24. X 2023
We invested reality with the whole of the imaginary, but it is this imaginary that is vanishing, since we no longer have energy to believe in it. (Jean Baudrillard)
The Hegelian interpretation of history is directional: History is the process of moving towards the realization of human freedom that captures an improvement from a more primitive condition of humanity to a more advanced (not only materially, but culturally and morally). Contradictions generated at one level are overcome or transcended at the next and incorporated in a radically new form through the subsequent social change. Human freedom is the key parameter which determines the direction of history, which becomes the realization of freedom by means of a series of successive enslavements to different kinds of necessity.
The nature of the Hegelian flow of history is, in essence, the social version of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Societies/civilizations evolve from more ordered (less freedom) to less ordered configurations (more freedom). Entropy, in aggregate, always has to increase, but if it does not, if local order for some reason arises, it has to eject enough disorder elsewhere so that the total entropy of the universe increases[1]. As the system ages, order becomes less likely and maintaining forced order becomes costly and those costs increase with time.
From the very beginning, civilization and religion had been on the collision course. Religion and its adherence to a fixed structure, acted as a resistance to disorder and became the main entropy-reduction force. Its inner conflicts with the flows of history were not visible initially but became more pronounced with advancements of science, individualization, and the general emancipation process. Religion’s intrusion into everyday life, as a consequence of its excessive secularization and the loss of territory to science, had only amplified its conflict with society.
At the same time, the Freudian trick of the human psyche — prohibition of enjoinment always turns into enjoinment of prohibition — was in full play. Religious axioms became a major point of contestation. What will become cherished human rights had been in direct conflict with basic tenets of religion, as if, with every step of social progress, these religious axioms were asking to be broken. The religious ban of adultery collides with the entitlement to privacy; pursuit of happiness with the ban to steal; right to bear arms with thou shalt not kill; freedom of religious belief with the commandment against worshiping false gods[2]. As society moved to more permissive and tolerant modes, the conflicts only increased.
Modernity was a referendum on the desire to transcend the contradiction between religion and historical flows of civilization. Its arrival interrupted the turbulent millennium and, after centuries of religious dominance, put a temporary stop on humankind’s addiction to religion. In effect, modernity was a result of a buildup of discontent with and a rebellion against the tyranny of the divine order. At its core, modernity represents the first instance of the large-scale transfer of power and responsibility in history. Unhappy with how God managed the affairs of the world, man put himself in charge.
But, as much as modernity outlined the path of man’s distancing from religion, it also paved the way for its return. The disappearance of divine authority and the process of emancipation that was triggered, created problems of their own. The world was rendered transparent, demystified and, ultimately, hollowed and deprived of its richness.
The proliferation of cult-like authoritarian figures in the Age of Reason was a knee-jerk reaction to the disappearance of central authority which continued to reverberate for several centuries. The developed West had to wait till the mid-20th century for a more systematic and coherent response to the underlying withdrawal symptoms when the market emerged as a surrogate, which temporarily filled the vacuum created by God’s exile. At the peak of the neoliberal post-industrial phase, the market attained the status of a separate entity that was worshiped like a pagan deity and to which society sacrifices social prey in order to appease it. This defined the contours of a new social structure: The primitive society of the future.
Angels in America
Today, the world stands divided facing the bankruptcy of its old narratives, largely as a consequence of an irreconcilable divergence of experiences, beliefs, and imagination. As divesting from reality in the form of parody, mockery, or masquerade has taken its toll, the growing fraction of the disillusioned population is eager to be mobilized by new narratives. However, as Jean Baudrillard observed, they are, at the same time, unable to receive them due to years of symbolic hollowing out, which deprived them of the capacity to surrender to any collective cause that transcends individual interests. Religion is returning, but in a perverse form, as a parody of itself and without its magic spell, as a grotesque reflection of reality and without any of its original substance[3].
The chart is the chronology of religious belief in 21st century America, which tells the story of religion’s perverse return. There are three distinct patterns to note here.
1. The trend and population growth
At first glance, there is an encouraging sign of collective downward trend suggestive of gradual emancipation (from the clutches of religion): Since the beginning of this century, the fraction of population that believes in God (in the most advanced economy in the world) has declined by about 15%, from the staggering 90% to the still mind-boggling 75%.
Although this emancipatory trajectory seems undeniable, when combined with the fact that each decade the population in America increases by about 10%, it turns out that, regarding religion, about the same number of Americans are still where they were 20 years ago, but the entire (positive) natality has been driven by non-believers. Believers are not disappearing, they are just being outnumbered.
This has created an uncomfortable sense of urgency among believers suggesting that they are gradually getting squeezed out, that their numbers are not being carried by the trend of population growth and that, in cultural terms, their breed is facing an existential threat. These sentiments are resonating heavily with the declining natality figures across the Western world facing a similar perceived threat and paranoid projections about their replacement with the above-trend growth of predominantly Islamic immigration and displaced populations there. In America, these trends are further amplified by the changes in racial mix across classes, together with various socio-economic developments, which have artificially inflated the sense of urgency among the white evangelicals and various religious fringe elements, which have been the major mobilizing forces of diverse nativist groups and their quick spiraling into proto-fascist authoritarian political movements.
2. Basic biblical illiteracy gap
The 15% gap between those who believe in God but not in the Devil, can have several origins. That segment of the population could reflect just basic biblical illiteracy, like people who are simple religious for social reasons and don’t want to be bothered by the details of its implementation. For them, the existence of God creates a comfort zone, it decomplexifies a number of issues that would otherwise require a stock of knowledge and discipline of thought. It is a short-cut through the generally rising complexity of the world. Inhabitants of this gap can also come from the folks who subscribe to alternative versions of religious interpretation that don’t require the Devil, only God. Either way, without the Devil, God is the origin of both good and evil – everything that happens in the universe, be it good or bad, is his will. These implications, when taken to their final consequences, tend to lean towards more fundamentalist interpretations which legitimize all evil deeds — if God exists, then everything is allowed. So, while the religious base has been in decline, their beliefs are drifting towards more fundamentalist interpretations, and their conviction grows deeper.
3. Risk parity gap
The most intriguing pattern, however, is the 10% persistent gap between those who believe in heaven but not in hell. While the basic Biblical Illiteracy Gap concerns the divine hierarchy and stands removed from this world’s affairs, the Risk Parity Gap has a direct impact on how folks should conduct their lives. Its existence is an ultimate statement of conviction in unaccountability. In absolute terms, a steady 10% over two decades is a growing number of people. In 2000, this meant about 28mn, while in 2023, it was 34mn. This gap goes beyond basic biblical illiteracy. These are not religious-ignorant, but truly religious folks who agonize about the real state allocation in the afterlife. For them, this asymmetry means that there are only rewards and no accountability in the afterlife and so one can continue to sin with impunity. In other words, it is impossible to commit a sin for which one will have to atone, so why bother with guilt, morality, right, and wrong.
This gap is the ethics-free zone — religious suspension of the ethical at work, designed to inoculate against moral dilemmas – the lebensraum of hard-core libertarians who do as they please regardless of how it affects others, the ideological creed encoded as the unconditional pursuit of happiness.
The Risk Parity Gap captures the core of the basic flaw of the fundamental premises of the American experiment. Since its inception, America has stood as a symbol of impunity in the unilateral penetration of unexplored areas and a new frontier that embodies the spirit of globalization and risk taking. What in normal circumstances would be characterized as looters, were in fact pioneers and early settlers, which arrived before the land registers. The armed land-taker acted under rules more suitable to the definition of crime rather than noble participation in the exploration of the world[4].
After several centuries of plunder and destruction of indigenous life, this criminal conduct got a divine stamp of approval in the form of Manifest Destiny, which became the password for the disinhibition of action and the underlying code of optimism, which constitutes the true national language[5].
The perverse return of religion
If what we experience as reality is structured by fantasy, and if fantasy serves as the screen that protects us from being directly overwhelmed by the row Real, then reality itself can function as an escape from encountering the Real. (Slavoj Zizek)
Religion has always played a dual role. On the one side, it defines a point (in human evolution) that corresponds to the moment of self-awareness and introspection – by positing an imaginary observer (a divine entity) to whom we ascribe a number of attributes and continuously adjust our behavior so that it becomes more pleasing to Him. On the other (practical) side, religion acts as an anesthetic by creating an imaginary layer that manages the traumatic encounter with the realization of our mortality. In both cases, religion functioned through the channel of Real/imaginary/reality: We escape the raw Real by creating an imaginary layer, which in turn structures our reality in an essential way.
This has changed in a profound way in the last three decades. Religion in the West has returned in its degenerate form as a device for management of capitalism’s excesses. We are escaping the raw (traumatic) Real again, not the existential (biological) immanence of our mortality, but the inevitability of capitalist self-destructiveness.
By opening the doors for the return of God through vulgar materialistic interpretations, religion is no longer the imaginary layer that structures our reality, but a device that legitimizes the ongoing capitalist excesses, its trespassing and suspension of the ethical as salvation from our enslavement to capitalism.
In premodern times, religion acted as a source of friction in historical flows which has grown with time to become a significant, but nevertheless surmountable, obstacle able to be transcended by social change (e.g. modernity and enlightenment). In contrast, contemporary religion possesses neither ontological nor palliative function. Rather than operating as an anesthetic through an imaginary layer, it now serves to validate the existing reality and its underlying contradictions, and to compromise the possibility of change. In that process, it reverses historical flows — society turns away from freedom and embraces the authority and power.
This transformation of the role of religion is happening in a society with the most advanced levels of social atomization exhibiting, at the same time, the maximal disagreement with basic axioms of religion. While atheism in Europe has become a fully legitimate option and its most precious legacy, America no longer has that option and remains trapped in the vortex of its own unresolved past which continues to suffocate it, without offering any venue of escape[6]. In its perverted form, religion in 21st century America has become an unsurmountable obstacle for the flows of history; it stands to normalize societal contradictions and prevent their resolution. This is the beginning of the end of the Hegelian historical continuum — achieving true freedom by reaching the end point of no resolution, by freely submitting to what has become necessary because true freedom is having no choice.
[1] After three quarters of a century of peaceful and orderly life in the global north, there is a growing chaos everywhere else in the world.
[2] Slavoj Zizek, How to Read Lacan, W. W. Norton & Company (2007)
[3] Jean Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End, Stanford University Press (1994)
[4] Peter Sloterdijk, In the World Interior of Capital, Polity (2013)
[5] Ibid.
[6] This observation was made, I believe, by Slavoj Zizek
notesfromdisgraceland 