousy are lowered.
This is not a matter for governments, but for the free response of individuals. Each one who makes
this response raises the standards of civilized living.
The possibility that the enrichment we can receive from others may be nullified by a pathetic
envy points of course to what is the ultimate hindrance to personal development: the pride of wanting
16
Encyclopaedia Britannica: under "Protectionism".
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to be not just a unique self, an unrepeatable self, but a higher self: the absolute Number One17. It is the
pride of not being prepared to rise to values, to be enriched by them and appropriate them at their
level, but wanting to situate ourselves "above" them, by considering them "below" or "beneath" us.
If jealous envy is let grow, it develops into hatred; and while hatred may seldom go so far as to
actually kill the other, it will only cease with his death18. Jealousy at the higher way another person
incarnates a value reflects an implicit desire to be rid of the other whose existence, as a constant
reminder of my deficiency, is an irritant and a source of unhappiness to me. Even if I possess that
value in part, the discovery that someone else possesses it more fully can make my own possession or
expression of the value seem hollow in the presence of his or hers, and destroy the satisfaction I
hitherto drew from it.
Peculiarly, nothing would be solved even if the other disappeared from the scene, for once I
have met him, it is already too late. The experience has driven home my limits and dispelled my
illusions about my own value. Even the elimination of the other would not make me grow, nor raise
me one inch towards the new level of possibilities he has opened up to me but which remain beyond
my reach. The negative reaction towards the other, as if he had in some way offended me by his
possession of the value, is in effect a rejection of the very value he expresses19.
To want to give without receiving is generally a sign of lack of self-knowledge and perhaps of
self-deception, both rooted in pride. For we need others. We need to give to them and to receive what
they have to give: to give to them disinterestedly and to receive from them gratefully. Some persons
constantly seek the esteem and admiration of others: a sad vanity which creates an artificial
dependence and limits true interior growth. At the opposite extreme, some cultivate an absolute
indifference towards others; neither wanting their esteem nor esteeming them, as if either disposition
showed an immature personality. Nevertheless, we all stand in need in relation to others, though
perhaps this should be considered from a different angle. It may not matter if one enjoys little or no
popular esteem, for one can be a mature and fulfilled person without being liked by others. But one
cannot achieve any true human fullness without liking them; i.e. without the capacity to appreciate the
values they embody, however imperfectly.
17
In pathological terms this is classified by the American Psychiatric
Association as "Narcissistic Personality Disorder". Narcissistic persons, it
notes, "are preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance
... and with chronic feelings of envy for those whom they perceive as being more
successful than they are" (DSM-III-R, p. 350).
18
Self-centeredness and ambition combine here. The more self-centered ambition
is, the more calculating and meaner it becomes. If one cannot beat one's rivals,
the temptation is to see how to incapacitate or eliminate them.
19
cf. J. de Finance: L'Affrontement de l'autre, p. 164.
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There are very few people in life from whom we have nothing to learn. Pride often makes us
look down on someone who appears inferior to our superficial eyes, yet carries inside a value, a point
of knowledge or experience, that would enrich us if only we were prepared to receive it. In short, it is
necessary to open one's channels of communication, to learn to appreciate, to admire, to listen; to
learn to converse.
Children at school are often too lazy, but seldom too proud, to learn. They naturally look up to
their teacher, and have no trouble in realizing that he or she has much to teach them. No doubt the
same can be said of university students, always allowing for the presence in them of a more developed
critical capacity.
It can be very different with people who are in what should be the full maturity of life. So
often there is a resistance to learning from our equals (and even more so from those we perhaps
consider our inferiors) which would seem to have nothing to do with true critical discernment. We
admire - or envy - the tennis technique of a colleague. But instead of asking him or her for tips about
how to acquire the same technique, we prefer going to a coach or to a teach-yourself manual. Life
offers a lot for the asking; but not to those who are too proud or complicated to ask.
Our grasp of values is enriched through our contact with others. We appreciate a work of art,
we discuss it with another, and perhaps we discover in his appreciation aspects which ours had
missed; and vice versa20.
To "respond" to a value in the work or life of another is to communicate with that other. This
"communion in values" unites people over the ages. We can see it, for instance, in how enthusiasts of
a particular composer or a musical group feel at one in a concert. Why, then, must I see others as rival
possessors, and not as "co-communicators", of values?
It is important therefore to recognize and resist the over-critical attitude we so easily adopt
towards others and which in the end isolates us. There is a whole social trend today not to believe in
others, to regard them in a negative light, without finding any real aspect of value in them. This lack
of positive appreciation produces increasing unhappiness. As La Rochefoucauld remarked, "A person
whom nobody pleases is much more unhappy than one who pleases nobody"21. It is difficult for such a
person not to become "a gossip", that is, a social propagator of small-mindedness.
Some film actors, it is said, spend their old age viewing their great films
of times past; but are no longer capable of admiring good acting - better acting
- in someone else. If so, it is a sterile feeding off what they have been. Their
vanity may be thereby sustained or grow; they will not grow.
20
"Un homme à qui personne ne plaît est bien plus malheureux que celui qui ne
plaît à personne": Maximes.
21
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Interpersonality thus begins to appear as an essential factor in human development. Society
must be built on some sense of common values which are necessary to sustain people in the efforts to
live and work together, and to appreciate and learn from each other. Without these efforts there will
be neither cohesion to society nor growth in individuals. Few people can develop adequately in a life
of isolation. Social living, with its interactions and challenges, is the normal setting for personal
growth.
In a brief study it is not possible to consider all of the areas of interpersonal and social
relationships, or to do more than touch on the main issues they involve. In the next chapter we will
briefly consider some major topics connected with social life: education, work, politics, justice and
law, the common good, human rights. Sexuality, marriage, and the family play such an important role
in the relationship between people that separate chapters are devoted to them.
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