Ten Words

A New Human Ideal for the 21st Century

The Western human ideal, with its thousands of years of history and its roots in the Ten Commandments, began to fade in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly the latter, when religion and references to God were banished from public discourse. Society has lost its way, partly due to this lack of a firm foundation, and now we are in need of a new human ideal. But the inspiration for such a new ideal can only be found in a version of the old that integrates the achievements of the past two centuries. Guided by ten words, words that stoke our enthusiasm, we can keep on dreaming of a happier society.

1. The Western human ideal is rooted in the Ten Commandments

For more than three thousand years, the way we think and act in the Western world has been shaped by the human ideal as set down in the Ten Commandments. The heart of this teaching is found in the first three Commandments, which are focused on God. The seven others refer to their human application.

Throughout history, it has been the task of religion to determine the basic moral principles and immaterial criteria that everyone is obliged to follow. Those who profess Buddhism promise to observe the five precepts. In Islam the sharia governs human activity in both religious and worldly affairs.

Christianity and Judaism have the Ten Commandments or the Decalogue, from the Greek deka logoi meaning “ten words.” We find a description of the Decalogue in the biblical books of Exodus (20:2-17) and Deuteronomy (5:6-21):

1. Worship no other gods.
2. Make no graven images.
3. Do not take the name of God in vain.
4. Keep the Sabbath holy.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Do not kill.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not bear false witness.
10. Do not covet your neighbor’s house or wife.

Some versions combine the first and second commandments and divide the tenth, but we will stick to the original version.

The Ten Commandments are a synthesis of a thousand years of human and ethical development. They lay the foundation of a just society. These religious precepts, variants of which can be found in ancient Egypt, are largely of universal value, although China, for example, has a different human ideal which was inspired by the ideas of the Chinese philosopher Confucius.

The Ten Commandments act as signposts, showing the way to an ideal that every succeeding generation has aspired to. In terms of their content they can be broken down into three components. At the core is our relationship to God, expressed in the form of three laws: worship no other Gods, make no graven images and do not using God’s name in vain. This is followed by seven concrete applications concerning human behavior. Five are moral prohibitions: do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not bear false witness, do not steal and do not covet; and two are commandments: honor the Sabbath and one’s parents. These ten rules are partly interrelated. But they are still an ideal, since perfection has never been of this world and never will be. The disobedience of a people who constantly forget God and his commandments is a theme that runs throughout the Bible.

Following in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth, the spread of Christianity marked a great advance in human and ethical thought. The Sermon on the Mount goes beyond the justice that is inherent in the Ten Commandments and calls for mercy, compassion and radical love of one’s neighbor. But the central place of belief in God remained intact. Right through the 18th century the Ten Commandments remained at the heart of Western civilization, which was almost exclusively Christian in every respect. They determine the way we think and act far more than we suspect, and our legislation is also largely based on them.

2. The divine image wanes in the 19th and 20th centuries

Society has undergone a metamorphosis over the past two centuries. Under the influence of the Enlightenment, reason took the place of religion and God was banished from society. Enlightenment thinking assumed more concrete forms in the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, leading to great freedom and the creation of unprecedented prosperity. The impact of that upheaval became increasingly intense.

God as a superfluous hypothesis

The driving force behind these fundamental changes was the philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment, which began in the latter half of the 17th century and gradually came to flourish among higher circles throughout all of Western Europe. This school of thought was built on the humanism of the 15th and 16th centuries. Inspired by the ancient Greeks, the humanists no longer appealed to divine revelation but to the ability of man himself to impart meaning to his life on the basis of universal values such as human dignity, freedom, tolerance and responsibility.

The basic premise of the Enlightenment was the replacement of the dogmatic belief in authority by “ratio” − reason or the intellect. Apart from religion, but certainly not opposed to it (at least not a first), a rational and universal morality developed whose objective was human happiness: here on earth and no longer in the hereafter. The subsequent process of secularization minimized the role of religion in ethics and politics with the separation of church and state.

Science, which gradually came to take the place of religion, was based on empirical knowledge resulting from pure research. As a scrupulous observer of nature, Isaac Newton sought the connection between the various phenomena. He discovered the natural laws, such as the speed at which a body falls, and expressed them in immutable formulas. Newton made reality more understandable, although one third of his Philosophia naturalis – Principia mathematica of 1686 had to do with God, for Newton was also a well-known theologian. The French philosopher Voltaire then undertook a one-sided reading of Newton’s writings − the discovery of the natural laws − and put forward the axiom that all domains of reality could be scientifically unraveled. This gave rise to the idea, which gained general acceptance, that the “unknown” was only waiting to be discovered.

For the first time, “enlightened” man was the master of his own fate. Belief in progress, or the optimistic conviction that we are evolving to a higher state of perfection, became the motive for instituting social change. Great Enlightenment thinkers such as John Toland and Baruch Spinoza criticized religion but still believed in the existence of God. That tie wasn’t severed until later on. When the French emperor Napoleon told the astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace, “You wrote a book about the workings of the universe but you never mention its creator,” Laplace answered, “I had no need of that superfluous hypothesis.”

In the 19th century, the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach laid the foundation for modern secular thinking. He saw God as a projection of the human mind and religion as an illusion that satisfied man’s longings as compensation for his limitations and mortality. Feuerbach advocated a civilization based on natural science. His polemical writings were very influential. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche went on to announce that “God is dead and we have killed him.” As a critical analyst, Nietzsche saw how the rise of rationalism and science had made God implausible. The scientists who placed themselves above God overturned the Christian worldview. And the German philosopher Karl Marx saw religion as “the opiate of the people” because people who fell under its influence did not devote themselves to social change. With God written off, man became the only norm.

The French Revolution propagates liberty, equality and fraternity

The “enlightened” man, freed from a creator or God, went on to invent new political and ethical systems in order to bring about a better world. As a brainchild of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution propagated three principles in the last decade of the 18th century: liberty, equality and fraternity. “Ni dieu, ni maître” was the motto − no God, no master. But the realization of those ideals proceeded by fits and starts. The campaign of conquest carried out by the French emperor Napoleon ended in utter failure. And after the catastrophe of the First World War, with 15 to 17 million victims, the Second World War claimed 50 to 70 million lives a little more than two decades later. After 1945, international cooperation struck out on a different path in order to avoid a repetition of those calamities. In addition to the Charter of the United Nations, which deals with peace and development, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) set down the fundamental rights of man. These guarantee the protection of the life, dignity, freedom, personal beliefs and equality of every human being, regardless of his status, origin or situation in life. In turn, human rights hold up the promise of a more just society. They’re the Ten Commandments in modern guise.

Under the spell of economic progress

Almost coincidental with the French Revolution was an even more radical upheaval in the field of economics. Driven by an inviolable belief in collective progress, Western society has spent the last two centuries under the spell of more and better production. When the “First Industrial Revolution” spread from the United Kingdom to the European continent, goods that had been made by hand would henceforth be produced by steam-driven machines. For the first time in history, man and nature were subordinated to the economy, which developed into society’s main driving force. In the late 19th century, the “Second Industrial Revolution” shifted up to a higher gear with the use of turbines, electricity and internal combustion engines that depended on fossil fuels. Finally, in recent decades the computer and new forms of communication − the internet, mobile telephones and fiber optic cables − have laid the foundation for a “Third Industrial Revolution” and for globalization. This elusive concept refers to worldwide interaction between people, businesses, governments and cultures that is fueled by information and communication technology, investments and international trade. Services and communication supplant the production of goods. The new vehicles − laptops − are globally connected by the new highways − the internet − day and night, seven days a week.

The historically unprecedented prosperity that then developed in the West went hand-in-hand with the emergence of a genuine welfare state. In the period 1945-2010, the income of most countries quadrupled. We’ve never had it so good. Social corrective mechanisms have spread that prosperity across large segments of the population. This progress is a great boon from a material point of view. We also live longer and healthier lives thanks to well-developed health care systems.

Yet new questions are constantly arising. The discrepancies in increased prosperity, caused by cutthroat competition that systematically pits people against each other, has led to social disruption on many fronts. Despite this, we continue to charge down the path we’ve chosen. Gazing at the world through economic glasses, young people are still being taught to invest more, produce more, consume more and create more wealth. And both the “social capital” − or human capabilities, and the “ecological capital” − nature’s potential − are still being subordinated to our obsession with an annual growth rate of at least 2 to 3 percent.

Evolution at the gallop

The base of support that enabled this philosophical revolution (and the political and economic revolutions it triggered) was initially limited to a small circle of intellectuals and grew at a slow pace. This was because the opposition to Enlightenment thinking that emerged from the conservative milieus in church and society was well organized at first. But their increasingly stubborn refusal to assimilate the achievements of that thinking caused these milieus gradually to lose their influence among large segments of the population. This trend continued at blistering speed, especially after the Second World War − so much so that today the roles are practically reversed.

In the economy it was mainly the “drive” of the belief in progress that led to an unprecedented rise in productivity. During the First Industrial Revolution, productivity rose by an average of 1 percent annually. During the Second Industrial Revolution it rose by 2 percent, and since the beginning of the Third Industrial Revolution it has risen 2.5 percent a year.
Even the church felt the evolution’s impact. In Belgium, Sunday attendance dropped from about 80 percent in 1830 to almost half that in the second half of the 1940s and to 24 percent in 1976. This de-Christianization is a typically Western European phenomenon, by the way. Elsewhere in the world, where Enlightenment thinking was less deeply rooted, the trend is less pronounced.

In Belgian politics, census suffrage (only those who paid a certain amount in taxes had the right to vote) evolved into plural universal suffrage in 1895. Universal suffrage − but only for men − was introduced in 1921, and it wasn’t until 1949 that women in Belgium were able to go to the polls.

3. Anti-commandments become the norm

The gradual but incontestable fading of the notion of God had far-reaching consequences. After the first three commandments were undermined, the rest soon followed suit. The corrective mechanisms that religion once brought to bear on society have now been replaced by unlimited freedom, which has evolved into radical individualism. New buzzwords have taken root, making it seem as if an anti-Ten Commandments had become society’s yardstick.

Imbalance

The growth of the belief in progress manifests itself only in the material realm. The highest goal to be pursued is the acquisition of more wealth: a third car, a country house abroad, four vacations a year, an outdoor and an indoor swimming pool. Because of its internal dynamic, this way of thinking encourages the growth of a spiral of “never enough.” If your neighbor has a new car, the urge to buy one that is even bigger and more beautiful seems to pop up almost spontaneously. Why? Because people are drawn into an unquestioned craving for more and better based on the conviction that their happiness will increase proportionally. If your other neighbor buys an even bigger car, that illusion is quickly shattered. This perverse spiral boosts both overconsumption and alienation.

Are human shoulders strong enough to bear all that wealth? For like it or not, the material is inextricably connected to the immaterial, like Siamese twins. A person must also evolve on the inside. What is his vision in life? And how does he respond to illness or accidents? If the inner dimension is insufficiently developed, an imbalance arises, much like an athlete who only trains his left or right side. Many of the difficulties in our society can be explained on the basis of that imbalance, but apparently no one wants to know about it. Question the belief in progress and you’re branded a renegade. Mention the Ten Commandments and you become an object of scorn. Who cares about a bunch of antiquated norms and values, anyway? Hasn’t the role of Christianity and the Ten Commandments in the Western world played itself out − at least according to the argument dictated by materialism? Don’t the numbers speak for themselves? After all, only a handful of people let themselves be guided by such things.

Freedom evolves into radical individualism

People today seem allergic to commandments, prohibitions, hierarchy and authority. Acting freely and independently is the highest good. In the Letter to the Galatians, the apostle Paul writes, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1) But this freedom, which initially implied caring for the weak and taking responsibility, has evolved into radical individualism. Many people are selfish narcissists − obsessed with their own person, or hedonists − focusing on their own pleasure. Those who think only of themselves not only lose the ability to be self-critical. Far worse is the loss of empathy: the ability to imagine how other people must feel. This is why radical individualists are contemptuous of every call to do one’s duty. They become calculating in their behavior, reducing their fellow men to levers that will enable them to fulfill their own ambitions. This is true not only individually but also collectively. It explains the particularly vociferous call of the trade unions not to concede a single inch of our prosperity. How can we reconcile the fact that despite all our professed idealism, a billion people in the southern hemisphere are literally wasting away?

New buzzwords

Our “enlightened” society did not create a new human ideal to replace the Ten Commandments. What constitutes the driving forces today are: focusing on maximum production, consumption and wealth; the “me-first” culture, or earning as much money as possible; seeking maximum profit and pleasing one’s own constituency; and demonizing each other. So the new buzzwords of our age are:

° look out for number one
° make big money
° don’t trust anyone
°“après nous le déluge” (“after us, the deluge”)

These buzzwords are only concerned with material goals: every man for himself, and in the short run. Is it any wonder that, lacking a higher immaterial goal, our society is going further and further astray?

Commandments become anti-commandments

There’s no longer any room for corrective mechanisms in such a climate. Because the beacon of the Ten Commandments tends to stifle the belief in progress, mainstream society shoves them aside without batting an eye.

Let’s consider the original meaning of the Ten Commandments, followed by what has happened to them in practice.

1. ‘You shall have no other gods before me’

The opening words of the Ten Commandments are not a prohibition but an introduction: “I am Yahweh your God.” YHWH means “I am who I am.” This is not an organizational principle but a horizon full of promise, not a noun but a verb, not a picture but a story. It’s about an experience of faith that provides us with a compass for human liberation. Yahweh is there for his people, his companions who are made in his image. Because this implies an exclusive one-on-one relationship, it entails a prohibition to worship other gods: “I am the only one, beyond me there is no other.”

The number of “gods” in our society is practically beyond counting. It’s grotesque how pop stars and football players attain almost god-like status. Clever advertising men are the manipulators of these “new prophets.” One of the paradoxes of our age is that the very people who renounce every form of authority let themselves be patronized like toddlers.
Take the advertising messages on radio and TV, and the “new commandments” that take advantage of our desire to conform, such as our obsession with health and the weekly visit to the beauty salon. Wellness and fitness centers seem to have become the “new churches.” The fact is that advertising influences everything we do, much more than we realize. By selling ideas and ways of life, advertising works like a religious surrogate, trying to bring about a symbiosis of commercial products and one’s particular outlook. Consumers don’t buy products − they share in the lifestyle of a brand. The mythologizing of everyday goods goes hand-in-hand with the use of club formulas and loyalty cards, which reinforce the we-feeling and bind members together.

At the same time, alternative ways of finding meaning have cropped up along the fringes and have grown into a lucrative market. Sects and peripheral phenomena such as esotericism, astrology, card readers and magicians of all kinds are filling up the growing wasteland. Because man has taken the place of God, the longing for redemption that used to be dealt with collectively now takes place individually. People are no longer concerned about deliverance from guilt and sin; all they want to do is to escape from the ordinariness of everyday life. Many switch idols in order to feel better, even if only for a moment.

2. ‘You shall not make for yourself a graven image’

Yahweh does not answer to any physical representation. “I am who I am” cannot be seen or held in the hand. God is not a thing but an event, not a monument but a moment. His only image is the people whom He has chosen, the people whom he has created in His image and likeness. Every image degrades God to one interchangeable god among many.

Western society, full of glamour, glitter and outward show, is constantly producing images − literal, figurative and symbolic. These images recognize the worship of Baal, or sexuality, as the highest good; of Caesar, or absolute power, which insists on the use of armed violence as the ultimate goal; and Mammon, or money, to which everything submits.

3. ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain’

Taking God’s name in vain is more than just uttering swear words. God is cursed whenever His name is used in a way that diminishes him: in the use of magic spells, in praying to God, in speaking for God in the context of swearing an oath, in telling half truths or lies, and in speaking on His behalf.

Besides the cursing that saturates popular language, religion is also misused for commercial ends. Taking advantage of man’s spiritual yearnings, advertising uses religious symbols to shock, to provoke or to achieve a humorous effect. We speak of blasphemy when a lama takes the place of the Lamb of God, an iPod is shown in the shape of a cross, a Bible become a telephone or sex guide, verses from the Psalms are used to promote the sale of beer and texts from the book of Genesis are quoted to praise diapers or an insurance company. This reduces the original meaning to something banal.

4. ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy’

Keeping the Sabbath holy primarily means setting it apart from all the other days, breaking through the daily work routine by consciously not working. It’s a protection against excess. But contained within the Sabbath, which applies to everyone, is the principle of equality that will eventually bring an end to slavery. Last but not least, the Sabbath creates a space for the Liturgy. For believers, God’s completion of creation on the seventh day is an icon of the hopeful anticipation of the completed work of Creation.

The obliteration of special Sunday practices illustrates the decline of Sunday as the “Day of Rest.” In our 24/7 economy Sunday seems like any other day, for the corporate culture determines the lives of the workforce. Material rewards such as a company car, a mobile phone, a laptop and membership at a fitness center − as well as weekends and vacations − are a subtle ploy by which the company keeps employees closely anchored. Production targets force employees to take work home, and everyone is on permanent stand-by. Sixty percent of all businesses expect their employees to be available during their free time. Those who don’t cooperate with such a rhythm are soon out on the street.

5. ‘Honor your father and your mother’

Men and women are exhorted to honor their parents − not to worship them − because they are their father and mother. It isn’t loving them that gets top priority but treating them in accordance with their status. Respect for tradition is essential for the vitality of a people. After all, parents play an important role in passing on values to the younger generation.

In 1950, 3 percent of the population of Western Europe lived alone. According to prognoses, by 2020, 40 percent of the population will be living single and half of these will be elderly. Even now, one out of every two homes in the big cities is occupied by single individuals. How many old folks are living in rest homes, staring into space and waiting for visitors who don’t show up? They’re tied down to keep from falling over or they sit alone talking to themselves. Due to the chronic shortage of personnel they’re given very little attention. Very few people realize the tragedy of the lonely and infirm elderly.

Twenty percent of the seniors in Western Europe are regularly abused or ill-treated. Half these cases involve neglect due to a lack of help and attention. The other half are confronted by psychological violence or financial abuse: the stealing of their pensions or personal property. A small number of cases even involve physical or sexual abuse.

For some people, parents are just a burden. In Belgium and the Netherlands, the legal euthanasia option uses a subtly managed propaganda machine to pressure people to “make room” sooner rather than later, to keep from becoming a financial drain on their families and on society. The “euthanasiatics” try to convince the elderly that “dying with dignity” means avoiding every form of deterioration and dependence.

6. ‘You shall not kill’

God created man in His own image and likeness, and He is a defender of life. The Hebrew word for “kill,” however, does not refer to killing the enemy on the battlefield, executing someone sentenced to death or punishment at God’s hand, but to blood feuds or murderous revenge. This commandment is mainly intended to stop the cycle of “me-violence”: the urge to keep everything for yourself at the cost of everyone else.

Abortion and euthanasia are forms of direct killing, and self-mutilation and anorexia among young people are indirectly related to suicide, the main cause of death among young people in the West. There is no question that our society is becoming increasingly violent. War, bombings, retaliatory attacks and terror are everyday fare in the news. You don’t have to “zap” very much to see several murders a day on TV, and the ones being shown are increasingly gruesome. Why is that? Violence is “big business” because the demand for it is so great. Radical individualists develop a particularly acute fascination for it, a penchant for sensation in an effort to break through the tedium. Gradually they become accustomed to such violence, which results in a shifting of the borders and self-destructive behavior. Sometimes people treat each other like animals. In Latin America and the southern United States the maras hold sway: youth gangs involved in the drug trade, robbery and human trafficking. They’re notorious for the murderous way they settle scores. And who in Western Europe is able to control the delinquent behavior of the young? We are seeing younger and younger perpetrators who are acting with increasing audacity. In addition to the material damage (which is never calculated) and the psychological suffering caused, the price of custody and counseling for each young offender has been estimated at 125,000 euros, according to one Dutch estimate.

7. ‘You shall not commit adultery’

The theme of God’s covenant with his people runs right through the Old Testament, starting in the book of Genesis. God’s faithfulness triumphs over every failure, time and time again. Marriage − as the mirror image of that covenant − is an example of God’s faithfulness. Marriage is held in high regard, with a clear preference for monogamy and a distinction between man and woman. A man was regarded as a disturber of the peace if he “broke into” another marriage, whereas a married woman who had sexual relations with an unmarried man was considered an adulteress.

Family life is society’s smallest unit as well as its cornerstone, and it is under great pressure. The number of divorces is increasing at an alarming rate, and half the children growing up in the cities are members of newly combined families.

Because no one is laying down the rules for sexual intercourse anymore (the church no longer commands any influence or moral authority in this regard), economic thinking has taken over. Any industry worth its salt trivializes sexuality and turns it into consumer goods, with its only goal being to make money. Sex becomes a commodity. Men and women “use” each other: briefly and intensely, and preferably without further consequences. After all, lasting relationships are relics from grandmother’s era, aren’t they? In Western Europe, one person out of ten is involved in an “LAT” relationship: living apart together. And any man still in need of a woman can find a willing candidate in the Far East by consulting an agency and paying a price.

8. ‘You shall not steal’

This commandment concerns both the stealing of goods or property and the stealing or enslaving of free men and women. In the Old Testament, property is related to human well-being. In order to protect the poor and to combat land speculation, a Jubilee Year was declared every fifty years so the available land could be redistributed.

People today are being degraded to objects of lust. Extreme poverty breeds child prostitution, and innocent people are taken hostage and sometimes put to death. In addition to scores of direct forms of totalitarianism, exploitation and racial discrimination, there are very subtle ways in which people are deprived of their liberty in the consumer world. Property-oriented thinking − “my child” − also dehumanizes personal relationships between individuals.

Psychology handbooks mark out the path of life by placing the wall of social control on the right and the wall of one’s own conscience on the left. But because of individualism and the erosion of social capital, social control has disappeared. Not only that, but because more and more people find themselves in the twilight zone, the wall of the conscience is eroding too. Physicians, public officials and politicians receive gifts, foreign travel, dinners out or money from generous donors, who count on favors in return. With the blurring of norms, these improper practices are universally accepted. Undeclared funds are circulating on a grand scale and “off the record” payments are the rule rather than the exception, so corruption is just around the corner. Corruption has been present in every age and culture, and occurs at every level of society. But with the present the lack of transparency, and with a system that is aimed at catching the “small fry” while the “big fish” get off scot-free time after time, the control mechanisms that are indispensable to a well-functioning democracy are doomed to failure.

9 ‘You shall not bear false witness’

Lying is synonymous with the violation of mutual trust. Anyone who tampers with the law or exploits vulnerable relationships throws the foundations of society into disarray. False witnesses do great damage and deface the name of God.

The authors Franz Kafka in The Trial, Albert Camus in The Fall and George Orwell in 1984 exposed modern man’s vulnerability to the threat of totalitarian bureaucracies, anonymous registration systems like that of Big Brother, show trials and brainwashing, in which the individual is repeatedly sacrificed to the “system.” Unfortunately this is no fiction; in many countries it is a harsh reality.

10 ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s house or wife’

The Hebrew verb for “covet” has to do with striving − as the first step − to make oneself master of everything belonging to one’s neighbor: his house, his wife, his servant and even his ox or his ass.

The belief in progress increases ambition, the acquisition of power and influence and, above all, greed. The manager who, in 1987, was making twenty times as much as the average worker earned 110 times as much in 2007. Recent years clearly demonstrate what the craving for greater and greater revenues leads to. After American banks lent money on a grand scale to non-creditworthy home purchasers, they flooded the world with junk credit. These loans offered high returns in a watered-down form but they were partially worthless. In 2008 the global financial system was shaken to its very foundations. But the top managers are still earning more in just a few months than a worker or employee would earn over his whole career.

The breeding ground for this unbridled greed is a deeply rooted distrust, the obsessive idea that hidden in every one of us is a potential cheat. “Be trustworthy, but trust no one.”

Far-reaching impact on all of society

Following on the heels of the often subtle but devastating dismantling of the Ten Commandments was the perceptible shrinking of concern for all soft or immaterial values: a sense of civic responsibility, solidarity, tolerance and regard for culture, environment, religion and meaning.

4. The turning point

Western society is at a turning point. The past decades have clearly shown that we cannot go on as we have been. Christian faith is being further marginalized, politics in Western Europe is at a stalemate and the belief in progress has come to a halt, while solidarity rings hollow. Increasing consumption is an immediate threat to the future of the planet. But as a result of “hamartia” or our unwillingness to learn, the rat race continues unabated. The Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities, which is now in the pipeline, shows that the time is ripe to change course..

Religion marginalized

Increasingly fewer people are stimulated, challenged or energized by the Ten Commandments and the Christian message. In Belgium, Sunday attendance dropped from 24 percent in 1976 to 5.4 percent in 2009. Even the practice of going to church at pivotal moments is shrinking fast. Baptisms, First Communions and weddings are grand, bloated fashion shows in many cases that are all about showing off one’s social prestige.

The marginalization of religion in Western Europe is the consequence of two mutually reinforcing evolutions: religion’s expulsion from public life due to the secular character of modern society, and the inertia of the institutional church, which is typical of its sensitivity to tradition. With the notion of God becoming on the wane, the knowledge and significance of religion is quickly fading from the collective memory. So we are faced with a paradox. While the call for transcendence has never been greater, the churches of Western Europe are unable to fill the gap: they’re stricken by emptying pews and weighed down by scandal.

Yet to be perfectly clear: there’s nothing wrong with the core message. It’s the outward trappings of religion that are the problem. The structure, language and personnel have all failed to evolve. And the variant of Enlightenment thinking and modernity that is typical of Western Europe gets in the way of a Bible-based Christian faith. The fact that this trend has not spread to other parts of the world is a case in point.

Political stalemate

Western European politicians don’t know what to do about the two opposing fields of influence that are gaining in importance. On the one hand, many nation states are groaning under the call for “regionalization” in which population groups demand greater autonomy. On the other hand, the way the European Union (EU) makes decisions − decisions which determine our lives to an increasing degree − leaves a great deal to be desired. Symbolized by its common currency, the euro, the EU is an economic success story. But the political, social and cultural Europe have barely gotten off the ground. In the G20, the unofficial coordinating body of the world economy, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy all have their own seats in addition to the European Union as a whole. These countries defend their own national interests first and don’t always play the European card. Like a “chicken without a head,” the EU plays a role of negligible significance worldwide. It’s not by chance that every successive European election has drawn fewer and fewer voters: only 43 percent in 2009.

Solidarity rings hollow

Since the 1980s the Western welfare state has been showing signs of wear. Due to failing solidarity mechanisms (which are too complicated, impersonal, bureaucratic and financially convoluted), the number of persons at or below the poverty line has risen to at least 15 percent. In terms of social security, our “Rhineland model” is almost bankrupt, while international solidarity has yet to be born. For while the situation in the 79 poorest countries is becoming more and more hopeless, the West continues to indulge in navel-gazing. The promise to increase development aid to 0.7 percent of the gross national product has been made a thousand times but has never been realized. Only in the case of humanitarian disasters, such as the earthquake in Haiti, do short-lived waves of sympathy arise. Because we are not prepared to relinquish more than a crumb of our prosperity, the gap is deepening between the rich North and the poor South. Many low-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America that have seen a doubling of their populations within a single generation have become ungovernable: essential services are being compromised, crime is increasing and the labor market is unable to absorb the influx of new workers. Anyone born there faces a less than rosy future. The migrations of the future will be poverty migrations, by which the problems of the South will be exported. A clash is approaching, and it may form the biggest threat yet to our planet.

Enlightenment thinking falters

For the past two centuries, Enlightenment thinking has been premised on the axiom that all of life can be explained on the basis of empirical research. It’s almost impossible to grasp or document the scientific advances that are taking place in every conceivable domain. A chip that you can hardly see with the naked eye can send a rocket to the moon. Yet not a single scientist has unraveled the miracle of life or the merging of four lifeless elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. A sperm cell is not a chip but a living organism that grows up, propagates and dies. The more scientists know, the less they understand everything.

Limits to economic growth

The unprecedented growth of material production directly threatens the future of our planet. Our natural reserves are being used up. The seven-fold increase in world production over the past forty years has led to a five-fold increase in the use of fossil fuels. In 1972 the Club of Rome predicted that in just a few decades our stores of raw materials would be exhausted. That prediction did not come true, but the steady rise in the rate of consumption is unstoppable. As rain forests get the ax, the polar ice caps are melting and the hole in the ozone is expanding. The ecological overshoot is a quarter higher than the biocapacity, while one third of the world’s population lack even the most elementary needs. And our ecological footprint, which compares the use of land and water (in terms of square meters) with the sustainable supply of those resources, is rising in the world’s rich countries. There’s more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air now than at any point in the last two million years. “Earth Overshoot Day,” the day the earth used more raw materials than it can build up in a single year, fell on December 31 in 1986. In 1995 it was November 21 and in 2010 it was August 21. The richest 20 percent of the world’s population is responsible for 80 percent of the environmental pressure. We’re sawing off the branch we’re sitting on.

The rat race runs on “hamartia”

Material well-being in the West has not lead to an increase in “bien être.” The belief that happiness increases in direct proportion to purchasing power has proved to be an illusion. According to the German historian Reinhart Koselleck this is due to the utopian incompatibility of the Judeo-Christian messianic expectation with the belief in “technotopia.” The belief in progress is sending us crashing against the limits of what the planet and humankind are able to tolerate. In addition to the financial crisis of 2008, which continues to spread, we are also being confronted with crises in the labor market, the food supply, energy, the climate, and so forth. Ultimately what we are dealing with is a crisis of civilization. According to capitalist thought, crises are beneficial because they eliminate the less productive actors. But today capitalism itself must be called into question.

Although the crisis of 2008 demonstrated the bankruptcy of the belief in progress, that belief is still with us. The G20, the European Union and the national governments have left no stone unturned in the effort to get the “rat race” going again as soon as possible because 5 to 7 percent of our wealth was lost in the crisis. In order to keep from relinquishing even more wealth, the merry-go-round has to start turning again at full speed.

Why didn’t the necessary reflection take place? The explanation lies in what the Greek philosopher Aristotle described in his Poetics as “hamartia,” or the inability or blatant unwillingness to learn. Many administrators are so full of themselves that they think they have a patent on the truth, that there’s nothing they can learn from anyone. Hamartia is closely related to “hubris”: pride or vanity − in Catholic teaching the first and the most serious of the seven deadly sins. Anyone in the grip of megalomania is completely insensitive to in-depth experience and transcendence.

The Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities

The realization is growing in many quarters that a drastic change of course is essential. The Brundtland Report, issued in 1987 by the United Nations, called for the harmonious merging of ecological, economic and social interests. That same year, Pope John Paul II denounced overdevelopment − or social obesity − in his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. Since 1990 the German theologian Hans Küng has been working on a new world ethos. In 2009 French president Nicolas Sarkozy proposed the introduction of a different model for measuring progress than the gross national product. At the advice of Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winners in the field of economics, he would like to see more attention being paid to the common good. And the World Council of Churches would like to replace the gross national product with “gross national happiness,” which would include education, health care, ecology, cultural diversity, public spirit, time use and psychological and spiritual well-being.

At the meeting of the G20 to be held in the Brazilian capital of Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, a Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities has been put on the agenda. This is because the response provided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the global financial, economic and social crises, and to the consequences of climate change, has been inadequate. The new Declaration sets out new individual and collective responsibilities. The final goal is to draw up a charter approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations that would be recognized by the 193 countries of the UN as well as political, economic and social organizations and by the world’s citizens.

Just “click”

The signs in the West have never been more favorable. At this pivotal moment, all the elements needed to effect a fundamental change of course are at hand. The only thing left to do is the “click.” And in the Western world, a new human ideal can serve as a driving force to make this happen.

5. Ten words to help shape a new human ideal for the 21st century

Our model for a human ideal contains ten “words”: ten energizing attitudes that again tie in with the ancient ideal rooted in the Ten Commandments. Woven into these attitudes are the restoration of the link with the transcendent - and for believers this is God - and the achievements of the French Revolution and globalization.

Restoration of the link with the divine or the transcendent

Our proposal for a social model goes back to point when things began to go awry: the waning of the divine image. The malignancies in the economic and political spheres of the past two centuries were not the cause but the result of this breakdown. What it all comes down to is once again conferring the rightful place of primacy to the dimension − so many times greater than ourselves − that transcends our powers of sensory observation, embraces us and supports and guides our actions.

We reopen that option due to the fundamental changes that have taken place in society. Anyone who becomes aware and intuitively senses that life is a gift can feel the breath of Something or Someone which is life itself, which contains everything and makes life livable. It’s the beating heart behind the pulse of life; the “great cherishing” that makes love palpable everywhere; the safe feeling that somewhere there is a certainty, a terra firma where all of us can drop anchor. For Christians this is obviously the God of biblical revelation, and for non-believers it’s a reference to the transcendent and to mystery. Whether we believe in God or not need not divide us. For believers this is an appeal to dedicate themselves to society, which they can accept along with all people of good will, no matter what their beliefs.

Albert Einstein once wrote, “To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull facilities can comprehend only in the most primitive forms − this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of the devoutly religious men.” This makes intuition more important that the use of the senses. The reference to a cosmic Mystery, the Primal Wonder, the Most Distant Horizon, the Highest Good, the Most High − that which lies at the heart of everything worthwhile − widens our field of vision, appeals to our sense of responsibility and allows us to distinguish between good and evil.

Restoring that primacy fully corresponds with the often unexpressed homesickness and fundamental longing that is part of almost every human life. Clearly, many people search for a broader horizon and feel the need to transcend themselves.

The continuous process

Our appeal to restore the link with the transcendent or the divine is not prompted by a nostalgia for a past when practically everything was better; indeed, it takes full account of the fundamentally altered social context. We face the challenge of factoring in the achievements of the French Revolution − liberty, equality and fraternity − as they take shape under the impulse of the engine of globalization. A fundamental reversal has taken place over the past two centuries. Instead of a human being who was “shaped, loved and destined” by God, we now have a free, perfectible human being who is the product of social engineering and who makes autonomous choices and decisions − even regarding his fertility, his destiny and his death.

The human being is never “finished”; he keeps on evolving. The freedom that seems so unquestioned in Western countries has not yet been achieved in large parts of the world, as the Arab Spring demonstrated. And as far as fraternity or equal treatment for all, we still have a long way to go. Western countries are faced with the challenge of redefining the mechanisms of solidarity, first of all in order to better meet the real needs of the West itself. And as the keepers of our brothers in the South, we must make sure our international solidarity is visibly and firmly grounded: not in the charity of development aid but in an organized approach based on social security. Trade unions all over the world should strive for fair working conditions, and employers’ organizations should be sympathetic to the fate of employers in the South.

Above all, the ideals of the French Revolution should include sustainability as a fourth pillar. This would allow us to take into account the limits of economic growth based on what the environment and humankind can bear. The economy of the future would focus on the stakeholders with whom businesses cooperate; employers would not be so intent on raking in as much cash as possible; the employer-employee relationship would be based on a partnership model; and the employee would also share in the profits. Survival on our planet is going to require sustainable investments that have a minimal negative impact on the environment and the climate. And sustainable investments would act as a confidence-building balm for both the economy and society.

All this is implicit in a universal approach, since increased migration from all corners of the earth has turned Western society into a jumble of cultures, peoples and races. The multicultural character of our society is not going to go away. On the contrary, the way we deal with it constitutes one of the great challenges for the future.

Ten energizing attitudes

The freedom we have achieved, which can no longer be reversed under any circumstances, implies that it is no longer possible to impose any single vision on people by means of commandments or prohibitions. So we are proposing ten “words” for free humanity to live by: sensitive antennae or energizing attitudes for the society of tomorrow. Everyone is free to accept or reject them.

The first three basic attitudes restore the relationship with that which surpasses us: the divine or the transcendent.

1°Live life to the full (‘Worship no other gods’)

When people make choices and decisions, they need Something or Someone they can trust to show them the way through the jungle of existence: a point of reference or something to hold on to. This requires the full use of all five senses. Today, however, people depend mostly on hearing and seeing because these senses are essential to progress-centered thinking. The “soft values” of taste, touch and smell, which belong more to the realm of intuition, are less developed. As a result, we find ourselves less able to experience nature in all its dimensions, for example. Are we sufficiently aware of the smells, the colors and the fruits that nature produces? People who use all their senses to experience the way plants grow, blossom and die are more fully alive.
The first basic attitude allows us to live a fuller life by admiring what is endless, gratuitous and playful in the reality around us. Also contained in this attitude is the deep feeling, gratitude and love for so much beauty and abundance that doesn’t seem to serve any useful purpose at first but still means so much. Loving the Creator or the Artistwho brought everything about and calls things into being every day is a form of contemplation or prayer.

2. Authenticity (‘Make no graven images’)

A counterbalance to all the glamour, glitter and outward show is authenticity. In everything we say and do, we ought to demonstrate who we are and what we stand for, without a hidden or double agenda. You are only authentic when, despite every outside impulse, you remain true to your personality, spirit and character just as they were shaped and internalized on the basis of tradition, community, culture and rituals.
The second basic attitude calls us always to show ourselves as we are.

3°Loving the spirit (‘Do not take the name God in vain’)

A name is not a neutral or impersonal piece of data. When you utter the name of your beloved, you do it with fear and trembling and from a longing to be together. And therein lies a great strength. When the pioneer aviator Jean Mermoz crashed his plane into a flank of the Andes, saying his wife’s name out loud gave him such superhuman strength that he was able to walk three days and nights in a single stretch to reach the inhabited world. Likewise, saying the name of God, or whatever transcends us, can give us the strength to persevere to the last under difficult circumstances. Uttering His name is loving the spirit.
The third basic attitude makes us attentive to the deep power inherent in uttering, with fear and trembling, the name of whoever or whatever transcends us.

The seven following basic attitudes have to do with human applications.

4°The healing of stress (‘Keep the Sabbath holy’)

The weekly day of rest is more than the statutory obligation that was adopted in most Western countries in the 1960s. After working for six days, everyone needs a break from the daily routine in order to heal the stress that comes with the pressure of work. People dress differently on Sunday precisely because it’s different from every other day. The purpose of such a day is to occupy yourself with the things of the spirit: to tell stories and to play, to sing and to dance, to visit each other and to celebrate together, to fill things with beauty and to enjoy each other’s company. For believers, moreover, it’s the day to taste of His and each other’s presence in prayer and ritual. Keeping Sunday holy is essential to being a complete human being.
The fourth basic attitude underscores the importance of keeping Sunday holy as the cornerstone of a balanced life.

5°Reciprocity (‘Honor your father and mother’)

Everyone has many other fathers and mothers in addition to his biological parents − people who provide him with support and security, with whom he feels safe. And we in turn often serve as father or mother to others. This involves the dynamic of give and take. After all, nothing happens all by itself. Isn’t everything we have a gift? Thanks to our upbringing and language, the molding of our thoughts, the building up of our knowledge and the development of a love for others, we feel like a link in the chain of reality surrounding us. Anyone who dreams of launching a new project needs the experience and wisdom of prior generations; once the glow of burning libraries has been extinguished and all that’s left is a “tabula rasa” it’s awfully cold in a fatherless and motherless society.
The reciprocal interaction between young and old also makes us aware of the importance of the history that keeps repeating itself. As we drown in the flood of information in the media and on the internet, the teaching of history is all too frequently limited to the rote learning of dates and names, without deeper insight into the underlying currents. Sharpening our historical acuity can reverse our inability to draw lessons from the past.
The fifth basic attitude alerts us to the reciprocity between young and old and the importance of our understanding of history.

6°The power of art (‘Do not kill’)

Every day we’re confronted by war victims, AIDS deaths and abortion. The antidote to our increasingly violent society is the development of soft values. The miracle of life can only thrive in a climate of protection, care, love, encouragement and affirmation. The best agents of soft values by far are art and culture. But because politics, economics and military thinking are given prominence − which in our schools means an unbalanced emphasis on “useful” subjects like mathematics, the sciences and foreign languages − even the most elementary notions of art have become alien to us. The forest of country cottages, elegant villas, Spanish “haciendas” and modernistic architectural travesties in the exclusive residential areas, and the accumulation of kitsch in people’s front yards, are indications that the bulk of the population is culturally illiterate. Yet there’s enormous power in art and culture. They bring people together, raise the quality of society to a higher level and carry within them a prophetic power. In every era, artists have reflected on what is going on in society, and they give us a glance into the future through the power of their imaginations.
The sixth basic attitude not only enhances our love of life by focusing on art and culture, but it also makes us more aware of the life we are living.

7°True love (‘Do not commit adultery’)

Enjoying a meal together is far more than simply consuming food to quell hunger. It can turn into a feast in which friendship is the main dish. Similarly, sexual intercourse is much more than copulation, in which sexuality is viewed from the male standpoint as having mainly to do with genital pleasure and the ever crucial orgasm. The female approach to sexuality is adamantly averse to one partner’s conquest or domination of the other; instead, it widens the perspective to include tenderness and emotion, trust and compassion.

Trust, even more than love, is the driving force in any relationship. Real love is a source of self-abandoning trust − even when the other does not respond to your needs or expectations. An updated message about sexuality, love and trust can make people deeply happy and can prevent the realm of sexuality from being taken over by insidious individuals who see it only in terms of monetary gain.
The seventh basic attitude is meant to free people so they can fully love each other in trust: with feelings, body and spirit.

8° Respect (‘Do not steal’)

The opposite of enslaving someone − the initial meaning of the eighth commandment − is liberating him. But a life in freedom cannot be lived without mutual respect. Respect for the other manifests itself in various forms and at different levels, but it is always reciprocal.

No country can function properly without Bundestraue, or loyalty. The former American president John F. Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Respect also means complying with law and order. Violent criminals and drug dealers who put out the eyes of young people just to show off are dealt with harshly. And the only answer to the problem of no-go areas is a policy of zero tolerance and the implementation of systematic controls. Likewise, mutual respect is necessary among the various ranks of society. School principals and head nurses who assume a position of responsibility for a small salary increase deserve more respect. An individual who is respected radiates that respect within the group to which he belongs. Managers who are guilty of promoting a “me-first” culture put all bosses in a bad light. And politicians who, in their desire for media attention, shoot off one-liners and sexual innuendos that often are no more than hot air, undermine the credibility of the whole political enterprise. Likewise, the blatantly racist discourse that is supported by 15 to 20 percent of the population in a number of Western European countries is based on a fundamental lack of respect for ethnic minorities.
The eighth basic attitude clearly states that society cannot function properly without mutual respect.

9°Trust (‘Do not bear false witness’)

As opposed to the climate of distrust, tension and spiritual and material poverty that characterize so many Western countries, we must show ourselves as an open, trustworthy, tolerant, hospitable and intercultural society in which the many population groups are companions on the way and not adversaries. One glance at history teaches us that the Low Countries experienced their greatest growth when the “other people” were given priority, as during the time of the Burgundian dukes.
The ninth basic attitude is like medicine for counteracting widespread distrust in our struggle for an open, tolerant and hospitable society.

10°Admire without possessing (‘Do not covet your neighbor’s house or wife’)

Our lives do not become richer when we possess more but when we share what we have and what we are. So we must wean ourselves from the idée fixe of consuming more and more and imitating others − “I’ve got to have what everybody else has” − without asking ourselves whether we really need what we’re buying. We must relate differently to the material things of life. Admiring without possessing is an art. Actually, the West has no choice: we must relinquish some of our wealth and live more soberly. If we don’t take the step voluntarily, others will impose it on us. The realization that a one-sided emphasis on progress-oriented thinking has not made us happier over the past decades and has ruined our ecological and social capital gives us no other choice than to change direction. After the seven fat years come the seven lean years.
The application of the tenth basic attitude − living a more sober life − can lead to a better world.

6. Keep cherishing the dream of a happier society

How are we to implement the ten basic attitudes, the building blocks of tomorrow’s society? A combination of a soft and a hard approach will be necessary to imprint this ideal image on our minds. And this is where inspiring figures can help us. But humility is the real key to realizing the dream of a happier society.

A soft and a hard approach

First of all, imprinting the basic attitudes in people’s minds will require a gentle hand: drop by drop, day after day. A leading role in this is reserved for schools, adult education and extension programs. Governments can also set an important example in introducing the attitudes to broad segments of the population. We need ethical codes for political representatives and officials, and strict codes of conduct for lobbyists and interest groups.

Yet this soft approach is not enough. In a number of areas the government will have to adopt a get-tough approach to make sure the attitudes are widely adopted. One important instrument in this effort would be compulsory civilian service for all young people between the ages of 18 and 25. Legal provisions would be required to close all loopholes, with unambiguous sanctions for anyone who does not comply with the law. A four-track policy would discourage all forms of fraud. One: removing the reasons for committing fraud in the first place. Two: dealing with consumer demand by applying more control. Three: doing away with periods of limitation for demonstrable fraud. Four: following a zero-tolerance policy and handing down effective prison sentences.

Inspiring examples

But we won’t be able to get the job done with legal provisions alone. What we need above all else are inspiring figures who embody the ten basic attitudes in a credible way. Saint Damien of Molokai has always been an inspiration to many. And in Russia the former dissident Alexander Ogorodnikov, who barely survived nine years of imprisonment in the gulags of the Soviet Union, has devoted himself to a more humane society since 1987. Every day he cares for a few hundred people living along the margins of society.

It is extremely important that such stories be chronicled and circulated. As Pope Paul VI wrote in Evangelii Nuntiandi, no. 41, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses
than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”

The real key: humility

But the real key to bringing about this change is what the Greeks call “tapeinophrosyne” − meekness, humility and modesty − the opposite of “hamartia,” or the unwillingness to learn. Those who humbly integrate this retelling of the Ten Commandments into their lives become aware of the limitations of their own ideas, put themselves in perspective, do not impose their opinions on others, practice solidarity and keep an open mind: not only with regard to other opinions but also with regard to the Other. For inherent in the genetic makeup of “tapeinophrosyne” is respect for the divine, the mystical or the transcendent.

Living this way enables people to act ethically without the external pressure of punishment and reward. That is the point at which freedom coincides with accepting responsibility.

We are society

This interpretation of the concept of “freedom” is not a synonym for “doing whatever you want,” nor does it mean that society can accept people opting out and saying, “I’ll take care of myself, just leave me alone.” In a united, supportive society, everyone assumes responsibility − for society in general and for our neighbor in particular. The government is not a gravy train meant to benefit as many people as possible. Everyone should receive the portion that is his due, but everyone is also responsible for making sure that society functions properly. We are society.

The ultimate responsibility for society does not lie with someone else but with us. “Change the world, and begin with yourself,” said the late Bishop Helder Camara of Brazil. Even simple or symbolic deeds contribute to the building up of society. Small things are not really small. Every contribution, no matter how insignificant, is important. It’s not quantity but quality that counts.

Eyes on the prize

Working to make this new human ideal a reality will boost open public discourse, strengthen social networks and lead to greater social involvement, more transparency, more qualitative action and more honest commerce. Yet it’s all wishful thinking, for the ideal is still a lofty goal, something to aspire to.

We like to compare the establishment of our human ideal to a cluster of soap bubbles. They symbolize our basic attitudes for bringing about radical social change. They form a cohesive whole because they are indissolubly bound together. The most important characteristics of that cluster are their flexibility and their mobility. When one soap bubble pops off along the way or one aspect is not implemented, it’s no disaster because the other bubbles effortlessly fill in the available space. In the meantime, our human ideal propels the cluster of soap bubbles noiselessly along in the direction of the final goal: a happier society.

7. Acknowledgements

This text is a further reflection on Manifest Utopia revisited: Nieuw maatschappijmodel brengt mensen samen in plaats van ze te verdelen (Manifesto: Utopia Revisited: New Social Model Brings People Together Instead of Keeping Them Apart), published in December 2010 (Printor, Zottegem, Belgium, 180 pages).

The idea came about in September 2011 as the result of a conversation with the German artist Johannes Wickert. The editors of the first version were finished in three weeks, after which Manu Verhulst, Johannes Wickert, Ludo Vanden Eynden and Emmanuel Van Lierde added a few more final ideas. We based our interpretation of the original meaning of the Ten Commandments on the series of articles by Frans Lefevre. As illustrative material, twenty-five old and new paintings were selected from Wickert’s oeuvre. Marc Van Dorpe provided the very fine photography.

The Author

Author and journalist Koenraad De Wolf (born in Zottegem, Belgium, on October 3, 1956) studied history and art history at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He wrote hundred of articles as a freelance journalist for the weekly De Beiaard (from 1980 to the present) and has worked as a journalist for Tertio from 2000 until january 2012. Since 1982 he has published thirty-three books and twenty academic articles, in addition to articles in exhibition catalogues − about six thousand pages in all.