Catholic Collective Ego

By Leo Gura - August 25, 2018

Here’s a really good example of how collective ego works:

Notice how your own organization (whichever groups you’re a part of) operates under the same basic dynamics. What people misunderstand is that the content of the group’s beliefs is largely irrelevant. This is not a Catholic problem, this is a collective ego problem. Collective ego is a meta-structure. Its primary concern is self-preservation, regardless of what “the self” happens to be. It could be a religious self, a political self, a scientific self, a rational self, a gender self, a social justice self, an environmentalist self, etc. The Catholic Church, as a living, evolving organism — like every organism — is in a constant battle to keep itself alive. Because of this it tends to be blind to its own “ecological footprint” — AKA, selfishness.

The root solution to problems like this is genuine transcendence of ego — by increasing consciousness. Consciousness needs to be increased both at the individual level and at the collective level. But the catch-22 is, the ego does not want to increase consciousness because that means the death of the ego. And hence we have this perpetual battle between “good” and “evil”, selfless vs selfish. You can’t be completely selfless, or you will die. And you can’t be completely selfish, or you will also die. The trick is striking the right balance, which complex organisms like humans and corporations and churches find very challenging to do.

Most organisms error on the side of selfishness because it is safer and easier. This is reinforced with fear and craving. The fear and craving which rules the Catholic Church also rules you. Which is fundamentally why you are so selfish.

It would take enormous courage for the Catholic Church to say: “From now on, full transparency”. That would be the equivalent of you showing up to school or work naked. It’s the last thing you want to do.

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