304. Romanticism, religion and populism
Instead of
the word ‘religion’ I would here prefer to use the word ‘godservice’ but while
in literal translation that word exists in Dutch (‘godsdienst’) and German (‘Gottesdienst’),
it does not, alas, exist in English. I have defined religion as offering
transcendence, a connection to something bigger than oneself, but that need not be God, in
vertical transcendence. Transcendence can be horizontal, in feeling connected
to something in this world, such as nature, or posterity, or an ideology.
In this
blog, I have adopted, as is customary, three forms of romanticism. First,
putting feelings above reason. Second, feeling connected to something bigger
than oneself. Third, the romantic hero transgressing boundaries, being a
discoverer, genius artist or scientist, or a master criminal.
Godservice,
in contrast with religion, offers all three. God is beyond reason, you belong
to the whole of divine creation, and you expect to cross, in death, the
boundary between existence on earth and that in heaven. Religion offers the
transcendence, but not necessarily the discounting of reason, nor the
transgression of boundaries.
The three
forms of romanticism do not all apply equally to all forms of godservice. In
the Islam, the Shia can live with reason next to God, for the Sunni that is
blasphemy. Thus the Sunni is purer, more ‘pristine’ as someone said, and
therefore more attractive to those reaching out for the absolute in vertical
transcendence. Better fodder for fanaticism.
Seen in
this way, godservice is the mother of all romanticism. Perhaps people are now
lured by other manifestations of romanticism because they have lost godservice.
The Nazi’s
also did well in combining in one package all three forms of romanticism.
Putting feelings of racial supremacy above reason. Belonging to the whole of
the nation (‘Das Volk’, the
people), united under its leader. Transgressing boundaries of humanity in the
lustful aggression of the fascist.
The
communists did not do quite so well. They did offer a belonging to the great,
international, inevitable, inexorable, march of history towards a communist utopia.
They did offer the transgression of the violent purging of capitalists and
revisionists. But they made the mistake of not putting feelings above reason
but, on the contrary, putting up their march as the march of reason. In that it
was closer to the Enlightenment than to Romanticism. However, along the way,
revolutionary zeal and fanatic ideology managed to make up for that.
The
Cultural Revolution in China, between
1966 and 1976, offered the complete package, in being taken up in a
transcendent revolutionary movement, transcending boundaries, uprooting the relics
of old , carried along by rhetoric and zealotry, yielding ‘a world of
enchantment, mesmerisation, and danger, one that combined a sense of infinite
possibilities and hopes with a sense of danger and threat … that gave urgency
and potency.’[ii]
President
Trump isn’t quite there yet. He is making headway in putting feelings above
truth and reason. He offers the emotion of belonging to the nation of a
privileged people to be made great again, united under his leadership. He is
doing an excellent performance in transgressing a number of boundaries, of coherence, truthtelling,
receptiveness to criticism, separation of private interests from politics, and
acceptance of judicial verdicts in the rule of law.
One cannot
accuse him of fascism. But who knows what will happen when he mobilizes his
constituency, in defence against movements to depose him that are now gathering
force. Or when some attack or crisis is taken to warrant martial law and
purges. That is what Hitler did, with the fire of the Reichstag building.
Please note that I am not now comparing Trump with Hitler but imagining what
might happen.
ii Ian Johnson, ‘China: The virtues of the awful convulsion’, New York Review of Books, October 27,
2016, p. 70.