The Healing Minority: Bernard Lonergan’s Practical Goal of Healing and Creating in History

At various points in his writings, Bernard Lonergan invoked the work of historian Arnold Toynbee, and paid particular attention to the latter’s notion of a “creative minority” that evokes historic change in the world. In his essay “Healing and Creating in History,” he notes that a creative minority, and the creative process that their insights yield, lead to social progress. Conversely, Lonergan attends to the problems of the social surd, as well as the shorter and longer cycles of social decline. Insights dry up; the creative minority becomes, in his words, “merely the dominant minority.” Social decline follows. In this paper, I will explore the notion of a “healing minority,” a group whose function is to reverse the effects of social decline and promote social progress. The notion of a healing minority is not named per se in Lonergan’s writings, but is implicit in two ways. First, in his descriptions of the prerequisites for social progress, he identifies groups that understand the inevitability of the social surd and nevertheless commit themselves to social progress by embracing the dialectical attitude of overcoming evil with good. Second, he invokes those groups whose explicit mission is to promote the goods of community life. This paper will show that the healing minority is a critical element in Lonergan’s understanding of social progress in history.