TRIGLAV CIRCLE, OUGNY, FRANCE, 30 JUNE-1 JULY 200

 

SECULARISM, ETHICS AND POLITIC

 

 

REPORT ON THE DEBAT

 

CONTENTS

 

 

Introduction: Why the choice of this subject?  ……………………pages 2 to 6

 

Part I: Comments on the place of religion in today’s world ………pages 7 to 12

 

Part II: Views on problems of liberal democracies ………………..pages 12 to 23

 

Part III: Markers for a renewed form of secularism……………….pages 24 to 31

 

Possible subjects for follow-up discussions…………………………..pages 31-32

 

Endnotes………………………………………………………………..pages 33 to 36

 

List of participants……………………………………………………..page 37

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

WHY THE CHOICE OF THIS SUBJECT ?

 

At the origin of the choice of this subject was the observation that religion had gained much political visibility throughout the world in the last few decades. Not caused by, but greatly encouraged by the establishment of a theocratic regime in Iran in the 1970s, movements trying to promote Islamic states by force or through the electoral process have been very active. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan achieved world notoriety by destroying a monumental and ancient statue of the Buddha. The terrorist attacks of  September 2001 on the United States  were perpetrated on behalf of an organization claiming a religious affiliation and a majority of the terrorists were the citizens of a country ruled according to Islamic law. For many observers, the clash of civilizations predicted a few years ago by Samuel Huntington is actually happening and is a confrontation between militant Islamism and the Western culture of individual freedom.

 

At a less dramatic level, liberal democracies are also faced domestically with religious issues. European countries with a growing population of Islamic faith are trying to find an appropriate balance between their now well-established respect for religious freedom, the demands of cultural diversity and the necessities of some form of social integration in pluralistic societies. As illustrated by the riots of 2005 in the suburbs of Paris, socio-economic factors, including questions of unemployment, play a big role in this equation, and so does the international context, most particularly the persistent conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. And symbol like the wearing of a veil can acquire a great significance.  At the same time, these European liberal democracies whose traditional established religions are weakening in terms of number of followers and number of priests and ministers are confronted with a flurry of sectarian “religions” offering to their credulous members the comfort of absolute certitudes in exchange for their freedom of judgment and, more often than not, for their assets. Legislating against these sects, or prohibiting them, liberal democracies are accused of violating freedom of religion and freedom of speech. When tolerant and lenient, they risk being non-protective of their citizens.

 

In the largest and strongest Western democracy, religious organizations have also become recently more politically active and visible, at least by comparison with the decades following World War II. The United States of America has traditionally been very different from other Western countries – and even from most of the countries having reached a high level of economic development and having espoused the main features of modernity – in that it has remained a strongly religious society not only in the religious fervor of a great number of its citizens but also in the place of religion in the political culture. What has been called the “civil religion” of the United States is present since the beginning of this country: “God” is not mentioned in the Constitution, but the Declaration of Independence of 1776 refers to “the Law of Nature and of Nature’s God”, to the endowment of people “by their Creator of certain inalienable Rights”, and to an appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our ( the representatives of the United States assembled in Congress) intentions”; the Pledge of Allegiance is to the flag and to “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”; the national hymn has “…And this be our motto: In God is our trust”; the same motto figures on the dollar bills; and mentions of God have been prominent in the inaugural addresses of all American presidents as well in their major speeches to the nation.

 

Current references to God in American politics are therefore surprising only to European, or perhaps especially French ears taking the separation of state from church as meaning that the state and its public officials have to be strictly agnostic or even atheistic in their pronouncements. There, public officials as well as citizens are expected to keep their religion or their philosophical views in the private sphere of their life. In the United States on the other hand, “separation” means that the government ensures freedom of religion and is not “appropriated” by any single religion. It definitely does not mean indifference to religion and refusal to support religions. However, if it is true that “God” is a traditional and familiar “figure” in the American political culture, it is also true that recent developments have, for outsiders and many Americans alike, raised questions on the way this aspect of American “exceptionalism” is evolving. The “religious right” has gained a strong voice and influence in the formulation of the American political agenda for both domestic and foreign policy issues. Evangelic movements, representing an avatar of Christian fundamentalism, have, or are believed to have a decisive influence on many elections. This has happened before in American history, but, again, the thirty or forty years after World War II saw a much greater secularization of American politics. As another example of recent “clericalism”, the established hierarchy of the Catholic Church has made statements prohibiting access to the Eucharist sacrament of politicians favoring  the right of women to have an abortion, and has explicitly discouraged the catholic voters to support such politicians. References to God, as a protector and legitimator of political initiatives, have been increasingly frequent, including for the launching of war. In many ways, God and religion have been “instrumentalized” in the current American political culture.

 

This is to say that, in conceiving this meeting, the perception of a greater visibility of religion in contemporary politics had essentially negative connotations. The developments mentioned in the agenda – from the resurgence of theocracies to fanaticism leading to terrorism, and from sectarianism to the mobilization of an anthropomorphic God for questionable causes- were clearly alarming. And the next observation was also on the negative or worrying mode: the liberal democracies seem to have great difficulties in handling this resurgence of the religious factor in their own societies and in the world at large. With their Muslim citizens and guests – migrant workers, refugees, displaced persons- liberal democracies hesitate between integration and communitarianism; they are not ready or not able to give its full meaning to the notion of equality; they are torned between the demands of pluralism and the exigencies of national identity; and, with Islamic as well as Christian and other religious groups or movements, their respect for religious freedom is challenged by those who do not share their liberal principles. The largest and most powerful of these liberal democracies appears to be “regressing” when it let religious beliefs and opinions obtain a growing role in public decision-making.

 

Together, liberal democracies, or the “West”, do not have a coherent attitude and policy vis-à-vis the Islamic theocracies and the frequent anti-Western sentiments of the people Islamic faith. The wars in Afghanistan and even more in Iraq have shown that violent imperialism is still considered a legitimate and practical course of action, including as a response to terrorism. Through the United Nations or other channels, efforts for a dialogue of civilizations and religions are taken more seriously by non-governmental organizations than by governments. Western countries, when they engage in such a dialogue, do it from a position and with a sentiment of superiority. Their interlocutors, often threaten themselves by fundamentalist movements, are often unable to go beyond generalities on development and peace. Overall, it would be hard to argue that the surge of religion on the world scene has been a positive step towards the building of a world community. Confronted with both fanaticism and resistance to their economic and political domination, accused by their adversaries of arrogance mixed with moral decadence, liberal democracies do not seem to be able to elaborate a course of action consistent with the values of the liberal humanism on which they were founded.

 

Liberal democracies have also difficulties in establishing satisfactory relations with global capitalism, which is the motor and the most powerful expression of the globalization process. Capitalism, as a dimension of the market economy, is the product of that Western political doctrine, liberalism, which aims at freeing human energy and creativity from all constraints. That the triumph of a globalized capitalism should therefore be seen as the triumph of freedom is a view that many indeed hold. There are however several problems with this opinion.

 

The first is that freedom, for an individual or for an entity such as a corporation, implies respect for the freedom of others and is blind and ultimately destructive if not shaped by moral guidelines and moral sanctions. Capitalists and managers of transnational corporations may have perfect moral rectitude, but they operate within a capitalist corporate culture that is profoundly amoral, as the ends – profit and expansion – justify the means. Should for example a corporation, otherwise perfectly respectful of the law and of the provisions of international agreement such as the Global Compact of the United Nations, have the freedom to destroy the local manufacturing sector of a poor country? There is continuum between the economic arrangements that have slowly evolved in a community and the culture of this community. As a local or national economy is part of a culture, including through the language used for transactions, the application to this economy of the tenets of global capitalism, which are commonly summarized as liberalization, privatization and integration in the world market, is bound to have profound consequences.

 

The second problem is that the word “democracy” became attached to political liberalism not only to propagate popular capitalism but also to signify that equality and social justice had to be pursued with the same fervor than freedom in order to establish and sustain societies whose members could live together in reasonable peace. At present, global capitalism increases income and other forms of inequality within societies and among countries. In addition it has an ambiguous record on the reduction of material poverty. During the last two decades the most spectacular increase in average income per capita, accompanied with a reduction of the number and proportion of people under the absolute poverty line, occurred in China. But while it is true that China has adopted a number of features of a market economy and has received a huge amount of capital from its diaspora and from foreign investors, it is also true that the agent of this change has been an authoritarian government operating within a one-party system. China is certainly not a liberal capitalist country. During the same period, absolute material poverty has increased in the largest and richest liberal democracies, starting with the United States of America. And, throughout the world, a large number of migrant workers with skills that are not valued at much by global capitalism constitute a new “lumpen-proletariat” vulnerable to all types of exploitation.

 

The third problem, which summarizes and partly explains the first two, is that liberal democracies have to a great extent become absorbed by global capitalist forces. Governments of these liberal democracies have a decisive role in the process of globalization through many means such as tailoring their fiscal and monetary policies to the advantage of corporations, or negotiating trade agreements to open the markets of smaller and weaker countries to the capital and products of the same corporations. But when these governments and states are invested by the lobbies of these corporations, when influential think-tanks and research institutes are created by private interests of

the same obedience, and when the electoral process and the selection of political elites is dominated by corporate financing, it becomes very difficult to differentiate liberal democracies from plutocracies. And plutocracies are not only one of the opposites of democracies: they are “liberal” only in the sense of given freedom to the strong to do as they please with the weaker.

 

According to the hypothesis, or, for some, the conviction at the origin of the Triglav Circle, these difficulties encountered by liberal democracies have a common root, which is to be found in the spiritual and ethical deficit affecting the Western political culture. Obsessed with measurable improvements in living conditions, focused on economic growth and money, this political culture is defenseless against the economic logic and the financial forces that are taking over an increasing number of traditionally public sectors and activities and are invading most spheres of society. Untamed and unregulated global capitalism is the natural offspring of a materialistic culture. And so is the rise of millenarian and other fundamentalist sects and movements. These, capture the hearts and minds of people whose natural need for some spiritual nutrition is left frustrated by what society demands of them and expect in return, that is to be disciplined producers and avid consumers. Also, the propensity of some leaders of liberal states and governments to use religion and God to legitimize very profane and bellicose policies can be attributed to a perversion of the spiritual and ethical realm. And the materialism and utilitarianism of the

modern Western civilization gives arguments to those who promote the supremacy of Islamic law and preach a holy war against the “West”, including thru terrorism. According to the Triglavian perspective, bigotry and intolerance, self-centerdness, arrogance and cynicism, greed and individual and state violence, are all related signs of a mutilation of Man and impoverishment of Society. They are not unavoidable features of human nature and history. A renaissance of the spirit, individually and collectively, requires humility and perseverance, but is always possible, and the language and content of the public discourse has a most important role to play.

 

Through its debates, the Circle is trying to better comprehend this spiritual and ethical dimension of Man and Society and to offer some light on the avenues that could lead to a more holistic approach to human affairs. Though always international or global in scope and relevance, the points of entry into this reflection vary, and have included the meaning of spirituality, the specificity of an artistic perception of “things”, the heritage of the Enlightenment, the question of different modernities, the role of non-governmental organizations in the building of a world community, or the moral foundations of social justice. Here, for this gathering of summer 2007, the point of entry was the relation between State and Religion, and more specifically the doctrine and practice of secularism, which was defined in the Agenda as “the doctrine of strict differentiation and separation between two spheres of life in society: the sphere of the temporal and the sphere of the religious”. This secularism was seen as the common practice of all modern and economically developed societies and, until recently, as an unchallenged model for the whole world. Secularism was another word for modernity.  But then, in the light of the observations and judgments summarized above – religion having recently become a highly visible and in some respects threatening problem in the world political landscape;  liberal democracies encountering great difficulties when attempting to address this problem, both domestically and internationally; and, the same liberal democracies proving so far unable to tame and orient the process of globalization towards  the common good- it seemed pertinent to reconsider secularism and to ask whether states and societies should redefine their relations with religion and/or with the spiritual realm. This was the central issue proposed for discussion.

 

The agenda pointed out that a few years ago, in Candle in the Dark: A New Spirit for a Plural World, Richard Falk had raised this question of the relevance of secularism in a globalized and conflicted world and had called for a “reconstructed secularism” that would involve “the extension of human rights based on an ethos of solidarity” and a “form of collaboration between religion and politics” that would entail “a recovery of the sacred.” In this sense, wrote Falk, “the most intriguing challenge of post-modernity, here conceived as a space for spiritual and normative creativity, is to resurrect “spirituality”.” [1]

 

This report on the debate is organized around three points: (1) some precisions and nuances on the place of religion in today’s world; (2) views on the problems of liberal democracies; and (3) markers for a renewed form of secularism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PART I

 

COMMENTS ON THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN TODAY’S WORLD

 

Religions or schools of thought?

 

Whereas the meaning of “secularism” was recalled in the Agenda, no such attempt was made to define “religion”. In the course of the meeting, the word “religion” was generally used by participants in its institutional sense, as in “established religions.” These have traditionally included the so-called “big five” i.e. Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam, plus, more recently, seven others: Baha’i, Confucianism, Jainism, Taoism, Shinto, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.[2] All these, albeit with some stretching for the essentially philosophical constructions of Confucius and Lao Tzu, can be legitimately considered as institutionalized systems of attitudes, beliefs and practices establishing the relationships between Man and a supreme being, or entity, generally referred to as God.

 

However, those who would like to consult the website of Google on religions will find under the rubric “Major religions of the world ranked by number of adherents” a list of 21 entries that includes not only scientology, with an estimated membership of 500.000 persons, but also a composite group called “secular/non-religious/agnostic/atheist.” Apart from the estimated number of “adherents” to these “non-faiths” – said to be 1.1 billion – the most significant point is the extension of the meaning of “religion” to atheism and non-religious or secular “beliefs” and views of the world. The identification of a strong belief, for example in Communism, or in atheism, or in the Market, with a religion is not new. It evokes dogmas, militant spirit and abandonment of critical judgment. But by including “non-religious” and “agnostic” in this list of “major religion” the author(s) of this web-site treat as synonymous “religion” and “school of thought,” even if the latter is characterized by skepticism, or cynicism in its original meaning.

 

This is perhaps a logical development in the Western evolution of ideas, following the path opened by Durkheim and his sociological approach to religion, and it certainly reflects the same Western and modern emphasis on individual freedom of thought. The assumption is that one can have a religious sentiment, or sense of the sacred and the unknown, and a-fortiori be rich in spirituality, moral judgment and ethical behavior, without being the adherent of a particular established or new religion. Such has been the assumption, or working hypothesis of the Triglav Circle since the beginning of its work. In testing again this hypothesis during this particular meeting, participants refrained from identifying religion with any school of thought and refrained also from limiting religion to a rigid set of dogmas. They tried to see the conditions under which religions and secular institutions such as the State could contribute to the creation of the “space for spiritual and normative creativity” evoked by Richard Falk.

 

A secular humanist perspective on religions

 

The meeting was conceived and the agenda written from a secular humanist perspective – seen as different from a religion – and, although several of the participants had strong religious affiliations, within and outside Christianity, all share the basic liberal principles of freedom of conscience and freedom of expression. No voice was heard advocating the merits of theocracy and the political advantages of the absence of religious pluralism and dissent in a society. Such homogeneity certainly explains why the negative light in which the recent surge of religion on the world political scene was presented in the Agenda did not raise objections. However, a number of additional facts, precisions and nuances were offered.

 

If it is true that adepts of religious faiths have gained in numbers since three or four decades, this growth is not only attributable to fundamentalists, members of sects and evangelist churches. It is also – primarily perhaps – due to the quantitative progress in some parts of the world of established religions, most particularly Islam but also Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. This growth is only partly due to demographic trends. Conversions are also a factor, as for example with the progress of Islam in Africa.  Catholicism itself, much in decline in Western Europe in terms of number of practitioners and number of priests, is on the rise in other parts of the world: during the last 20/25 years, Catholics increased by 78% in Asia, 47% in the Americas and almost tripled in Africa, and the number of priests, monks and nuns also went up. [3]

 

Why is the number of practicing Christians declining in Western Europe and increasing in other parts of the world? Why are the “eastern” religions and philosophies, and also practices of the distant past such as Druidism, enjoying a greater popularity than some decades ago in the same Western Europe? Why is Islam making great strides in parts of Africa and Asia? Are there identifiable relationships between material affluence and religious indifference, and between material poverty and religious faith and practice? Only glimpses of these questions are evoked in the third part of this Report, but participants certainly shared the view that the ups and downs of the number of adherents to the various religions are not amenable to simple and comprehensive explanations or interpretations. Only a fully consistent atheist or materialist would venture to assert that the apparent growing interest in the religious and the sacred signals the opening of a negative and alarming trend in the history of humanity.

 

Secularism under different legal regimes for the relations between the state and religion

 

In addition to the reminder that faith is not synonymous with obscurantism, it was also recalled that  secularism, seen as the separation between the sphere of the temporal, or secular, and the sphere of the religious, or clerical, is compatible with different types of legal relationships between the state and religious institutions. In other words, the separation of the church(es) from the state is not a necessary condition  of secularism. In Europe, countries with perfectly secular political regimes, that is where political life and political decisions are not framed by a religious perspective, have a great variety of legal arrangements with their churches and faiths. France, where “laicite” is inscribed in the Constitution, has a specific and originally rather militant regime of separation since 1905, Ireland, though the constitution is explicitly funded on the “Holy Trinity”, Sweden, where the Lutheran Church is no longer the state religion since 2000, Austria, and Germany, although churches and the federal state and Lander have many legalized forms of partnerships, can be considered as countries with separation. Belgium, Luxemburg, Italy, Spain, and Portugal have signed concordats with the Roman Catholic Church, in some case quite recently, as for Spain (1976) and Italy (1984). And, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland and Norway have state religions.

 

Yet, in this latter group of countries, which, at the exception of Finland are also constitutional monarchies, political life is resolutely independent from religion, as much as it is in France and certainly more, at this point, than in countries with recent concordats. Outside Europe, and apart from the case of the United States of America where separation does not preclude a strong political influence of religions, there are countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan and also Russia where separation is both legal and effective, and other countries where legal separation is more formal than real – examples of Mexico and the Philippines – or is seriously challenged, a situation typified by Turkey. Thus, although the meeting did not benefit from a comprehensive survey of state-religion legal relationships throughout the world, it was nevertheless aware of the fact that secularism is compatible with various legal regimes – at the obvious exception of theocracy – and is not necessarily the most complete and the most secure under a regime of strict legal separation of state and religion.

 

Secularism, religious language in the Constitutions, and religious freedom

 

Moreover, secularism does not necessarily mean exclusion of the divine, sacred, or spiritual from the founding texts of a nation and political regime. The deistic language of the Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies has already been mentioned. The French Constitution of 1958 – like all seventeen previous constitutions of this country – includes in its preamble the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789 which is placed under the “presence” and “auspices” of the “Supreme Being.” The preamble of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany starts with the following sentence: “Conscious of their responsibility before God and Men, Animated by the resolve to serve world peace as an equal partner in a united Europe, the German people have adopted, by virtue of their constituent power, this Basic Law.”  The Constitution of Argentina is placed under “the protection of God, source of all reason and justice.” Brazil also has its Constitution “under the protection of God.” The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, a comprehensive and perfectly secular document, has a preamble concluding with the words “May God protect our people” in the seven languages of the Republic.

 

There are a number of other examples, including in countries that are predominantly Islamic but are located in Asia and Africa: the Constitution of Indonesia opens with the words “By the grace of God the Almighty” and is “based on the belief in the One and Only God”; the Constitution of Nigeria puts this “indivisible sovereign nation under God.” It is worth noticing, however, that liberal democracies with a state-religion are extremely secular in the language of their constitutions. Denmark and Norway have an article establishing the Evangelical Lutheran Church as their official religion but otherwise no reference to God or supreme Being. The same is true for Sweden, which had a state-religion until very recently. And the United Kingdom, with its various governing texts that are not put together as a constitutional document, and its state-religion, is equally reticent to use transcendental language.

 

So are countries with relatively recent constitutions of a liberal and democratic type. The Constitution of India, adopted in 1949 and amended on many occasions (as it deals with matters that in most countries would be handled by laws) says that this country is “a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic.” It mentions religion only to proclaim that “the right to freedom of religion” is one of the six “fundamental rights” of its citizens. Among the examples in Africa of republican, democratic and secular constitutions that refrain from any reference to the transcendent  and are very complete on the rights of their citizens, including freedom of religion, are the Republic of Mali and the Republic of Senegal. In the same vein, in Japan the constitution of 1947 also guarantee freedom of religion and freedom of though and conscience and stipulates that “the State and its organs shall refrain from religious education and any other religious activity.” (The first constitution of Japan, granted by the Emperor in 1889, was placed under the auspices of “the Heavenly Spirits).

 

The constitution of the Russian Federation, adopted in 1993, ha a flowery language in its preamble, with mentions of “common destiny” “veneration for ancestors who transmitted love and respect for the Homeland and faith in the good and the just” and sense of “belonging to the world community”, but no deistic allusion. It states in its article 14 that “the Russian Federation is a secular State” and that “no religion can aspire to be a State or compulsory religion”; moreover, in a context of guaranteed religious freedom, religious institutions and associations are separated from the State and equal before the law.

 

China, is currently under a constitution adopted in 1982 and frequently revised, the last revision having occurred in 2004. “(…) One of the countries with the longest history of the world…people of all nationalities in China have jointly created a splendid culture and have a glorious revolutionary tradition…develop a socialist-market economy…to turn China into a powerful and prosperous socialist country with a high level of culture and democracy…” are sentences of the Preamble and Article 24 says that “the State strengthens the building of socialist spiritual civilization through spreading education in high levels of morality, general education (…)”Article 36 stipulates that “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief” and the difference between belief and practice is confirmed by confirmed by two subsequent paragraphs of the same Article 36: “The State protects normal religious activities(…)” and “Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.”

 

Comparable qualifications of the widely recognized “right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”[4] are to be found in predominantly Islamic countries of the Middle-East and the Maghreb, but with important differences among them. Extreme indeed is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is a theocracy and an absolute monarchy. Article 1 of its constitution, adopted in 1993, reads as follows: “the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God’s prayers and peace be upon him, are its Constitution, Arabic is its language and Riyadh is its capital.” Chapter 2, entitled “Rights and Duties”  starts with Article 23 “(Islam) The state protects Islam; it implement its Shari’ah; it orders people to do right and shun evil; it fulfills the duty regarding God’call” and includes Article 26: “(Human Rights) The state protects human rights in accordance with the Islamic Shari’ah.” This Chapter 2 also includes an article on “Residents Duties: Residents of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia shall abide by its laws and shall observe the values of Saudi society and respect its traditions and feelings.”

 

Jordan and Morocco are also monarchies – although not absolute – with Islam as their state religion, but religious freedom is guaranteed in their constitutions. Article 6 of the Moroccan constitution (1996) reads: “Islam shall be state religion. The state shall guarantee freedom of worship for all.” Article 2 of the Jordanian constitution (1952) declares Islam as “the religion of the State”, but Article 6 says that “Jordanians are equal before the law” and that “there shall be no discrimination between them as regard to their rights and duties on grounds of race, language or religion”; and Article 13 reads as follows: “The State shall safeguard the free exercise of all forms of worship and religious rites in accordance with the custom observed in the Kingdom, unless such is inconsistent with public order and morality.”

 

The constitutions of the republics of this group of countries reflect an obvious tension between republican principles and the Islamic political culture. Syria is a “democratic, popular, socialist and sovereign country” (Article 1 of the Constitution adopted in 1993), and Article 35 (Religion) affirms“(1) The freedom is guaranteed. The State respects all religions freedom, (2) The State guarantees the freedom to hold any religious rites, provided they do not disturb the public order”, but Article 3 (Islam) has two provisions: “(1) The religion of the President of the Republic has to be Islam” and “(2) Islamic jurisprudence is the main source of legislation.” Egypt, is a “Socialist Democratic State”, but its constitution, adopted by the Egyptian People “in the name of God and with His assistance”, reads as follows in its Article 2: “Islam is the religion of the State(…)and the principal source of legislation is Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia).” Moreover, “the family is the basis of the society founded on religion, morality and patriotism” (Article 9), women are equal to men, “without detriment to the rules of Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia)”(Article 11) and “religious education shall be a principal subject of the courses of general education.” Yet, equality before the law is granted to all citizens “without discrimination due to sex, ethnic origin, language, religion or creed” (Article 40) and Article 46 affirms that “the State shall guarantee the freedom of belief and the freedom of practicing religious rights.”

 

Islam is also the religion of Tunisia and the president of this republic has to be of this faith, but “freedom of conscience” and “the free exercise of beliefs ( Note: the text in French says “cultes” instead of beliefs) provided they do not disturb the public order.” Algeria has a constitution ,adopted in 1996 “in the name of God the Merciful and the Compassionate”, which refers to Islam as a “fundamental component” of a nation which is also “the land of Islam” and which stipulates that “institutions are not allowed (…) practices that are contrary to the Islamic ethics and to the values of the November Revolution”. On the other hand, the Algerian constitution prohibits political parties founded on religions and ignores religious freedom: Article 35 mentions only, and without elaboration, that “Freedom of creed and opinion is inviolable.”

 

This brief review of the formal place of religion in the constitutions of various countries provides some raw material for further debates. It already suggest, or confirm, however, a few observations/conclusions:

(1) Liberal democracies are best able to establish and implement legal regimes ensuring both the autonomy of the polity vis-à-vis the religious and freedom of religious practices; such achievement occurs both in regimes of separation and in regimes of state-religion; and, it tends to occur in societies where religious practice is quantitatively in decline.

(2) Some countries – republics and  monarchies, located in the Middle-East/Maghreb or in other parts of the world –  that have only elements of liberal democracy and where Islam is the state and/or the dominant religion, manage nevertheless to offer various degree of religious freedom to their citizens.

(3) References to God or to a Supreme Being in the preambles of constitutions otherwise perfectly secular and liberal seem to suggest a  felt need for solemnity and for anchoring legal arrangements for the exercise of power and the protection of the rights of citizens on a mysterious and commanding pedestal; not surprisingly, liberal democracies with a tradition of common law and pragmatism and liberal democracies built in societies where religions are more philosophies of life and society than eschatologies, are not inclined to use such language.

(4) Secular authoritarian political regimes tend in their constitutions and founding texts to replace religious or metaphysical mentions by a  patriotic and nationalistic language exalting a glorious past and launching a future of prosperity and happiness; religion was treated by these regimes as a relic of obscurantism and as a problem; increasingly, as their ideological foundations are weakening, they tend to grant forms of religious freedom .

(5) And, regimes that are both religious and authoritarian generally combine in their constitutions and official texts references to an omnipotent and omnipresent God and to texts where the Word of this God has been preserved, with references to an epic history and a brilliant future. In such contexts, religious freedom ceases to be a recognized concept.

 

 

 

PART II

 

 

VIEWS ON THE PROBLEMS FACING LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES

 

Liberal democracies and the religious issue

 

Liberal democracies, contended the Agenda for this meeting, are having great difficulties handling the resurgence of the religious, both domestically and internationally. Though not contradicted, this judgment was qualified in several manners.

 

Firstly, if liberal democracies appear to have problems with religions, it is only with Islam that such case can be made. European states have harmonious relations with the Christian established religions. These are part of their history and of their culture. If anything, political elites who, in the tradition of Napoleon or Bismarck, see religion as essential for social morality and cohesion would be inclined to deplore the decline of religious practice among their fellow citizens. In these same countries, as well as in Japan or Russia, sects that ignore the laws of the land represent an occasional challenge that is not new and whose importance should not be exaggerated. As to the influence of  Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals on the political life of the United States of America, including its foreign policy, there are also precedents in the history of this country, including through the Puritan Calvinism of early New England.

 

Secondly, the judgment that the political and cultural agenda of liberal democracies is dominated by the issue of their relations with Islam needs itself to be examined critically. “Islam”, as much if not more than the “West” or “Christianity”, is an abstraction. It is a construct that, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States and different places in the world, serve the dubious purpose of identifying in the popular imagination “the” global enemy of freedom and democracy. According to the prediction of Samuel P. Huntington in his extremely influential article of Summer 1993 in Foreign Affairs,  “Islam” and the “West” were the two “civilizations” that were destined to “clash”. In a culture avid for sweeping simplifications and catchwords this sort of prediction becomes self-fulfilling and there will be a lot to say about the responsibility of public intellectuals who do not hesitate to propagate ideas that are objectively dangerous for humankind. Suffice to indicate here that the “problems” of liberal democracies with Islam would appear very differently if the media and the political elites of the United States had chosen to give a fair hearing to other public intellectuals like Edward W. Said who denounced the “clash of civilization” as “the clash of ignorance”.[5]

 

In the same vein, the commonly held view that the problems experienced by liberal European democracies with their population of immigrants, or descendants of immigrants, are primarily due to the fact that a great number of them are Islamic, is debatable. The famous riots of 2005 in the French “banlieues” involved adolescents and young men of various origins and backgrounds and their common denominator was certainly more socio-economic than religious. They were and still are angry at public authorities and felt alienated from public institutions as they suffer from unemployment,   underemployment and living conditions in suburban districts ruled by gangs and drug-dealers. All across Western Europe, there are still many cases of discrimination against individuals and families from Africa, the Maghreb and Western Asia, and it is difficult to disentangle the various components of discriminatory attitudes and actions, but stereotypes on character and behavior are probably more important than religious practices to account for racism and rejection of the “other”. And, beyond Western Europe, the instances of discrimination and racism experienced by countries with democratic institutions such as Japan or Australia have little to do with religion in general and Islam in particular.

 

Overall, it could be argued that the difficulties that liberal democracies are having with their citizens or guests of Islamic faith are overstated. The great majority of the Muslims of Western Europe, estimated at between 15 and 20 million, have nothing to do with radical Islamism. Members of terrorist groups and their active supporters, while being a major threat, probably represent a smaller percentage of the population of the affluent countries of the West than the anarchists represented at the beginning of the 20th century. France, which has a population of 4 to 5 millions adepts of Islam – the largest in Western Europe – has met some success with its policy of integration based on formal equality.

 

There is the de-facto segregation of migrant workers in some suburbs but there is also the symbolic but highly important integration in sports, in music and arts, and lately in the high echelons of politics and governments. According to a recent survey, close to 70% of Muslims in France support the separation of church and state (…) and have “consistently treated the headscarf issue as a marginal matter, even after the 2004 ban.” [6] Also, in a very different cultural context, it should be noted that, even in the aftermath of the attack of 11 September 2001 and its political treatment by the Bush administration, the Moslem population of the United States has not been systematically discriminated against. There have been too many cases of arbitrary arrests, harassment, “racial profiling” and denials of visas, but it seems nevertheless that most Islamic Americans do not feel alienated from their country.

 

Only when, under the pretext or excuse of fighting their enemies – be those external aggressors, terrorists or internal dissenters – they transgress or abandon the legal, cultural and political principles on which they are built, can liberal democracies be said to fail. They fail when they abandon the Habeas Corpus, when they practice or condone torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and when they violate the right to privacy of their citizens. Such failures, perpetrated on behalf of national security and the struggle against an enemy (ies) that ignore democratic principles and the rule of law, are undermining the legitimacy and the future of liberal democracies. They are cancers that destroy the very fabric of a liberal society. On this fundamental point, participants to this meeting had no room for disagreement.

 

Thirdly, when examining the relations of liberal democracies with religion and, more generally, the role of religion in society, one should keep in mind that religions evolve. They are not only a static and ossified bundle of dogmas, even when they are founded on a sacred text taken as a revelation of God to His people. They are human institutions subjected to many secular influences. The world change constantly and so do religions. In the course of the discussion on the seemingly uncritical faith of the adepts of Islam, the remark was made that “we were like them no so long ago.” The “we” referred to the Europeans and the “impartial spectator” who was in a position to make this judgment was the typical enlightened secular humanist whose culture has equipped with a sufficient dose of skeptical wisdom to be immune to any religious or ideological excess. “We”, therefore, were until recently obedient to our priests and pastors, dutifully following the prescribed rituals, and largely uncritical of the dogmas and tenets of our religion(s). “We” were convinced of the revealed superiority of our faith(s) and, although not all of us were fervent proselytes and believers in eternal damnation for those who did not know or rejected our God, “we” looked at other religions or philosophies with some condescendence. For those of us raised in predominantly catholic countries, our history books told us that the crusades were a legitimate endeavor. At present, “we” have evolved considerably and even if practicing Catholics, Anglicans, Lutheran or Calvinists, “we” live our faith as an expression of our freedom of thought and conscience and “we” reject any form of intolerance and  exclusiveness. And, as the same cultural forces liberating of the individual and enhancing his autonomy are at work in the world, there are all reasons to expect and hope that  Moslems will follow the same path.

 

This remark is based on considerable historical evidence and offers an attractive perspective for the reflection on the building of a peaceful world community. It is true that religious conflicts and discriminatory practices on religious grounds were common in Europe a few decades ago. The separation of state and church in France in 1905 was a dramatic event and as late as the 1980s there were huge demonstrations in the streets of Paris to demand fair treatment from the state of private, that is confessional schools. It is only after World War II that laws of the countries of Northern Europe were modified to give to Catholics their full civil rights. And, as already noted for the Constitution of Norway, there are here and there remnants of the religious wars in otherwise perfectly liberal and democratic countries.

 

But the fact is that in a historically short period Europeans have purified religion from its dogmatic, belligerent and intolerant facets. Other societies under European influence have moved in the same direction, not to mention the genuinely non-dogmatic and non-aggressive character of religions cum philosophies that shape the culture of several hundreds millions people in Asia. Moreover, the whole United Nations endeavor is the promotion of reason and cooperation over imperialism, intolerance, violence and war. The Enlightenment project may have suffered setbacks and erred in dangerous waters such as scientism, but it remains alive and the best hope for humankind. Fundamentalism, intolerance and fanaticism, whether Christian, Jewish, Orthodox or Islamic, are aberrations that will not change a course of history that, with all the risks that this entails, is driven by progress in reason and individual freedom.

 

Such secular-humanist perspective, with its liberal and social-democratic variants as well as its different degrees of optimism for the short and long terms, has been a constant in the debates of the Triglav Circle. Constant also have been the questions and refutations advanced by those who are concerned with what they see as the excessive materialism of the dominant civilization and its over-use of instrumental rationality, and who advocate a renaissance of the spirit and a rediscovery of traditional paths to moderation and wisdom. In the context of the issues at hand, their questions include: the “European model” that secular humanists have in mind, even if they reject the idea of a “model”, is characterized by a weakening and perhaps gradual disappearance of institutionalized religion; can a human community, a society become purely secular and remain viable? Where will the sources of spirituality, and also of simple human decency, be found? In particular, how will liberty be made compatible with justice and responsibility? Where is the evidence that the worship of Mammon is not the unavoidable substitute for the worship of a benevolent and loving God?  Or, is it that humankind has no choice but to pursue its Promethean drive with all the risks and “opportunities” that this entails?

 

Liberal democracies and global capitalism

 

The second contention of the Agenda was that liberal democracies have difficulties addressing global issues of the time, notably global capitalism, and are in danger of becoming  plutocracies and market societies.

 

A number of comments were made that reinforced a critique present in the work of the Triglav Circle since its inception: liberal  democracies, including in their socialist or social democratic avatars, are becoming market societies obsessed with consumption and material gains in living conditions. The root of this evolution, it was recalled, is the exclusive emphasis that market economies are giving on the self and on the notion of self-interest. Needs, desires and ultimately fancies are flattered, tempted and tantalized by an economic system that relies on the consumption of rapidly obsolete goods and services for its functioning and growth. Self interest is identified with such satisfaction of appetites – a “satisfaction” that is always fugitive as “needs” have to be continuously stimulated  in individuals that ought to be dissatisfied with their condition in order to be good producers and consumers – and with the drive for personal self-fulfillment through wealth and power.

 

When everybody works only for oneself, the social fabric gets destroyed. The common rules of behavior that are necessary to live together in reasonable harmony are undermined. Market fundamentalism operates as the powerful force against the maintenance and development of such common rules. Many of them, in the form of compromises and balances among different interests, notably capital and labor, had been put into place in liberal democracies through decades of struggle between organized labor and employers, with the state acting as an arbiter. Legislations on working conditions and tax systems providing the resources needed for solidarity and access of all to social services, including education and health, came to be essential facets of secularism. They were the foundation and expression of a secular understanding of the role of the state in a liberal and humanist society. The neo-liberal vogue is undermining this understanding. Politics and the polity have degenerated. The reduction of democracy to a relentless exaltation of the value of “free enterprise” is a dramatic development. “Good” citizens in the dominant modernity are disciplined producers and good consumers. The role-models of the time are those who enjoy types of success associated with wealth and power, either in sports or in business. The social institutions and aspects of human relations that escape the rule of money and the logic of profit are shrinking.

 

Also shrinking is the space for the development of international law and international agreements. In the United Nations and in the other main international organizations attempts at developing international law – for instance for the management of the “global commons”, a term itself abandoned in the language of these organizations – and at elaborating “codes of conduct” for economic and financial forces operating globally – notably transnational corporations – have been abandoned and replaced by vague appeals at self-regulation and self-restraint. A “voluntary” observance of rules of good behavior on the part of actors that have the power to do as they please is the order of the day. Companies can violate voluntary codes without incurring any sanction. With an abundance of tax-havens and the support of the most powerful governments, corporations have carte blanche to dominate the world scene and act as feudal lords. A number of these corporations are more powerful than most governments.

 

Quoted at the meeting was the reflection of the head of one of those multinational corporations: “I believe we have now reached the time where business has to run politics.” The meetings of the World Economic Forum, where, generally in Davos, Switzerland, world business leaders gather with a number of political and intellectual luminaries – and, of late, also representatives of non-governmental organizations – offer precisely the opportunity to concretize this wish. For example, the program in the United Nations for a “Global Compact” with major corporations was conceived in Davos. It was not the product of a deliberation and decision of the General Assembly or the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, a body where all states have a voice. And, the on-going reform of this organization, under the pretext of efficiency and relevance, goes in the same direction of absorption of the public interest by private business forces. Instead, what the world would need very urgently and very comprehensively, is an international and global legal system to regulate the activities of public and private actors and provide a framework for a democratic identification and promotion of the common good.

 

The current evolution of the market economy towards a market society and a world becoming a playground for huge corporate and financial interests does not reflect the views of its “founding fathers.” Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments was not separable from The Wealth of Nations and his famous “invisible hand” was supposed to operate within a thick framework of moral norms and constraints. It was a “hand” that has many rough contacts with others. Similarly, David Ricardo’s theory of “comparative advantage” is more sophisticated that the neo-liberal proponents of “free-trade” would like to have us believe. And the distinction drawn by Aristotle between economics, meaning the wise administration of the household, and chrematistics, or the creation, commerce and management of wealth, has been forgotten. At present, the global economy is dominated by financial transactions that are largely speculative and disconnected from the real economy. This is a situation reminiscent of the period of “wild capitalism” that preceded the crisis of 1929, when there seemed to be no limits to personal enrichment through the stock market.

 

Could it be that liberal democracies are beset by a series of related crises? It was pointed out that there is a crisis when the elites are not able to reinvent a state that has lost most of its relevance and legitimacy. The state is no longer the guardian of the public good. It has to be reinvented as the world is changing at a rapid pace and as threats to the survival of humankind are mounting. Such reinvention would have to overcome the minimalist image of the State that is propagated by the American political culture. Traditional elites of the Western world, in politics, in business, in academia, in the media, are not rising to the challenge of guiding society towards a future of peace and wisdom. These elites have lost their prestige and their credibility. Democracy itself, as an idea and as a practice, is in crisis.[7] The notion of “constructability” of a society ought to be studied. Perhaps this was always a question asked by intellectuals, but this does not mean that it is an irrelevant question. It seems that many formal institutions of liberal democracies have failed, are no longer the credible guardians of the public interest and have no moral authority.

 

The civil society, which at its best is also a civic society, is rising and represents a source of hope. Most important to overcome the crisis of the state and the crisis of democracy is to give people a sense of participation in the affairs of the City, which now encompasses the local, the national and the global. Total identification with a particular tradition and philosophy of life is not a requirement for such participation. The participant making this point stated that he had a catholic upbringing, a protestant education and a purely secular adult work-life. Yet, he was not suffering from indifference or cynicism.

 

But, we, the producers/consumers of liberal/market societies have lost a sense of solidarity and social cohesiveness. We do not have the intellectual and political instruments to cope with our doubts and our anxieties. We, for instance, reject taxes because we no longer believe that we are the beneficiaries of these taxes. To lead, and to participate, is to look for paths, for processes that will produce workable policies. It is not to anxiously and feverishly look for immediate solutions. The culture of “quick-fixes” has devastating consequences for the search for the public good and for democracy. There are too many “short-cuts” in the policies of states and international organizations. Perhaps linked with the loss of credibility of the elites, there is in the dominant culture a certain dose of contempt for the patient quest for knowledge, for analysis, and for reflection. It is necessary to know what one wants to change. Liberal democracies, and with them the whole world, are in trouble because they no longer have a sense of purpose and direction. Considering the state of the world, it seems that both Man and Society have to be “reinvented.”

 

Increasingly, individuals look for this sense of purpose and direction, for what might be called a meaning in their lives, in their immediate community, be it a village, a town, or a group sharing common interests or common beliefs. The more peoples and nations are interdependent and interconnected, are parts of a globalized world where, for the better and for the worst, distances are dramatically reduced, the more acute is the desire for autonomy. Communities, of all kinds, benefit from a certain aura in these times of growing uniformity of cultures via technological change, advertising and media with a global reach. Individuals who “go back to the land” to raise sheep and engage in organic agriculture are generally seen as brave, albeit with a nuance of condescendence. Individuals who have a “normal” activity in the modern sector of the economy and who, at the same time, manage to have an active role in their neighborhood or community, are seen with respect. Communities, it was noted, are strengthened by their homogeneity. As evidenced by communities of faith, especially among evangelicals, homogeneity can lead to exclusiveness. When two homogeneous communities collide, rejection of the “Other” and violence are frequent outcomes. Thus, communities, while critical for most human beings, are not remedies for the problems that liberal democracies have with their offspring, global capitalism. Democracy, in the sense of freedom and participation of all in polity, will not survive a juxtaposition of autonomous local communities and centers of economic and financial decision with a global outreach. In other words, pluralism, in a nation or in the world as a whole, can be peaceful only if some enabling values are shared. This issue is considered again below in Part III under the question of “thick and thin morality.”

 

Not all participants at this Triglav gathering share those criticisms at the way liberal democracies relate to the economy and to capitalism. Starting with the observation that an “anti-market “and “anti-private enterprise” attitude was detectable in the group, a plea was made to have a more realist and more sympathetic view of entrepreneurs and managers of companies. Their three requirements, which are at the same time obligations and duties, are (1) to make good products appreciated by consumers, (2) to make enough profit to satisfy their shareholders and have a surplus for investment and modernization of their enterprises, and (3) to keep their workers and employees satisfied by offering them good working conditions, including possibilities for promotion for those who are interested and able. Most entrepreneurs work hard to meet these requirements. They do so without affectation, nor with the feeling that they are “saving society.” They simply do their work.

 

Moreover, if goods sentiments do not make good literature, it is also true that they do not make a good economy. Entrepreneurs and capitalists have obviously to obey the law of the land and to be ethical in their decisions. To be ethical means honesty in their production, transparency in their accounting and fairness in their relations with workers and employees. But they cannot be too concerned with the many injustices that affect all societies at all times, they cannot place compassion on the top of their scale of values, and they certainly have little time for speculating on the rise of individualism  and selfishness that is supposed to characterize modern societies. The world of economic activity and entrepreneurship is hard, competitive and merciless. It is not a world where “soft” values can be applied, neither for a small or medium-size enterprise nor for a multinational company. A well-functioning society has a plurality of institutions with different functions and different values. Markets, enterprises, companies are among these institutions. They are indeed expressions of the centrality of self-interest in human life. They ought not to be blamed for doing their part in an always complex and always imperfect social intercourse. It is the responsibility of other institutions, notably the state, to organize the corrections and redistributions that are necessary to maintain a balanced society.

 

In addition, global capitalism is too convenient a scapegoat for all the problems that are affecting the modern world. It is to some extent an abstraction, as are all the “isms” that the world has been so fond off since a number of decades. They are several types of capitalism, and the Asian type for example –including the state-capitalism of China –is very different from the North American, which is itself different from the European. A-fortiori, who will pretend that the current Russian version of capitalism has much in common with the European or  American company that is still run with the traditional “bourgeois virtues?” Also, a significant part – but only a part – of economic activities and financial transactions has become global for essentially two reasons: the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a competing power and economic and social alternative to liberalism, and the tremendous changes in technologies of communications and treatment of information. Since critics of  the globalizing world cannot deplore these two developments, they should have more leniency for their outcomes. And, as there are different types of capitalism, there are a number of decision-making centers in the world. This is a multipolar world. Similarly, within nations, especially within liberal democracies, there are a great variety of powers and centers of influence and there is a large freedom of expression. To talk about a “pensee unique” or a market society, is to underestimate the level of information of people and the numerous channels they have at their disposal to express their views and voiced their interests. The recent presidential campaign in France can be taken as an example: all candidates, including those with picturesque or outrageous messages, were given time in the medias and there was definitely a public political debate. Modern liberal democracies are not monolithic. And, it could certainly be argued that the importance of money in the functioning of these democracies is less damaging that the domination of a religious or secular credo.

 

In the discussion that followed this profession of faith in liberalism the main points of divergence were the following:

Firstly, public institutions and political processes, rather than the private business sector, should indeed be responsible for the general interest, but this is impossible when there is a collusion and sometimes a complete fusion between the private sector and public institutions. The level of this complicity is quite normally underestimated by the proponents of neo-liberalism, but the example of the United States of America is sufficiently clear to dispel any doubt. To see this with concern for the future of democracy is to reject the well-known proposition that “what is good for General Motors is good for the country.”

Secondly, the various forms of capitalism have common features – including an international elite sharing a common language, English and a common business culture – and there are corporations that are truly trans-national with headquarters in tax-friendly places and worldwide operations. These corporations have an enormous power and there is no international political organization which is in a position to provide some checks and balances to this power. Organizations of the civil society are an indispensable but feeble voice and the World Trade Organization is certainly not a counter-force. Some form of democracy at the international level has to be put in place, unless one’s believe that corporations have the mandate and capacity to rule the world.

Thirdly, is the question of the concentration of power – financial, economic, political, cultural – and at all levels, from the nation and the region to the globe. Is there a movement towards such concentration, or, as contended, is it the reverse? Only careful analyses of various sources of information would settle this debate, at least with regard to the direction of the trend.

Lastly, divergences of views between participants in this sort of debate, and also misunderstandings among them, stem from the lack of clarity on two related issues: what is the difference between a market economy and a predominantly capitalist economy? And, what differentiates a market economy from a market society? These notions are thrown into debates by the critics of the dominant form of economic liberalism without enough precision on their contents. Further debates would benefit from notes clarifying these issues.[8]

 

Liberal democracies and their moral and spiritual deficit

 

The third contention of the Agenda for this meeting was that the root of the difficulties and problems of liberal democracies is that they suffer from an ethical and spiritual deficit. This central tenet of the work of the Circle was illustrated from several angles and with the use of different words to express the malaise that seems to permeate the dominant culture. It was also challenged with pleas for pragmatism and for the avoidance of all forms of dualism.

 

To be “spiritual” does not mean to be detached from the world. It was recalled that the great American William Penn said that true godliness does not turn people away from the world but enable them to live better in it. The gospel according to Luke was also quoted: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Understood as love for thy neighbor, spirituality is not an option. It is a defining characteristic of individual life and of decent politics. For Calvin, God put us together with the desire and the order that each of us care for the other. Together we are serving all of humanity. The modern world appears to have lost this fundamental message of love and charity. In his neo-liberal incarnation homo economicus is asked to be selfish and greedy. This leads to loss of meaning (in French “perte de sens”) in individual life and, collectively to loss of the notions of general will and common good. It is perhaps understandable that the distant heirs of Locke and Smith rejected the Rousseauist concept of “general will” with its abstract and authoritarian connotations, but to have forgotten the idea of a “common good” is much less forgivable. Developed in the Encyclical  Quadragesimo Anno of Pius XI in 1931, the notion of common good has very classical origins in the works of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics.[9] Our neighbor of today, whom we have to make part of our common good, is the one who does not vote, the one who is unemployed, the one who does not manage his or her life or who is prevented to do so by abusive powers. To be legitimate, every form of government and every site of power must abide by the diktats of love and altruism.

 

The deficiencies of the dominant culture are not deplored exclusively by aging intellectuals with longings for a more or less mythical past or with ideals oblivious of the imperfections of human nature. A recent survey of the views of young people in Germany showed that, for this youth, the most damaging “addiction” of the time was “hedonism.” Globalization is disseminating attitudes leaving no room for generosity and the pursuit of altruistic ideals. Materialism is the only “game in town.” However, the same young people who gave this judgment are very sensitive to the appeal of a number of strong and ‘counter-hedonistic” values. One of these is solidarity accompanied by accountability, which finds expression in systems of social security  and is predominantly nurtured in traditional and new social institutions such as the family, the school, the village or the urban neighborhood, the religious community, or the association to promote a social concern such as the advancement of the condition of women, or the protection of the environment. There are actually more and more people involved in such forms of active and responsible sociability. Another value with strong appeal is human dignity. The power of the call for the respect of human integrity and also the integrity of the creation is enormous. Conversely, any form of humiliation creates resentment, hate and violence. A number of current international problems, conflicts and threats find their root in the humiliation inflicted to individuals and communities. A third value, and virtue, is forgiveness. In religious terms, this is the forgiveness of sins, and the redemption of the sinners. In humanistic terms, it is the consciousness of the fallibility of all human endeavors. Lastly, efforts at improving the ethical and spiritual dimensions of life in society have to take into account and in fact to share the perspective of the poor and marginalized. Young people understand perfectly that a world of apartheid between the rich and the poor is neither desirable nor sustainable.

 

One of the evidence of the ethical deficit of the current version of modernity is that politics and public affairs are increasingly conducted, especially in the leading democracy, on the basis of a distinction between good and evil, with “good” defined in a way as to punish or eliminate “evil”. This is a distortion of politics. And a distortion of morality. The distinction between law and morality was a major achievement of secularism. Translating moral traditions into laws was an essential contribution of the process of secularism to political thought and practice. We are rapidly slipping away from this fundamental insight of the Enlightenment. But a democratic society cannot be conducted on the basis of moral claims. It is a consensus on legal rules that is still needed at the national level and that could help define a common ethical foundation at the global level.

 

Liberal democracies do not really suffer from a “lack of morality”, as the fundamentalists and evangelicals claim, but from a lack of the capacity to transcend the realm of a particular moral into laws and rules binding citizens together in a community and eventually the world as a whole. Such translation process is essential for the survival of human society. It is of utmost importance that we should not loose this heritage of the Enlightenment. (This point is important as a marker for a renewed form of secularism and will be taken again in Part III a-propos the notions of “thick and thin morality”, but it had to be mentioned here because the “ethical deficit” of liberal democracies is too often seen as a decline of the codes of private morality, mostly sexual morality. And the dichotomy between good and evil in public discourse is the political facet of this very dangerous simplification of what constitutes an ethical behavior in the private and public spheres of life.)

 

When discussing the assumed “ethical deficit” of liberal democracies, one should be aware that there is not One Ethic and One Moral. Religions generate their ethical and moral principles and norms, and peoples derive from them their rules of behavior (in French, their principes d’action). But even within a relatively homogeneous social group, for instance a group made of those who, believers or not, are immersed in a culture which remain Christian, there are strong differences of opinion on issues involving political and ethical judgments. For instance, is it legitimate for a democracy to use violence to prevent another country from abusing human rights? There are no definitive and absolute answers to this type of questions. At present, our moral world is crisscrossed by a number of currents, with temporary divergences and convergences. As there is not One moral, there is not One truth. And secularism is too simple a doctrine, too empty a shell to provide guidance to people. Secularism implies laissez-faire. Total moral permissiveness is a source of conflicts.

 

Liberal democracies need a voluntarist vision of a desirable organization of society. As a reasonable degree of social homogeneity is necessary for any human group to survive, the bonds must be found in a dominant culture, or ideology. In the past of the Western world, such ideology was provided by religion. A corpus of rules of behavior was accepted by a majority, and was therefore considered morally acceptable. What has to be found is an equally binding moral foundation, but cleared from dogmas and from the aggressiveness that always characterize those who possess The truth. And, this search for a common ethic in a world where all types of distances are being constantly reduced, ought to remain pragmatic.

 

In the “Triglavian” conversations, the “spiritual” is sometimes contrasted with the “material”, as a direct echo of the separation between “soul” and “body”, “spirit” and “flesh”, “heaven” and “earth”, or even “paradise” and “hell”. It is difficult, perhaps particularly for Westerners formed by Plato, Descartes and Christianity, to avoid transforming into dualistic oppositions what are connected poles and elements of an organic whole. But what we are looking for is not a renewed form of spiritualism but a humanism whereby life in all its facets and richness is informed, shaped and oriented by intelligence, generosity and love. Metaphysical and religious preoccupations ought not to be antagonistic to the celebration of life. In fact, to the extent that distinctions and  oppositions are necessary for debates and progress in the quality of thought and action, it is preferable to contrast a culture of life with a culture of death rather than to place the spiritual on a pedestal and leave the material on the mud. The question of dualism has been alluded to in a number of Triglav discussions. Perhaps it ought to be addressed in an organized and prepared manner and the philosophy of Spinoza, notably his notion of an “ethical joy”, mentioned in the Agenda for this meeting but not debated for lack of time, might provide a good point of entry

 

Moreover, there is something “too easy” in the denunciation of the “materialism” of the dominant Western culture and of the shortcomings of liberal capitalism. The first duty of a group of reflection like the Triglav circle is to look carefully at the signs of the time and to try to understand them. An improvement in their “material” conditions of life is still an extremely attractive project, and often a distant dream, for very many individuals and communities. Liberal democracy and liberal capitalism are offering a path to what, for many, represents progress. At the same time, there are a number of “dead-ends” in this political culture and project, including its predatory tendencies and its inability to tame competition, violence and war. The great undertaking that was the Enlightenment ought to be pursued and it would be wrong to neglect the material benefits it brought to humankind.

 

 

PART III

 

 

MARKERS FOR A RENEWED FORM OF SECULARISM

 

Even if they were not all fully debated, the following points might be considered as provisional conclusions of the Circle:

 

Secularism, or the independence of public institutions from religion, remains a perfectly valid and useful political doctrine and practice. Within a liberal political philosophy based on freedom and respect for human rights, there is no acceptable alternative to secularism.
The corollary is that theocracy and other regimes based on laws identical to or directly derived from religious prescriptions are, from the same liberal democratic perspective, unacceptable. This does not mean that liberal democracies, individually or collectively, have the right to intervene in another country under the pretext that it is ruled by a fundamentalist or theocratic regime that violate internationally accepted human rights. Only an international organization with the appropriate mandate might conceivably have this “right of intervention” in the future. Meanwhile, dialogue at all levels is the only practical course of action.
Freedom of religious practice, as part of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, is inherent to secularism. This freedom includes the freedom to change religion and the freedom not to have a religion or particular philosophy.
As stipulated in the constitutions of most liberal democracies, religious freedom is limited by respect for the law, including, for the countries that have ratified them, respect for the growing corpus of international and regional human rights. Religious traditions or convictions do not place the individuals concerned above the law. Within these legal limits, tolerance ought to be a shared attitude of all citizens.
How far should tolerance of liberal democracies be extended to religious doctrines and practices that are at odds if not with their laws but with their cultures and their traditions? The meeting left this question unanswered. But the general sentiment was that it is a legitimate question. Tolerance and hospitality are not synonymous with laxness and indifference to the future of one’s society. But openness often goes with creativity.
Legal frameworks for freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and tolerance,  are all the more necessary that plurality has to be seen as a permanent feature of the public space. With the progress of education (a point where there is no unanimity) and the spreading of the idea that freedom is possible, there is little likelihood that a religion or ideology could dominate the world and even a region. It is true that some see the ideology of market capitalism as a new religion with its sacred words and media if not texts and its priests dressed as CEO and Judaism and its tenet of the Chosen People, have a vocation of universality. In the statement on the perennial character of cultural and religious pluralism, there was both a judgment and a wish. At least the wish was shared by all participants.
Secularism, understood as the independence of the political powers from religion, is compatible with a variety of legal arrangements between the state and religious institutions and authorities. As noted in Part I of this report, even state religion, when operating in a democratic context and also when the official religion has lost part of its social importance, is compatible with secularism. Separation of church and state, however, is the most common situation in liberal democracies (not only Western democracies),  with a lot of variations from total legal separation ( with a strong presence of deism as in the United States, or with elaborate “laicite” as in France) to separation corrected by diverse types of contractual arrangements between civil and religious institutions, as in Germany.
Total separation between the state and religion was not favored at this meeting. The French political doctrine of laicite was not given a full hearing, but it was noted that while the most important law of separation of 1905 is still respected in its broad principles – and appreciated and defended by political parties across the spectrum from “left” to “right” and by the leaders of all major religions present in France – relations between the Vth Republic and religious institutions, notably those of Islam, have lately become more active and more organized. In any case, it was secularism with cooperation with religion that was advocated in the course of the discussion, under the name of “public religion.” Some of the conditions, or “rules of the game” under which cooperation between the state and religion (s) can work effectively for the benefit of the whole society, were also discussed. The remaining sections of this report are devoted to public religion and to some aspects of the moral and political culture that would give it a better chance to be one of the forces for the betterment of the human condition.
Secular states and public religions

 

The argument for secularism being renewed through close and trustful cooperation between liberal democratic states and public religion (s) was presented in the following manner. In the background is the necessity and the difficulty to reconcile two equally important propositions: the Enlightenment is not yet completed and there is need to maintain the distinction between the public and the private spheres of life and society. A first step forward is the realization that there is currently a lot of confusion as to what is “private” and what is “public.” Is spirituality a private affair? This is not a tenable position for even the eremitic life is not totally separated from society. And there is the theory, already mentioned in previous Triglav meetings, that prayers and destructive thoughts “battle” each other in a “noosphere” that influence human history.[10] Besides, as indicated earlier, in many religions and philosophies to be spiritual is to unselfish and loving. Turning to institutions, non-governmental organizations and organizations of the civil society in general are not “public” institutions in the sense that they do not have the legal attributes of power, but they definitely have a public role in societies and in the world.

 

To overcome such difficulties of language and concepts, it is useful to introduce the notion of common interest. It has three dimensions: the values with which individuals and institutions operate, the cultures, made of the interactions of these values with particular circumstances, and the actions that are political and governmental. Together, values, cultures and actions constitute a public life, or public space, which has a meaning and dignity of its own. A discourse of fundamental importance for society develops in this space, from the local to the national and global levels. Communal consciousness, for example, flourishes in the public space. Hence the notion of public religions, which are most important actors in that same space. The concept of religious freedom ought to be identified with the legitimate public role of religions. And secularism, a doctrine of which one has to be suspicious when it connotes an anti-religious political philosophy, has to be defended when it means keeping a secular conception of the state. This is a particularly precious heritage of the “Lumieres” at a time marked by tendencies to reinstate a control of religion over the state

 

A secular state having relations with a or several public religions can provide public funding for cultural activities, educational activities and a large array of social activities undertaken by religious institutions. Public subsidies to institutions performing public services are perfectly legitimate. To approve of public subsidies of various kinds –including tax rebates – to private businesses and to reject such subsidies or payment of services to churches or religious associations doing social work makes little sense.The interplay of  religious oriented peoples and organizations with the state and with other actors on the social scene enhances the social consciousness of all and the quality of a society. Involvement of churches in social life also prevent the kind of privatization, in the sense of marketisation, of social relations and institutions that have to remain outside the logic of profit. Public religion is an antidote to market society.

 

Such cooperative relationships between the state and religions, through a variety of contracts and agreements at the central, regional and local levels, demand clear “rules of the game.” The state has to remain “neutral”, in the sense of being the guardian of the liberal democratic values on which it is founded without interfering in theological and religious matters, nor in the management of religious institutions. The state is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the public space in which religions and other actors interact. Religions have the right and the duty to participate in the public discourse without attempting to impose a particular viewpoint on specific issues. They ought to highlight moral and spiritual perspectives that would help citizens make informed   political choices. The role of religion is to help individuals and society develop a sense of purpose.

 

 

 

 

An evolving concept of truth

 

A harmonious coexistence of secular states with religions would seem to imply that the latter modify their relations with the concept of truth. It was recalled that the word “secularism” was first used in 1846 by George Jacob Holyoake, a British  public intellectual, essayist, polemist and politician who founded “The Reasoner”, was the first president of the “London Secular Society” and who wrote “The Principles of Secularism”. “Secularism”, he said, “is a code of duty pertaining to this life founded on considerations purely human, and intended mainly for those who find theology indefinite or inadequate, unreliable or unbelievable. Its essential principles are three: (1) the improvement of this life by material means; (2) that science is the available Providence of man; and (3) that it is good to do good.”[11] The inspiration from Bentham’s and Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism is clear, as are clear the affinities of this thinking with socialism and the morals that inspired the French laicite. What matters in the context of this discussion, however, is that for Holyoake and his successors secularism was founded on science and scientific reasoning. What Holyoake called “the practical sufficiency of natural morality” could be relied upon “apart from Atheism, Theism or the Bible” because it was built upon science, seen as the new “Providence of Man”. Secularism was not vehemently against Christianity (at least for Holyoake, but his disciple Charles Bradlaugh who founded “The National Reformer” was a militant atheist), but was proposing a moral path with science as its guide instead of theology and its uncertain speculations.[12]

 

Science, it was noted, did not offer such certitudes even in the mid-19th century. But contemporaries of Holyoke and their descendants who founded Scientism and Positivism and acclaimed Auguste Comte did sincerely believe that scientific experimentation and reasoning was dramatically reducing the realm of uncertainty and could produce a “scientific” social morality. This is because there is historically a gap of about fifty/ hundred years between the state reached by scientific rationality and the moment at which its implications for philosophy, aesthetics and morals are understood and formulated. (This observation, which seems to be corroborated at least by a certain reading of Western civilization, but raises interesting questions on determinism and the philosophy of science, was not discussed and challenged during this meeting). In any case, such faith in a scientific truth is no longer tenable. A new cosmogony developed at the beginning of the 20th century. There were quantum mechanics, quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the Sets theory – which has branched into the “naïve theory of sets” and the “axiomatic theory of sets”- and the perennial paradox of Epimedes the Cretan according to which a statement can neither be proved true nor proved false. Constructivism in physics was destroyed, as was constructivism in logic.

 

The consequence is that no language, including the mathematical language, can be founded on something else than a convention, which is accepted but which does not belong to the realm of logic. Then the initial relation of trust with science disappears. And, slowly, the capacity to communicate also disappears. One of the most famous slogans of May 1968 in the streets of Paris was “il est interdit d’interdire” ( it is prohibited to prohibit). Then, everything can be said and nothing that is said matters. And, when the Word (la Parole) has lost its meaning, humankind falls into the world of impulse and violence. When action is not mediatized by the word, only the will to enhance one’s power remains. There is no longer “truth” and “error”, but “facts” “understood” and “measured” by economics and statistics, and the market society prospers. And individuals, desperately in search of meaning and of their self in this pseudo-society, turn to religion, including its fundamentalist and evangelical avatars. They are saying “I want to be the author of my own existence; I am a Subject, not an object.”

 

Thus, according to this line of thinking, the optimism of the many who, like Holyoake, believed that it was possible to build a secular moral on scientific rationality was not only unfounded but had the perverse effect of creating relativism, amorality and despair, and finally a return to religion. Then, if Truth is no longer accessible to secularism and to the secular state, and if religions still have a privileged access to a Truth of their own, will the balance between state and religion assumed by the notion of public religion in a renewed form of secularism be an illusion? Are secularism and laicite actually in danger of disappearance, and with them freedom of thought? Or, are religions, if not “en bloc” but at least within some of their currents, changing their relations with the concept of truth?[13]

 

Some partial answers were given to these questions. The participant who advocated the notion of public religion and who also stated that plurality was going to be a permanent feature of the public space, said that in a democratic organization of society the truth that “I” considers as absolute does not exclude the truths that others see as absolute. This is not radical relativism but observation of the rules of tolerance. We mutually affirm the truths we hold, without arrogance, without exclusion and without pseudo-syncretism. Public intellectuals have a critical role in bringing to life this positive and dynamic form of tolerance. This is another way of repeating that the Enlightenment has stopped too soon and has to be resurrected.

 

In the same vein, it was pointed out that the problematic of the truth (problematique de la verite) was changing. This is no longer a situation where the truth “is” and needs only to be enounced. The necessary condition for a fruitful dialogue – between religions as well as between different philosophies – is that each interlocutor has the desire and objective to make the truth progress, rather than to impose or even confront a truth upon other truths. The word of the other has to be welcomed. This is a process of seeking the truth that will never be achieved and that must be accepted as such, with joy, with faith. Faith is trust. Trust is the result of reciprocal faith. If one genuinely accepts to be in a situation of continuous interrogation – an interrogation which is different from a destructive doubt- then the dialogue of different faiths, including atheism or theism, is possible and fruitful. A dialogue of convictions become a source of enrichment for all involved.

 

“Thick and thin morality”

 

The question of the concept of truth and of peaceful coexistence among different convictions, was also discussed from the perspective of the distinction between “thick” and “thin” morality.  This distinction, made by Michael Walzer, poses the existence of two moral languages, one “simple”, or “thin”, the other “complex” or “thick”.[14] Thick morality is rooted in specific conditions and circumstances, including religious traditions. Each culture, each nation and each region has its thick morality. Within a nation sometimes – and certainly in the past of most nations of today – there are several thick moralities. Thin morality is made of what is common and shared by thick moralities. It is, in that sense, universal. It applies to everyone and to no one in particular. It is what unites peoples who are different. In simplified terms, thick morality is domestic and thin morality is international, or global, or, in more voluntarist terms, universal. In many respect, the Charter of the United Nations, in its moral principles, is reflecting a thin morality. And so are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the attempts at elaborating a global ethics of theologians such as Hans Kung.

 

In an age of globalization, a renewed secularism would require a shared thin morality. It was pointed out, however, that this morality should not be so “thin” as to become the least common denominator among fundamentally antagonistic cultures. A common ethical foundation at the global level should be the result of a process of translation among thick moralities through a language of guiding symbols. What needs to happen is the translation, into elements of global public policy, of public obligations that are not simply left to moral or immoral decisions of those into leadership positions but are applied to all with equal validity and force. Then, for a global business ethic as well as for world governance in general, an international “thin” morality would have some of the attributes of a “thick” morality. As already discussed a-propos the tendency to replace legal agreements by voluntary codes of conduct, in an imperfect world the possibility of sanctions are important.

 

A provisional list of the elements or values that ought to be part of the thin morality needed for a workable international community was given.

First is the principle of the rule of law to be underpinned by morality. Laws changes, intellectual and political fashions are always present. If moral principles do not provide a solid foundation to law, arbitrariness and chaos loom rapidly on the political horizon. Secondly, justice is critical. Particularly for the protection of the minorities – or small and powerless nations in an international community – endowed with thick and old moralities, a strong sense of justice on the part of those who lead is indispensable. Thirdly, there is to be working system of representation of the peoples. No system of representation is perfect, but people will tolerate imperfections in the way their interests and views are taking into account by the political system as long as the state or the international organizations do not move too far and too conspicuously away from being “their” voice. At present, and as already noted, liberal democracies are having a strong problem of legitimacy – parliaments, which are supposed to represent the citizens, have less and less say in decisions – and the United Nations, while being the only universal organization with a mandate to represent “the people of the world” is largely powerless except when the main powers decide otherwise.

Fourthly, an essential dimension of thin morality is to the guarantee of individual freedom. Freedom is a basic human right, both for protection against abuses of power and to unleash the creativity that is part of human nature.

 

Such thin morality needs to be constantly refined and redefined. Principles are and should be a-temporal. The modalities of their application are transient. A reflection and a concrete policy on global public goods ought to be part of a universal thin morality. The “tragedy of the commons” and the threats posed by “free riders” are always present. The protection of the environment is obviously a dimension and a major objective of a world community guided by morality. Thin morality, there, is synonymous with survival. The individual will always be motivated by self-interest and nations, as long as they will exist, will always seek their national interest. But there can also be workable communities, including a global community. A thin global morality implies faith in the future of humankind. Both secular states and international organizations and public religions have contributions to make to the concretization of this faith.

 

The ten stages for reaching Buddha

 

Another prominent example of the dimensions that a thin universal morality should encompass is given by Buddhism. Everybody has the capacity to be Buddha. Everybody has the right to enjoy the fruits of the creation. There are ten stations or steps in the way to full humanity. These are the state of hell; the state of animality, or submission to instincts and pulsions; the state of greed; the state of pride; the state of fugitive happiness; the state of thinking and reflection; the state of self-awakening; the state of concern for the others; the state of compassion; and the state of identification with Buddha. The state of Buddha is life itself, in all its beauty and perfection. These ten states are in a continuum and are integrated. Each of them is indispensable to the others. In Buddhism, nothing is more precious than a human life. Compassion is a key virtue. The economy is nothing if not at the service of the human being. And the same is true for politics and the polity. One of the great merits of Buddhism is to remind us that everything starts with the individual, and that nothing is possible in society without the individual effort at reaching harmony with the self, the community, nature and the universe.

 

The humanities and artistic freedom

 

A renewed and enriched secularism calls not only for religions reconciled with reason and with pluralism, but also for the free and enthusiastic use of different sources of knowledge, for the interplay of different ways of apprehending reality, its mystery and beauty. As part of this quest, which is a recurrent theme of the meetings of the Circle, a perspective on secularism was given from the viewpoint of the humanities, of the world of the arts and of poetry. From this viewpoint emerges a certain attitude of defiance vis-à-vis abstractions and speculations. The concept of secularism, the question of separation of the state from religion, are ideas to which most people in the world do not easily relate to. These ideas are particularly unintelligible to those that are supposed to be the main beneficiaries of  public action. This is not a paradox, but simply a fact of which public intellectuals should be conscious.

 

What is behind these ideas and these discussions is the question of freedom. And to freedom, everybody relates to and is fully able to understand its opposites, which are poverty of the spirit and deprivation from those amenities that make life enjoyable. What humanities have to say on the issue of freedom is not in the realm of political solutions. Humanities do not propose answers. But it is worth noting that the communities that are the most materially dispossessed are not dispossessed of the capacity of artistic expression. In poor and even oppressed communities, songs, music, theatre, poetry and other ways of expressing human soul and creativity manage to flourish, as if they were immune from fear and deprivation.. Something could be illuminated in our thinking about society and its future by reflecting on how artistic consciousness is a subjective reality not only for individuals but for groups of people and for entire communities. We should reflect on the question of separation between arts and state and on the question of artistic freedom.

 

Exchange of views on poetic truth and artistic freedom followed this exposition. Poetic truth is indeed a truth. For example, the creationist account of the creation of the world expresses a poetic truth. But this kind of truth ought not to be confused or identified with the truth that Reason tries to approximate since the world has gained some intelligibility. To recognize the value of different ways of accessing different forms of knowledge is not to forget or blur the heritage of the Enlightenment.

 

Some believe that artistic freedom is necessarily hampered when the state support or subsidize the arts. But control of the arts, of the Soviet type that occurred after the initial revolutionary period of great freedom and creativity, is not the same thing that support. French moviemakers, for example, benefit from state support but keep entirely their freedom of expression. The concept of public religion is applicable to the arts, with even more evidence. Artists, including poets, produce for an audience. Art has by nature a social function. Moreover, artistic freedom is a notion that applies also to those who engage with the artist through art work. It is interpretative freedom. A society replete with interpreters that value the art is a rich society. And, after all, there are still artists who embellish old or new churches, temples, synagogues and mosques. The artistic and the spiritual belong to the same realm.

 

 

Questions that might be pursued in future meeting of the Triglav Circle and related discussions

 

This is an open-ended list to which members and friends of the Circle are invited to comment upon and to provide additions or modifications. Here are initial suggestions:

Very commonly, including in this report, the situations in the United States and in Europe (at least Western Europe) are contrasted in terms of role and importance of religion. The US is very religious (since Tocqueville all Europeans know this!) and Europe is largely indifferent to religion. It was said during this meeting that the European population (apart from the Islamic minority) is increasingly agnostic and that religious practices are both less frequent and more and more tolerant (in the sense of eclecticism in the choice of rituals). It would be interesting to look more closely at what has become an accepted stereotype. If the difference is real, what is its meaning for those concerned cultures and for the project of modernity?
Religion has different meanings for different peoples. In particular there are those who take religion, for instance Christianity, to mean essentially the practice of the virtue of charity and compassion. To be a Christian is to be a loving human being. There are others who understand religion as a path to transcendence and to God, with guidelines and markers in the form of dogmas and rituals. For those, theology, metaphysics and morals are not separable. These two conceptions of religion – with many nuances and overlaps – could usefully be explained, analyzed and debated.[15] The question of religion and education, and religion in education, was hardly touched upon. Yet it remains, or becomes again extremely important in very different parts of the world. Is there a Triglavian angle to usefully address this question?
There was an assumption during this meeting, at least on the part of some participants, that pluralism – in a given society and in the world as a whole – is perfectly if not easily compatible with the identification of “a” or “the” common good ( or for those less influenced by the social teaching of the Catholic church, the general interest, or the general will). This assumption (or ambition, or wish) could usefully be further debated.
In his chapter in Candles in the Dark that prompted this discussion in Ougny, Richard Falk links the need for a “reconstructed secularism” to the weakening of the sovereign state. Richard often mentions that the world has entered into a “post Westphalian age.” The present report hardly touches upon this point, except through the discussion of a “thin morality” for a global community. Is it because most of the participants do not share the view that the state is disappearing? Or refuse and resist this evolution? Is the idea and ideal of an ordered  and democratic world community receding?
In the same piece Richard Falk looks for a “form of collaboration between religion and politics” that would entail “a recovery of the sacred.” This is mentioned at the beginning of the report but was not explicitly addressed during the discussion. It would be useful to reflect more on the meaning of the word “sacred” in a “post-modern” culture.
During this meeting, as in previous discussions, there was an “opposition” between those who contend that “good sentiments do not make a good economy” and those who believe that justice, compassion and participation are compatible with creativity and efficiency. Would it be possible to move beyond this apparent “deadlock” between realists and idealists?
Among the points mentioned in the agenda for this meeting that the participants had no opportunity to debate, are (1) the distinction made by Max Weber between “ethics of conviction” and “ethics of responsibility”; (2) the distinction or even opposition made by Spinoza between Ethics and Morality (and with this the question of dualism); (3) the present relevance of the notion of “orders” in society, as for example the three orders of Pascal ( “order of the body,” “order of the mind” and “order of the heart”) and their interplay; and (4) the view that the idea of progress ought to be rejuvenated.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ENDNOTES

 

 

[1] Candles in the Dark: A New Spirit for a Plural Age, Edited by Barbara Sundberg-Baudot, University of Washington Press, 2002, Chapter 2,pp 61,62.

[2] The book Our Religions, which was a source of inspiration for the UN seminar at the origin of the Triglav  Circle, examine seven religions, that is the “big five” plus Confucianism and Taoism. See Our Religions, Edited by Arvind  Sharma, Harper SanFrancisco, 1993.

[3] Figures given by Cardinal Poupard in an interview to the magazine Paris Match,  Les Defis de Rome August 2007

 

[4] Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads as follows: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion and belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

[5] Edward w. Said, in response to Samuel Huntington, wrote in The Nation a commentary entitled The Clash of Ignorance  in which he said: “How finally inadequate are the labels, generalizations and cultural assertions. At some level, for instance, primitive passions and sophisticated know-how converge in ways that give the lie to a fortified boundary not only between “West” and “Islam” but also between past and present, us and them, to say nothing of the very concepts of identity and nationality about which there is unending disagreement and debate (…) These are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self-knowledge or informed analysis. “The Clash of Civilizations” thesis is a gimmick like “The War of the Worlds”, better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time.”

[6] Survey by the French polling institute CSA quoted in France and its Muslims, Stephanie Giry, Foreign Affairs, Vol.85, No 5, September/October 2006. The same article mentions a study undertaken in 1990 by Emmanuel Todd according to which “20 to 30 % of women of Algerian descent under of age of 35 living in France had married a Frenchman – on eof the highest rates of intermarriage for Muslims anywhere in Europe.” It should be recalled that the French law prohibits questions on racial origin, religious belief and a-fortiori sexual orientation in censuses and other official administrative questionnaires or surveys. Studies like those mentioned above are therefore private and do not benefit from officially collected data.  As recently as November 2007, the Conseil Constitutionnel invalidated a law voted by the legislature which would have permitted questions on the ethnic origin of the inhabitants of France. In doing so, the Conseil Constitutionnel invoked Article 1 of the Constitution: “La France est une Republique indivisible, laique,democratique et sociale. Elle assure l’egalite devant la loi de tous les citoyens sans distinction d’origine, de race ou de religion. Elle respecte toutes les croyances. Son organisation est decentralisee. »

[7] This is an observation that is now routinely made by a number of American intellectuals, but which finds no echo in the mainstream political discourse For example, in the December 6, 2007, issue of  The New York Review of Book Tony Judt, Director of the Remarque Institute at NYU, wrote a review entitled The Wrecking Ball of Innovation of a book by Robert B. Reich, Supercapitalism:The Transformation of Business, Democracy and everyday Life. Here is the comment of Jodt: “The facts that he (Reich) amasses appear to point to an incipient collapse of the core values and institutions of the republic. Congressional bills are written to private advantage; influential contributors determine the policies of presidential candidates; individual citizens and voters have been steadily edged out of the public sphere. In Reich’s many examples it is the modern international corporation, its overpaid executives, and its “value-obsessed” shareholders who seem to incarnate the breakdown of civic values. These firms’ narrowly construed attention to growth, profit, and the short term, the reader might conclude, has obscured and displaced the broader collective goals and common interests that once bound us together. But this is not at all the conclusion Robert Reich would have us reach. In his version of our present dilemmas no one is to blame (…) The super-rich are not at fault (…) Corporations aren’t behaving very socially responsibly (…) but that is not their job. We should not expect investors or consumers or companies to serve the common good. They are seeking the best deal. Economics is not about ethics. As the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once observed, “If people want morality, let them get it from their archbishop.” Robert Reich, former Secretary of  Labor of President Clinton,  participated in a meeting organized jointly by the Triglav Circle and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation  on The Moral and Political Foundations of Social Justice in an Interdependent World. His positions were consistent with those described above by Judt. He described eloquently the growing inequalities and injustices affecting the American society but stop short of attributing any responsibility to corporations or political processes and elites. He presented as a “fact of life” his inability, as secretary of Labor, to overcome the pressures of various lobbies. The current (December 2007) presidential campaign to designate the candidates of  the Republican and Democrat parties is also perfectly illustrative of the limits to the political debate that is imposed by the American understanding of the consensus that all citizens are supposed to share: the basic features of the capitalist system are not to be criticized.

[8] The Copenhagen Seminars for Social Progress, convened in the aftermath of the United Nations World Summit for Social Development, had the beginning of a reflection on these concepts of market economy and market society. Four criteria were identified to assess the quality of a market economy: Economic participation, or the involvement of a maximum number of individuals in productive activities, either through independent entrepreneurship of craftsmanship; Economic justice, which is achieved when individuals and communities or nations receive fair rewards for their activities; Economic morality, which prevails if the behavior of all actors is ruled by ethical principles, if competition is fair, if contracts are respected, if technological innovations and new products contribute to human welfare and the beauty of the world, and if the natural environment is treated with deference; and, Economic moderation, which is practiced when economic rationality, the logic of market mechanisms, and the use of money as a medium of exchange remain restricted to economic transactions and do not invade allsperes of life and society. As to a market society, it would have the following features: the pursuit of material well-being  would be a dominant objective and a reasonable utilitarianism would be transformed into a narcissistic hedonism; there would be a cult for money spreading in all spheres of life and society; most relationships would be legalized and most professions would be commercialized; activities based on dedication and generosity that provide the “fuel” without which societies cannot function would disappear, as would traditional forms of culture and social intercourse based on trust and rituals; political institutions and processes would decline; science would be dominated by objectives of profit and power; various forms of irrationality would flourish; crime and violence would rise; and, ultimately, the market econmy itself would be hampered, as it requires interiorized norms and values. See Building a World Community, Globalisation and the Common Good, Edited by Jacques Baudot, University of Washington Press, 2001.

[9] The Encyclical Quadragisemo Anno refers to the “forty years” elapsed since the issuance in 1891 of the famous Encyclical Rerum Novarum, which marked the founding of the Catholic social doctrine, or thought, and had an enormous influence in Europe and other parts of the world, notably through various Christian democratic political parties who came to power  in the aftermath of World War II. The language of  Rerum Novarum  (sub-titled “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor”) is remarkable by its bluntness and continuing relevance. For example: “The elements of the conflict now raging are unmistakable, in the vast expansion of industrial pursuits and the marvelous discoveries of science; in the changed relations between masters and workmen; in the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses, (…) as also, finally in the prevailing moral degeneracy.” There is “the greed of unchecked competition” and “the rapacious usury still practiced by covetous and grasping men.” As to “the socialists”, “working on the poor man’s envy of the rich (…) they hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions (…) were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.” This real Third Way, “real” because founded on a complete and demanding vision of Man and Society, does not have the intellectual and political audience it deserved.  It is, however, being updated to meet the recurrent and new problems of the time, notably the all-encompassing globalization movement. A most important example of this work is to be found in Globalization and Catholic Social Thought, Present Crisis, Future Hope, Edited by John A. Coleman and William F. Ryan, Orbis Books, New York, 2005.

[10] On the concept of  “noosphere”, in the already mentioned Candles in the Dark, there is a chapter written by Vyacheslav Ivanov entitled “Towards Noosphere”.  Tracing the origin of the concept in the work of Teilhard de Chardin and Vernadsky , and noting that the word is a neologism formed from the Greek “noos” (mind, intelligence, understanding, thought) and “designates a thinking layer superimposed on the biosphere, a new film or membrane on the earth’s surface”, Ivanov  concludes his analysis with the following call: “The concept of noosphere contributes to progress in the field of semiotics by virtue of the way in which its relationships to the biosphere brings science and the study of human culture into closer alliance, Introducing the notion of the noosphere to a wider audience would promote the sense that preserving human culture should be conducted with the same urgency as preserving the diversity of the biosphere. The noosphere provides a concrete term and a place for the intangibles of human thought. And the noosphere, because it is built around the capacity for self-conscious life, provides the key to its own survival: a greater awareness of that which it contains.  Bringing people’s attention to the noosphere is especially crucial at this point in time.”
[11] These quotes from Jacob Holyoake’s Principles of Secularism  were found in the Google website  in the entry “secularism” where an article from the Catholic Encyclopedia give a fairly detailed history, and criticism , of the secularist doctrine, which was initiated by Holyoake and pursued in a more radical and atheistic form by Charles Bradlaugh. The same article also mentions that during the same period of the mid-19th century The American Secular Union and Freethought Federation was founded and developed a platform with nine demands of Liberalism centered around the separation of Church and State. Article 7 of this manifesto reads as follows: “ that all laws looking to the enforcement of Christian morality as such shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights and impartial justice.”

[12] Charles Bradlaugh also founded the National Secular Society, which is still active today. In its site dated 9  December 2007 one can reads a denunciation of the debate on “Christianophobia” that took place in the Parliament of the United Kingdom on Wednesday 5 December. This debate, called for by Mark Pritchard MP, on “the supposed marginalization of Christians in Britain” is “condemned by the National Secular Society as a bizarre display of religious paranoia and a waste of precious parliamentary time. (…) In reality, Christians are still very much in control, and often use that control in ways that are out of step with the people they purport to represent.”

[13] A small but perhaps significant example of a religion reputed for its rigid dogmatism and yet accepting to operate within the “rules of the game” of a liberal democracy was reported in the international press of 4 December 2007. In the United Kingdom, the most influent representatives of Islam, representing the 12 millions members of this religion in the country, elaborated a “code of conduct” that they will disseminate in the 1700 mosques and with the 2000 imams. Among the directives of this code of conduct are financial transparency, promotion of civic responsibility, democratic procedures for the selection and formation of the imams, and progress towards a recognition of the equality between women and men, including struggle against forced marriages. See in particular Le Figaro, 4 December 2007.

[14] Michael Walzer invented the expression “thick and thin morality” on the occasion of a lecture he gave at the University of Loyola, Chicago, in 1993, to respond to the critiques of his book Spheres of Justice. In this book, Walzer argued that pluralism in modern societies creates a number of spheres of life, all of them important, and that a just society is one that recognizes complex equality “in which the advantages that accompany any one dimension –say beauty – do not automatically translate into advantages along another dimension – say influence (…) In Thick and Thin, Walzer extends this argument by posing the existence of two moral languages, one based on simplicity, the other on complexity.” This quote is from a review by Alan Wolf, in Commonweal, October 21, 1994.

[15] These two  conceptions of religion are for instance evoked  in a recent piece of the New York Review of Books ( December 6, 2007) entitled Auden and God. Reviewing a book on Auden and Christianity, by Athur Kirsch, Edward Mendelson  says that “W. H. Auden thought of religion as derived from the commandment “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself” – an obligation to other human beings despite their imperfections and his own, and an obligation to the inescapable reality of this world, not a visionary inaccessible world that might or might not exist somewhere else (…) Auden’s Christianity shaped the tone and content of his poems and was for most of his life the central focus of his art and thought. (…) auden took seriously his membership in the anglican Church (…) but he vlued his church and its doctrines only to the degree that  they helped to make it possible to love one’s neighbor as onself.” In contrast, “T.S. Eliot thought of religion as “the still point in the turning world,” “the heart of light,” “the crowned knot of fire,”  “the door we never opened,”- something that remained inaccessible, perfect, and eternal, whether or not he or anyone else cared about it, something absolutely unlike the sordid transience of human life.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PARTICIPANTS

 

 

 

Peter Baas

Barbara Baudot, Chair

Jacques Baudot, Secretary

Jean-Marie de Bourgoing

Frederic Briere

Edouard Dommen

DeSales Harrison

Adrien de Moustier

Dominic Peccoud

Elizabeth Raiser

Konrad Raiser

Fabienne Savajols

Dirck Stryker

 

Elise Queguiner and Laura Baudot attended part of the meeting