The Maddest Holiness

These past few years have found me complaining, more than once, about what I like to call the growing religiosity of our global politics (pars. 4-6). Meaning that nowadays many of us - but in particular many of our most credentialed and powerful global interests - seem to be approaching age-old political questions in a rather dramatically final way. Almost as if we had Just Today discovered - as never before - the means of firmly resolving various ancient-yet-key political issues. Like, say, the Most Progressive and Enlightened Meaning of Compassion. Or Equality. Or Sovereignty. Or Freedom. 

Again, firmly resolving them. And not just pragmatically, and, say, for the next few years or decades, but ideologically, and for all time (or even all of eternity). Almost as if we all - but we Westerners in particular - had at last got hold of the fool-proof method for not just finding, but staying on, the Right Side of History. And that the better part of keeping to the Right Side consisted of knowing definitively - irrevocably, as it were - its moral weights and balances. But above all, that at the heart of this unprecedented enlightenment lay a discovery unimaginable to previous generations: namely, that the overwhelming share of human history's villainy, injustice, cruelty and oppression lies with the Christian West. As distinct from certain non-Western, and even more so non-Christian, religions and civilizations. 

So let me be clear on this point: It's not that we Global Westerners are against - or even dismissively skeptical of - religion as such.* Indeed I notice how many seem to have an especial tenderheartedness for certain rather militant, activist, and even anti-Christian forms of Confucianism and Islam (Part II, pars. 4-5)  - but more on that presently. In fact so much, it seems to me, has a spirit of religion infected even the methodology of the way we do world politics, that I'm moved to say, with very little exaggeration, that we're starting to "religi-ossify" socio-political questions - and causes - such as were never meant to be religious at all. Much less settled once for all time - in Heaven even as they are on earth, so to speak. Indeed, I notice a "sacralizing" of our answers to such an extent that today, many are prepared to censor or even anathematize all dissenting views on certain broad topics, whether past or present. 

*Although, to be fair, many of our more globally-minded seem have a burning contention with not just the Christian West, but Christianity itself, at least in its more or less orthodox modes.

So whence comes, do you think, this hunger for final, definitive, irreversible answers? And these on previously tentative subjects like not just politics and economics, but everything from global disease control to global gender studies? 

For me, it's as if we were craving a new kind of sanctity, or holiness, or consecration. One that is in fact striking in its novelty: that has its roots in, and draws its strength from, not a world beyond this one, or a life to come, or a God beyond ourselves, but rather in having found the right answers - for all time and everywhere - to various "here and now" questions. Including some that have hitherto been approached with a certain provisionality, a measured caution and suspense of mind. Questions like the final moral status of the historical records of Christianity, and Islam, and even Russia. Almost as if we Global Westerners were in the process of submitting all three entities to some kind of final judgment at the bar of history. A judgment which, so far as we believed ourselves entitled to make it, would be presuming a great deal about our own Western holiness, virtue, righteousness, etc. 

Indeed I wonder if there isn't a kind of, as it were, craving for holiness that somehow unhinges the craver: a yearning for absolute moral clarity even in politics - i.e., for  holding the moral high ground, for being the good guys for all time - that slowly, inexorably makes one mad. And in particular when one doesn't know where to begin to look for holiness, and how to recognize it. 

In any case, I'd like to make a suggestion.

This present globe will understand the point of true religion only when it grasps what it means for any human being to be holy, or set apart, or consecrated: what holiness consists of, and what makes it desirable. The point is that we mere humans cannot consecrate ourselves. We can never, by mere force or act of self-will, make ourselves better than, or better-suited than others to transform or purify, the great mass of unholy mankind. We may succeed, after a fashion, in making ourselves better than others according to our own estimates, and for our own purposes. But never for the purposes of God. Only God can consecrate us; only our Maker can remake us, and lift us up; and if He does so, it will always be for His designs, never ours.

Now this latter point - this business of knowing and doing God's designs - may seem like a straightforward enough proposition, until there comes a time when it isn't. Because no matter how well we think we may be able to know or learn the purposes of God, there is nearly always something about them that's sure to surprise us, that's bound to catch us up short. I may (think I) know a given Divine plan inside out, and yet be surprised, or even alarmed or dismayed, by the person He chooses to implement it, or to be its chief instrument (par. 7). Or even the way He chooses to go about this project, which may seem to show scant regard for the priorities closest to my heart. In short, our capacity to be made holy often involves our willingness to laugh certain things off: including a good many things that we in our wisdom were most rigidly, and in our view rightly, expecting. Or at least expecting to go a certain way. And what is true for each one of us is at least as much true for this busy, ambitious, hungry-for-encompassing-answers modern globe. 

Take, again, our modern globalizing West. It may be passionately "religious" - supremely confident of its ultimate vindication by history - in its ambition to exalt and glorify a "fully sovereign" Ukraine; to punish, destabilize or anathematize a renegade Russia; to understand, condole with, and tenderly conciliate even the most anti-Western, revanchist interpretations of Islam. Or even a revanchist, anti-Christian People's Republic of China (and that for all our perfunctory saber-rattling to the contrary). Our Global West may be no less fervent in its desire for a kind of (secular?) holiness: for a separating, from within its own ranks, of wheat from chaff, righteous from unrighteous, progressive from reactionary, woke from unwoke. But it will never recognize the genuine article except as it understands holiness as something more than just fervor, or zeal, or even righteous anger: until it embraces holiness as a thing inseparable from humility, and humility as something wholly inoperative, indeed a mere dead letter, apart from a certain human capacity for surprise and humor. Yes, even about myself, and my fondest ideals and agendas. And yours.

In other words, this present globe, at the present rate it is going, seems to have very little prospect of acquiring or even understanding real humility. Which means it likely has no hope of ever understanding the point of true, (God-, and not man-) centered religion. Much less true holiness. At least, not any time before the return of Holiness Himself.

A Queen's Legacy (and its enemies)

"My own association with the Commonwealth has taught me that the most important contact between nations is usually contact between its peoples. An organisation dedicated to certain values, the Commonwealth has flourished and grown by successfully promoting and protecting that contact. At home, Prince Philip and I will be visiting towns and cities up and down the land. It is my sincere hope that the Diamond Jubilee will be an opportunity for people to come together in a spirit of neighbourliness and celebration of their own communities. We also hope to celebrate the professional and voluntary service given by millions of people across the country who are working for the public good. They are a source of vital support to the welfare and well-being of others, often unseen or overlooked." [Emphasis mine]

 - Queen Elizabeth II, Diamond Jubilee Speech, Westminster, March 2012

But before I say anything else:

I know it's been a good while since I've posted anything (assuming - again - anyone really cares). I also  know that, lately, I seldom seem to do much of anything post-wise other than to pose what some may dislike as stupid, nitpicking, impertinent questions. Ones usually directed at, or about, our Globally Enlightened American Establishment. Who, as everyone knows, should rarely if ever be questioned about much of anything, under even the direst circumstances. Conditions like, for instance, our country's current frolicking on the brink of what may be an unprecedented abyss: that of a steadily escalating nuclear exchange between our globe's two indisputably foremost nuclear powers. 

Not, mind you, that any of us need be prematurely alarmed just yet. Especially seeing we're in such capable hands. After all, what's the worst that could happen? Even if we should embrace the risk - or skirt the brink - of permanently enfeebling or eviscerating or dismembering vile old Russia, what's the worst we should expect by way of retaliation? I mean, surely old Vladdy's not mad enough (or else too much of a cowardly scoundrel) to do something really desperate? 

But now - if you can - please try and put up and with me and my questions a bit longer. Because I've got a few more.

First off, notice how different were the late Queen's stated priorities from those of our present rulers. She spoke of contacts between not just nations, but those nations' peoples. Including presumably all sorts of everyday simple ordinary folk from all walks of life. In other words, "contacts" should not be confined to those ultra-sophisticated, influential, hyper-credentialed types - corporate, military-industrial, think-tank, NGO, etc - most eager to establish deep connection, if not outright collusion, with their opposite numbers in other countries. (Almost as if these latter together should constitute a kind of global "super-country" far above and beyond the needs, concerns or even the votes of the mere countries of their fellow-citizens.) 

Indeed, she almost seemed to imply - again, taking her literally - that leaders within a nation exist for the sake of their people, and not the other way around. And that even contacts between nations should be assessed by more or less the same yardstick. 

Whereas today it seems the great bulk of the world's leaders approach the same question - how best to ensure the well-being of every nation's citizens - from a rather different standpoint. Today it is widely believed that the most important contacts between nations are those which most reduce the risk of what is technically known as symmetrical war between the globe's major powers. And that the most reliable mechanism for the prevention of symmetrical war is a kind of solidarity of global leaders whose overwhelming power, wealth, prestige, command of technology, and access to private security tend to make them:

 (1) very little invested in the welfare, security and prosperity of their own nations; even as they steadily become 

(2) very much insulated against the fates, troubles, fears and uncertainties of their nations' peoples. 

And all of it for their respective peoples' own good, of course. All so that they can view their own citizens' concerns with less emotion and prejudice - which is to say, more distantly, rationally, dispassionately. Nowadays what we've discovered is that you cannot view the hardships, fears, anxieties, etc, of your own nation with too much distance and dispassion. Whereas you can very easily become blinded by tribal sentiment and prejudice. But especially in what we've come to recognize as the really elemental, nitty-gritty, rubber-meets-road departments of life. As in, of course, matters of Global Aggregate Economic Growth. Along with its accompanying vital questions of profit-and-loss for the really big, vital players in the game. 

Take, for instance, today's more or less Amazonized commercial and workplace culture in many of our Western countries. No doubt it's highly reassuring, for many of our globally-minded leaders, to be able to view even some of the most unpleasant (if not downright ugly) Economic Truths of our Time - e.g., truths about workplace regimentation, or worker motivation and morale - with a coolly dispassionate rationality. After all, that's just the way real, productive Life is. 

Anyhow, my first question is: 

Can our leaders' altogether rational and justifiable removal from the mundane concerns, fears, etc, of their ordinary constituents carry with it some unintended - or even disquieting and destabilizing - effects? And those upon pretty much everybody? In their zeal, say, to make the world safe for the freedom of our various (most rational and necessary) Amazonias, do our otherwise rational leaders run the risk of becoming themselves fanatical - i.e., losing all sense of proportion and restraint? And all the more so in the legitimate pursuit of something good? To the point, in fact, where their zeal takes on an almost religious or even apocalyptic coloration? (final paragraph only) 

But in particular in trying to "bring to heel" certain recalcitrant, backward, reactionary or "fascistic" parts of the globe? Or even - dare I say it - certain countries that simply don't care to be Amazonized to the nth degree?

And so I come to my final set of questions for the world, as we enter, in the wake of the Queen's death, what may more and more prove to be a post-Commonwealth (if not an anti-Commonwealth) Age (paragraphs 6-7). And that not just for Britain but for the world at large. 

Will it also be a more fiercely "convictioned" and ideological Age, at ever higher levels of global power, wealth, expertise and influence? Which is to say, even in our otherwise most rational/pragmatic citadels of real power? 

Will it be an Age in which - in the effort to govern more uniformly and "globally" ever more diverse and disparate regions of the globe - there's less and less virtue to be seen in either patience or restraint? Or even nuance? An Age in which the humility, resilience and conciliation of Compromise are steadily replaced by the arrogance, fixity and intransigence of Principle? To the point where, say, even some of our most credentialed, wealthy, powerful and influential elites contemplate an escalating nuclear exchange as just one of several "unfortunate but necessary" calculated risks? Or  policy options? 

And not just elites in - obviously enough - Moscow or Beijing. But possibly (even more so) in Washington, or post-Commonwealth Westminster? Or Warsaw? Or righteous Kyiv?