Since we have been discussing his Modern Times, I thought I would excerpt his conclusion, below.
by the year 1900 politics was already replacing religion as the chief form of zealotry…At the democratic end of the spectrum, the political zealot offered New Deals, Great Societies and welfare states; at the totalitarian end, cultural revolutions; always and everywhere, Plans…all united by their belief that politics was the cure for human ills: Sun Yat-Sen and Ataturk, Stalin and Mussolini, Khruschev, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Castro, Nehru, U Nu and Sukarno, Peron and Allende, Nkrumah and Nyerere, Nasser, Shah Pahlevi, Gadafy and Saddam Hussein, Honecker and Ceausescu. By the 1990s, this new ruling class had lost its confidence and was rapidly losing ground, and power…Was it possible to hope that the ‘age of politics’, like the ‘age of religion’ before it, was drawing to a close?
…But it was not yet clear whether the underlying evils which had made possible its catastrophic failures and tragedies–the rise of moral relativism, the decline of personal responsibility, the repudiation of Judeo-Christian values, not least the arrogant belief that men and women could solve all the mysteries of the universe by their own unaided intellects–were in the process of being eradicated. On that would depend the chances of the twenty-first century becoming, by contrast, an age of hope for mankind.
That was written nearly twenty years ago. What we know now is that the ‘age of politics” is back, at least in Congress and the White House.
Also, as I said in a previous post, I do not believe that the rise of moral relativism and the other social/intellectual trends can carry all the weight that Johnson puts on them.
READER COMMENTS
Grant Gould
Aug 3 2010 at 9:07am
Blaming Shah Pahlevi on the repudiation of Judeo-Christian values is perhaps pushing the plausibility envelope a little bit.
floccina
Aug 3 2010 at 9:35am
Were do early rulers who were supposed to be Gods and the divine right of kings fit into this?
Alex J.
Aug 3 2010 at 9:41am
Technological progress and the decline of religion would encourage the view that we can and should, respectively, fix every problem in the here and now. Agency bias would lead us to think that any present failures would be due to conspiratorial Jews, capitalists, kulaks, klansmen, corporations etc. With the decline of religion, we can’t blame the devil anymore, or god’s mysterious ways.
Also, more surplus means things can carry on dysfunctionally for longer and farther.
William Barghest
Aug 3 2010 at 10:12am
Moral relativism no, but there is an obvious link between the decline of the ethic of personal responsibility and the rise of the ideological state, through I have no idea how the causality runs.
William Barghest
Aug 3 2010 at 1:31pm
Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.
“And those people should not be listening to those who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.”
Alcuin of York agrees that more voice is not the answer, or so it seems from this snipped from a letter to Charles the Great in 768.
fundamentalist
Aug 3 2010 at 1:51pm
Moral relativism is an effect, not a cause. The cause is declining acceptance of traditional Christianity.
Rebecca Burlingame
Aug 3 2010 at 4:49pm
@ Alex J,
When I think of the words that came from Hume’s pen and how easily he got along with people in his lifetime, I am still amazed.
R Richard Schweitzer
Aug 3 2010 at 10:26pm
“Morals” at any one time and spot generally reflect a commonality of recognized and accepted obligations in human interactions (the “oughts” and “ought-nots;” the Deontic). What Johnson has observed are the diverse and increasing factors in Modern Times that have effected the formation of commonalities; the massive movements of peoples, internal mobilities within social orders and increasing disconnects (see, Barzun).
The ephemeral relationships, such as politics, displaced for many the longer traditions of religions.
We are now possibly entering an era of comparative analysis, displacing “relativism.”
MernaMoose
Aug 4 2010 at 12:33am
not least the arrogant belief that men and women could solve all the mysteries of the universe by their own unaided intellects
Hmmm.
On the one hand, the Social Planners Know All and will Save us.
On the other hand, we are to become self-proclaimed Idiots Who Know Not.
The boundaries within which this “dialectic” plays out need to be drawn very carefully.
By the 1990s, this new ruling class had lost its confidence and was rapidly losing ground, and power
Political zealotry was in full swing long before 1900 (does anybody remember the French Revolution).
To say it had lost any ground, let alone “rapidly”, by 1990, is beyond the pale.
There is always another boy coming along who would be king.
caveat bettor
Aug 4 2010 at 11:17am
Relative economic growth trends correlate rather well with the acceptance of christian beliefs, don’t they? From Rome to Constantinople, from Spain to France, from Britain to America, to South Korea today. Isn’t that what the data shows?
I’m bullish on America, because of those few clinging to their guns and religion. I think South Korean growth rates might outperform though, given their superior church growth.
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