DOCUMENT The “I”, power, and works

What the “I” Has to Do with Works
The “Estates General” of the Company of Works are workshops for the leaders of the association at the national and local levels. They are held four times a year and are occasions for illustrating and debating the operative guidelines of the Company of Works, to judge the current situation so as to help each other in responsibilities at personal and social levels. With the meeting held on December 10, 2004, as well as the working session, a session of formation was included, consisting of a lecture and an assembly on the lecture. The lecture was given by Julián Carrón on the term “I,” based on Fr Giussani’s book that is a collection of the author’s addresses to the Company of Works: The “I,” Power and Works.

by Julián Carrón

What has the “I” got to do with a meeting of the Company of Works? It takes an “I” to set up an enterprise. To say this seems rather trite, but it is more than ever evident that there were times when this was taken for granted, so much so that no one posed the question of how to generate the “I.” We were convinced that, in the stream of tradition we were born into, the “I” emerges naturally–that is to say, the society in which we lived is able to educate people, to bring them to maturity, with a sense of responsibility before life’s challenges. Today, we see that this is no longer the case, and we are reminded of it almost every day. We see it everywhere, in the schools, in our families, in the workplace. And all this cannot fail to have an effect on people’s commitment to work, on their initiative, and on their creativity; in other words, in the way the “I” moves in reality, in accepting the challenges that reality places before us.

We are not always aware of this situation and we often make the mistake of taking for granted that the subject that is to set up an enterprise actually exists. But this subject is so fragmented, so debilitated, that it is more and more difficult to find this human energy that constitutes it actually at work. It is hard to find an “I” that will take the risk of setting up an enterprise. In order to set up an enterprise, to take a risk in reality, it takes an energy and a capacity that is not always to be found. It is as if there was not an “I” with the power to generate to the point of an enterprise. So, the future that awaits us will belong to those who are able to generate the “I.”

Awakening the “I”
What we have said can be seen today above all at school. What is clear in my work is that teaching is not enough. Teaching is not able to generate an “I” in all its fullness, it cannot set the whole of the “I” in motion. As headmaster of a school, years ago, I came across teachers who were very, very competent, ready to teach and to transmit all their knowledge to the children, but there were no children who wanted to receive that knowledge. The meeting between someone who has knowledge to impart and someone who has no will to learn can clearly lead to nothing. It is more and more clear that a teacher has to arouse the student’s “I” in order to get him interested in the knowledge he wants to transmit. Unless there is someone able to arouse all his interest, the student will not be ready to listen at all. At times, we try to solve the problem by resorting to study techniques. Some time ago, someone came to me proposing study techniques for the students. One minute was enough. I said, “Look, Miss, my problem with the students is that they don’t want to study. Do you think that the study techniques you want to sell me can answer this problem?” “I’m afraid not.” “So when you find an answer to this problem, then I will be interested in your study techniques.” If a student wants to study, the teacher usually has the knowledge and the study technique to carry him along. The problem is how to arouse an “I” that is capable of interest in all that the other wants him to learn, and that he needs to learn. We tend to know everything, but we are less and less able truly to generate the person’s “I.” In order to generate the “I,” it is not enough to give partial answers, even though they may be interesting, like some bit of mathematical or literary knowledge, and so on. It takes real generation, paternity, a father who truly generates an “I,” a father capable of setting the “I” in motion with all its expressiveness.

Impact with reality
How is the “I” generated? First, we have to understand what the “I” is. We have heard it said many times that the “I” is a need for happiness, a need for wholeness. So the “I” is generated only when this need is aroused. If this need for wholeness of reason, of freedom and of affection is not aroused, there is no “I” capable of being interested in everything and therefore ready to be interested in and to learn all the rest. But the event of the “I” is possible only if there is something that enters into relationship with it, arousing its intimate nucleus, its need for wholeness, for happiness, for truth, etc. So how can we arouse this need for wholeness? It is aroused in the student, as in all of us, in the impact with reality. I once took my students to a planetarium. I happened to have a lesson with them after the visit, and I asked them, “What struck you most in what you saw?” They had a whole series of questions, not about the number of the stars or the number of galaxies, etc, but questions relating to the whole, like: Who made all this? Are we the ones controlling it? Where does it all come from? They were questions about the whole of what they had seen, what had set all the needs of their reason in motion. It is here that we see what reason is, and what a need for wholeness the very nature of reason is.

Moving evidence
It is reality that arouses all this curiosity and, in arousing it, arouses the “I” as a whole, in all its fullness. We always say that this arousing of the “I” in the impact with reality is able to arouse that loving awareness in which knowledge of reality (and therefore of the “I”) consists. Where can all the factors of this mystery of the “I”’s relationship with reality be found? As I read The Self Awareness of the Cosmos, I came across a phrase of Fr Giussani that sums up all this that he has always told us: “An evidence that moves us. Two extremely powerful things: without the evidence we would not be moved.” Without something real, something evident, the “I” would not be struck, would not be moved, but “unless one is moved there is no evidence” (p 277). This event of an evidence that moves us, where reality and the “I” are united, this event of the “I” in relationship with reality, that arouses all reason’s needs, that sets everything in motion, this is truly where everything begins. To understand this you only need to see a child with a toy. Here you see the whole trajectory of what arouses his curiosity, the same thing that aroused Newton’s interest in the apple falling–the same!

The problem is that this need for wholeness is no longer aroused, and people try to transmit partial bits of knowledge, which fail to arouse interest, because they have nothing to do with that need. If the student doesn’t see the relationship, the link, between a partial knowledge and his “I”’s need for wholeness, he can have no interest in it. To speak of this need for wholeness is not therefore an abstraction, because without this there is no reason for interest in details; without this link between the details and the need of my “I,” nothing interests me. Today, since there is no desire to give an answer to this need for wholeness, the “I” does not emerge. This is the problem today. No one wants to abandon a partial neutrality–otherwise he would have to overcome that neutrality himself, when faced by something that drives him beyond–and this blocks the “I;” it prevents the emergence of his need for wholeness.

As life goes ahead, you realize that this original openness doesn’t last; it begins to fail, even before the finest things, the most interesting things–not even these are able to sustain it. We have to understand how needy we are, and that in order for this openness to last in time, all the energy with which a child comes out of his mother’s womb is not enough, the drive with which you start work or fall in love is not enough. We cannot help hinting here at the realism of the Christian conception of man that affirms what is called “original sin.” In one of his talks quoted in the book, Living in the Flesh, Fr Giussani says, “It is the abolition of this notion that has made possible all the hubris of modern man. But it is clearly a falsehood, because whatever you might think of the Christian idea of original sin, there is no hypothesis that better explains the painful human condition of this original division and contradiction in the heart of the person” (p 230, note 18).
This failure of the “I” as a consequence of this original division enables us to understand more that, in the absence of something greater, the desire for wholeness aroused by reality is unable to last. Everyone is in contact with reality, but there are not many “I”s with this need for wholeness alive and expressed! You often tell me of people you have met who have been amazed by a new creativity, by people who live with a drive for wholeness and who therefore cannot fail to astonish others. But where do these people come from? They come from having encountered something that is an answer to the failure of the “I.” A place is needed in history, an ambit where the “I” is continually aroused and put back on its tracks, a place that resurrects it, a human locus made of people in contact with what makes life begin again, spring up and start over. This is what has happened to us in the encounter with Christ. He is the One, through His ongoing presence in history, who goes on arousing our “I” in its wholeness; He is the only one able to arouse this wholeness.

Something that gives hope to man
So, meeting people like this is already a sign that in history, present here and now, there is something that holds out hope to the human situation in which we find ourselves; something that makes it possible to start over, whatever the situation, whatever the disaster. But it is not enough to say the word “Christ,” for this, too, can be reduced to moralism or spiritualism. What’s needed is a conception of Christianity as a fact, as an event. And you can see that it is an event, precisely because of the people who are aroused in this drive for wholeness. As Fr Giussani recalled recently, in the interview with Corriere della Sera, “The whole new beginning of the Christian experience–and therefore of every relationship [so of every “I”] –is not generated from a cultural point of view, but happens experimentally. It’s an act of life that sets everything in motion” (October 15, 2004).

The glimmer of the fullness that the heart desires
An act of life that sets everything in motion… If it does not belong to a place where this act of life that sets everything in motion happens continually, then sooner or later the “I” comes to a stop. It comes to a stop, even though it goes on doing many things, but its central point stops moving. So even when things are going well at work, you feel that something is missing. If this need for wholeness is not satisfied, there is something missing, and this brings the intimate center of the person to a stop, in the midst of many activities.
Why is a place like we have described able to arouse and set in motion the wholeness of the “I” and keep it in motion? Because it fulfills it. Why is the presence of the person you love able to arouse your “I” even when it is all numb? Because it is a glimmer of that fullness which our heart longs for. If the “I” doesn’t find that glimmer of fullness the heart longs for, it closes up and stands still. Instead, every time this appears, we see that the event of the “I” takes off again and goes into action. Without the encounter with what fills the heart, it is impossible to live in reality at one’s full capacity, with the whole of the “I” getting to work, that wants to get to work, that is in reality with its creativity, its fascination, etc. Only in this case can the “I” set in motion all the energy it possesses. For this energy belongs to the very nature of the “I” before any motion of freedom. It belongs to it, but it has to be constantly reawakened by an ambit of people who have in their turn been awakened by the same encounter and so can always get moving, but be free from any need for success.

Now, much has been said about the origin of capitalism, of its Protestant, Calvinist roots, precisely because the “I” needs to succeed, and Catholicism seems unable to ensure success. But the opposite is true. Only an “I” aroused with all its power of wholeness can be “free” from the need for success, in the finest sense of the word. Let me explain. We all need to succeed in an enterprise; we are not indifferent to success, otherwise the enterprise would be a failure. But the point is that this is not enough. I always remember what Pavese said after returning from Rome where he had received the Strega Prize: “In Rome, apotheosis! And so what?” (C. Pavese, The Art of Living) Even the greatest success ends up like this, and if it ends up like this, sooner or later it comes to a stop. What is able to arouse man’s desire continually, freeing it from the need for success and so setting it in motion every time? It can only happen if, in the encounter with Christ, in the encounter with a locus, we find the fullness of heart, the satisfaction of the “I,” so that we can throw ourselves into reality, with all our human creativity, free from the need for success, not because we are indifferent or because success doesn’t interest us, but because we are not blocked by this in all the attempts in life in which we don’t succeed. For the problem is what happens in life when things don’t go as we have planned. We get bogged down, we get blocked. If there is nothing that gets us moving again, sooner or later we give up.

What fills the heart
This is why–you’ll excuse the example, but I think it’s pertinent–true success, a true relationship with reality, requires an experience of life similar to that of virginity. It is only if you find something able to fill your heart that you can relate to the other person without attempting to possess him, but leaving him free to be himself, treating him with unique gratuitousness, respecting his human dignity. It is only this fullness of heart that makes us throw ourselves into reality with all our desire, without depending on success at all costs, and lets us commit all our free energy–free energy–in order to build a society that is more human, that responds more to human needs. This is the difference between Calvin and St Benedict. Not that the monks did nothing; they did a great deal–they generated a whole culture. But from what was this culture born? What is the origin of Europe? Europe was born of men filled with a fullness that does not automatically lead to success, but sets in motion an energy capable of rebuilding a whole civilization. What a great challenge faces us, with all the human need we see!

So, in order to make such an experience possible, I understand that a “companionship of works” is needed. This is what we feel most urgently in need of: a locus that regenerates us continually, that makes us start over, that gives us an experience of life that sets it continually in motion as regards everything, in all the times we get bogged down; a companionship that is a true dwelling place for the “I,” a place where the “I” is helped, corrected, supported to live in its job and in enterprises, and that reawakens continually the will to work, to take chances, to invent, that answers to that abstraction of an autonomous “I” that ends up in solitude and ends up losing the taste for things. In short, what we need is a real companionship. We need to know what our real need is as men–a need that regards the whole of the “I”–and that we cannot manage alone. This is why we are here, because of this mutual esteem as men, grateful and moved that someone else, or rather, many others, want to share in this adventure of life lived in the whole of human experience, as we carry out our work, our enterprises, etc. What we are living is a friendship for our destiny.
A companionship like ours cannot fail to be of service to the “I,” to its capacity for creativity, for generation, and for esteem, because you can even achieve success. But who has our destiny at heart, the destiny of the “I”–who has an answer for this, who is concerned about what the “I” needs? Without this, we are alone once more and sooner or later we come to a stop. Instead, what strikes many people we meet is precisely this drive for wholeness, this drive that sets us in motion, this way of responding to the particular problem with this drive for wholeness included. A companionship like ours must be at the service of this, with a capacity for valuing all that emerges among us, all that the Mystery arouses continually before our eyes, so as to move each one’s freedom and creativity.

At the service of social creativity
These days, I was re-reading Fr Giussani’s address at Assago in 1987. One thing struck me, and it came to my mind as I thought of you: “A party that would stifle, that would not favor and not defend this rich social creativity would contribute to the creation and maintenance of a State that domineers over society” (The “I”, Power and Works, p 169). In other words, politics is at the service of this rich social creativity.
A companionship like ours can have no other aim than to serve this rich creativity there is amongst us, not to replace it, but to serve it, to help it grow, to make it mature. He goes on, “All power must see itself as ‘servant’, it has to feel the dignity of its being ‘service,’ sharing, in this way, the great condescension of God, who gave himself out of love for each man” (The “I”, Power and Works p 18). We are here as a companionship for this mutual service, which is a participation in that condescendence of God out of love for each single person. This is how the whole of history began. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen the suffering of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their oppressors, for I know their suffering. I have come down to free them’” (Ex 3:7-8). What moved the Mystery was this mercy for the individual person, so everything from that moment–the first step in the history of salvation–to the Incarnation, and up to now, is at the service of the individual person. We have to be as attentive as God to what emerges, at the service of what an Other moves and arouses amongst us, for this is the way to obey a measure that is not ours, to collaborate with the one Creator of everything, with the only one able to arouse the whole capacity of the “I.” We need a gaze like that of Pier Paolo Pasolini: “Clearly, my view of the things of the world, of objects, is not a natural view, not the view of an unbeliever. I always see things as a bit miraculous; every object is a bit miraculous.

I have a vision that, always in a formless way, is in a certain sense religious” (from an interview, 1970). This miracle that happens before our eyes is the miracle that we have to serve. Fr Giussani said in the interview published in Corriere della Sera, “My point of departure [note the similarity with that condescendence of God] was a way of looking at things as a ‘passion for,’ as ‘love,’ an open attitude that doesn’t let you start off alone and generates a relationship. It is impossible to tackle a situation that has to do with life without this context causing bewilderment, a surprise.”
It is this “passion for” that moves everything and that must move us, too, as regards everything that comes into relationship with us in this friendship. In order to gather all this wealth that the Mystery arouses before our eyes, a friendship is needed, a unity in action of free adults, capable of helping–but not schematically–to answer to all that creative diversity that is there among us.

A final point of reference
Thus, in this companionship, “I”s can emerge for the people; “I”s as social factors. It is impossible for someone who is born in this way not to have the desire to tackle the needs he sees before him, “in which these desires take flesh, thinking up and creating operative capillary and up-to-date structures we call ‘works’ or ‘enterprises’” (The “I”, Power and Works, p 168), in the endeavor to give an answer to them. Cardinal Ruini reminded us of this recently regarding what is happening in Europe. “Christians cannot simply protest, they must find new forms in which the faith can go on being a protagonist; not in order to impose a Christian scheme, but out of love for this destiny of man which is always the decisive question, so that the center of our concerns be the person.” So, he said, “we need to develop our civic, cultural and religious heritage that pivots on the central role of the subject and of the person.”

Alone, we are not able to generate this “companionship of works.” We need a final point of reference that cannot be other than what generated many of us–the Movement. This is the ultimate point of judgment, not as an intrusion into the organization of our companionship, but as a help for living the companionship, so as to resurrect it–otherwise, sooner or later, other interests will prevail over the ideal. It is only this ultimate point that makes a “companionship of works” possible, and being aware of this is quite far from being secondary for the aim of our companionship. The living energy that makes all we have said become experience is what we call “charism,” that power we find amongst us, that we have met, that generates continually a companionship for the “I.” Only in this way are we companions for each other, do we walk together toward destiny, and truly experience the hope for the only true success that is of interest to everyone–the success of life. Without this success, all the others are insufficient. My wish is that–in doing things, in doing all that we do together–we constitute a companionship for each other, we truly be companions in the only true success that interests us.