“Societies in which religion appeared to have been overcome as a political force only half a century ago are witnessing what political philosopher Michael Walzer calls a “return of the negated.” Of course, as Freud says of the repressed, the negated does not return unaltered.”
“Today’s religious revival is not a resurrection of the traditionalist opposition to secular nationalism but a new form of hyper-nationalism underwritten by religious eschatology.”
“Israel, Algeria, and India, three countries created by movements of national liberation that were “committed . . . to an explicitly secular project.” Yet in the states these movements created, “a politics rooted in what we can loosely call fundamentalist religion is today very powerful.””
“What explains this unexpected trajectory, according to Walzer, is a tension inherent to national liberation. Liberation requires not just removing the yoke of foreign oppression but also transforming the consciousness of the liberated—“a struggle against, rather than an ‘exaltation’ of, the existing nation.” Consequently,
the old ways must be repudiated and overcome—totally. But the old ways are cherished by many of the men and women whose ways they are. That is the paradox of liberation.”
“Walzer’s recipe for combating religious revivalism is critical engagement. “Alongside the ongoing work of negation,” he writes, “the tradition has to be acknowledged and its different parts ingathered” so they can “become the subject of ongoing argument and negotiation.””
“This is primarily an intellectual endeavor, focused on textual and cultural interpretation. As Walzer has written elsewhere, “The texts of our tradition are important, not holy. Every generation must read them again, and must debate them, to choose some and reject others,” with the aim of developing democratic, egalitarian versions of traditional texts and customs.”
“This is just what Walzer prescribes: “Giving up negation doesn’t mean acceptance; it means . . . intellectual and political engagement.””
“The religious Orthodoxy was all for engagement with the tradition on its terms, but was, and still is, ferociously hostile to critical engagement.”
“As historian Perry Anderson puts it, nationalist reactionaries merely “articulate openly what had always been latent in the national movement.””
“Academics like to interpret texts, but most traditionalists seek something else in religion, often the very opposite of the intellectual thrill of rational argument and textual interpretation. What draws people to religion is frequently not its cultural thickness or historical depth, but its promise of transcendent meaning, absolute value, definite authority, and exceptional identity.”
“These are attractive features that appeal especially to young people, often disgruntled, marginalized, and alienated, who join cults and radical political movements. What they seek is intensity, integrity, and totality.”
“The attraction of religious politics thus has far more to do with sensibility than with sense. It is the realm of emotions, identity, and lifestyle rather than doctrines and abstract ideas. Seeking religious and political authenticity, young revivalists rebel first and foremost against what they regard as their parents’ vapid moderation.”
“Ironically, such sentiments are precisely what drew many young Jews to the Zionist movement in its heyday. The problem for Zionism was that this appeal—as a meaningful, exhilarating totality—could only last as long as its goal had not been reached. With the creation of the state, the revolutionary fervor inevitably subsided, giving way to the mundane business of governance, which has little hope of satisfying intense political sensibilities.”
“To those who seek the particularist, thick, metaphysical sense of being and belonging that religion provides, watered-down, liberal variants of religion are bound to reek of inauthenticity.”
“As Max Weber put it in 1917:
The inward interest of a truly religious “musical” man can never be served by veiling to him and to others the fundamental fact that he is destined to live in a godless and prophetless time by giving him the ersatz of the armchair prophecy. The integrity of his religious organ, it seems to me, must rebel against this.”
“Again, Weber’s observation is pertinent:
Never as yet has a new prophecy emerged . . . by way of the need of some modern intellectuals to furnish their souls with, so to speak, guaranteed genuine antiques. In doing so, they happen to remember that religion has belonged among such antiques, and of all things religion is what they do not possess. . . . It is, however, no humbug but rather something very sincere and genuine if some of the youth groups who during recent years have quietly grown together give their human community the interpretation of a religious, cosmic, or mystical relation.”
“Weber described modernity as involving the disenchantment of nature, but no less significant is the disenchantment of politics. Political religion is the re-enchantment of politics. It offers the warmth of tight-knit exclusive groups, the exhilaration of immersion in a transcendent cause, and the reassurance of a comprehensive scheme of nature, sense of history, and foundation of value.”
“The seemingly innocent demand for critical engagement ultimately reinforces the traditionalist claim to superior status, for in this game of interpreting the tradition, Orthodoxy will always seem more authentic. In effect, the imperative to engage religious doctrine evicts secular liberals from the political debate.”
“Without transformation of public sensibility and the banishment of religion from politics, positive engagement with religion is less likely to produce liberal religion than to accelerate reactionism.”
“Critical engagement with the tradition might be worthwhile in its own right, but it won’t reach across the aisle. In order for the tradition to be constructively engaged, the religious counterrevolution has to be defeated. This will not be achieved if the champions of liberal democracy end up reinforcing it.”