{"id":3952,"date":"2016-03-03T14:51:36","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T21:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/?p=3952"},"modified":"2020-01-09T04:07:41","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T11:07:41","slug":"morality-religion-and-politics-pt-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/morality-religion-and-politics-pt-1\/3952\/","title":{"rendered":"Morality, Religion and Politics: Pt. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a year and a half ago I wrote a small series of posts in which I discussed Habermas\u2019 The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere<\/em> as a basic outline for different ways in which we can understand the various manifestations of the gospel. Within this post I would like to discuss another book which approach almost the same topic and material from a very different political angle: Reinhart Koselleck\u2019s Critique and Crises: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society<\/em>. The difference between the two is the whereas Habermas traces his roots back through the Frankfurt School to Kant and Rousseau, Koselleck intellectual heritage traces back through Carl Schmitt to Hobbes. Thus, whereas the former thinks that the \u201cpublic sphere\u201d is the best thing that can happen within and lead a society, the latter is much more suspicious and cynical about the idea that inter-subjective criticism can deliver on its rather utopian promises.<\/p>\n

The topic and relevance of this book can roughly be unpacked in terms of the following reverse timeline: The various political \u201c-isms\u201d and parties that influence us today can be traced back to the French Revolution at the end of the 18th Century. The various factions and ideologies that emerged within this revolution were themselves the products of the earlier, 18th century enlightenment, which was itself a response to absolute monarchism. Absolute monarchism, however, was itself a very rational response to the religious and civil wars of the 17th Century, which were, in turn, a response to the breakdown of the traditional social order and split in ecclesiastical unity during the 16th Century. Koselleck\u2019s thesis is that by seeing absolutism as a solution to a previous problem, we distance ourselves from the rather \u201chypocritical\u201d self-understanding of the enlightenment thinkers who viewed absolutism solely as a problem to be solved rather than a solution in and of itself to another set of problems.<\/p>\n

It is important to realize that while Koselleck is clearly an authoritarian, like his mentor, Schmitt, he does not endorse a traditional kind of conservatism. Indeed, he has almost nothing at all to say about the traditional society that the reformation had torn asunder. That said, he does touch upon two aspects of that pre-Reformation, traditional society: First, there was no distinction between religion, morality or politics. For this reason, the reformation revolt in religion necessarily entailed a moral and political revolt as well. Second, and closely related, there was a \u201cGod\/King\u201d analogy such that, in a deep sense, a legitimate king was viewed as a mortal, demi-god of sorts to his subjects.<\/p>\n

Koselleck thus interprets Hobbes in terms of his departures from these aspects of traditional society. Put simply, absolute monarchism was a solution to the religious and civil wars rather than a problem in desperate need of solution. Hobbes\u2019 Leviathan is based around the empirical claim that a moral\/religious conscience was the cause of civil war and bloodshed rather than the solution that each side of the war proclaimed their own conscience to be. Hobbes thus forces a choice upon all such belligerents: virtue or peace? Since all sides of these seemingly endless wars were continuing their fight in the name of Catholic or Protestant virtue, it had become painfully clear that each side could only have peace by forfeiting the legislative prerogative of moral\/religious virtue. Thus, Hobbes argues that since each side cares, or at least ought to care about survival above all else – including religious virtue! – then they should all submit themselves to an all-powerful sovereign who\u2019s only responsibility to his subjects is their protection from physical death not moral pollution.<\/p>\n

This unilateral authority wielded by the absolute monarch came to be known as Raison d\u2019etat<\/em> \u2013 reasons of state \u2013 and was the true source of the separation between church and state. Furthermore, since there was no separation between morality and religion, this was also a separation between morality and state as well. What absolute monarchy was to do, then, was rationalize politics \u2013 in the crassest, most instrumental sense of the word \u2013 by excluding all religion and morality from the public sphere due to their interminable and deep-seated disagreements. All such moral and religious beliefs were demoted to the status of \u201copinion.\u201d While each individual was, for the most part, free to accept or reject moral\/religious opinions as they pleased, they were not allowed to hold other people \u2013 especially the monarch! \u2013 accountable to their views in these matters. Society was to be organized according to the public interest as unilaterally determined by the sovereign authority, not by any person or group of persons\u2019 conscience. In this way, the choice between good and evil was transformed into that between war and peace.<\/p>\n

Enlightenment thinkers, by contrast, would later argue that Raison d\u2019etat<\/em> was an unqualified evil for which a remedy must be found, but only by repressing the memory of the civil wars to which it had been a solution. (A contemporary parallel would be how Saddam Hussein came to be seen as the cause of rather than a solution or sorts to sectarian violence in the Middle East.) Whereas absolutism was based in stark contrasts between different states and between each state and its private individuals, the enlightenment ethic was specifically aimed at blurring and destroying such distinctions. Such efforts only seemed plausible, however, within a context of political stability and religious neutralization that had itself been established by the very authority it sought to abolish.<\/p>\n

In the next post I will discuss the ways in which the combination of the Republic of Letters and secret societies that made up the Enlightenment sought to draw a distinction between religion and morality for the sake of overthrowing politics altogether.<\/p>\n

Questions for Mormons:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The scriptures seem to send mixed messages about the relationship between politics and religion. The idea that they are utterly\u00a0distinct from one another seems no more plausible than the idea that they are completely identical. Do we have any firm stance on the subject?
\n\u2022 We often claim that both the reformation and the Enlightenment were, in some sense, inspired by God. What about absolute monarchism to which they both serve as bookends?
\n\u2022 The modern state was founded upon\u00a0the idea that survival is more important than righteousness. Do Mormons truly agree with this?