10.20.07
Lilla on political theology
Coping with political theology.
Mark Lilla at Cato Unbound.
Lilla’s interesting essay deserves a sommersault, maybe make the libertarians at the Cato Inst. rush away screaming (I may not agree with my own argument);
Modern liberalim’s triumph is considered in Hegel’s thought the ‘end of history’. But is this Hegel or its it Fukuyama?
We forget that the defining standard of liberal culture was never finalized, and since we have cited Hegel, we should consider just what kettle of fish was involved in Hegelian ‘liberalism’? And what, despite its dialectical reversal, was carried over into the Marxist ‘hegelianism’ that became the first of the anti-modern Islams? The atomized society of Crusoe individuals was protested by Hegel, so maybe we should protest Hegel. But if so we should protest Fukuyama.
Yes, the atomized indidivuals at Cato should be worried, no?
Among the many paradoxes in America’s international relations today, one stands out. It has to do with America’s self-conception, and therefore with religion. On the one hand, America is clearly the most religious nation in the modern West and the most powerful. On the other, American policy has been unable to understand, let alone cope with, the religious passions dominating contemporary world politics. Given Americans’ collective recognition of religion’s legitimacy in a modern political order, one would think that we would be better able to adapt ourselves to the current situation than other, far more secular Western nations. This is not the case, and we need to understand why.