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Activities - Gatherings
Secularism, Ethics and Politics
Triglav Meeting - 30 June - 1 July
2007
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THEMES AND QUESTIONS FOR DEBATE, PROGRAMME OF WORK, and BACKGROUND NOTE
THEMES AND QUESTIONS FOR
DEBATE
Theme 1: Do secular liberal democracies need to redefine
their relations with religions, and/or with the spiritual realm?
Among the issues that could be
addressed:
How should
democracies respond to the rise of theocratic nation-states? Internally, in
most liberal democracies, churches are no longer a threat to the power of
the state and, in many cases, the number of the faithful is shrinking.
What are then the reasons for questioning the virtues of secularism? Are western
democracies reopening debates on secularism and laicism essentially
because of the increasing weight in their population of people of Islamic
faith? What is and
should be the meaning of tolerance, or toleration, for a secular liberal
democracy in today's world? Should the state for instance facilitate the
building and maintenance of churches, mosques and other places of worship,
or should it leave this task to private hands? More generally,
what is the meaning of religious freedom in a globalized world? If secular
liberal democracies actually suffer from having neglected the spiritual dimension
of human beings and societies, what could be the practical remedies for
this situation?
Theme 2: What can be said of the
seemingly troubled relationships that secularism entertains with ethics and
morality?
Among the issues that could be
addressed:
To give a
foundation to moral rules and duties, liberalism replaced divine law by
natural law and by utilitarianism. The concept of obligation, however,
which is common to divine law and to natural law, has lost much of its
moral content. And the doctrine of utilitarianism degenerates into moral
relativism and moral expediency when, to use the language of Durkheim, the
"cult of the individual" turns into the "cult of the self-interested ego."
Then, where are the moral foundations of secularism and liberalism to be
found? Are the
instrumentalization of reason and the related instrumentalization of
ethics due to a neglect of triumphant modernity for the rich array of
sources of knowledge and access to reality that are available to humanity?
Has the reliance on experimental proof led to the abandonment of
revelation (or mystical knowledge), intuition, artistic understanding of
"things" and simply affective emotion and love, all different ways of
apprehending the world and using Reason? Has modernity mutilated Reason
and Ethics? Seen from
another angle, is the problem of modernity with ethics the result of a
forgetfulness of the fact that human affairs are regulated according to
complementary but distinct orders? Pascal, most notably, distinguishes the
"order of the body", the "order of the mind", or reason, and the "order of
the heart", or charity. Each of these is indispensable and each has its
limitations. And ethics requires the interplay of these orders. Would this
and other comparable frameworks be useful points of entry to analyze the
current form(s) of modernity? At a time of
trivialization of ethics and monopolization of the moral discourse by
reactionary and authoritarian forces, it might be particularly useful to
go back to a few founding texts. In addition to Pascal's Les Pensees, The
Ethics of Spinoza is one of these. For Spinoza, Ethics replaces Morality.
Ethics is not concerned with judgment, nor with the Good and Evil, but
with the good and bad as "qualitative differences of mode of existence"
(Deleuze in Spinoza, Practical Philosophy). Good brings joy, bad brings
sadness. "Joy is a man's passage from a lesser to a greater perfection.
Sadness is a man's passage from a greater to lesser perfection." (The
Ethics, Book III, II/191). Should the problems encountered by secularism,
liberalism and modernity be addressed by a revisiting and deepening of the
spirit of the Enlightenment?
Theme 3: Politics should be
conceived as an art and practiced as a service to humankind. Which ideas should
be grafted on secular-liberal-democratic doctrines and practices so as to move
politics towards such ideal?
Among the issues that could be
addressed:
Should the
idea of progress be rejuvenated, notably by the shedding of the various forms
of scientism and positivism with which it was and still is loaded? If
individual and social progress would be seen as a possibility and as a moral
and political duty, would it become again a mobilizing utopia for liberal and
social democracies?
At
present, science, technology and the economy (often reduced to chrematistics)
are conditioning the polity and politics. But wealth is not able, by itself, to
create a humane society, nor an interesting civilization. Consumers do not
readily become active citizens. And democracy requires civic training and a
public space for the confrontation of ideas and projects. The omnipresence and omnipotence of
market relations tend to transform democracies into plutocracies. Globalization
exacerbates this reduction of politics to an adjunct of market relations. And
this marketisation of the world goes hand in hand with the destruction of the
environment, aggressive nationalism, conflicts and wars and violations of human
rights. Under which conditions could politics be geared towards goals such as the
building of a pluralistic and harmonious world community?
Politics,
it was said, notably by Max Weber, has to be oriented by "an ethic of
responsibility" rather than by "an ethic of conviction". The latter is focused
on the ends of human action and on the duties of Man vis-à-vis the Good. The
person of conviction is impatient with imperfections and with constraints. A
responsible person knows that the mediocre and the ambiguous in human thoughts
and actions can produce acceptable results for the human condition. Yet, the
pursuit of an ideal and the devotion to public activities require convictions.
What can be said of the tension, or dialectics, between conviction and
responsibility in today's world? How to reconcile the exercise of power and the
practice of wisdom?
Note: The Triglav Circle has touched several
aspects of this subject in its previous work. One may wish in particular to
consult several chapters of Candles in
the Dark, A New Spirit for a Plural World, including the Introduction,
Chapter 1 (Nitin Desai on Global Ethics), Chapter 2 ( Richard Falk on
Secularism), Chapter 7 ( Tu Wei
Ming on Confucian Humanism) and Chapter 11 (Barbara Sundberg-Baudot on
Progress). Also, in the booklet dated 1 November 2006, Notes on the Activities of the Triglav Circle during the period January
2005-September 2006, several pertinent discussions are reported, notably on
human flourishing and the recourse to different sources of knowledge (pages 7-8
and 23) and on modernity (pages 24 to 36).
BACKGROUND NOTE
1. Secularism is the doctrine of
strict differentiation and separation between two spheres of life in society:
the sphere of the temporal and the sphere of the religious. According to its
basic tenet, public institutions are to be neutral with regard to faiths and
churches, and individuals with public responsibilities are to refrain from
justifying their actions on religious grounds. They are also to refrain from
promoting or denigrating any religion. Secularism prevailed over clericalism,
or the temporal power of the cleric, in Christianized Western Europe through a
long and tumultuous history. Secularization was the progressive affirmation
that the affairs of city and state ought to be managed independently of church
prescription and religious faith. Tragically facilitated by the religious wars
of 17th century's Europe, secularism found its philosophical and
legal expression with the Enlightenment and the American and French revolutions
and, by the end of World War II, it had gained recognition in most national
constitutions throughout the world.
2. At present, it is still
"statistically" true that political regimes, based on separation of church and
state, or at least on the recognition of the autonomy of the public sphere
vis-à-vis religious credos, constitute the majority of the membership of the
United Nations. But it is also true that secularism, as a practice and as a
political philosophy, no longer enjoys the type of quiet and comfortable
domination that it had in the five or six decades following World War II.
Secularism is challenged, even embattled. What are the manifestations of the
difficulties presently encountered by secularism? And, what ideas can be
advanced as to the causes of this state of affairs? The purpose of this
Introduction is to address briefly these two questions and to evoke, even more
briefly, solutions that some are proposing to what might be seen as a "crisis"
of secularism.
3. Manifestations of the
problems and challenges that secularism is currently facing might be regrouped
under three points:
Ø
First and most obviously, secularism is
challenged by fundamentalist regimes. These are based on a literal
interpretation of a sacred text that clerics have the mission to implement.
Social relations are governed by religious law. Since religion is
all-encompassing there is no distinction between spheres in society. This fundamentalism
cum clericalism regained power in Iran in the 1970s, is dominant in a few other
states and influent in a number of others. Geo-politically, Islam represents a
direct challenge to the secularism identified with the Western world.
Ø
Second, apart from fundamentalist regimes,
fundamentalist ideas are influential in liberal democracies, notably in the
oldest and most powerful of them, the United States. Since its creation, this
country has been remarkable for its practice of religious freedom and pluralism
as well as its religious fervor. Its constitution proclaims the separation of
church and state, but with the aim of protecting religious freedom from state
interference rather than protecting the state from clericalism as it is
historically the case, most notoriously, in France. Such a separation still
prevails in the United States, but approaches to issues involving religion are
becoming more formally contentious and legalistic. Christian and Jewish
fundamentalist groups as well as various forms of millennialism have lately
gained significant political weight. Mainstream established churches have
directly intervened in political debates on issues that they considered morally
and doctrinally critical. And "God" is routinely invoked by political leaders
as a protection or justification for a number of political decisions.
Ø
Third, in other liberal democracies, particularly
Western European, secularism is confronted with a religious revival sometimes
taking the form of religious militancy. Various sects, often originated in
North America, are expanding their membership and activities and some
governments are attempting to control them. More significantly, the proportion
of people of Islamic faith in the population of these countries is growing,
notably through immigration, and many of these people practice seriously their
religion. They pray, they attend ceremonies and they do not hesitate to model
their lives according to their beliefs. Such developments and behavior stand in
sharp contrast with the overall and rapid decline in these same countries of
their traditional Christian religions. People who often remain nominally
Christian through baptism are interested in the Christian message of love and
charity, but refuse to be told how to behave. They are interested in spiritual
matters, in philosophies offering ideas and practices on how to live better and
reach serenity in an increasingly rapidly changing world, but they reject dogma
and moral prescriptions. There is then a question of coexistence between
religious skepticism and religious fervor and the matter is made much more complicated
by the history of colonialism and domination, by the conflicts in the
Middle-East and by the popularity of notions such as "the clash of
civilizations." As evidenced by the controversies surrounding the adoption by France
of a law prohibiting women to wear a veil in public places, notably in schools
and universities, a number of liberal democracies are struggling to adjust
their secularist doctrines to changing and difficult times.
4. Do these challenges which
confront secularism have readily identifiable causes? Are there weaknesses or
flaws in the political philosophy that underlie the modern avatars of
secularism? Six elements of reflection are presented below:
Beginning again with the most obvious, secularism,
contrary to the expectations and hopes of some of its proponents, has not
destroyed religion. Worldwide, some established religions, including
Islam, are growing. For Christianity, its decline in Western Europe,
should not obscure its growth in Latin America, Africa and, to a much
lesser extent, Asia. And, as evidenced by the multiplication of a large
variety of sects and philosophical cum religious movements and groups, the
religious feeling, or religious need of people seems to be as great now as
in previous periods of human history. In a related vein, secularism is accused of neglecting
the spiritual needs of individuals and the spiritual dimensions of
society. Neutrality on religious matters, it is said, has too often been
confused with indifference to spirituality and ignorance of essential
dimensions of the human person. Because secularism offers little more than
technocratic and commercial responses to societal issues, because there is
scarce public space for dreams and ideals, because science has severed
many of its relations with conscience, individuals, looking desperately
for a sense of purpose in their lives, sometimes give up their freedom of
thought to manipulative sectarian pseudo-prophets and, more often, suffer
from diverse forms of alienation. Secularism implies the reign of Reason, as opposed to
Revelation, of the rational as contrasted with an irrational identified
with the fanciful and the magic, but Reason has progressively deteriorated
into a series of instrumentalities. Rulers and public servants were to
follow the Weberian imperative to apply rationality to the goals they would
pursue and the means they would utilize. Instead, they reduce their
horizons to technocratic recipe. The population at large is also expected
not to be bound by the teachings of any church or sectarian movement.
Ideally, citizens of secular states are to be intellectually and morally
autonomous human beings. Instead, they are too often passive consumers of
the products of the media controlled by large financial capitalist
interests and are, on occasions, the complacent victims of demagogues and
populist manipulators. Secularism is failing because its philosophical
basis, which is a rich and imaginative vision of Reason, is being eroded. In line with its emphasis on rationality, secularism
has replaced the religious ideas of salvation and resurrection by the idea
of a continuous progress open to humankind. Secularism, humanism, and
modernity are closely linked. Faith in progress, of the individual and of
society, is in many respects the religion of secularism. The marvels brought by science and
technology are supposed to be paralleled by progress in human
consciousness and ability to organize society for the good of all its
members. And, indeed, living conditions have improved dramatically in
Western countries and, to an extent, throughout the world as "development"
has became the mobilizing motto of the second part of the 20th
century. But this same 20th and 21st centuries are also marred by
unprecedented atrocities. And the realization has been spreading that
industrialization is destroying the ecology of the planet. Moreover, at
present, wars, internal conflicts, violations of human rights are more
numerous than they were a quarter of a century ago. Thus, it would seem
more appropriate to warn about the resurgence of Barbarian times than to
eulogize the idea of progress. . Politics in many liberal industrialized regimes tends
to be reduced to the administration of the economy. The traditional
criticism that capitalism has reduced to commodities all aspects of
society, including social relations has not lost its pertinence. Moreover,
the damage that the primacy on production and consumption inflicts on the
natural environment is a mater of increasing concern. And the process of globalization,
under the aegis of giant corporations supported by a few governments, is
feeding the sentiment that states are simply the servants of a huge
financial machine creating needs and transforming "ci-devant" citizens into passive consumers. When this occurs,
economics deteriorates into chrematistics, the process first described by
Aristotle by which wealth is used to create more wealth and more social
gratification for those who have privileged monetary positions. Politics
is thus shrinking to the administration and management of "things" and
loses its grandeur and appeal. The problem to be considered is the nature
of politics in the modern market society. Is it reasonable to consider
that as participation in public affairs becomes reduced to an occasional
vote, and, as parliaments are being supplanted by the executive branch,
that representative democracy is in crisis. Is it certainly possible that
this situation will lead to authoritarian tendencies, of a technocratic or
populist variety. Then, both secularism and political liberalism are in
jeopardy. Ethics has also been largely instrumentalized in
modern secular societies. Secularism,
at the end of the 19th century and to some extent after World
War II, had strong moral overtones. In Europe, North America and elsewhere
in affluent lands, good citizens, supposedly free of the yoke of the
church, were taught a vigorous humanism where civic virtues were immersed
into an optimistic outlook on society and its future. Moral education had
a privileged place in school's curricula. Morality was a mix of the
compulsory and the desirable. This was an era with many certainties that
came to an abrupt end with the First World War. With this event, sophisticated
secular political cultures had shown their capacity for self destruction. And subsequent atrocities nurtured
skepticism and cynicism: humanists came to be seen as naïve and actually
dangerous souls, for they were making the fatal mistake of taking for
granted the benevolence and perfectibility of Man and Society. At present,
ethics has become a tool for boosting the social status and respectability
of institutions in many powerful settings and situations. There are many
committees and commissions on ethics and the domains of application of
guidelines for ethical behavior range from bio-techniques to accounting
and trade. The most publicized business ethic, also called corporate
responsibility, is very hard to differentiate from a simplified version of
the traditional virtue of honesty, except that being "ethical' is not
presented as an end in itself but as a recipe for growth and success. To
be successful economically and financially is to contribute to a culture
of immediate satisfaction of one's needs, or desires, or impulses, or
whims. This culture prevails in the Western model of civilization and
advertising is its privileged tool. At the same time, and quite logically,
what is perceived as excessive liberalism in social mores feeds religious
and moralistic reactions of the fundamentalist type. They are in the
Western world and elsewhere many proponents of a "moral order" ready to
sacrifice freedom to virtue. Then, secularism would have recreated its
once vanquished nemesis.
5. On the basis of such diagnosis of the difficulties that the doctrine
of secularism is facing, difficulties which are hardly separable from those of
liberal democracy and the dominant form of modernity, a number of attitudes and
strategies are possible. One can seek to "reform" the practice of secularism,
making it more amenable to the basic spiritual needs of individuals and to the
various forces and processes that make a society and a world. This goes through
a recognition that various types of rationality are possible and legitimate and
that the strict separation of a public sphere and a private sphere, to which
religion ought to belong, is unrealistic. One can also attribute the current
problems of secularism to the hopefully temporary resurgence of obscurantist
tendencies that are never definitely obliterated from modern civilization. Then
the duty of those who are attached to the great achievements of secular liberal
democratic regimes – including the freedom of thought that they give to
their citizens – is to continue the work of the Enlightenment, instead of
putting in question its faith in Reason and in the capacity of Man to improve
its condition. In the piece mentioned in the Note above Richard Falk calls for
a "reconstructed secularism" that would involve "the extension of human rights
based on an ethos of solidarity" and a "form of collaboration between religion
and politics" and that would entail "a recovery of the sacred." In this sense,
says Falk, "the most intriguing challenge of post-modernity, here conceived as
a space for spiritual and normative creativity, is to resurrect
"spirituality"." ( Candles in the Dark, Chapter
2, pages 61 and 62.)
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