Entretien de Didier Éribon avec Pierre Bourdieu,
à l’occasion de la publication de "Ce que parler veut dire" (1982)
« Ce que parler veut dire » est aussi un livre de philosophie politique. On y trouve posées les questions du pouvoir, de l’autorité, de la domination… Pierre Bourdieu s’en explique pour « Libération ».
LIBÉRATION. – Ce qui m’a frappé dans votre livre c’est qu’en fait, il est traversé d’un bout à l’autre par la question du pouvoir et de la domination.
PIERRE BOURDIEU. – Le discours quel qu’il soit, est le produit de la rencontre entre un habitus linguistique, c’est-à-dire une compétence inséparablement technique et sociale (à la fois la capacité de parler et la capacité de parler d’une certaine manière, socialement marquée) et d’un marché, c’est-à-dire le système de « règles » de formation des prix qui vont contribuer à orienter par avance la production linguistique. Cela vaut pour le bavardage avec des amis, pour le discours soutenu des occasions officielles, ou pour l’écriture philosophique comme j’ai essayé de le montrer à propos de Heidegger. Or, tous ces rapports de communication sont aussi des rapports de pouvoir et il y a toujours eu, sur le marché linguistique, des monopoles, qu’il s’agisse de langues secrètes en passant par les langues savantes.
LIBÉRATION. – Mais plus profondément, on a l’impression que dans ce livre se dessine en filigrane une théorie générale du pouvoir et même du politique, par le biais notamment de la notion de « pouvoir symbolique » ?
P.B. – Le pouvoir symbolique est un pouvoir qui est en mesure de se faire reconnaître, d’obtenir la reconnaissance ; c’est-à-dire un pouvoir (économique, politique, culturel ou autre) qui a le pouvoir de se faire méconnaître dans sa vérité de pouvoir, de violence et d’arbitraire. L’efficacité propre de ce pouvoir s’exerce non dans l’ordre de la force physique, mais dans l’ordre du sens de la connaissance. Par exemple, le noble, le latin le dit, est un nobilis , un homme « connu », « reconnu ». Cela dit, dès que l’on échappe au physicalisme des rapports de force pour réintroduire les rapports symboliques de connaissance, la logique des alternatives obligées fait que l’on a toutes les chances de tomber dans la tradition de la philosophie du sujet, de la conscience, et de penser ces actes de reconnaissance comme des actes libres de soumission et de complicité.
Or sens et connaissance n’impliquent nullement conscience ; et il faut chercher dans une direction tout à fait opposée, celle qu’indiquaient le dernier Heidegger et Merleau-Ponty : les agents sociaux, et les dominés eux-mêmes, sont unis au monde social (même le plus répugnant et le plus révoltant) par un rapport de complicité subie qui fait que certains aspects de ce monde sont toujours au-delà ou en-deça de la mise en question critique. C’est par l’intermédiaire de cette relation obscure d’adhésion quasi-corporelle que s’exercent les effets du pouvoir symbolique. La soumission politique est inscrite dans les postures, dans les plis du corps et les automatismes du cerveau. Le vocabulaire de la domination est plein de métaphores corporelles : faire des courbettes, se mettre à plat ventre, se montrer souple, plier, etc. Et sexuelles aussi bien sûr. Les mots ne disent si bien la gymnastique politique de la domination ou de la soumission que parce qu’ils sont, avec le corps, le support des montages profondément enfouis dans lesquels un ordre social s’inscrit durablement.
LIBÉRATION. – Vous considérez donc que le langage devrait être au centre de toute analyse politique ?
P.B. – Là encore, il faut se garder des alternatives ordinaires. Ou bien on parle du langage comme s’il n’avait d’autres fonction que de communiquer ; ou bien on se met à chercher dans les mots, le principe du pouvoir qui s’exerce, en certains cas, à travers eux (je pense par exemple aux ordres ou aux mots d’ordres). En fait les mots exercent un pouvoir typiquement magique : ils font croire, ils font agir. Mais, comme dans le cas de la magie, il faut se demander où réside le principe de cette action ; ou plus exactement quelles sont les conditions sociales qui rendent possible l’efficacité magique des mots. Le pouvoir des mots ne s’exerce que sur ceux qui ont été disposés à les entendre et à les écouter, bref à les croire. En béarnais, obéir se dit crede, qui veut dire aussi croire. C’est toute la prime éducation – au sens large - qui dépose en chacun les ressorts que les mots (une bulle du pape, un mot d’ordre du parti, un propos de psychanalyste, etc.) pourront, un jour ou l’autre, déclencher. Le principe du pouvoir des mots réside dans la complicité qui s’établit, au travers des mots, entre un corps social incarné dans un corps biologique, celui du porte-parole, et des corps biologiques socialement façonnés à reconnaître ses ordres, mais aussi ses exhortations, ses insinuations ou ses injonctions, et qui sont les « sujets parlés », les fidèles, les croyants. C’est tout ce qu’évoque, si on y songe, la notion d’esprit de corps : formule sociologiquement fascinante, et terrifiante.
LIBÉRATION. – Mais il y a pourtant bien des effets et une efficacité propres du langage ?
P.B. – Il est en effet étonnant que ceux qui n’ont cessé de parler de la langue et de la parole, ou même de la « force illocutionnaire » de la parole, n’aient jamais posé la question du porte-parole. Si le travail politique est, pour l’essentiel, un travail sur les mots, c’est que les mots contribuent à faire le monde social. Il suffit de penser aux innombrables circonlocutions, périphrases ou euphémismes qui ont été inventés, tout au long de la guerre d’Algérie, dans le souci d’éviter d’accorder la reconnaissance qui est impliquée dans le fait d’appeler les choses par leur nom au lieu de les dénier par l’euphémisme. En politique, rien n’est plus réaliste que les querelles de mots. Mettre un mot pour un autre, c’est changer la vision du monde social, et par là, contribuer à le transformer. Parler de la classe ouvrière, faire parler la classe ouvrière (en parlant pour elle), la représenter, c’est faire exister autrement, pour lui même et pour les autres, le groupe que les euphémismes de l’inconscient ordinaire annulent symboliquement (les « humbles », les « gens simples », « l’homme de la rue », « le français moyen », ou chez certains sociologues « les catégories modestes ». Le paradoxe du marxisme est qu’il n’a pas englobé dans sa théorie des classes l’effet de théorie qu’a produit la théorie marxiste des classes, et qui a contribué à faire qu’il existe aujourd’hui des classes.
S’agissant du monde social, la théorie néo-kantienne qui confère au langage et, plus généralement, aux représentations, une efficacité proprement symbolique de construction de la réalité, est parfaitement fondée. Les groupes (et en particulier les classes sociales) sont toujours, pour une part, des artefacts : ils sont le produit de la logique de la représentation qui permet à un individu biologique, ou un petit nombre d’individus biologiques, secrétaire général ou comité central, pape ou évêques, etc., de parler au nom de tout le groupe, de faire parler et marcher le groupe « comme un seul homme », de faire croire - et d’abord au groupe qu’ils représentent - que le groupe existe. Groupe fait homme, le porte-parole incarne une personne fictive, cette sorte de corps mystique qu’est un groupe ; il arrache les membres du groupe à l’état de simple agrégat d’individus séparés, leur permettant d’agir et de parler d’une seule voix à travers lui. En contrepartie, il reçoit le droit d’agir et de parler au nom du groupe, de se prendre pour le groupe qu’il incarne (la France, le peuple…) de s’identifier à la fonction à laquelle il se donne corps et âme, donnant ainsi un corps biologique à un corps constitué. La logique de la politique est celle de la magie ou si l’on préfère, du fétichisme.
LIBÉRATION. – Vous considérez votre travail comme mise en question radicale de la politique ?
P.B. – La sociologie s’apparente à la comédie, qui dévoile les ressorts de l’autorité. Par le déguisement (Toinette médecin), la parodie (le latin foireux de Diafoirus) ou la charge, Molière démasque la machinerie cachée qui permet de produire des effets symboliques d’imposition ou d’intimidation, les trucs et les truquages qui font les puissants et les importants de tous les temps, l’hermine, la toge, les bonnets carrés, le latin, les titres scolaires, tout ce que Pascal le premier a analysé.
Après tout, qu’est-ce qu’un pape, un président ou un secrétaire général, sinon quelqu’un qui se prend pour un pape ou un secrétaire général ou plus exactement pour l’Église, l’État, le Parti, ou la nation. Seule chose : ce qui le sépare du personnage de comédie ou du mégalomane, c’est qu’on le prend généralement au sérieux et qu’on lui reconnaît ainsi le droit à cette sorte « d’imposture légitime » comme dit Austin. Croyez-moi, le monde vu comme ça, c’est-à-dire comme il est, est assez comique. Mais on a souvent dit que le comique côtoie le tragique.. Et on reviendrait à Pascal joué par Molière.
Dans Libération, 19 octobre 1982, P. 28
DROITE/GAUCHE par André Comte Sponville
DROITE/GAUCHE
Enfant, j’avais demandé à mon père ce que cela signifiait, dans la vie politique, qu’être de droite ou de gauche. Il me répondit : « Être de droite, c’est vouloir la grandeur de la France. Être de gauche, c’est vouloir le bonheur des Français. » Je ne sais si la formule était de lui. Il n’aimait pas les Français, ni les humains en général. Il me répétait toujours qu’on n’est pas sur Terre pour être heureux. La définition, dans sa bouche, était de droite. C’est pourquoi elle lui plaisait. Mais un homme de gauche pourrait également s’y retrouver, s’il croit peu ou prou au bonheur. C’est pourquoi elle ne me déplaît pas. « Car enfin, dira notre homme de gauche, la France et la grandeur ne sont que des abstractions dangereuses. Le bonheur des Français, voilà qui mérite autrement d’être poursuivi ! » Cela ne prouve pourtant pas que cette définition suffise, ni même qu’elle en soit une. Grandeur et bonheur n’appartiennent à personne.
Le temps a passé : mes enfants m’ont interrogé à leur tour... je répondis comme je pus, autour de quelques différences qui me paraissaient essentielles. Sur le point de les mettre noir sur blanc, j’en perçois mieux les limites ou les approximations. Cette logique binaire, qu’impose le principe majoritaire, ne correspond ni à la complexité ni à la fluctuation des positions politiques effectives. Une même idée peut être soutenue dans des camps opposés (par exemple l’idée d’une Europe fédérale, ou son refus souverainiste, qu’on rencontre aujourd’hui à droite comme à gauche), ou bien passer d’un camp à un autre (ainsi l’idée de Nation, plutôt de gauche au XIXe siècle, plutôt de droite au XXe). Mais faut-il pour autant renoncer à nos deux catégories, si fortement ancrées dans la tradition démocratique, depuis 1789 (on sait qu’elles sont nées de la disposition spatiale des députés, lors de l’Assemblée constituante, qui se réunissaient, par affinité politique, à droite ou à gauche du président de séance), et si omniprésentes, encore aujourd'hui, dans le débat démocratique ? Faut-il les juger obsolètes ? Les remplacer par d’autres ? C'est ce que certains ont tenté. (…) C’est ce qui m’oblige, entre la droite et la gauche, à chercher quelques différences, même fluctuantes, même relatives, qui donnent un sens à cette opposition.
La première différence est sociologique. La gauche représente plutôt ce que les sociologues appellent les couches populaires, disons les individus les plus pauvres, ou les moins riches, ceux qui ne possèdent rien, ou presque rien, les prolétaires, comme disait Marx, qu'il vaut mieux aujourd’hui appeler les salariés. La droite, tout en recrutant aussi dans ces milieux (il le faut bien : ils sont majoritaires), a plus de facilité avec les indépendants, qu’ils soient ruraux ou urbains, ceux qui possèdent leur terre ou leur instrument de travail (leur boutique, leur atelier, leur entreprise...), ceux qui font travailler les autres ou qui travaillent pour eux-mêmes plutôt que pour un patron. Cela dessine comme deux peuples, ou plutôt comme deux pôles : les paysans pauvres et les salariés d’un côté ; les bourgeois, les propriétaires terriens, les cadres dirigeants, les professions libérales, les artisans et les commerçants de l’autre. Avec tous les intermédiaires que l’on veut, entre ces deux mondes (les fameuses « classes moyennes »), tous les échanges que l’on veut, entre les deux camps (les transfuges, les indécis). Que la frontière soit poreuse, et peut-être de plus en plus, c’est une affaire entendue. Mais elle n’en est pas moins frontière pour autant. Qu’aucun des deux camps n’ait le monopole d’aucune classe, c’est une évidence (on se souvient que le Front national, du temps de sa sinistre splendeur, était en passe de devenir le premier parti ouvrier de France). Mais qui ne suffit pas, me semble-t-il, à abolir tout à fait cette dimension sociologique de la question. Même en drainant des voix chez les plus pauvres, la droite n’a jamais réussi, du moins en France, à pénétrer vraiment le syndicalisme ouvrier. La gauche, chez les patrons et les grands propriétaires terriens, fait moins de 20 % des voix. J’ai quelque peine, dans l’un et l’autre cas, à n’y voir qu’une coïncidence.
La deuxième différence est plutôt historique. La gauche, depuis la Révolution française, se prononce en faveur des changements les plus radicaux ou les plus ambitieux. Le présent ne la satisfait jamais ; le passé, moins encore : elle se veut révolutionnaire ou réformiste (et la révolution est plus à gauche, bien sûr, que la réforme). C’est sa façon à elle d’être progressiste. La droite, sans être contre le progrès (personne n’est contre), se plait davantage à défendre ce qui est, voire, cela s’est vu, à restaurer ce qui était. Parti du mouvement d’un côté, parti de l’ordre, de la conservation ou de la réaction de l’autre. Avec, là encore, tout ce qu’on veut d’échanges et de nuances entre les deux, surtout dans la dernière période (la défense des avantages acquis tend parfois à l’emporter, à gauche, sur la volonté réformatrice, comme la volonté de réformes libérales, à droite, sur le conservatisme), mais qui ne suffisent pas à annuler la différence d’orientation. La gauche se veut essentiellement progressiste. Le présent l’ennuie ; le passé lui pèse : elle en ferait volontiers, comme le chante encore l’Internationale, « table rase». La droite est plus volontiers conservatrice. Le passé lui est un patrimoine, qu’elle veut préserver, plutôt qu’un poids. Le présent lui paraît supportable : puisse l’avenir lui ressembler ! Dans la politique, la gauche voit surtout l’occasion d’un changement possible ; la droite, d’une continuité nécessaire. Ils n’ont pas le même rapport au temps. C’est qu’ils n’ont pas le même rapport au réel, ni à l’imaginaire. La gauche penche, parfois dangereusement, vers l’utopie. La droite, vers le réalisme. La gauche est plus idéaliste ; la droite, plus soucieuse d’efficacité. Cela n’empêche pas un homme de gauche d’être lucide ou de se vouloir efficace, ni un homme de droite d’avoir des idéaux généreux. Mais ils risquent alors d’avoir fort à faire, l’un et l’autre, pour convaincre leur propre camp...
La troisième différence est proprement politique. La gauche se veut du côté du peuple, de ses organisations (les partis, les syndicats, les associations), de sa représentation (le Parlement). La droite, sans mépriser pour autant le peuple, est davantage attachée à la Nation, à la patrie, au culte du terroir ou du chef. La gauche a une certaine idée de la République. La droite, une certaine idée de la France. La première penche volontiers vers la démagogie. La seconde, vers le nationalisme, la xénophobie ou l’autoritarisme. Cela n'empêche pas les uns et les autres d’être souvent de parfaits démocrates, ni de tomber parfois dans le totalitarisme. Mais ils n’ont pas les mêmes rêves, ni les mêmes démons.
Quatrième différence : une différence économique. La gauche refuse le capitalisme, ou ne s’y résigne que de mauvais gré. Elle fait davantage confiance à l’État qu'au marché. Elle nationalise dans l’enthousiasme, ne privatise qu’à regret. La droite, c’est évidemment l’inverse (au moins aujourd’hui) : elle fait davantage confiance au marché qu’à l’État, et c’est pourquoi elle est tellement favorable au capitalisme. Elle ne nationalise que contrainte et forcée, privatise dès qu'elle le peut. Là encore cela n’empêche pas qu’un homme de gauche puisse être libéral, même au sens économique du terme (…), ni qu’un homme de droite ait le sens de l’État ou du service public (voyez De Gaulle). Mais la différence n’en demeure pas moins, à l’échelle des grands nombres ou des orientations fondamentales. L’État providence est à gauche ; le marché, à droite. La planification est à gauche ; la concurrence et l’émulation, à droite.
On remarquera que la droite, sur ces questions économiques et dans la dernière période, l’a clairement emporté, au moins intellectuellement. Le gouvernement Jospin a privatisé davantage que ceux de Juppé ou de Balladur (il est vrai en s’en vantant moins), et il n’y a plus guère que l’extrême gauche, aujourd’hui, qui propose de nationaliser quelque entreprise que ce soit. On s’étonne, dans ces conditions, que la gauche ait si bien résisté, politiquement, voire l’ait emporté à plusieurs reprises. C’est que la sociologie lui est plutôt favorable (il y a de plus en plus de salariés, de moins en moins d’indépendants). C’est aussi qu’elle l’avait emporté précédemment sur d’autres fronts, qui lui font comme un capital de sympathie. La liberté d’association, l’impôt sur le revenu et les congés payés sont des inventions de gauche, que personne aujourd’hui ne remet en cause. L’impôt sur la fortune, plus récemment, est encore une invention de gauche ; la droite, qui voulut l’abolir, s’en est mordu les doigts. Et qui osera toucher à la semaine de 35 heures ? Mais si la gauche s’en sort si bien, c’est aussi, et peut-être surtout, qu’elle a compensé cette défaite intellectuelle (dont il faut lui savoir gré d’avoir pris acte : être de gauche, disait Coluche, cela ne dispense pas d’être intelligent) par une espèce de victoire morale ou spirituelle. J’écrirais volontiers que toutes nos valeurs aujourd’hui sont de gauche, puisqu’elles se veulent indépendantes de la richesse, du marché, de la nation, puisqu’elles se moquent des frontières et des traditions, puisqu’elles n’adorent que l’humanité et le progrès. Ce serait bien sûr aller trop loin. Il reste qu’on est de gauche, surtout chez les intellectuels, pour des raisons d’abord morales. On serait plutôt de droite par intérêt ou pour des raisons économiques. « Vous n’avez pas le monopole du cœur ! », lança un jour, lors d’un débat fameux, un homme politique de droite à son adversaire socialiste. Qu’il ait eu besoin de le rappeler est révélateur. Nul homme de gauche n’aurait eu l’idée d’une telle formule, tant elle lui paraîtrait évidente, ou plutôt tant il va de soi, de son point de vue, que le coeur, en politique aussi, bat à gauche... De là, dans le débat politique, en tout cas en France, une curieuse asymétrie. Vous ne verrez jamais un homme de gauche contester qu’il le soit, ni récuser la pertinence de cette opposition. Combien d’hommes de droite, au contraire, prétendent que ces notions n’ont plus de sens, ou que la France, comme disait l’un d’entre eux, veut être gouvernée au centre ? C’est qu’être de gauche passe pour une vertu : la gauche serait généreuse, compatissante, désintéressée... Être de droite, sans être un vice, passe plutôt pour une petitesse : la droite serait égoïste, dure aux faibles, âpre au gain... Qu’il y ait là une conception naïve de la politique, ce n’est guère niable, mais ne suffit pas à annuler cette asymétrie. On se flatte d’être de gauche. On avoue être de droite.
Cela nous conduit aux dernières différences que je voulais évoquer. Elles sont plutôt philosophiques, psychologiques ou culturelles : elles opposent moins des forces sociales que des mentalités ; elles portent moins sur des programmes que sur des comportements, moins sur des projets que sur des valeurs. A gauche, le goût de l’égalité, de la liberté des moeurs, de la laïcité, de la défense des plus faibles, fussent-ils coupables, de l'internationalisme, des loisirs, du repos (les congés payés, la retraite à 60 ans, la semaine de 35 heures...), de la compassion, de la solidarité... À droite celui de la réussite individuelle, de la liberté d’entreprendre, de la religion, de la hiérarchie, de la sécurité, de la patrie, de la famille, du travail, de l’effort, de l’émulation, de la responsabilité... La justice ? Ils peuvent s’en réclamer les uns et les autres. Mais ils n’en ont pas la même conception. À gauche, la justice est d’abord équité : elle veut les hommes égaux, non seulement en droits mais en fait. Aussi se fait-elle volontiers réparatrice et égalitariste. Sa maxime serait : « À chacun selon ses besoins. » Celui qui a déjà la chance d’être plus intelligent ou plus cultivé, de faire un travail plus intéressant ou plus prestigieux, pourquoi faudrait-il en outre qu’il soit plus riche ? Il l’est pourtant, en tout pays, et il n’y a plus que l’extrême gauche qui s’en étonne. Le reste de la gauche, toutefois, ne s’y résigne pas sans un peu de mauvaise conscience. Toute inégalité lui semble suspecte ou regrettable : elle ne la tolère qu’à regret, faute de pouvoir ou de vouloir tout à fait l’empêcher. À droite, la justice est plutôt conçue comme une sanction ou une récompense. L’égalité des droits suffit, qui ne saurait annuler l’inégalité des talents et des performances. Pourquoi les plus doués ou les plus travailleurs ne seraient-ils pas plus riches que les autres ? Pourquoi ne feraient-ils pas fortune ? Pourquoi leurs enfants ne pourraient-ils profiter de ce que leurs parents ont amassé ? La justice, pour eux, est moins dans l’égalité que dans la proportion. Aussi se fait-elle volontiers élitiste ou sélective. Sa maxime serait : « À chacun selon ses mérites. » Protéger les plus faibles ? Soit. Mais pas au point d’encourager la faiblesse, ni de décourager les plus entreprenants, les plus talentueux ou les plus riches !
Ce ne sont que des tendances, qui peuvent traverser chacun d'entre nous, chaque courant de pensées (…), mais qui me paraissent au total assez claires pour qu’on puisse à peu près s’y retrouver. La démocratie, parce qu'elle a besoin d’une majorité, pousse à cette bipolarisation.
Mieux vaut en prendre acte que faire semblant de l’ignorer. Non, bien sûr, qu’un parti ou qu’un individu doive forcément, pour être de gauche ou de droite, partager toutes les idées qui caractérisent (…) l’un ou l’autre courant. C’est à chacun, entre ces deux pôles, d’inventer son chemin, sa position propre, ses compromis, ses équilibres. Pourquoi faudrait-il, pour être de gauche, se désintéresser de la famille, de la sécurité ou de l’effort ? Pourquoi, parce qu’on est de droite, devrait-on renoncer aux réformes ou à la laïcité ? Droite et gauche ne sont que des pôles, je l’ai dit, et nul n’est tenu de s’enfermer dans l’un des deux. Ce ne sont que des tendances, et nul n’est tenu de s’amputer totalement de l’autre. Mieux vaut être ambidextre que manchot. Mais mieux vaut être manchot d’un bras que de deux.
Reste, qu’on soit de droite ou de gauche, à l’être intelligemment. C’est le plus difficile. C’est le plus important. L’intelligence n’est d’aucun camp. C’est pourquoi nous avons besoin des deux, et de l’alternance entre les deux.
André Comte Sponville, Dictionnaire philosophique, PUF, 2001
Enfant, j’avais demandé à mon père ce que cela signifiait, dans la vie politique, qu’être de droite ou de gauche. Il me répondit : « Être de droite, c’est vouloir la grandeur de la France. Être de gauche, c’est vouloir le bonheur des Français. » Je ne sais si la formule était de lui. Il n’aimait pas les Français, ni les humains en général. Il me répétait toujours qu’on n’est pas sur Terre pour être heureux. La définition, dans sa bouche, était de droite. C’est pourquoi elle lui plaisait. Mais un homme de gauche pourrait également s’y retrouver, s’il croit peu ou prou au bonheur. C’est pourquoi elle ne me déplaît pas. « Car enfin, dira notre homme de gauche, la France et la grandeur ne sont que des abstractions dangereuses. Le bonheur des Français, voilà qui mérite autrement d’être poursuivi ! » Cela ne prouve pourtant pas que cette définition suffise, ni même qu’elle en soit une. Grandeur et bonheur n’appartiennent à personne.
Le temps a passé : mes enfants m’ont interrogé à leur tour... je répondis comme je pus, autour de quelques différences qui me paraissaient essentielles. Sur le point de les mettre noir sur blanc, j’en perçois mieux les limites ou les approximations. Cette logique binaire, qu’impose le principe majoritaire, ne correspond ni à la complexité ni à la fluctuation des positions politiques effectives. Une même idée peut être soutenue dans des camps opposés (par exemple l’idée d’une Europe fédérale, ou son refus souverainiste, qu’on rencontre aujourd’hui à droite comme à gauche), ou bien passer d’un camp à un autre (ainsi l’idée de Nation, plutôt de gauche au XIXe siècle, plutôt de droite au XXe). Mais faut-il pour autant renoncer à nos deux catégories, si fortement ancrées dans la tradition démocratique, depuis 1789 (on sait qu’elles sont nées de la disposition spatiale des députés, lors de l’Assemblée constituante, qui se réunissaient, par affinité politique, à droite ou à gauche du président de séance), et si omniprésentes, encore aujourd'hui, dans le débat démocratique ? Faut-il les juger obsolètes ? Les remplacer par d’autres ? C'est ce que certains ont tenté. (…) C’est ce qui m’oblige, entre la droite et la gauche, à chercher quelques différences, même fluctuantes, même relatives, qui donnent un sens à cette opposition.
La première différence est sociologique. La gauche représente plutôt ce que les sociologues appellent les couches populaires, disons les individus les plus pauvres, ou les moins riches, ceux qui ne possèdent rien, ou presque rien, les prolétaires, comme disait Marx, qu'il vaut mieux aujourd’hui appeler les salariés. La droite, tout en recrutant aussi dans ces milieux (il le faut bien : ils sont majoritaires), a plus de facilité avec les indépendants, qu’ils soient ruraux ou urbains, ceux qui possèdent leur terre ou leur instrument de travail (leur boutique, leur atelier, leur entreprise...), ceux qui font travailler les autres ou qui travaillent pour eux-mêmes plutôt que pour un patron. Cela dessine comme deux peuples, ou plutôt comme deux pôles : les paysans pauvres et les salariés d’un côté ; les bourgeois, les propriétaires terriens, les cadres dirigeants, les professions libérales, les artisans et les commerçants de l’autre. Avec tous les intermédiaires que l’on veut, entre ces deux mondes (les fameuses « classes moyennes »), tous les échanges que l’on veut, entre les deux camps (les transfuges, les indécis). Que la frontière soit poreuse, et peut-être de plus en plus, c’est une affaire entendue. Mais elle n’en est pas moins frontière pour autant. Qu’aucun des deux camps n’ait le monopole d’aucune classe, c’est une évidence (on se souvient que le Front national, du temps de sa sinistre splendeur, était en passe de devenir le premier parti ouvrier de France). Mais qui ne suffit pas, me semble-t-il, à abolir tout à fait cette dimension sociologique de la question. Même en drainant des voix chez les plus pauvres, la droite n’a jamais réussi, du moins en France, à pénétrer vraiment le syndicalisme ouvrier. La gauche, chez les patrons et les grands propriétaires terriens, fait moins de 20 % des voix. J’ai quelque peine, dans l’un et l’autre cas, à n’y voir qu’une coïncidence.
La deuxième différence est plutôt historique. La gauche, depuis la Révolution française, se prononce en faveur des changements les plus radicaux ou les plus ambitieux. Le présent ne la satisfait jamais ; le passé, moins encore : elle se veut révolutionnaire ou réformiste (et la révolution est plus à gauche, bien sûr, que la réforme). C’est sa façon à elle d’être progressiste. La droite, sans être contre le progrès (personne n’est contre), se plait davantage à défendre ce qui est, voire, cela s’est vu, à restaurer ce qui était. Parti du mouvement d’un côté, parti de l’ordre, de la conservation ou de la réaction de l’autre. Avec, là encore, tout ce qu’on veut d’échanges et de nuances entre les deux, surtout dans la dernière période (la défense des avantages acquis tend parfois à l’emporter, à gauche, sur la volonté réformatrice, comme la volonté de réformes libérales, à droite, sur le conservatisme), mais qui ne suffisent pas à annuler la différence d’orientation. La gauche se veut essentiellement progressiste. Le présent l’ennuie ; le passé lui pèse : elle en ferait volontiers, comme le chante encore l’Internationale, « table rase». La droite est plus volontiers conservatrice. Le passé lui est un patrimoine, qu’elle veut préserver, plutôt qu’un poids. Le présent lui paraît supportable : puisse l’avenir lui ressembler ! Dans la politique, la gauche voit surtout l’occasion d’un changement possible ; la droite, d’une continuité nécessaire. Ils n’ont pas le même rapport au temps. C’est qu’ils n’ont pas le même rapport au réel, ni à l’imaginaire. La gauche penche, parfois dangereusement, vers l’utopie. La droite, vers le réalisme. La gauche est plus idéaliste ; la droite, plus soucieuse d’efficacité. Cela n’empêche pas un homme de gauche d’être lucide ou de se vouloir efficace, ni un homme de droite d’avoir des idéaux généreux. Mais ils risquent alors d’avoir fort à faire, l’un et l’autre, pour convaincre leur propre camp...
La troisième différence est proprement politique. La gauche se veut du côté du peuple, de ses organisations (les partis, les syndicats, les associations), de sa représentation (le Parlement). La droite, sans mépriser pour autant le peuple, est davantage attachée à la Nation, à la patrie, au culte du terroir ou du chef. La gauche a une certaine idée de la République. La droite, une certaine idée de la France. La première penche volontiers vers la démagogie. La seconde, vers le nationalisme, la xénophobie ou l’autoritarisme. Cela n'empêche pas les uns et les autres d’être souvent de parfaits démocrates, ni de tomber parfois dans le totalitarisme. Mais ils n’ont pas les mêmes rêves, ni les mêmes démons.
Quatrième différence : une différence économique. La gauche refuse le capitalisme, ou ne s’y résigne que de mauvais gré. Elle fait davantage confiance à l’État qu'au marché. Elle nationalise dans l’enthousiasme, ne privatise qu’à regret. La droite, c’est évidemment l’inverse (au moins aujourd’hui) : elle fait davantage confiance au marché qu’à l’État, et c’est pourquoi elle est tellement favorable au capitalisme. Elle ne nationalise que contrainte et forcée, privatise dès qu'elle le peut. Là encore cela n’empêche pas qu’un homme de gauche puisse être libéral, même au sens économique du terme (…), ni qu’un homme de droite ait le sens de l’État ou du service public (voyez De Gaulle). Mais la différence n’en demeure pas moins, à l’échelle des grands nombres ou des orientations fondamentales. L’État providence est à gauche ; le marché, à droite. La planification est à gauche ; la concurrence et l’émulation, à droite.
On remarquera que la droite, sur ces questions économiques et dans la dernière période, l’a clairement emporté, au moins intellectuellement. Le gouvernement Jospin a privatisé davantage que ceux de Juppé ou de Balladur (il est vrai en s’en vantant moins), et il n’y a plus guère que l’extrême gauche, aujourd’hui, qui propose de nationaliser quelque entreprise que ce soit. On s’étonne, dans ces conditions, que la gauche ait si bien résisté, politiquement, voire l’ait emporté à plusieurs reprises. C’est que la sociologie lui est plutôt favorable (il y a de plus en plus de salariés, de moins en moins d’indépendants). C’est aussi qu’elle l’avait emporté précédemment sur d’autres fronts, qui lui font comme un capital de sympathie. La liberté d’association, l’impôt sur le revenu et les congés payés sont des inventions de gauche, que personne aujourd’hui ne remet en cause. L’impôt sur la fortune, plus récemment, est encore une invention de gauche ; la droite, qui voulut l’abolir, s’en est mordu les doigts. Et qui osera toucher à la semaine de 35 heures ? Mais si la gauche s’en sort si bien, c’est aussi, et peut-être surtout, qu’elle a compensé cette défaite intellectuelle (dont il faut lui savoir gré d’avoir pris acte : être de gauche, disait Coluche, cela ne dispense pas d’être intelligent) par une espèce de victoire morale ou spirituelle. J’écrirais volontiers que toutes nos valeurs aujourd’hui sont de gauche, puisqu’elles se veulent indépendantes de la richesse, du marché, de la nation, puisqu’elles se moquent des frontières et des traditions, puisqu’elles n’adorent que l’humanité et le progrès. Ce serait bien sûr aller trop loin. Il reste qu’on est de gauche, surtout chez les intellectuels, pour des raisons d’abord morales. On serait plutôt de droite par intérêt ou pour des raisons économiques. « Vous n’avez pas le monopole du cœur ! », lança un jour, lors d’un débat fameux, un homme politique de droite à son adversaire socialiste. Qu’il ait eu besoin de le rappeler est révélateur. Nul homme de gauche n’aurait eu l’idée d’une telle formule, tant elle lui paraîtrait évidente, ou plutôt tant il va de soi, de son point de vue, que le coeur, en politique aussi, bat à gauche... De là, dans le débat politique, en tout cas en France, une curieuse asymétrie. Vous ne verrez jamais un homme de gauche contester qu’il le soit, ni récuser la pertinence de cette opposition. Combien d’hommes de droite, au contraire, prétendent que ces notions n’ont plus de sens, ou que la France, comme disait l’un d’entre eux, veut être gouvernée au centre ? C’est qu’être de gauche passe pour une vertu : la gauche serait généreuse, compatissante, désintéressée... Être de droite, sans être un vice, passe plutôt pour une petitesse : la droite serait égoïste, dure aux faibles, âpre au gain... Qu’il y ait là une conception naïve de la politique, ce n’est guère niable, mais ne suffit pas à annuler cette asymétrie. On se flatte d’être de gauche. On avoue être de droite.
Cela nous conduit aux dernières différences que je voulais évoquer. Elles sont plutôt philosophiques, psychologiques ou culturelles : elles opposent moins des forces sociales que des mentalités ; elles portent moins sur des programmes que sur des comportements, moins sur des projets que sur des valeurs. A gauche, le goût de l’égalité, de la liberté des moeurs, de la laïcité, de la défense des plus faibles, fussent-ils coupables, de l'internationalisme, des loisirs, du repos (les congés payés, la retraite à 60 ans, la semaine de 35 heures...), de la compassion, de la solidarité... À droite celui de la réussite individuelle, de la liberté d’entreprendre, de la religion, de la hiérarchie, de la sécurité, de la patrie, de la famille, du travail, de l’effort, de l’émulation, de la responsabilité... La justice ? Ils peuvent s’en réclamer les uns et les autres. Mais ils n’en ont pas la même conception. À gauche, la justice est d’abord équité : elle veut les hommes égaux, non seulement en droits mais en fait. Aussi se fait-elle volontiers réparatrice et égalitariste. Sa maxime serait : « À chacun selon ses besoins. » Celui qui a déjà la chance d’être plus intelligent ou plus cultivé, de faire un travail plus intéressant ou plus prestigieux, pourquoi faudrait-il en outre qu’il soit plus riche ? Il l’est pourtant, en tout pays, et il n’y a plus que l’extrême gauche qui s’en étonne. Le reste de la gauche, toutefois, ne s’y résigne pas sans un peu de mauvaise conscience. Toute inégalité lui semble suspecte ou regrettable : elle ne la tolère qu’à regret, faute de pouvoir ou de vouloir tout à fait l’empêcher. À droite, la justice est plutôt conçue comme une sanction ou une récompense. L’égalité des droits suffit, qui ne saurait annuler l’inégalité des talents et des performances. Pourquoi les plus doués ou les plus travailleurs ne seraient-ils pas plus riches que les autres ? Pourquoi ne feraient-ils pas fortune ? Pourquoi leurs enfants ne pourraient-ils profiter de ce que leurs parents ont amassé ? La justice, pour eux, est moins dans l’égalité que dans la proportion. Aussi se fait-elle volontiers élitiste ou sélective. Sa maxime serait : « À chacun selon ses mérites. » Protéger les plus faibles ? Soit. Mais pas au point d’encourager la faiblesse, ni de décourager les plus entreprenants, les plus talentueux ou les plus riches !
Ce ne sont que des tendances, qui peuvent traverser chacun d'entre nous, chaque courant de pensées (…), mais qui me paraissent au total assez claires pour qu’on puisse à peu près s’y retrouver. La démocratie, parce qu'elle a besoin d’une majorité, pousse à cette bipolarisation.
Mieux vaut en prendre acte que faire semblant de l’ignorer. Non, bien sûr, qu’un parti ou qu’un individu doive forcément, pour être de gauche ou de droite, partager toutes les idées qui caractérisent (…) l’un ou l’autre courant. C’est à chacun, entre ces deux pôles, d’inventer son chemin, sa position propre, ses compromis, ses équilibres. Pourquoi faudrait-il, pour être de gauche, se désintéresser de la famille, de la sécurité ou de l’effort ? Pourquoi, parce qu’on est de droite, devrait-on renoncer aux réformes ou à la laïcité ? Droite et gauche ne sont que des pôles, je l’ai dit, et nul n’est tenu de s’enfermer dans l’un des deux. Ce ne sont que des tendances, et nul n’est tenu de s’amputer totalement de l’autre. Mieux vaut être ambidextre que manchot. Mais mieux vaut être manchot d’un bras que de deux.
Reste, qu’on soit de droite ou de gauche, à l’être intelligemment. C’est le plus difficile. C’est le plus important. L’intelligence n’est d’aucun camp. C’est pourquoi nous avons besoin des deux, et de l’alternance entre les deux.
André Comte Sponville, Dictionnaire philosophique, PUF, 2001
Toward a Realistic Peace by Rudolph W. Giuliani
Summary: The next U.S. president will face three key foreign policy challenges: setting a course for victory in the terrorists' war on global order, strengthening the international system the terrorists seek to destroy, and extending the system's benefits. With a stronger defense, a determined diplomacy, and greater U.S. economic and cultural influence, the next president can start to build a lasting, realistic peace. Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
We are all members of the 9/11 generation. The defining challenges of the twentieth century ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Full recognition of the first great challenge of the twenty-first century came with the attacks of September 11, 2001, even though Islamist terrorists had begun their assault on world order decades before. Confronted with an act of war on American soil, our old assumptions about conflict between nation-states fell away. Civilization itself, and the international system, had come under attack by a ruthless and radical Islamist enemy. America and its allies have made progress since that terrible day. We have responded forcefully to the Terrorists' War on Us, abandoning a decadelong -- and counterproductive -- strategy of defensive reaction in favor of a vigorous offense. And we have set in motion changes to the international system that promise a safer and better world for generations to come. But this war will be long, and we are still in its early stages. Much like at the beginning of the Cold War, we are at the dawn of a new era in global affairs, when old ideas have to be rethought and new ideas have to be devised to meet new challenges. The next U.S. president will face three key foreign policy challenges. First and foremost will be to set a course for victory in the terrorists' war on global order. The second will be to strengthen the international system that the terrorists seek to destroy. The third will be to extend the benefits of the international system in an ever-widening arc of security and stability across the globe. The most effective means for achieving these goals are building a stronger defense, developing a determined diplomacy, and expanding our economic and cultural influence. Using all three, the next president can build the foundations of a lasting, realistic peace. Achieving a realistic peace means balancing realism and idealism in our foreign policy. America is a nation that loves peace and hates war. At the core of all Americans is the belief that all human beings have certain inalienable rights that proceed from God but must be protected by the state. Americans believe that to the extent that nations recognize these rights within their own laws and customs, peace with them is achievable. To the extent that they do not, violence and disorder are much more likely. Preserving and extending American ideals must remain the goal of all U.S. policy, foreign and domestic. But unless we pursue our idealistic goals through realistic means, peace will not be achieved. Idealism should define our ultimate goals; realism must help us recognize the road we must travel to achieve them. The world is a dangerous place. We cannot afford to indulge any illusions about the enemies we face. The Terrorists' War on Us was encouraged by unrealistic and inconsistent actions taken in response to terrorist attacks in the past. A realistic peace can only be achieved through strength. A realistic peace is not a peace to be achieved by embracing the "realist" school of foreign policy thought. That doctrine defines America's interests too narrowly and avoids attempts to reform the international system according to our values. To rely solely on this type of realism would be to cede the advantage to our enemies in the complex war of ideas and ideals. It would also place too great a hope in the potential for diplomatic accommodation with hostile states. And it would exaggerate America's weaknesses and downplay America's strengths. Our economy is the strongest in the developed world. Our political system is far more stable than those of the world's rising economic giants. And the United States is the world's premier magnet for global talent and capital. Still, the realist school offers some valuable insights, in particular its insistence on seeing the world as it is and on tempering our expectations of what American foreign policy can achieve. We cannot achieve peace by promising too much or indulging false hopes. This next decade can be a positive era for our country and the world so long as the next president realistically mobilizes the 9/11 generation for the momentous tasks ahead. WINNING THE EARLY BATTLES OF THE LONG WAR The first step toward a realistic peace is to be realistic about our enemies. They follow a violent ideology: radical Islamic fascism, which uses the mask of religion to further totalitarian goals and aims to destroy the existing international system. These enemies wear no uniform. They have no traditional military assets. They rule no states but can hide and operate in virtually any of them and are supported by some. Above all, we must understand that our enemies are emboldened by signs of weakness. Radical Islamic terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, the Khobar Towers facility in Saudi Arabia in 1996, our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. In some instances, we responded inadequately. In others, we failed to respond at all. Our retreat from Lebanon in 1983 and from Somalia in 1993 convinced them that our will was weak. We must learn from these experiences for the long war that lies ahead. It is almost certain that U.S. troops will still be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan when the next president takes office. The purpose of this fight must be to defeat the terrorists and the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and to allow these countries to become members of the international system in good standing. We must be under no illusions that either Iraq or Afghanistan will quickly attain the levels of peace and security enjoyed in the developed world today. Our aim should be to help them build accountable, functioning governments that can serve the needs of their populations, reduce violence within their borders, and eliminate the export of terror. As violence decreases and security improves, more responsibility can and should be turned over to local security forces. But some U.S. forces will need to remain for some time in order to deter external threats. We cannot predict when our efforts will be successful. But we can predict the consequences of failure: Afghanistan would revert to being a safe haven for terrorists, and Iraq would become another one -- larger, richer, and more strategically located. Parts of Iraq would undoubtedly fall under the sway of our enemies, particularly Iran, which would use its influence to direct even more terror at U.S. interests and U.S. allies than it does today. The balance of power in the Middle East would tip further toward terror, extremism, and repression. America's influence and prestige -- not just in the Middle East but around the world -- would be dealt a shattering blow. Our allies would conclude that we cannot back up our commitments with sustained action. Our enemies -- both terrorists and rogue states -- would be emboldened. They would see further opportunities to weaken the international state system that is the primary defense of civilization. Much as our enemies in the 1990s concluded from our inconsistent response to terrorism then, our enemies today would conclude that America's will is weak and the civilization we pledged to defend is tired. Failure would be an invitation for more war, in even more difficult and dangerous circumstances. America must remember one of the lessons of the Vietnam War. Then, as now, we fought a war with the wrong strategy for several years. And then, as now, we corrected course and began to show real progress. Many historians today believe that by about 1972 we and our South Vietnamese partners had succeeded in defeating the Vietcong insurgency and in setting South Vietnam on a path to political self-sufficiency. But America then withdrew its support, allowing the communist North to conquer the South. The consequences were dire, and not only in Vietnam: numerous deaths in places such as the killing fields of Cambodia, a newly energized and expansionist Soviet Union, and a weaker America. The consequences of abandoning Iraq would be worse. Our goal is to see in Iraq and Afghanistan the emergence of stable governments and societies that can act as our allies against the terrorists and not as breeding grounds for expanded terrorist activities. Succeeding in Iraq and Afghanistan is necessary but not sufficient. Ultimately, these are only two battlegrounds in a wider war. The United States must not rest until the al Qaeda network is destroyed and its leaders, from Osama bin Laden on down, are killed or captured. And the United States must not rest until the global terrorist movement and its ideology are defeated. Much of that fight will take place in the shadows. It will be the work of intelligence operatives, paramilitary groups, and Special Operations forces. It will also require close relationships with other governments and local forces. The next U.S. president should direct our armed forces to emphasize such work, in part because local forces are best able to operate in their home countries and in part in order to reduce the strain on our own troops. A STRONGER DEFENSE For 15 years, the de facto policy of both Republicans and Democrats has been to ask the U.S. military to do increasingly more with increasingly less. The idea of a post-Cold War "peace dividend" was a serious mistake -- the product of wishful thinking and the opposite of true realism. As a result of taking this dividend, our military is too small to meet its current commitments or shoulder the burden of any additional challenges that might arise. We must rebuild a military force that can deter aggression and meet the wide variety of present and future challenges. When America appears bogged down and unready to face aggressors, it invites conflict. The U.S. Army needs a minimum of ten new combat brigades. It may need more, but this is an appropriate baseline increase while we reevaluate our strategies and resources. We must also take a hard look at other requirements, especially in terms of submarines, modern long-range bombers, and in-flight refueling tankers. Rebuilding will not be cheap, but it is necessary. And the benefits will outweigh the costs. The next U.S. president must also press ahead with building a national missile defense system. America can no longer rely on Cold War doctrines such as "mutual assured destruction" in the face of threats from hostile, unstable regimes. Nor can it ignore the possibility of nuclear blackmail. Rogue regimes that know they can threaten America, our allies, and our interests with ballistic missiles will behave more aggressively, including by increasing their support for terrorists. On the other hand, the knowledge that America and our allies could intercept and destroy incoming missiles would not only make blackmail less likely but also decrease the appeal of ballistic missile programs and so help to slow their development and proliferation. It is well within our capability to field a layered missile defense capable of shielding us from the arsenals of the world's most dangerous states. President George W. Bush deserves credit for changing America's course on this issue. But progress needs to be accelerated. An even greater danger is the possibility of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil with a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon. Every effort must be made to improve our intelligence capabilities and technological capacities to prevent this. Constellations of satellites that can watch arms factories everywhere around the globe, day and night, above- and belowground, combined with more robust human intelligence, must be part of America's arsenal. The laudable and effective Proliferation Security Initiative, a global effort to stop the shipment of weapons of mass destruction and related materials, should be expanded and strengthened. In particular, we must work to deter the development, transfer, or use of weapons of mass destruction. We must also develop the capability to prevent an attack -- including a clandestine attack -- by those who cannot be deterred. Rogue states must be prevented from handing nuclear materials to terrorist groups. Our enemies must know that they cannot murder our citizens with impunity and escape retaliation. We must also develop detection systems to identify nuclear material that is being imported into the United States or developed by operatives inside the country. Heightened and more comprehensive security measures at our ports and borders must be enacted as rapidly as possible. And our national security agencies must work much more closely with our homeland security and law enforcement agencies. We must preserve the gains made by the U.S.A. Patriot Act and not unrealistically limit electronic surveillance or legal interrogation. Preventing a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attack on our homeland must be the federal government's top priority. We must construct a technological and intelligence shield that is effective against all delivery methods. Military victories are essential, but they are not enough. A lasting, realistic peace will be achieved when more effective diplomacy, combined with greater economic and cultural integration, helps the people of the Middle East understand that they have a stake in the success of the international system. DETERMINED DIPLOMACY To achieve a realistic peace, some of what we need to do can and must be accomplished through our own efforts. But much more requires international cooperation, and cooperation requires diplomacy. In recent years, diplomacy has received a bad name, because of two opposing perspectives. One side denigrates diplomacy because it believes that negotiation is inseparable from accommodation and almost indistinguishable from surrender. The other seemingly believes that diplomacy can solve nearly all problems, even those involving people dedicated to our destruction. When such efforts fail, as they inevitably do, diplomacy itself is blamed, rather than the flawed approach that led to their failure. For 15 years, the de facto policy of both Republicans and Democrats has been to ask the U.S. military to do increasingly more with increasingly less. The idea of a post-Cold War "peace dividend" was a serious mistake -- the product of wishful thinking and the opposite of true realism. As a result of taking this dividend, our military is too small to meet its current commitments or shoulder the burden of any additional challenges that might arise. We must rebuild a military force that can deter aggression and meet the wide variety of present and future challenges. When America appears bogged down and unready to face aggressors, it invites conflict. The U.S. Army needs a minimum of ten new combat brigades. It may need more, but this is an appropriate baseline increase while we reevaluate our strategies and resources. We must also take a hard look at other requirements, especially in terms of submarines, modern long-range bombers, and in-flight refueling tankers. Rebuilding will not be cheap, but it is necessary. And the benefits will outweigh the costs. The next U.S. president must also press ahead with building a national missile defense system. America can no longer rely on Cold War doctrines such as "mutual assured destruction" in the face of threats from hostile, unstable regimes. Nor can it ignore the possibility of nuclear blackmail. Rogue regimes that know they can threaten America, our allies, and our interests with ballistic missiles will behave more aggressively, including by increasing their support for terrorists. On the other hand, the knowledge that America and our allies could intercept and destroy incoming missiles would not only make blackmail less likely but also decrease the appeal of ballistic missile programs and so help to slow their development and proliferation. It is well within our capability to field a layered missile defense capable of shielding us from the arsenals of the world's most dangerous states. President George W. Bush deserves credit for changing America's course on this issue. But progress needs to be accelerated. An even greater danger is the possibility of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil with a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon. Every effort must be made to improve our intelligence capabilities and technological capacities to prevent this. Constellations of satellites that can watch arms factories everywhere around the globe, day and night, above- and belowground, combined with more robust human intelligence, must be part of America's arsenal. The laudable and effective Proliferation Security Initiative, a global effort to stop the shipment of weapons of mass destruction and related materials, should be expanded and strengthened. In particular, we must work to deter the development, transfer, or use of weapons of mass destruction. We must also develop the capability to prevent an attack -- including a clandestine attack -- by those who cannot be deterred. Rogue states must be prevented from handing nuclear materials to terrorist groups. Our enemies must know that they cannot murder our citizens with impunity and escape retaliation. We must also develop detection systems to identify nuclear material that is being imported into the United States or developed by operatives inside the country. Heightened and more comprehensive security measures at our ports and borders must be enacted as rapidly as possible. And our national security agencies must work much more closely with our homeland security and law enforcement agencies. We must preserve the gains made by the U.S.A. Patriot Act and not unrealistically limit electronic surveillance or legal interrogation. Preventing a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attack on our homeland must be the federal government's top priority. We must construct a technological and intelligence shield that is effective against all delivery methods. Military victories are essential, but they are not enough. A lasting, realistic peace will be achieved when more effective diplomacy, combined with greater economic and cultural integration, helps the people of the Middle East understand that they have a stake in the success of the international system. DETERMINED DIPLOMACY To achieve a realistic peace, some of what we need to do can and must be accomplished through our own efforts. But much more requires international cooperation, and cooperation requires diplomacy. In recent years, diplomacy has received a bad name, because of two opposing perspectives. One side denigrates diplomacy because it believes that negotiation is inseparable from accommodation and almost indistinguishable from surrender. The other seemingly believes that diplomacy can solve nearly all problems, even those involving people dedicated to our destruction. When such efforts fail, as they inevitably do, diplomacy itself is blamed, rather than the flawed approach that led to their failure. America has been most successful as a world leader when it has used strength and diplomacy hand in hand. To achieve a realistic peace, U.S. diplomacy must be tightly linked to our other strengths: military, economic, and moral. Whom we choose to talk to is as important as what we say. Diplomacy should never be a tool that our enemies can manipulate to their advantage. Holding serious talks may be advisable even with our adversaries, but not with those bent on our destruction or those who cannot deliver on their agreements. Iran is a case in point. The Islamic Republic has been determined to attack the international system throughout its entire existence: it took U.S. diplomats hostage in 1979 and seized British sailors in 2007 and during the decades in between supported terrorism and murder. But Tehran invokes the protections of the international system when doing so suits it, hiding behind the principle of sovereignty to stave off the consequences of its actions. This is not to say that talks with Iran cannot possibly work. They could -- but only if we came to the table in a position of strength, knowing what we wanted. The next U.S. president should take inspiration from Ronald Reagan's actions during his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík in 1986: he was open to the possibility of negotiations but ready to walk away if talking went nowhere. The lesson is never talk for the sake of talking and never accept a bad deal for the sake of making a deal. Those with whom we negotiate -- whether ally or adversary -- must know that America has other options. The theocrats ruling Iran need to understand that we can wield the stick as well as the carrot, by undermining popular support for their regime, damaging the Iranian economy, weakening Iran's military, and, should all else fail, destroying its nuclear infrastructure. For diplomacy to succeed, the U.S. government must be united. Adversaries naturally exploit divisions. Members of Congress who talk directly to rogue regimes at cross-purposes with the White House are not practicing diplomacy; they are undermining it. The task of a president is not merely to set priorities but to ensure that they are pursued across the government. It is only when they are -- and when Washington can negotiate from a position of strength -- that negotiations will yield results. As President John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural address, "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." Another step in rebuilding a strong diplomacy will be to make changes in the State Department and the Foreign Service. The time has come to refine the diplomats' mission down to their core purpose: presenting U.S. policy to the rest of the world. Reforming the State Department is a matter not of changing its organizational chart -- although simplification is needed -- but of changing the way we practice diplomacy and the way we measure results. Our ambassadors must clearly understand and clearly advocate for U.S. policies and be judged on the results. Too many people denounce our country or our policies simply because they are confident that they will not hear any serious refutation from our representatives. The American ideals of freedom and democracy deserve stronger advocacy. And the era of cost-free anti-Americanism must end. Since leaving the New York City mayor's office, I have traveled to 35 different countries. It is clear that we need to do a better job of explaining America's message and mission to the rest of the world, not by imposing our ideas on others but by appealing to their enlightened self-interest. To this end, the Voice of America program must be significantly strengthened and broadened. Its surrogate stations, such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which were so effective at inspiring grass-roots dissidents during the Cold War, must be expanded as well. Our entire approach to public diplomacy and strategic communications must be upgraded and extended, with a greater focus on new media such as the Internet. We confront multifaceted challenges in the Middle East, the Pacific region, Africa, and Latin America. In all these places, effective communication can be a powerful way of advancing our interests. We will not shy away from any debate. And armed with honest advocacy, America will win the war of ideas. STRENGTHENING THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM The next U.S. president will share the world stage with a new generation of leaders, few of whom were in office when the attacks of 9/11 occurred but all of whom have been influenced by their impact. This will be a rare opportunity for American leadership to make the case that our common interest lies in defeating the terrorists and strengthening the international system. Defeating the terrorists must be our principal priority in the near future, but we do not have the luxury of focusing on it to the exclusion of other goals. World events unfold whether the United States is engaged or not, and when we are not, they often unfold in ways that are against our interests. The art of managing a large enterprise is to multitask, and so U.S. foreign policy must always be multidimensional. A primary goal for our diplomacy -- whether directed toward great powers, developing states, or international institutions -- must be to strengthen the international system, which most of the world has a direct interest in seeing function well. After all, the system helps keep the peace and provide prosperity. Some theorists say that it is outmoded and display either too much faith in globalization or assume that the age of the sovereign state is coming to a close. These views are naive. There is no realistic alternative to the sovereign state system. Transnational terrorists and other rogue actors have difficulty operating where the state system is strong, and they flourish where it is weak. This is the reason they try to exploit its weaknesses. We should therefore work to strengthen the international system through America's relations with other great powers, both long established and rising. We should regard no great power as our inherent adversary. We should continue to fully engage with Europe, both in its collective capacity as the European Union and through our special relationship with the United Kingdom and our traditional diplomatic relations with France, Germany, Italy, and other western European nations. We highly value our ties with the states of central and eastern Europe and the Baltic and Balkan nations. Their experience of oppression under communism has made them steadfast allies and strong advocates of economic freedom. America is grateful to NATO for the vital functions it is performing in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Yet NATO's role and character should be reexamined. For almost 60 years, it has been a vital bond connecting the United States and Europe. But its founding rationale dissolved with the end of the Cold War, and the alliance should be transformed to meet the challenges of this new century. NATO has already expanded to include former adversaries, taken on roles for which it was not originally conceived, and acted beyond its original theater. We should build on these successes and think more boldly and more globally. We should open the organization's membership to any state that meets basic standards of good governance, military readiness, and global responsibility, regardless of its location. The new NATO should dedicate itself to confronting significant threats to the international system, from territorial aggression to terrorism. I hope that NATO members will see the wisdom in such changes. NATO must change with the times, and its members must always match their rhetorical commitment with action and investment. In return, America can assure them that we will be there for them in times of crisis. They stood by America after 9/11, and America will never forget. As important as America's Western alliances are, we must recognize that America will often be best served by turning also to its other friends, old and new. Much of America's future will be linked to the already established and still rising powers of Asia. These states share with us a clear commitment to economic growth, and they must be given at least as much attention as Europe . Our alliance with Japan, which has been strengthened considerably under this administration, is a rock of stability in Asia. South Korea has been a key to security in Northeast Asia and an important contributor to international peace. Australia, our distant but long-standing ally, continues to assume a greater role in world affairs and acts as a steadfast defender of international standards and security. U.S. cooperation with India on issues ranging from intelligence to naval patrols and civil nuclear power will serve as a pillar of security and prosperity in South Asia. U.S. relations with China and Russia will remain complex for the foreseeable future. Americans have no wish to return to the tensions of the Cold War or to launch a new one. We must seek common ground without turning a blind eye to our differences with these two countries. Like America, they have a fundamental stake in the health of the international system. But too often, their governments act shortsightedly, undermining their long-term interest in international norms for the sake of near-term gains. Even as we work with these countries on economic and security issues, the U.S. government should not be silent about their unhelpful behavior or human rights abuses. Washington should also make clear that only if China and Russia move toward democracy, civil liberties, and an open and uncorrupted economy will they benefit from the vast possibilities available in the world today. Our relationships with other American nations remain of primary importance. Canada and Mexico, our two closest neighbors, are our two largest trading partners. With them, we share a continent, a free-trade agreement, and a commitment to peace, prosperity, and freedom. Latin America faces a choice between the failures of the past and the hopes of the future. Some look to the governments of Bolivia and Venezuela, and their mentor in Cuba, and see an inevitable path to greater statism. But elections in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru show that the spirit of free-market reform is alive and well among our southern neighbors. Cuba has long stood out in Latin America, first as one of the region's most successful economies, later as its only communist police state. The death of Fidel Castro may begin a new chapter in Cuban history. But America should take nothing for granted. It must stand ready to help the Cuban people reclaim their liberty and resist any step that allows a decrepit, corrupt regime from consolidating its power under Raúl Castro. Only a commitment to free people and free markets will bring a prosperous future to Cuba and all of Latin America. More people in the United States need to understand how helping Africa today will help increase peace and decency throughout the world tomorrow. The next president should continue the Bush administration's effort to help Africa overcome AIDS and malaria. The international community must also learn from the mistakes that allowed the genocide in Darfur to begin and have prevented the relevant international organizations from ending it. The world's commitment to end genocide has been sidestepped again and again. Ultimately, the most important thing we can do to help Africa is to increase trade with the continent. U.S. government aid is important, but aid not linked to reform perpetuates bad policies and poverty. It is better to give people a hand up than a handout. Finally, we need to look realistically at America's relationship with the United Nations. The organization can be useful for some humanitarian and peacekeeping functions, but we should not expect much more of it. The UN has proved irrelevant to the resolution of almost every major dispute of the last 50 years. Worse, it has failed to combat terrorism and human rights abuses. It has not lived up to the great hopes that inspired its creation. Too often, it has been weak, indecisive, and outright corrupt. The UN's charter and the speeches of its members' leaders have meant little because its members' deeds have frequently fallen short. International law and institutions exist to serve peoples and nations, but many leaders act as if the reverse were true -- that is, as if institutions, not the ends to be achieved, were the important thing. Despite the UN's flaws, however, the great objectives of humanity would become even more difficult to achieve without mechanisms for international discussion. History has shown that such institutions work best when the United States leads them. Yet we cannot take for granted that they will work forever and must be prepared to look to other tools. EXTENDING THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM'S BENEFITS Most of the problems in the world today arise from places where the state system is broken or has never functioned. Much of the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America remains mired in poverty, corruption, anarchy, and terror. But there is nothing inevitable about this. For all these troubled cases, there are many more success stories that deserve to be celebrated. The number of functioning democracies in the world has tripled since the 1970s. The poverty rate in the developing world has been cut by roughly one-third since the end of the Cold War. Millions of people have been liberated from oppression and fear. Progress is not only possible, it is real. And it must continue to be real. America has a clear interest in helping to establish good governance throughout the world. Democracy is a noble ideal, and promoting it abroad is the right long-term goal of U.S. policy. But democracy cannot be achieved rapidly or sustained unless it is built on sound legal, institutional, and cultural foundations. It can only work if people have a reasonable degree of safety and security. Elections are necessary but not sufficient to establish genuine democracy. Aspiring dictators sometimes win elections, and elected leaders sometimes govern badly and threaten their neighbors. History demonstrates that democracy usually follows good governance, not the reverse. U.S. assistance can do much to set nations on the road to democracy, but we must be realistic about how much we can accomplish alone and how long it will take to achieve lasting progress. The election of Hamas in the Palestinian-controlled territories is a case in point. The problem there is not the lack of statehood but corrupt and unaccountable governance. The Palestinian people need decent governance first, as a prerequisite for statehood. Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again. It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism. Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel. America's commitment to Israel's security is a permanent feature of our foreign policy. The next president must champion human rights and speak out when they are violated. America should continue to use its influence to bring attention to individual abuses and use a full range of inducements and pressures to try to end them. Securing the rights of men, women, and children everywhere should be a core commitment of any country that counts itself as part of the civilized world. Whether with friends, allies, or adversaries, democracy will always be an issue in our relations and part of the conversation. And so the better a country's record on good governance, human rights, and democratic development, the better its relations with the United States will be. Those countries that want our help in moving toward these ideals will have it. USING ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL INFLUENCE Economic development and engagement are proven, if not fail-safe, engines for successfully moving countries into the international system. America's robust domestic economy is one of its greatest strengths. Other nations have found that following the U.S. model -- with low taxes, sensible regulations, protections for private property, and free trade -- brings not only national wealth but also national strength. These principles are not ascendant everywhere, but never has it been clearer that they work. Ever more open trade throughout the world is essential. Bilateral and regional free-trade agreements are often positive for all involved, but we must not allow them to become special arrangements that undermine a truly global trading system. Foreign aid can help overcome specific problems, but it does not lead to lasting prosperity because it cannot replace trade. Private direct investment is the best way to promote economic development. The next U.S. president should thus revitalize and streamline all U.S. foreign-aid activities to support -- not substitute for -- private investment in other countries. Our cultural and commercial influence can also have a positive impact. They did during the Cold War. The steadfast leadership of President Reagan, working alongside British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, helped the Soviet Union understand that it could not bully the West into submission. Although such leadership was essential, alone it might not have toppled the Soviet Union in the time that it did. But it was effective because it came with Western economic investment and cultural influence that inspired people in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries. Companies such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Levi's helped win the Cold War by entering the Soviet market. Cultural events, such as Van Cliburn's concerts in the Soviet Union and Mstislav Rostropovich's in the United States, also hastened change. Today, we need a similar type of exchange with the Muslim countries that we hope to plug into the global economy. Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are pointing the way by starting to interpret Islam in ways that respect the distinctiveness of their local cultures but are consistent with the global marketplace. Some of these states have coeducational schools, allow women to serve in government, and count shopping malls that sell Western and Arab goods side by side. Their leaders recognize that modernization is their ticket to the global marketplace. And the global marketplace can build bridges between the West and the Islamic world in a way that promotes mutual respect and mutual benefit. Economic investment and cultural influence work best where civil society already exists. But sometimes America will be compelled to act in those parts of the world where few institutions function properly -- those zones that lack not only good governance but any governance -- and in states teetering on the edge of conflict or recovering from it. Faced with a choice between leaving a troubled zone to anarchy or helping build functioning civil societies with accountable governments that can serve as bulwarks against barbarism, the American people will choose the latter. To assist these missions, the next U.S. president should restructure and coordinate all the agencies involved in that process. A hybrid military-civilian organization -- a Stabilization and Reconstruction Corps staffed by specially trained military and civilian reservists -- must be developed. The agency would undertake tasks such as building roads, sewers, and schools; advising on legal reform; and restoring local currencies. The United States did similar work, and with great success, in Germany, Japan, and Italy after World War II. But even with the rich civic traditions in these nations, the process took a number of years. We must learn from our past if we want to win the peace as well as the war. PRINCIPLED STRENGTH Civilization must stand up and combat the current collapse of governance, the rise of violence, and the spread of chaos and fear in many parts of the world. To turn back this tide of terror and defeat the violent forces of disorder wherever they appear, America must play an even more active role to strengthen the international state system. In this decade, for the first time in human history, half of the world's population will live in cities. I know from personal experience that when security is reliably established in a troubled part of a city, normal life rapidly reestablishes itself: shops open, people move back in, children start playing ball on the sidewalks again, and soon a decent and law-abiding community returns to life. The same is true in world affairs. Disorder in the world's bad neighborhoods tends to spread. Tolerating bad behavior breeds more bad behavior. But concerted action to uphold international standards will help peoples, economies, and states to thrive. Civil society can triumph over chaos if it is backed by determined action. After the attacks of 9/11, President Bush put America on the offensive against terrorists, orchestrating the most fundamental change in U.S. strategy since President Harry Truman reoriented American foreign and defense policy at the outset of the Cold War. But times and challenges change, and our nation must be flexible. President Dwight Eisenhower and his successors accepted Truman's framework, but they corrected course to fit the specific challenges of their own times. America's next president must also craft polices to fit the needs of the decade ahead, even as the nation stays on the offensive against the terrorist threat. The 9/11 generation has learned from the history of the twentieth century that America must not turn a blind eye to gathering storms. We must base our trust on the actions, rather than the words, of others. And we must be on guard against overpromising and underdelivering. Above all, we have learned that evil must be confronted -- not appeased -- because only principled strength can lead to a realistic peace.
We are all members of the 9/11 generation. The defining challenges of the twentieth century ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Full recognition of the first great challenge of the twenty-first century came with the attacks of September 11, 2001, even though Islamist terrorists had begun their assault on world order decades before. Confronted with an act of war on American soil, our old assumptions about conflict between nation-states fell away. Civilization itself, and the international system, had come under attack by a ruthless and radical Islamist enemy. America and its allies have made progress since that terrible day. We have responded forcefully to the Terrorists' War on Us, abandoning a decadelong -- and counterproductive -- strategy of defensive reaction in favor of a vigorous offense. And we have set in motion changes to the international system that promise a safer and better world for generations to come. But this war will be long, and we are still in its early stages. Much like at the beginning of the Cold War, we are at the dawn of a new era in global affairs, when old ideas have to be rethought and new ideas have to be devised to meet new challenges. The next U.S. president will face three key foreign policy challenges. First and foremost will be to set a course for victory in the terrorists' war on global order. The second will be to strengthen the international system that the terrorists seek to destroy. The third will be to extend the benefits of the international system in an ever-widening arc of security and stability across the globe. The most effective means for achieving these goals are building a stronger defense, developing a determined diplomacy, and expanding our economic and cultural influence. Using all three, the next president can build the foundations of a lasting, realistic peace. Achieving a realistic peace means balancing realism and idealism in our foreign policy. America is a nation that loves peace and hates war. At the core of all Americans is the belief that all human beings have certain inalienable rights that proceed from God but must be protected by the state. Americans believe that to the extent that nations recognize these rights within their own laws and customs, peace with them is achievable. To the extent that they do not, violence and disorder are much more likely. Preserving and extending American ideals must remain the goal of all U.S. policy, foreign and domestic. But unless we pursue our idealistic goals through realistic means, peace will not be achieved. Idealism should define our ultimate goals; realism must help us recognize the road we must travel to achieve them. The world is a dangerous place. We cannot afford to indulge any illusions about the enemies we face. The Terrorists' War on Us was encouraged by unrealistic and inconsistent actions taken in response to terrorist attacks in the past. A realistic peace can only be achieved through strength. A realistic peace is not a peace to be achieved by embracing the "realist" school of foreign policy thought. That doctrine defines America's interests too narrowly and avoids attempts to reform the international system according to our values. To rely solely on this type of realism would be to cede the advantage to our enemies in the complex war of ideas and ideals. It would also place too great a hope in the potential for diplomatic accommodation with hostile states. And it would exaggerate America's weaknesses and downplay America's strengths. Our economy is the strongest in the developed world. Our political system is far more stable than those of the world's rising economic giants. And the United States is the world's premier magnet for global talent and capital. Still, the realist school offers some valuable insights, in particular its insistence on seeing the world as it is and on tempering our expectations of what American foreign policy can achieve. We cannot achieve peace by promising too much or indulging false hopes. This next decade can be a positive era for our country and the world so long as the next president realistically mobilizes the 9/11 generation for the momentous tasks ahead. WINNING THE EARLY BATTLES OF THE LONG WAR The first step toward a realistic peace is to be realistic about our enemies. They follow a violent ideology: radical Islamic fascism, which uses the mask of religion to further totalitarian goals and aims to destroy the existing international system. These enemies wear no uniform. They have no traditional military assets. They rule no states but can hide and operate in virtually any of them and are supported by some. Above all, we must understand that our enemies are emboldened by signs of weakness. Radical Islamic terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, the Khobar Towers facility in Saudi Arabia in 1996, our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. In some instances, we responded inadequately. In others, we failed to respond at all. Our retreat from Lebanon in 1983 and from Somalia in 1993 convinced them that our will was weak. We must learn from these experiences for the long war that lies ahead. It is almost certain that U.S. troops will still be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan when the next president takes office. The purpose of this fight must be to defeat the terrorists and the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and to allow these countries to become members of the international system in good standing. We must be under no illusions that either Iraq or Afghanistan will quickly attain the levels of peace and security enjoyed in the developed world today. Our aim should be to help them build accountable, functioning governments that can serve the needs of their populations, reduce violence within their borders, and eliminate the export of terror. As violence decreases and security improves, more responsibility can and should be turned over to local security forces. But some U.S. forces will need to remain for some time in order to deter external threats. We cannot predict when our efforts will be successful. But we can predict the consequences of failure: Afghanistan would revert to being a safe haven for terrorists, and Iraq would become another one -- larger, richer, and more strategically located. Parts of Iraq would undoubtedly fall under the sway of our enemies, particularly Iran, which would use its influence to direct even more terror at U.S. interests and U.S. allies than it does today. The balance of power in the Middle East would tip further toward terror, extremism, and repression. America's influence and prestige -- not just in the Middle East but around the world -- would be dealt a shattering blow. Our allies would conclude that we cannot back up our commitments with sustained action. Our enemies -- both terrorists and rogue states -- would be emboldened. They would see further opportunities to weaken the international state system that is the primary defense of civilization. Much as our enemies in the 1990s concluded from our inconsistent response to terrorism then, our enemies today would conclude that America's will is weak and the civilization we pledged to defend is tired. Failure would be an invitation for more war, in even more difficult and dangerous circumstances. America must remember one of the lessons of the Vietnam War. Then, as now, we fought a war with the wrong strategy for several years. And then, as now, we corrected course and began to show real progress. Many historians today believe that by about 1972 we and our South Vietnamese partners had succeeded in defeating the Vietcong insurgency and in setting South Vietnam on a path to political self-sufficiency. But America then withdrew its support, allowing the communist North to conquer the South. The consequences were dire, and not only in Vietnam: numerous deaths in places such as the killing fields of Cambodia, a newly energized and expansionist Soviet Union, and a weaker America. The consequences of abandoning Iraq would be worse. Our goal is to see in Iraq and Afghanistan the emergence of stable governments and societies that can act as our allies against the terrorists and not as breeding grounds for expanded terrorist activities. Succeeding in Iraq and Afghanistan is necessary but not sufficient. Ultimately, these are only two battlegrounds in a wider war. The United States must not rest until the al Qaeda network is destroyed and its leaders, from Osama bin Laden on down, are killed or captured. And the United States must not rest until the global terrorist movement and its ideology are defeated. Much of that fight will take place in the shadows. It will be the work of intelligence operatives, paramilitary groups, and Special Operations forces. It will also require close relationships with other governments and local forces. The next U.S. president should direct our armed forces to emphasize such work, in part because local forces are best able to operate in their home countries and in part in order to reduce the strain on our own troops. A STRONGER DEFENSE For 15 years, the de facto policy of both Republicans and Democrats has been to ask the U.S. military to do increasingly more with increasingly less. The idea of a post-Cold War "peace dividend" was a serious mistake -- the product of wishful thinking and the opposite of true realism. As a result of taking this dividend, our military is too small to meet its current commitments or shoulder the burden of any additional challenges that might arise. We must rebuild a military force that can deter aggression and meet the wide variety of present and future challenges. When America appears bogged down and unready to face aggressors, it invites conflict. The U.S. Army needs a minimum of ten new combat brigades. It may need more, but this is an appropriate baseline increase while we reevaluate our strategies and resources. We must also take a hard look at other requirements, especially in terms of submarines, modern long-range bombers, and in-flight refueling tankers. Rebuilding will not be cheap, but it is necessary. And the benefits will outweigh the costs. The next U.S. president must also press ahead with building a national missile defense system. America can no longer rely on Cold War doctrines such as "mutual assured destruction" in the face of threats from hostile, unstable regimes. Nor can it ignore the possibility of nuclear blackmail. Rogue regimes that know they can threaten America, our allies, and our interests with ballistic missiles will behave more aggressively, including by increasing their support for terrorists. On the other hand, the knowledge that America and our allies could intercept and destroy incoming missiles would not only make blackmail less likely but also decrease the appeal of ballistic missile programs and so help to slow their development and proliferation. It is well within our capability to field a layered missile defense capable of shielding us from the arsenals of the world's most dangerous states. President George W. Bush deserves credit for changing America's course on this issue. But progress needs to be accelerated. An even greater danger is the possibility of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil with a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon. Every effort must be made to improve our intelligence capabilities and technological capacities to prevent this. Constellations of satellites that can watch arms factories everywhere around the globe, day and night, above- and belowground, combined with more robust human intelligence, must be part of America's arsenal. The laudable and effective Proliferation Security Initiative, a global effort to stop the shipment of weapons of mass destruction and related materials, should be expanded and strengthened. In particular, we must work to deter the development, transfer, or use of weapons of mass destruction. We must also develop the capability to prevent an attack -- including a clandestine attack -- by those who cannot be deterred. Rogue states must be prevented from handing nuclear materials to terrorist groups. Our enemies must know that they cannot murder our citizens with impunity and escape retaliation. We must also develop detection systems to identify nuclear material that is being imported into the United States or developed by operatives inside the country. Heightened and more comprehensive security measures at our ports and borders must be enacted as rapidly as possible. And our national security agencies must work much more closely with our homeland security and law enforcement agencies. We must preserve the gains made by the U.S.A. Patriot Act and not unrealistically limit electronic surveillance or legal interrogation. Preventing a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attack on our homeland must be the federal government's top priority. We must construct a technological and intelligence shield that is effective against all delivery methods. Military victories are essential, but they are not enough. A lasting, realistic peace will be achieved when more effective diplomacy, combined with greater economic and cultural integration, helps the people of the Middle East understand that they have a stake in the success of the international system. DETERMINED DIPLOMACY To achieve a realistic peace, some of what we need to do can and must be accomplished through our own efforts. But much more requires international cooperation, and cooperation requires diplomacy. In recent years, diplomacy has received a bad name, because of two opposing perspectives. One side denigrates diplomacy because it believes that negotiation is inseparable from accommodation and almost indistinguishable from surrender. The other seemingly believes that diplomacy can solve nearly all problems, even those involving people dedicated to our destruction. When such efforts fail, as they inevitably do, diplomacy itself is blamed, rather than the flawed approach that led to their failure. For 15 years, the de facto policy of both Republicans and Democrats has been to ask the U.S. military to do increasingly more with increasingly less. The idea of a post-Cold War "peace dividend" was a serious mistake -- the product of wishful thinking and the opposite of true realism. As a result of taking this dividend, our military is too small to meet its current commitments or shoulder the burden of any additional challenges that might arise. We must rebuild a military force that can deter aggression and meet the wide variety of present and future challenges. When America appears bogged down and unready to face aggressors, it invites conflict. The U.S. Army needs a minimum of ten new combat brigades. It may need more, but this is an appropriate baseline increase while we reevaluate our strategies and resources. We must also take a hard look at other requirements, especially in terms of submarines, modern long-range bombers, and in-flight refueling tankers. Rebuilding will not be cheap, but it is necessary. And the benefits will outweigh the costs. The next U.S. president must also press ahead with building a national missile defense system. America can no longer rely on Cold War doctrines such as "mutual assured destruction" in the face of threats from hostile, unstable regimes. Nor can it ignore the possibility of nuclear blackmail. Rogue regimes that know they can threaten America, our allies, and our interests with ballistic missiles will behave more aggressively, including by increasing their support for terrorists. On the other hand, the knowledge that America and our allies could intercept and destroy incoming missiles would not only make blackmail less likely but also decrease the appeal of ballistic missile programs and so help to slow their development and proliferation. It is well within our capability to field a layered missile defense capable of shielding us from the arsenals of the world's most dangerous states. President George W. Bush deserves credit for changing America's course on this issue. But progress needs to be accelerated. An even greater danger is the possibility of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil with a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon. Every effort must be made to improve our intelligence capabilities and technological capacities to prevent this. Constellations of satellites that can watch arms factories everywhere around the globe, day and night, above- and belowground, combined with more robust human intelligence, must be part of America's arsenal. The laudable and effective Proliferation Security Initiative, a global effort to stop the shipment of weapons of mass destruction and related materials, should be expanded and strengthened. In particular, we must work to deter the development, transfer, or use of weapons of mass destruction. We must also develop the capability to prevent an attack -- including a clandestine attack -- by those who cannot be deterred. Rogue states must be prevented from handing nuclear materials to terrorist groups. Our enemies must know that they cannot murder our citizens with impunity and escape retaliation. We must also develop detection systems to identify nuclear material that is being imported into the United States or developed by operatives inside the country. Heightened and more comprehensive security measures at our ports and borders must be enacted as rapidly as possible. And our national security agencies must work much more closely with our homeland security and law enforcement agencies. We must preserve the gains made by the U.S.A. Patriot Act and not unrealistically limit electronic surveillance or legal interrogation. Preventing a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attack on our homeland must be the federal government's top priority. We must construct a technological and intelligence shield that is effective against all delivery methods. Military victories are essential, but they are not enough. A lasting, realistic peace will be achieved when more effective diplomacy, combined with greater economic and cultural integration, helps the people of the Middle East understand that they have a stake in the success of the international system. DETERMINED DIPLOMACY To achieve a realistic peace, some of what we need to do can and must be accomplished through our own efforts. But much more requires international cooperation, and cooperation requires diplomacy. In recent years, diplomacy has received a bad name, because of two opposing perspectives. One side denigrates diplomacy because it believes that negotiation is inseparable from accommodation and almost indistinguishable from surrender. The other seemingly believes that diplomacy can solve nearly all problems, even those involving people dedicated to our destruction. When such efforts fail, as they inevitably do, diplomacy itself is blamed, rather than the flawed approach that led to their failure. America has been most successful as a world leader when it has used strength and diplomacy hand in hand. To achieve a realistic peace, U.S. diplomacy must be tightly linked to our other strengths: military, economic, and moral. Whom we choose to talk to is as important as what we say. Diplomacy should never be a tool that our enemies can manipulate to their advantage. Holding serious talks may be advisable even with our adversaries, but not with those bent on our destruction or those who cannot deliver on their agreements. Iran is a case in point. The Islamic Republic has been determined to attack the international system throughout its entire existence: it took U.S. diplomats hostage in 1979 and seized British sailors in 2007 and during the decades in between supported terrorism and murder. But Tehran invokes the protections of the international system when doing so suits it, hiding behind the principle of sovereignty to stave off the consequences of its actions. This is not to say that talks with Iran cannot possibly work. They could -- but only if we came to the table in a position of strength, knowing what we wanted. The next U.S. president should take inspiration from Ronald Reagan's actions during his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík in 1986: he was open to the possibility of negotiations but ready to walk away if talking went nowhere. The lesson is never talk for the sake of talking and never accept a bad deal for the sake of making a deal. Those with whom we negotiate -- whether ally or adversary -- must know that America has other options. The theocrats ruling Iran need to understand that we can wield the stick as well as the carrot, by undermining popular support for their regime, damaging the Iranian economy, weakening Iran's military, and, should all else fail, destroying its nuclear infrastructure. For diplomacy to succeed, the U.S. government must be united. Adversaries naturally exploit divisions. Members of Congress who talk directly to rogue regimes at cross-purposes with the White House are not practicing diplomacy; they are undermining it. The task of a president is not merely to set priorities but to ensure that they are pursued across the government. It is only when they are -- and when Washington can negotiate from a position of strength -- that negotiations will yield results. As President John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural address, "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." Another step in rebuilding a strong diplomacy will be to make changes in the State Department and the Foreign Service. The time has come to refine the diplomats' mission down to their core purpose: presenting U.S. policy to the rest of the world. Reforming the State Department is a matter not of changing its organizational chart -- although simplification is needed -- but of changing the way we practice diplomacy and the way we measure results. Our ambassadors must clearly understand and clearly advocate for U.S. policies and be judged on the results. Too many people denounce our country or our policies simply because they are confident that they will not hear any serious refutation from our representatives. The American ideals of freedom and democracy deserve stronger advocacy. And the era of cost-free anti-Americanism must end. Since leaving the New York City mayor's office, I have traveled to 35 different countries. It is clear that we need to do a better job of explaining America's message and mission to the rest of the world, not by imposing our ideas on others but by appealing to their enlightened self-interest. To this end, the Voice of America program must be significantly strengthened and broadened. Its surrogate stations, such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which were so effective at inspiring grass-roots dissidents during the Cold War, must be expanded as well. Our entire approach to public diplomacy and strategic communications must be upgraded and extended, with a greater focus on new media such as the Internet. We confront multifaceted challenges in the Middle East, the Pacific region, Africa, and Latin America. In all these places, effective communication can be a powerful way of advancing our interests. We will not shy away from any debate. And armed with honest advocacy, America will win the war of ideas. STRENGTHENING THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM The next U.S. president will share the world stage with a new generation of leaders, few of whom were in office when the attacks of 9/11 occurred but all of whom have been influenced by their impact. This will be a rare opportunity for American leadership to make the case that our common interest lies in defeating the terrorists and strengthening the international system. Defeating the terrorists must be our principal priority in the near future, but we do not have the luxury of focusing on it to the exclusion of other goals. World events unfold whether the United States is engaged or not, and when we are not, they often unfold in ways that are against our interests. The art of managing a large enterprise is to multitask, and so U.S. foreign policy must always be multidimensional. A primary goal for our diplomacy -- whether directed toward great powers, developing states, or international institutions -- must be to strengthen the international system, which most of the world has a direct interest in seeing function well. After all, the system helps keep the peace and provide prosperity. Some theorists say that it is outmoded and display either too much faith in globalization or assume that the age of the sovereign state is coming to a close. These views are naive. There is no realistic alternative to the sovereign state system. Transnational terrorists and other rogue actors have difficulty operating where the state system is strong, and they flourish where it is weak. This is the reason they try to exploit its weaknesses. We should therefore work to strengthen the international system through America's relations with other great powers, both long established and rising. We should regard no great power as our inherent adversary. We should continue to fully engage with Europe, both in its collective capacity as the European Union and through our special relationship with the United Kingdom and our traditional diplomatic relations with France, Germany, Italy, and other western European nations. We highly value our ties with the states of central and eastern Europe and the Baltic and Balkan nations. Their experience of oppression under communism has made them steadfast allies and strong advocates of economic freedom. America is grateful to NATO for the vital functions it is performing in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Yet NATO's role and character should be reexamined. For almost 60 years, it has been a vital bond connecting the United States and Europe. But its founding rationale dissolved with the end of the Cold War, and the alliance should be transformed to meet the challenges of this new century. NATO has already expanded to include former adversaries, taken on roles for which it was not originally conceived, and acted beyond its original theater. We should build on these successes and think more boldly and more globally. We should open the organization's membership to any state that meets basic standards of good governance, military readiness, and global responsibility, regardless of its location. The new NATO should dedicate itself to confronting significant threats to the international system, from territorial aggression to terrorism. I hope that NATO members will see the wisdom in such changes. NATO must change with the times, and its members must always match their rhetorical commitment with action and investment. In return, America can assure them that we will be there for them in times of crisis. They stood by America after 9/11, and America will never forget. As important as America's Western alliances are, we must recognize that America will often be best served by turning also to its other friends, old and new. Much of America's future will be linked to the already established and still rising powers of Asia. These states share with us a clear commitment to economic growth, and they must be given at least as much attention as Europe . Our alliance with Japan, which has been strengthened considerably under this administration, is a rock of stability in Asia. South Korea has been a key to security in Northeast Asia and an important contributor to international peace. Australia, our distant but long-standing ally, continues to assume a greater role in world affairs and acts as a steadfast defender of international standards and security. U.S. cooperation with India on issues ranging from intelligence to naval patrols and civil nuclear power will serve as a pillar of security and prosperity in South Asia. U.S. relations with China and Russia will remain complex for the foreseeable future. Americans have no wish to return to the tensions of the Cold War or to launch a new one. We must seek common ground without turning a blind eye to our differences with these two countries. Like America, they have a fundamental stake in the health of the international system. But too often, their governments act shortsightedly, undermining their long-term interest in international norms for the sake of near-term gains. Even as we work with these countries on economic and security issues, the U.S. government should not be silent about their unhelpful behavior or human rights abuses. Washington should also make clear that only if China and Russia move toward democracy, civil liberties, and an open and uncorrupted economy will they benefit from the vast possibilities available in the world today. Our relationships with other American nations remain of primary importance. Canada and Mexico, our two closest neighbors, are our two largest trading partners. With them, we share a continent, a free-trade agreement, and a commitment to peace, prosperity, and freedom. Latin America faces a choice between the failures of the past and the hopes of the future. Some look to the governments of Bolivia and Venezuela, and their mentor in Cuba, and see an inevitable path to greater statism. But elections in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru show that the spirit of free-market reform is alive and well among our southern neighbors. Cuba has long stood out in Latin America, first as one of the region's most successful economies, later as its only communist police state. The death of Fidel Castro may begin a new chapter in Cuban history. But America should take nothing for granted. It must stand ready to help the Cuban people reclaim their liberty and resist any step that allows a decrepit, corrupt regime from consolidating its power under Raúl Castro. Only a commitment to free people and free markets will bring a prosperous future to Cuba and all of Latin America. More people in the United States need to understand how helping Africa today will help increase peace and decency throughout the world tomorrow. The next president should continue the Bush administration's effort to help Africa overcome AIDS and malaria. The international community must also learn from the mistakes that allowed the genocide in Darfur to begin and have prevented the relevant international organizations from ending it. The world's commitment to end genocide has been sidestepped again and again. Ultimately, the most important thing we can do to help Africa is to increase trade with the continent. U.S. government aid is important, but aid not linked to reform perpetuates bad policies and poverty. It is better to give people a hand up than a handout. Finally, we need to look realistically at America's relationship with the United Nations. The organization can be useful for some humanitarian and peacekeeping functions, but we should not expect much more of it. The UN has proved irrelevant to the resolution of almost every major dispute of the last 50 years. Worse, it has failed to combat terrorism and human rights abuses. It has not lived up to the great hopes that inspired its creation. Too often, it has been weak, indecisive, and outright corrupt. The UN's charter and the speeches of its members' leaders have meant little because its members' deeds have frequently fallen short. International law and institutions exist to serve peoples and nations, but many leaders act as if the reverse were true -- that is, as if institutions, not the ends to be achieved, were the important thing. Despite the UN's flaws, however, the great objectives of humanity would become even more difficult to achieve without mechanisms for international discussion. History has shown that such institutions work best when the United States leads them. Yet we cannot take for granted that they will work forever and must be prepared to look to other tools. EXTENDING THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM'S BENEFITS Most of the problems in the world today arise from places where the state system is broken or has never functioned. Much of the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America remains mired in poverty, corruption, anarchy, and terror. But there is nothing inevitable about this. For all these troubled cases, there are many more success stories that deserve to be celebrated. The number of functioning democracies in the world has tripled since the 1970s. The poverty rate in the developing world has been cut by roughly one-third since the end of the Cold War. Millions of people have been liberated from oppression and fear. Progress is not only possible, it is real. And it must continue to be real. America has a clear interest in helping to establish good governance throughout the world. Democracy is a noble ideal, and promoting it abroad is the right long-term goal of U.S. policy. But democracy cannot be achieved rapidly or sustained unless it is built on sound legal, institutional, and cultural foundations. It can only work if people have a reasonable degree of safety and security. Elections are necessary but not sufficient to establish genuine democracy. Aspiring dictators sometimes win elections, and elected leaders sometimes govern badly and threaten their neighbors. History demonstrates that democracy usually follows good governance, not the reverse. U.S. assistance can do much to set nations on the road to democracy, but we must be realistic about how much we can accomplish alone and how long it will take to achieve lasting progress. The election of Hamas in the Palestinian-controlled territories is a case in point. The problem there is not the lack of statehood but corrupt and unaccountable governance. The Palestinian people need decent governance first, as a prerequisite for statehood. Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again. It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism. Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel. America's commitment to Israel's security is a permanent feature of our foreign policy. The next president must champion human rights and speak out when they are violated. America should continue to use its influence to bring attention to individual abuses and use a full range of inducements and pressures to try to end them. Securing the rights of men, women, and children everywhere should be a core commitment of any country that counts itself as part of the civilized world. Whether with friends, allies, or adversaries, democracy will always be an issue in our relations and part of the conversation. And so the better a country's record on good governance, human rights, and democratic development, the better its relations with the United States will be. Those countries that want our help in moving toward these ideals will have it. USING ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL INFLUENCE Economic development and engagement are proven, if not fail-safe, engines for successfully moving countries into the international system. America's robust domestic economy is one of its greatest strengths. Other nations have found that following the U.S. model -- with low taxes, sensible regulations, protections for private property, and free trade -- brings not only national wealth but also national strength. These principles are not ascendant everywhere, but never has it been clearer that they work. Ever more open trade throughout the world is essential. Bilateral and regional free-trade agreements are often positive for all involved, but we must not allow them to become special arrangements that undermine a truly global trading system. Foreign aid can help overcome specific problems, but it does not lead to lasting prosperity because it cannot replace trade. Private direct investment is the best way to promote economic development. The next U.S. president should thus revitalize and streamline all U.S. foreign-aid activities to support -- not substitute for -- private investment in other countries. Our cultural and commercial influence can also have a positive impact. They did during the Cold War. The steadfast leadership of President Reagan, working alongside British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, helped the Soviet Union understand that it could not bully the West into submission. Although such leadership was essential, alone it might not have toppled the Soviet Union in the time that it did. But it was effective because it came with Western economic investment and cultural influence that inspired people in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries. Companies such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Levi's helped win the Cold War by entering the Soviet market. Cultural events, such as Van Cliburn's concerts in the Soviet Union and Mstislav Rostropovich's in the United States, also hastened change. Today, we need a similar type of exchange with the Muslim countries that we hope to plug into the global economy. Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are pointing the way by starting to interpret Islam in ways that respect the distinctiveness of their local cultures but are consistent with the global marketplace. Some of these states have coeducational schools, allow women to serve in government, and count shopping malls that sell Western and Arab goods side by side. Their leaders recognize that modernization is their ticket to the global marketplace. And the global marketplace can build bridges between the West and the Islamic world in a way that promotes mutual respect and mutual benefit. Economic investment and cultural influence work best where civil society already exists. But sometimes America will be compelled to act in those parts of the world where few institutions function properly -- those zones that lack not only good governance but any governance -- and in states teetering on the edge of conflict or recovering from it. Faced with a choice between leaving a troubled zone to anarchy or helping build functioning civil societies with accountable governments that can serve as bulwarks against barbarism, the American people will choose the latter. To assist these missions, the next U.S. president should restructure and coordinate all the agencies involved in that process. A hybrid military-civilian organization -- a Stabilization and Reconstruction Corps staffed by specially trained military and civilian reservists -- must be developed. The agency would undertake tasks such as building roads, sewers, and schools; advising on legal reform; and restoring local currencies. The United States did similar work, and with great success, in Germany, Japan, and Italy after World War II. But even with the rich civic traditions in these nations, the process took a number of years. We must learn from our past if we want to win the peace as well as the war. PRINCIPLED STRENGTH Civilization must stand up and combat the current collapse of governance, the rise of violence, and the spread of chaos and fear in many parts of the world. To turn back this tide of terror and defeat the violent forces of disorder wherever they appear, America must play an even more active role to strengthen the international state system. In this decade, for the first time in human history, half of the world's population will live in cities. I know from personal experience that when security is reliably established in a troubled part of a city, normal life rapidly reestablishes itself: shops open, people move back in, children start playing ball on the sidewalks again, and soon a decent and law-abiding community returns to life. The same is true in world affairs. Disorder in the world's bad neighborhoods tends to spread. Tolerating bad behavior breeds more bad behavior. But concerted action to uphold international standards will help peoples, economies, and states to thrive. Civil society can triumph over chaos if it is backed by determined action. After the attacks of 9/11, President Bush put America on the offensive against terrorists, orchestrating the most fundamental change in U.S. strategy since President Harry Truman reoriented American foreign and defense policy at the outset of the Cold War. But times and challenges change, and our nation must be flexible. President Dwight Eisenhower and his successors accepted Truman's framework, but they corrected course to fit the specific challenges of their own times. America's next president must also craft polices to fit the needs of the decade ahead, even as the nation stays on the offensive against the terrorist threat. The 9/11 generation has learned from the history of the twentieth century that America must not turn a blind eye to gathering storms. We must base our trust on the actions, rather than the words, of others. And we must be on guard against overpromising and underdelivering. Above all, we have learned that evil must be confronted -- not appeased -- because only principled strength can lead to a realistic peace.
L’Etat-nation, un acteur parmi d’autres ? Entretien avec Bertrand Badie
L’Etat-nation, un acteur parmi d’autres ?
Entretien avec Bertrand Badie (n° 38 - 1999)
Fondement des relations internationales et principal cadre d’existence et d’exercice de la souveraineté et de la démocratie des communautés humaines contemporaines, l’Etat-nation est, en cette fin de XXe siècle, remis en question par les phénomènes de régionalisation comme de mondialisation. Réflexions de Bertrand Badie, professeur à l’Institut d’études politiques de Paris, pour penser un monde post-souverainiste. Entretien
Fondement des relations internationales et principal cadre d’existence et d’exercice de la souveraineté et de la démocratie des communautés humaines contemporaines, l’Etat-nation est, en cette fin de XXe siècle, remis en question par les phénomènes de régionalisation comme de mondialisation. Réflexions de Bertrand Badie, professeur à l’Institut d’études politiques de Paris, pour penser un monde post-souverainiste. Entretien
Label France : Comment le modèle politique et administratif de l’Etat-nation s’est-il diffusé dans le monde ?
Bertrand Badie : L’Etat-nation, tel qu’il se retouve aujourd’hui dans le droit international, est un système politique singulier inventé par l’Europe occidentale, et qui a mis six siècles pour s’affirmer, entre le XIIIe et le XIXe siècle, à l’échelle de l’Europe entière. Car lorsque l’Etat est né en France, en Espagne, en Angleterre, il coexistait encore avec d’autres formes de systèmes politiques, à savoir les cités, l’Empire [1] et la papauté, par rapport auxquels il a eu à s’émanciper. Après quoi, il a pénétré les espaces de culture occidentale que sont les Amériques, avec l’indépendance des Etats-Unis et celle des sociétés d’Amérique latine où l’Etat-nation a triomphé comme mode d’organisation politique au fur et à mesure des accessions à l’indépendance.
« On voit se constituer de nouvelles formes de solidarités transnationales »
La troisième vague a été la diffusion partielle, mais forte, du modèle stato-national, vers des empires situés à la périphérie proche ou lointaine de l’Europe et victimes de la puissance montante du modèle européen. Ces empires ont eu précisément pour politique d’introduire de manière sélective la recette du vainqueur pour se rétablir ou pour tenter de se rétablir. C’est ainsi que s’est opérée très lentement au tournant du XIXe siècle la lente étatisation de l’Empire ottoman, qui a abouti à la Turquie kémaliste des années 20. C’est vrai également de la Perse, de l’Afghanistan, et de systèmes plus lointains tels que le Royaume birman, le royaume de Siam et surtout le Japon du Meiji, au XIXe siècle qui, pourtant, lui, ne fut jamais vaincu avant 1945.
Enfin, il y a une dernière vague - quantitativement la plus importante -, qui est la vague de la décolonisation en Asie et en Afrique, tout au long des années 50 et surtout 60. Elle a consacré la naissance d’Etats-nations reflets du modèle stato-national occidental et principalement du modèle stato-national français.
LF : Quels sont les effets du phénomène actuel de mondialisation sur les fondements et les fonctions de l’Etat-nation ? Est-il voué à disparaître devant la concurrence de ces nouveaux acteurs infra- ou supra-nationaux ?
La mondialisation n’est pas comme on le dit trop souvent aujourd’hui un phénomène principalement économique. A la base de la mondialisation, il y a une révolution technique extrêmement importante, qui est l’abolition de la distance par les progrès de la communication. Cela a eu un effet extrêmement important sur le plan politique puisque la distance a cessé de devenir cette ressource de gouvernement qu’elle a été pendant des siècles. L’autorité de l’Etat-nation reposait en partie sur la distance, car elle donnait un sens au territoire national - la juste mesure de la communication possible à l’intérieur d’une communauté humaine - et une fonction médiatrice à l’Etat, dès que les individus cherchaient à communiquer entre eux. Or, étant donné l’extraordinaire prolifération de relations transnationales qui s’opèrent entre les individus par-delà les frontières et en contournant le contrôle de l’Etat, cela n’a plus de sens aujourd’hui. D’où le redéploiement des fonctions de l’Etat-nation dans la mesure où ce dernier a pour nouvelle perspective politique de gouverner dans un système où la communication lui échappe et où il doit assurer la régulation de cette explosion de relations transnationales.
« Le grand défi sera d’organiser différents niveaux de citoyenneté »
La mondialisation a bien sûr été mise à profit par tous les acteurs potentiels, à commencer par les acteurs économiques, d’où effectivement cette poussée de néolibéralisme conséquence de la capacité des individus à investir et à commercer directement en dehors de l’Etat et hors de son contrôle. Mais, on voit aussi se constituer, à côté du marché, d’autres formes de solidarités transnationales. Par l’immédiateté de l’image, de l’information et de la communication, tous les individus se trouvent directement impliqués dans les affaires intérieures des Etats voisins ou lointains.
La mondialisation permet l’émergence d’un très grand nombre d’acteurs, qui vont avoir leur propre action internationale, leur propre volonté politique - c’est le cas des ONG - ou qui vont faire pression sur l’Etat pour qu’il intervienne sur la scène mondiale - c’est le cas de l’opinion publique internationale. On assiste donc à la constitution d’un vaste espace public qui prend en charge les questions internationales, à côté du système interétatique et hors du contrôle des Etats.
LF : L’Etat constitue-t-il un cadre indépassable à l’exercice de la souveraineté ?
Il n’est pas facile de répondre à la question du devenir de l’Etat, car avec le progrès technologique, l’Etat renforce aussi ses moyens d’action, de coercition et de communication. Plutôt que de parler de fin de l’Etat, je parlerai donc d’une transformation profonde de l’Etat, qui perdure à côté d’autres acteurs internationaux non étatiques, tout en perdant l’une de ses marques essentielles, à savoir le principe de souveraineté.
LF : Justement, quel rôle joueront à l’avenir ces nouveaux acteurs, et de quelle manière leur rôle s’articulera-t-il avec celui joué par l’Etat-nation ?
L’articulation entre ces deux types d’acteurs devient l’enjeu majeur de nos relations internationales contemporaines. L’Etat a plusieurs atouts dans son jeu. Il bénéficie des vertus du partenariat privilégié : il est beaucoup plus facile de négocier avec un Etat que de négocier avec un flux transnational. On peut à la rigueur négocier avec une firme multinationale, car c’est le type d’acteur transnational le plus proche de la rationalité étatique, mais pas avec un flux migratoire, ou avec des investisseurs individuels, ni a fortiori, avec des organisations mafieuses.
C’est l’un des drames des nouveaux conflits internationaux : les milices ou les seigneurs de guerre ne se prêtent ni à la négociation ni aux logiques de pacification, tandis que l’Etat-nation est, lui, reconnu par le droit et les organisations internationales, tous deux inter-étatiques. Or ces acteurs, bien que non institutionalisés, sont souvent des partenaires décisifs du jeu international.
Mais, sur un autre plan, des réseaux transnationaux de communication se constituent et font circuler l’information, souvent au grand dam des Etats, dont les responsables aimeraient bien que l’on taise telle ou telle violation des droits de l’Homme qui est cependant divulguée par les ONG et vient ainsi rendre honteuse la diplomatie économique de certains Etats.
Un jeu de frottement entre ces différents types d’acteurs s’opère donc à travers la dynamique de cet espace public international. Mais ce dernier n’est pas que le procureur général d’un ordre international souvent éthiquement contestable. C’est aussi l’entrepreneur de causes humanitaires, l’un des grands initiateurs de cette évolution sensible des diplomaties stato-nationales : grâce à quoi la diplomatie des droits de l’Homme commence à prendre un sens et les diplomaties d’Etat acceptent maintenant de se saisir des guerres civiles, des conflits intérieurs, des processus d’épuration ethnique sous la pression de cette opinion publique internationale. L’ensemble de ces interactions restant encore malgré tout imprévisibles.
LF : Ce cadre politique d’exercice de la démocratie qu’est l’Etat-nation en Europe vous paraît-il périmé ou perfectible ?
L’avènement de la citoyenneté a conféré à la communauté politique nationale le statut de communauté délibérative. Et, dans le contexte du XIXe siècle et de la majeure partie du XXe siècle, ceci était nécessaire pour construire et parachever la démocratie. Force est d’admettre aujourd’hui que les communautés politiques nationales sont de moins en moins délibératives parce que les grandes décisions ne s’opèrent plus à l’échelle des communautés politiques nationales ; certaines d’entre elles se prennent déjà à l’échelle de l’Union européenne, ou même à l’échelle mondiale. Or, s’il est évident que l’intégration régionale ainsi que des formes d’intégration mondiale apparaissent, celles-ci peinent à produire de nouvelles communautés politiques délibératives. Il faut donc construire une nouvelle citoyenneté à l’échelle de vastes ensembles régionaux. D’où le caractère fondamental de la citoyenneté européenne.
De plus, cette citoyenneté déconnectée du territoire national s’accompagne du regain d’une citoyenneté de proximité. Il existe donc plusieurs strates de citoyenneté : locale, nationale bien entendu, régionale mais également transnationale. Le grand défi va donc être d’organiser ces différents niveaux de citoyenneté. Car dans notre esprit français et jacobin [2], la citoyenneté ne peut correspondre qu’à une allégeance hiérarchiquement supérieure à toutes les autres : le citoyen est d’abord citoyen d’un Etat. Or dorénavant cette citoyenneté multiple va devoir être crédible et démocratique. Sinon le niveau d’intégration régional et mondial sera abandonné à la technocratie et le niveau national restera celui du citoyen, mais sa faculté de délibération deviendra totalement illusoire.
LF : Existe-t-il une spécificité française en matière de compréhension et d’analyse de ces différents phénomènes ?
En France, nous sommes très sensibles au problème de l’Etat et de son devenir, car, si la France n’a pas inventé l’Etat, elle est à l’origine d’un modèle d’Etat-nation, qui a eu un effet de diffusion très important à travers le rayonnement des Lumières et de la Révolution française. Maintenant que ce modèle de l’Etat-nation se trouve défié, nous sommes en première ligne.
Mes collègues étrangers ont souvent tendance à considérer que mes analyses traduisent davantage une obsession française qu’un enjeu majeur et déterminant de l’évolution planétaire. Il est vrai que nous avons peut-être plus de mal à penser un monde post-souverainiste, dans lequel l’Etat devrait abandonner à la société civile et aux réseaux transnationaux des responsabilités nouvelles. Mais fondamentalement, la question de l’articulation entre l’espace public international et le domaine des Etats concerne tout le monde. Les crispations souverainistes ne sont pas le fait exclusif de la France. Après tout, les Etats-Unis, qui se veulent pourtant très émancipés par rapport à cette culture de l’Etat, sont le principal contestataire, avec la Chine, de la création de cette Cour criminelle internationale qui est peut-être l’une des premières productions institutionnelles post-souverainistes [3]. De même, les pays du tiers-monde, qui n’appartiennent que très superficiellement à cette culture stato-nationale, sont eux aussi attachés à certains des attributs que la mondialisation vient aujourd’hui directement mettre en cause. Il s’agit là de courants fondamentalement conservateurs.
Mais au-delà de cette réponse réactionnaire, il y a des réponses novatrices. Le rôle de la France dans l’Europe et dans le monde, est peut-être de montrer la voie de ces innovations, sur un point qui m’est cher et sur lequel je crois que nous avons, au nom des Lumières et de la Révolution française, des choses très importantes à dire, à savoir la substitution progressive de l’idée d’Etat responsable à celle d’Etat souverain.
Propos recueillis par Pauline Sain et Stéphane Louhaur
Repères bibliographiques
• Un monde sans souveraineté, de Bertrand Badie, coll. Espace politique, éd. Fayard, Paris, 1999. • Les Mutations de l’Etat-nation en Europe à l’aube du XXIe siècle, coll. Sciences et techniques de la démocratie, éd. Conseil de l’Europe, Strasbourg, 1999. • La Mondialisation, d’Olivier Dollfus, coll. la Bibliothèque du citoyen, éd. Presses de Sciences politiques, Paris, 1997. • La Greffe de l’Etat, sous la dir. de Jean-François Bayart, éd. Karthala, Paris, 1996. • La Souveraineté à l’épreuve de la mondialisation, d’Elie Cohen, éd. Fayard, Paris, 1996. • La Fin des territoires, de Bertrand Badie, éd. Fayard, Paris, 1995. • L’Espace monde, d’Olivier Dollfus, éd. Economica, Paris, 1994.
[1] Le Saint Empire romain germanique a existé de 862 à 1806 et ses frontières correspondaient à l’Allemagne, l’Autriche, la Suisse, le nord de l’Italie, la Bohème et une partie de l’est de la France d’aujourd’hui.
[2] Sous la Révolution française, républicains partisans d’une démocratie aux pouvoirs centralisés.
[3] Voir l’article de Mireille Delmas-Marty sur la justice internationale dans ce numéro.
The Russian Model by Francis Fukuyama
There are two great experiments in authoritarian development going on in the world today, those represented by Russia and by China. The common Western theory, which I have argued in favor of in the past, is that liberal democracy and market economies are mutually complementary; even though countries can develop rapidly under authoritarian governments, eventually demand for political participation and accountability emerges, and indeed becomes necessary to support an advanced market economy. Yet Russia has been following China by growing rapidly, and yet moving steadily away from Western norms of liberal democracy under President Vladimir Putin over the past few years. The question for international politics is whether the Russian path represents a stable model of development that in future years will attract other imitators, as the Chinese model has already done.
To visit Moscow or St. Petersburg today is to enter a completely different world, not just from the one that existed in Soviet times, but from the chaotic decade of the 1990s as well. Moscow in particular looks like a bustling European city, with Armani and Gucci stores filling the city center, and Volvo dealerships and huge suburban shopping malls lining the roads out of town. Wealth is still very unequally distributed, but a lot of it is filtering down to a middle class, and poverty has been reduced substantially since the 1990s. The wild west image that Moscow developed in those years is gone, along with billionaire oligarchs and their machine gun-toting bodyguards.
The Russians have been engaged in classic nineteenth century state-building over the past decade. They have reestablished the government’s monopoly over the use of force, that sociologist Max Weber said was a key element of being a state. Despite the fact that the Putin administration re-nationalized the oil giant Yukos, jailed its CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and strongarmed both Shell and BP out of lucrative gas and oil fields, foreign direct investment is today pouring into Russia. Executives of multinational companies like Coca Cola or General Motors seem to think that property rights in Russia are good enough—no worse, at least, than in China—for them to take the risk of hundreds of millions of dollars of new fixed investment. While there is no justice for the killers of crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya, there is a growing rule of law in the commercial sector. While high-profile cases like the Yukos and Shell re-nationalizations are highly politicized, medium and small businesses face a much more predictable legal environment than they once did. The government can collect taxes, balance budgets, and even put away cash reserves for a rainy day from their energy earnings.
Given Russia’s prosperity, its growing sense of internal order, and its ability to assert itself against the United States and Europe in foreign policy, it is perhaps not surprising that President Putin is very popular. Polls put him at over 70 approval ratings, much higher than his counterparts in, say, Washington or Tokyo.
The only problem is that the Russians are not building a 21st century state, that is, one characterized by multiple forms of vertical and horizontal accountability. The Russian political model is a hybrid, significantly less democratic than former Eastern European communist satellites like Hungary or Poland. While President Putin was popularly elected, Russia has a highly managed democracy. The government now controls all of the television channels, and has recentralized control of Russia’s provinces. The Putin administration has created a set of loyal political parties in the Duma or lower house and has been able to eliminate virtually all serious opposition in the legislature. It has harrassed and shut down many non-governmental organizations, particularly those with foreign connections. Despite the fact that dissident organizations like Gary Kasparov’s United Civil Front are utterly marginal in today’s Russian politics, the government won’t let them demonstrate peacefully.
Russia for the moment remains more democratic than China. Unlike the Chinese communist leadership, Putin is popularly elected, and will likely step down next March in favor of an admittedly hand-picked successor. The Russians do not censor the Internet the way the Chinese do, and there are more dissident media outlets in Russia than in China. China currently jails many more dissidents than does Russia. So why is it that the United States and Western Europeans are today far more critical of Russia than China, and much more fearful of its rise?
There are several reasons for this. In the first place, many people assume that today’s Russia does not represent a stable political model, but is a waystation on the road to full authoritarianism and a re-nationalized economy. Russia simply cannot get away from its historical legacy as an imperial power, and indeed an imperial power that never overtly renounced its international ambitions. In 2006, when they shut off Ukraine’s gas pipeline in the middle of one of Europe’s coldest winters, they may simply have been engaging in a crude effort to force Ukraine towards market pricing. But no one in Europe or the US interpreted this move as anything but the testing of a new strategic energy weapon on Moscow’s part.
The second reason people are more distrustful of Russia than China is that the former has more of an overt foreign policy agenda. Today’s Russian elite is very bitter about the 1990s. They see the Yeltsin years of the 1990s not as the flowering of democracy, but as a humiliating period of weakness. They believe that the US and NATO didn’t want democracy, but Russian weakness, and took every econmic and political advantage they could while the country was prostrate. The West didn’t rest content with peeling off former Warsaw Pact allies like Hungary and Poland; according to them, with the Rose and Orange Revolutions, they used democracy as a weapon to intrude into Russia’s historical sphere of influence. Now that Russia is strong again, the West is unhappy; but it is through strength alone and confrontation that they can protect their interests.
Given the strength of suspicions on both sides, it is perhaps understandable that there was considerable talk of returning to a new “Cold War” at the time of the G-8 Summit in early June (when President Putin talked of re-aiming nuclear missiles at Europe). There are, however, a number of reasons for being cautious in predicting that Russia is trying to reconstitute itself into the old USSR. Russians are today reconnecting with their pre-Bolshevik past: they flock to Tsarist palaces and stand in line to visit icons in newly reconstructed Orthodox churches. They are still in the midst of a long conversation about their nature of their national identity. Some are going along with Samuel Huntington’s idea that Russia represents a separate civilization from that of the West, or of the Asian countries to their East, but others are much more reluctant to give up on Russia’s European roots. Younger Russians who are better educated and growing up immersed in a Western consumer culture may today vote for Putin out of gratitude for stability, but what will they demand of politics in fifteen to twenty years, when stability can be taken for granted? There is nostaligia for the former USSR among older people, but little, it would seem, among the young. Above all, contemporary Russians want to be rich and secure; they may dream of restoring international glory, but are they willing to pay for it?
What the West needs to do is watch Russia’s actual behavior, and not project onto it the West’s own hopes and fears as occurred over the past fifteen years. Many Westerners are angry with Putin and the Russia he is creating in part because they are jilted lovers: they hoped in the 1990s that the country would transition in short order to a full-fledged liberal democracy, and when it didn’t, they felt cheated. But the fact that a fully democratic Russia did not emerge does not means that a fully authoritarian Russia is now inevitable. Russia’s future will not be inevitably shaped by its past, but by the decisions that contemporary Russians will make, and the opportunities that the international environment provides them to make the right choices.
This article appeared in the Yomiuri Shimbun on July 16.
To visit Moscow or St. Petersburg today is to enter a completely different world, not just from the one that existed in Soviet times, but from the chaotic decade of the 1990s as well. Moscow in particular looks like a bustling European city, with Armani and Gucci stores filling the city center, and Volvo dealerships and huge suburban shopping malls lining the roads out of town. Wealth is still very unequally distributed, but a lot of it is filtering down to a middle class, and poverty has been reduced substantially since the 1990s. The wild west image that Moscow developed in those years is gone, along with billionaire oligarchs and their machine gun-toting bodyguards.
The Russians have been engaged in classic nineteenth century state-building over the past decade. They have reestablished the government’s monopoly over the use of force, that sociologist Max Weber said was a key element of being a state. Despite the fact that the Putin administration re-nationalized the oil giant Yukos, jailed its CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and strongarmed both Shell and BP out of lucrative gas and oil fields, foreign direct investment is today pouring into Russia. Executives of multinational companies like Coca Cola or General Motors seem to think that property rights in Russia are good enough—no worse, at least, than in China—for them to take the risk of hundreds of millions of dollars of new fixed investment. While there is no justice for the killers of crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya, there is a growing rule of law in the commercial sector. While high-profile cases like the Yukos and Shell re-nationalizations are highly politicized, medium and small businesses face a much more predictable legal environment than they once did. The government can collect taxes, balance budgets, and even put away cash reserves for a rainy day from their energy earnings.
Given Russia’s prosperity, its growing sense of internal order, and its ability to assert itself against the United States and Europe in foreign policy, it is perhaps not surprising that President Putin is very popular. Polls put him at over 70 approval ratings, much higher than his counterparts in, say, Washington or Tokyo.
The only problem is that the Russians are not building a 21st century state, that is, one characterized by multiple forms of vertical and horizontal accountability. The Russian political model is a hybrid, significantly less democratic than former Eastern European communist satellites like Hungary or Poland. While President Putin was popularly elected, Russia has a highly managed democracy. The government now controls all of the television channels, and has recentralized control of Russia’s provinces. The Putin administration has created a set of loyal political parties in the Duma or lower house and has been able to eliminate virtually all serious opposition in the legislature. It has harrassed and shut down many non-governmental organizations, particularly those with foreign connections. Despite the fact that dissident organizations like Gary Kasparov’s United Civil Front are utterly marginal in today’s Russian politics, the government won’t let them demonstrate peacefully.
Russia for the moment remains more democratic than China. Unlike the Chinese communist leadership, Putin is popularly elected, and will likely step down next March in favor of an admittedly hand-picked successor. The Russians do not censor the Internet the way the Chinese do, and there are more dissident media outlets in Russia than in China. China currently jails many more dissidents than does Russia. So why is it that the United States and Western Europeans are today far more critical of Russia than China, and much more fearful of its rise?
There are several reasons for this. In the first place, many people assume that today’s Russia does not represent a stable political model, but is a waystation on the road to full authoritarianism and a re-nationalized economy. Russia simply cannot get away from its historical legacy as an imperial power, and indeed an imperial power that never overtly renounced its international ambitions. In 2006, when they shut off Ukraine’s gas pipeline in the middle of one of Europe’s coldest winters, they may simply have been engaging in a crude effort to force Ukraine towards market pricing. But no one in Europe or the US interpreted this move as anything but the testing of a new strategic energy weapon on Moscow’s part.
The second reason people are more distrustful of Russia than China is that the former has more of an overt foreign policy agenda. Today’s Russian elite is very bitter about the 1990s. They see the Yeltsin years of the 1990s not as the flowering of democracy, but as a humiliating period of weakness. They believe that the US and NATO didn’t want democracy, but Russian weakness, and took every econmic and political advantage they could while the country was prostrate. The West didn’t rest content with peeling off former Warsaw Pact allies like Hungary and Poland; according to them, with the Rose and Orange Revolutions, they used democracy as a weapon to intrude into Russia’s historical sphere of influence. Now that Russia is strong again, the West is unhappy; but it is through strength alone and confrontation that they can protect their interests.
Given the strength of suspicions on both sides, it is perhaps understandable that there was considerable talk of returning to a new “Cold War” at the time of the G-8 Summit in early June (when President Putin talked of re-aiming nuclear missiles at Europe). There are, however, a number of reasons for being cautious in predicting that Russia is trying to reconstitute itself into the old USSR. Russians are today reconnecting with their pre-Bolshevik past: they flock to Tsarist palaces and stand in line to visit icons in newly reconstructed Orthodox churches. They are still in the midst of a long conversation about their nature of their national identity. Some are going along with Samuel Huntington’s idea that Russia represents a separate civilization from that of the West, or of the Asian countries to their East, but others are much more reluctant to give up on Russia’s European roots. Younger Russians who are better educated and growing up immersed in a Western consumer culture may today vote for Putin out of gratitude for stability, but what will they demand of politics in fifteen to twenty years, when stability can be taken for granted? There is nostaligia for the former USSR among older people, but little, it would seem, among the young. Above all, contemporary Russians want to be rich and secure; they may dream of restoring international glory, but are they willing to pay for it?
What the West needs to do is watch Russia’s actual behavior, and not project onto it the West’s own hopes and fears as occurred over the past fifteen years. Many Westerners are angry with Putin and the Russia he is creating in part because they are jilted lovers: they hoped in the 1990s that the country would transition in short order to a full-fledged liberal democracy, and when it didn’t, they felt cheated. But the fact that a fully democratic Russia did not emerge does not means that a fully authoritarian Russia is now inevitable. Russia’s future will not be inevitably shaped by its past, but by the decisions that contemporary Russians will make, and the opportunities that the international environment provides them to make the right choices.
This article appeared in the Yomiuri Shimbun on July 16.
Faith & Progress (Walter Russell Mead)
Walter Russell Mead is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the executive committee of the AI editorial board. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book, God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World (Knopf).
The history of the world over most of the past four centuries has been shaped decisively by the exploits of English-speaking people. First English then British then American power has been more economically productive and militarily and strategically successful than any other. A decisive factor in this history of success is that both the British and the Americans came from a culture that was uniquely well positioned to harness the titanic forces of capitalism as they emerged on the world scene. The British and Americans have proved better able than others to tolerate the stress, uncertainty and inequality associated with free-market forms of capitalism, and have been consistently among the best performers at creating a favorable institutional and social climate in which capitalism can thrive.
That achievement has in turn placed Anglo-American society at the forefront of technological development. Both countries have had the deep and flexible financial markets that provide greater prosperity in peace and allow government to tap the wealth of societies for greater effectiveness in war. The great business enterprises that take shape in these dynamic and cutting-edge economies enjoy tremendous advantages when they venture out into global markets to compete against less technologically advanced, poorly financed and managerially unsophisticated rivals in other countries and cultures.
This aptitude for capitalism has at least some of its roots in the way the British Reformation created a pluralistic society that was at once unusually tolerant, unusually open to new ideas, and unusually pious. In most of the world, the traditional values of religion are seen as deeply opposed to the utilitarian goals of capitalism. The English-speaking world, contrary to the intentions of almost all the leading actors of the period, reached a new kind of religious equilibrium in which capitalism and social change came to be accepted as good things. Indeed, since the 17th century, the English-speaking world for the most part has believed that embracing and even accelerating economic, social, cultural and political change fulfills their religious destiny.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Anglo-American world synthesized its religious beliefs with its unfolding historical experience to build an ideology that has shaped what is still the dominant paradigm in the English-speaking world, the deeply rooted vision of the way the world works that lies behind the physics of Sir Isaac Newton, the political economy of Adam Smith, the constitutional theories of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and the biological theories of Charles Darwin: that of the self-regulating dynamic equilibrium.
While many of these thinkers were not particularly or conventionally religious, their belief that order arises spontaneously from the play of natural forces is a way of restating some of the most powerful spiritual convictions of the English-speaking world. The idea that the world is built or guided by God in such a way that the unrestricted free play of extant forces creates an ordered and higher form of society is found virtually everywhere in the Anglo-Saxon world. It makes people both individualist and optimistic, and it has produced the “Whig narrative”, a theory of history that sees the slow and gradual march of progress in a free society as the dominant trend in not just Anglo-American history, but in all of history. Revelation and Reform
The idea that the roots of Anglo-American success are to be found in large part in religious culture runs sharply against the grain of modern historical analysis. The idea that enlightenment implies secularization is widely and deeply rooted, and the notion of civilization as a tragically necessary choice that inevitably cuts mankind off from the deepest elements in its nature was one of the most common tropes in both the 19th-century Romantic movement and 20th-century intellectual discourse. It is also a notion that has been proven as wrong as it is common: The countries that are in most respects the most thoroughly modernized by any definition that rests on economic and technological progress—19th-century Britain and the United States today—are significantly more religious than most.
The key to the ability of the Anglophone world to advance so far “West”, culturally speaking, and maintain its lead position in the global caravan is therefore not that it has been more secular than other societies. On the contrary, dynamic religion—religion that is open to change and that accords change a positive role in its sacred narrative—explains Anglophone ascendancy. Dynamic religion infiltrated and supplemented static religion in the religious life of the Anglophones. It showed that the great visions that light up the Western sky and drive us to pull up our stakes and move on stir human souls to the depths, just as do those mystic chords of memory that bind us to the past. Religion and myth are not always conservative. The mystic of progress is as god-seized as the mystic of tradition. Socrates was as pious as his executioners, if not more so.
At first glance, the religion of the Anglo-American world seems neither particularly interesting nor admirable: flexible to the point of drab, pragmatic to the point of inconsistency and calm to the point of boredom. These are, however, its chief virtues. It took a dexterous sort of flexibility, pragmatism and enforced calm to save England from bitter civil wars during the latter half of the 17th century and well into the 18th. Millions of English people accepted drastic changes to the governing religious and political philosophies of their national establishment in those years. While there were significant outbreaks of violence, English and then British society never again descended into the anarchy and bloodshed of the civil war of the 1640s.
That flexibility and pragmatism was instrumental in making the greatest event of those years, the Glorious Revolution, as peaceful as it was. Pragmatism—worldly, cynical, tolerant—enabled Britain to develop a new kind of political society, one far better than any other at coping with the stresses and demands of an emerging capitalist system.
Yet this was not secularization. Despite the exhaustion that followed the battles of the British Reformation, the new society that emerged had changed its connection to religion without severing it. A deep Christian faith continued to shape both popular and elite attitudes in Britain for almost two centuries after 1688. The United States and other colonial offshoots from Britain like New Zealand and Australia remain significantly more attached to traditional religion than most European countries. The persistence of religion in so much of the Anglo-Saxon world seems related to its ability to coexist with, and even thrive on, a kind of skepticism that is fatal to static religion.
Signs of a strange new attitude toward religious dogma in the English tradition are not hard to find. “There was never anything by men so well devised or so surely established which in age and continuance of time hath not been corrupted”, wrote the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, in 1538. With a few changes that sentence survived to become the opening words of the preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. It remains today in the prayer books of the Anglican Communion. Thomas Cranmer
This is an oddly modern-sounding opening to a Reformation religious document, but it is not the only confession of uncertainty to be found in that book. All the churches have erred “not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith”, say the Articles of Religion—for centuries the definitive statement of Church of England doctrine. The Church of Rome, like all the other ancient Christian churches—Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem—had gone wrong. Indeed, the Church of England itself had gone wrong. During the two centuries following Henry VIII’s break with the old religion, “official Christianity” in Britain changed doctrine almost as often as it changed sovereigns. If that isn’t pragmatism, pray tell what is?
Slightly reformed under Henry VIII, radically reformed under Edward VI, Catholic again under Mary I, uneasily mixed under Elizabeth I—the Church of England’s doctrines and practices have continued to shift with every passing wind from the age of the Stuarts to our own times, and it will presumably continue to change. The heresy of today is the orthodoxy of tomorrow, and perhaps the heresy of the day after that.
For the purposes of politics, this is praiseworthy, but in the Christian tradition, this is scandalous. Christianity is about revelation, about God breaking into history with a definite message. Yet here are the fathers of the Anglican Church plainly stating that the truth about God is unknown, perhaps unknowable. Does this mean that God tries and fails to reveal himself? The churches of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and medieval England thought they had Eternal Truth; they did not, say the Anglo-Saxon divines. The kind of certainty that these churches claim for their beliefs is not, Cranmer wrote hundreds of years ago, what God intends for us to have.
What is interesting about this declaration isn’t just that the Church of England made it so early. It is that the Church took the news so phlegmatically. If no church and no book can tell us the infallible truth about God, why go to church and why read the Bible? For that matter, why do good and abstain from evil? Obviously, not everyone questioning these certainties reacted so calmly. Dostoyevsky’s characters lose their faith in absolute moral order and murder their landladies. French skeptics see through dogma and become militant, anticlerical atheists. Diderot longed to see the day when the last king was strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Others have thought that, without a basis in absolute religion, no social order can stand. We hear these same worries today from neoconservative intellectuals who fear that without some kind of absolute, detailed and unchanging moral code we are slouching toward Gomorrah.
This fear has deep roots in human nature, but does the historical record bear it out? The English reformers may have lost any assurance that they possessed absolute truth, but they had no doubts about the need to maintain order. Even in later years when the English church grew milder, it still didn’t lose its spine. Its faith was defined in the Thirty-nine Articles, and until well into the 19th century those who refused to sign them could not take university degrees. In the 1930s, the church that granted Henry VIII two divorces and forgave him for two more spouses beheaded forced his descendant, Edward VIII, to renounce the throne before he married Wallis Simpson. Prince Charles was forced to apologize to the former husband of the Duchess of Cornwall before he could marry her. The English bishops of Edward VIII’s day were far more skeptical than Thomas Cranmer about the doctrines they preached, and by the 21st century it was difficult to imagine an opinion that would force a well-connected English divine to renounce a bishopric. But doctrinal uncertainty is one thing, an unseemly royal marriage quite another.
That is how church leaders treated the rich. They were no less prepared to discipline the poor. The rulers of England, though deprived of the comforts of an absolute faith in an unchanging religion, nevertheless managed for four centuries to impose order on their society. Deprived of the comforts of an absolute or closed philosophy, poor Nietzsche stared into the abyss and groaned with sick, fascinated horror, “Nothing is true and everything is permitted.” That hasn’t been the Anglo-Saxon way. English bishops faced this truth and saw not the slightest reason to leap into any abyss, philosophical or otherwise. “To be sure, in theory nothing is true and everything is permitted”, yawn the English divines with the gulf of relativism gaping beneath their slippered feet. “Now, should the Alleluia be omitted after Gospel readings in Lent? And where is that girl with the cucumber sandwiches?”
Somehow, the choice between faith and unbelief did not appear as starkly to much of the English-speaking world as it did elsewhere. The English-speaking world managed to reconcile a pragmatic and skeptical approach to history and philosophy with profound religious faith and a sense of God’s providential care. That seems to be why the chasm between religion and secular modernization that raged in 20th-century Europe, and rages still in much of the world, was never as deep in the English-speaking world. From Dogma to Dynamo
Two ideas in creative tension have coexisted for half a millennium in the Anglosphere. On the one hand, God exists and reveals His will regarding moral rules and religious doctrines to human beings; on the other hand, human understanding of these revelations remains partial, and very much subject to change.
It was thanks to this tension that, as its social evolution speeded up, the English-speaking world managed to move from an essentially static religious condition, in which a stable equilibrium was periodically shaken by episodes of religious dynamism, to a dynamic religious system anchored by persistent elements of stasis. The emerging religious structure of the English-speaking world had two outstanding features that made it particularly suitable for the growth of dynamic society. First, there was a pluralistic and multipolar religious environment, with many different denominations and theological tendencies existing side by side. And second, much of British religion, though not all, was dominated by theological formulations that were more responsive to dynamic than to static religion.
The peculiar religious evolution of the Anglosphere doesn’t seem to have happened as the result of any grand plan. It was rather more an accident—that or Divine Providence, depending on one’s tastes. To make a long and highly literary story short, by the end of the 17th century, England’s many Protestant sects recognized that no single one of them could reasonably expect to occupy the ground of the old Catholic Church. Each could still believe that it possessed the full and only gospel truth, each little chapel could glory in the knowledge that beneath its humble eaves were gathered the earthly representatives of the One True Church of God, but this was a primacy that the world-at-large would never acknowledge.
Milton was one of the first to grasp the implications of this plurality, arguing to Parliament in 1644 against government censorship of books in a famous speech, Areopagitica, named for the hill in Athens where the judges met and where St. Paul once taught. Noting that censorship was prevalent where Catholic prelates sought to impose orthodoxy through the power of the Inquisition, and reminding his audience that he, Milton, had met Galileo, “grown old a prisoner of the Inquisition” in Italy, he urged Parliament to allow free inquiry and free publishing. Truth is revealed in a process, he said, so our knowledge of God must necessarily change over time. Moreover, our knowledge grows over time: We will know more tomorrow than we do today. Truth grows when “God shakes a kingdom with strong and healthful commotions. . . . For such is the order of God’s enlightening his Church, to dispense and deal out by degrees his beam, so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it.” Change in religion was not a necessary evil, but a necessary good. Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury’s Galileo before the Holy Office
Milton himself seems to have thought a new final synthesis would emerge in time and that the chaos of progressive discovery and revelation would come to an end. But already it seemed clear, as a practical matter, that the only way to be faithful to God was to be open to religious change and new thinking: dynamic religion, not static, was needed as the basis for life. The search for truth through scripture led to the open seas, not to the safe harbors and estuaries the original reformers sought. Change was beginning to be seen as a permanent, necessary and even sanctified element of true religion.
The idea of dynamic religion, the positive acclimation to the idea of change, launched a fascinating debate in the English-speaking world of the 17th century. It rotated around the interplay of three elements: scripture, tradition and reason. It came to an apex, if not exactly a conclusion, in a reliance on what Edmund Burke called “convention.” Scripture, tradition and reason each had its place and each had its devotees, but all of them went wrong if pressed too far. You should respect the scriptures and defer to them, but not interpret them in a way that leads you into some weird millenarian sect or absurd social behavior. You honor tradition, but you do not press it so far that it leads you into the arms of royal absolutism or papal power. You employ the critique of reason against the excesses of both scripture and tradition, but without pressing reason to the point of ranting against all existing institutions, eating roots and bark for your health, or, much worse, undermining the rights of property of the established church.
One can picture John Bull scratching his head and slowly concluding that one must accept that there will always be nuts in society: Bible nuts, tradition nuts and reason nuts, or fundamentalists, papists and radicals. This is not necessarily the end of the world, because to some degree they cancel one another out. The fundamentalist zealots will keep the papists down and vice versa; the religious will keep the radicals in their place. And the competition among sects will also prevent the established church from pressing its advantages too far or forming too exalted an idea about the proper stature, prestige and emoluments of the clergy. Behold the dynamic equilibrium at work.
The result of all these offsetting forces, John Bull came to believe, was what he wanted all along: common sense and compromise. He wanted reasonableness, which is emphatically not the same thing as reason. Perhaps it would be a bit higgledy-piggledy from a theoretical point of view, but John Bull was very tired of the theoretical point of view by then. More than once he had let himself be persuaded by clever chaps with their books and their systems, and he regretted what it had led to. This pragmatism was not merely an abstract idea; it was the approach that, after the Glorious Revolution, shaped Britain’s core political institutions. Indeed, juggling scripture, tradition and reason, the English-speaking world blundered its way into an increasingly open society in which religion was constantly adjusting to the demands of social and economic change. Pluralism Above All
The religion of an open, dynamic society is not necessarily Christian, and it is certainly not always orthodox, but Anglo-American society was never completely secular and is not so now. Far from being an obstacle to the modernization of British and American society, religion became a major actor in an intensifying and accelerating process of social change and capitalist development. Constant transformation became accepted as the normal and desirable state of human affairs. As Anglo-American religion became more dynamic and less static, it also tended to become more intensely felt.
Adam Smith still gives the best description of the role of religion in an open society. Smith, whose personal religious views seem to have been much closer to those of Edward Gibbon than John Milton, argued in The Wealth of Nations that religion, even fanatical religion, is necessary to the health and happiness of society, and that free competition among religions is the best way to achieve the benefits of religion at the lowest possible cost.
In Smith’s view, there are two systems of morality, and therefore of religion, in any society. The common people, who live on an economic knife-edge, cannot afford to indulge themselves. He wrote:
A single week’s dissipation is often sufficient to undo a poor workman forever. . . . The wiser and better sort of the common people, therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their condition.
Most new sects and religions, according to Smith, have their roots among the poor, and new sects are usually marked by the stringent moral rigor they impose.
The common people need the support of a strong religious community, especially when they join the great capitalist migration from the countryside to the city. In the country, the poor workman has a reputation to uphold: He is known by all, and the community judges him according to his acts. This pressure encourages people to fulfill the responsibilities of their allotted role in the traditional world of the village. In the new condition of the city, however, the workman has less certainty about his role. He needs more than ever to maintain personal discipline and resist the temptations that have always been found in cities. The small religious congregation—the sect—replaces the social discipline of the village community.
While the manners and morals of such sects can often be, for Smith’s taste, “disagreeably rigorous and unsociable”, it is precisely their rigor and regularity that makes them effective: “In little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly.”
Religion thus no longer opposed the modernization process; it provided the psychological and social support that eventually allowed tens of millions of bewildered, hopeful, frightened peasants to find a place in the teeming cities and crowded industries of the new capitalist world. At the same time, the rise of capitalism, while destructive of religious ideas firmly based in the realities of village life, does not subvert religion in general but can lead to a new era of religious revival—and sometimes to fanaticism and fundamentalism. Indeed, Smith’s argument implies that an acceleration of capitalist growth could lead to a dangerous increase in the power of religious fanaticism—that the open society could boomerang and generate a reaction strong enough to impose a new religious dictatorship. Religion could shift back to opposing society’s Westward march.
Well aware of this danger, Smith provides steps governments can take to restrain fanatical religion. A generally high level of education, he believed, should reduce the ability of a superstitious and fanatical clergy to impose narrow ideas on the rising generation. Government should also promote public amusements as an antidote to the gloomy fantasies of religious enthusiasts, and encourage the public performance of plays that mock the wiles and shortcomings of the clergy.
In an aside full of meaning for American history, Smith also notes that the danger of religious dictatorship is much less likely where a multitude of religious groups already exists. The danger of theocracy exists when a large and established church, supported by the government, can impose conformity on dissenters. When society is divided into many religious groups, with no group able to call on government power to enforce its pretensions against its rivals, society will not dissolve into dueling fanaticisms; rather, the small sects will move toward something like a religious consensus based on increasingly moderate principles. “The teachers of each little sect”, he wrote,
finding themselves almost alone, will be obliged to respect those of almost every other sect. The concessions they would find it both convenient and agreeable to make to one another might in time reduce their doctrines to that pure and rational religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture or fanaticism, such as wise men have in all ages of the world wished to see established.
Smith would not have been surprised to find that this paragraph is a reasonably accurate summary of two centuries of American religious history.
Smith saw a virtuous circle in which religion helped human beings cope with the new demands of life in an open, changing society, and in which the operation of the open society made religion continually more fit for this purpose—and less fit to lead a reaction in favor of closed-society principles. If the history of the Anglosphere is indeed any guide, it appears that the most vigorously open society, the society that presses hardest and fastest Westward, is a religious society. To the degree that a secular society—one in which religion has been effectively marginalized—is shaped by reliance on reason rather than on the complex dance of conflicting elements that characterized the Anglophone powers at their various apogees, it is likely to be less open and dynamic than one that acknowledges more fully the irrational elements of the human psyche. The “scientific” societies of the communist world, boasting of their objective grounding in rational and scientific truth as discovered by Lenin and Marx, were considerably less flexible than the Western societies they opposed. There was less freedom in France under Robespierre and his Reign of Terror than under the less systematic and less “rational” revolutionary governments that preceded it. The ideal rational Republic Plato proposed would have been much less free and open than the messy Athenian democracy he hoped to eliminate.
Hence pluralism, even at the cost of rational consistency, is necessary in a world of change. Countervailing forces and values must contend, for without constant disputes, controversy and competition among rival ideas about how society should look and what it should do, the pace of innovation and change will slow as forces of conservative inertia grow smug and unchallenged.
This is one of the reasons the Anglophone world outpaced its continental rivals, most notably France. In France there was no multiplicity of sects like that found in Britain. Besides a small leavening of Huguenots and Jews, there were only the Catholic Church and the Enlightenment. Catholic France remained too fixed in the past—philosophically, institutionally, socially—to provide the framework French society would have needed to beat Britain in the race to the West. Secular, Jacobin France also had its rigidities, fixed perspectives and propensities to resist change rather than embrace it. The struggle between these two visions of French society propelled France to the West, but never at the speed the English traveled. Indeed, the Westward progress of any society may well reflect the degree to which many different worldviews, interest groups and subcultures find expression in its politics. Homogeneous and bipolar societies seem to be at a basic disadvantage, doomed to play catch-up in a world in which the leaders win disproportionate rewards. The social model based on the British Enlightenment and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 reflects a broad and deep pluralism that the political paradigms based on the French Enlightenment and the Revolution of 1789 lack.
The fact that the Anglosphere emerged from the British Reformation with an ability to tolerate and even welcome the conflicts, tensions and radical uncertainties of an open society helps explain the English-speaking world’s capacity to cope with the risks and stresses of capitalist society, even as they have posed obstacles for much of the rest of the world. Capitalism requires that people stop looking to conserve the past and instead fix their hopes on the future.
On a broader scale, a capitalist society is one in which the creative destruction of the market is constantly reshaping basic institutions. We are always saying goodbye to something we love, always leaving our fathers’ homes for an unknown future. This is true of individual entrepreneurs, who must risk losing the wealth they currently have in the quest for more; it is more broadly true throughout a changing society. Semper eadem was the motto of the feudal world: Always the same. The church, the state, the law, the dynasty: Every institution derived its authority from its antiquity. Semper reformanda is the motto of capitalism: Everything needs to be remade, over and over again. The older a machine, a firm, a factory, a product, a social compact, an idea or a technology, the more suspect it is.
At the same time, there must be room for nostalgia and resistance to change. There must be religious voices denouncing godless secularism and calling mankind back to eternal principles, even as they denounce one another for heresy. Human society must be torn between strongly felt ideals, because no one ideal can hold all the answers. Open society must be secular and religious, dogmatic and free. “Doxies” of all kinds must find a place there and be cherished; yet the conflict and catfights between them can never end. Abrahamic America
This is how the social and economic dynamism of capitalism confirmed rather than challenged religious beliefs and affections. And if Britain created the synergy between dynamic religion and capitalist success, America has extended it. In both cases, one Biblical image and narrative led the way: that of Abraham.
American individualism, freedom of conscience and debate, pluralism, democratic opposition to natural and social hierarchies, community institutions, and a deeply grounded practice of democracy are all historically rooted in the Protestantism that shaped early American culture. One additional element needs to be stressed: The degree to which the individualistic basis of Anglo-American religious experience links the religious life of the individual to a God who reveals Himself—as He did to Abraham—in the changes and upheavals of life, rather than in its stabilities and unchanging verities. This understanding has had a profound effect and continues to exercise a powerful force on the English-speaking world today. It has given, and still gives, direction to its spiritual striving and self-understanding, which has helped ensure that, over succeeding centuries, individuals and society as a whole continue to devote their full energy to the exploration and development of the possibilities of capitalist society.
The connections between capitalist values and the dynamic Protestant religious culture that shaped the modern English-speaking world run deeper than the mechanisms Max Weber identified just over a century ago. Yes, it is true that Calvinists sublimated fears about salvation into habits that promoted discipline—that being good somehow transmuted into doing well. But Protestants also came to believe that living in communion with God and experiencing the hope of salvation meant cooperating with, and even furthering, the waves of social change unleashed by capitalism on the English-speaking world. Increasingly, dynamic religion would become the only true religion for English speakers. Religion not only had to tolerate change; it had to advance it. advertisement
The key theological reference point for this transformation of values was the patriarch Abraham. The significance his story assumed in Anglo-American religion has roots deep in Reformation theology. Martin Luther’s interpretation of Pauline theology put the figure of Abraham front and center. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul stresses that Abraham’s faithful initial response to God’s call was the basis for salvation. Thus this narrative became, in the eyes of Luther and his followers, the bedrock of the core tenet of Protestantism—sola fide, or justification by faith alone.
As Protestants saw it, Abraham’s faith—his willingness to leave his home and family in obedience to a call from God—became the foundation for God’s redemption of the human race. Without a doubt many Protestant converts from Catholicism were sustained by Abraham’s example; they too believed they were abandoning their fathers’ beliefs to answer a higher calling. The new sense of faith as a journey that required the abandonment of the familiar became a central idea in the religious and devotional literature of the time. The wildly successful Pilgrim’s Progress is the story of how a Christian forsakes the comfortable, conventional religion of his family and community to follow a call. Next to the King James Bible, this was the most common book in English homes well into the 19th century. Next to the Bible, it was the book most commonly owned by the American pioneers.
Abraham’s faithful response to God’s promise is a deeper and more positive force than the fear that drives Weber’s Calvinist analysis. The Calvinist is running in fear from a hideous fate, but the follower of Abraham is reaching out toward something positive—a transcendent call that bespeaks a reality far richer and more rewarding. Embracing change itself becomes a sacrament. Moving from the known to the unknown brings one closest to God. Change is no longer a necessary evil that must sometimes be endured; it now has religious sanction, and to embrace change is to encounter the meaning of life.
Where Weber, like European Enlightenment thinkers, saw progress in terms of rationalization and the disappearance of the numinous from ordinary existence, for the individualistic Anglo-American Christian, the “personal relationship with God” is a powerful and effective link with the realm of the transcendent that does not wither or fade in the face of the modernizing and rationalizing processes of capitalist society. On the contrary, the experience of transcendence may become increasingly important to a population facing growing uncertainty in a world of accelerating change. The more the world changes, and the more the believer changes in response, the closer he or she comes to God. Ecclesia semper reformanda: The church and the world are always in need of renewal and change.
The pull of these values has not been limited to orthodox Protestants. Indeed, it is precisely this “Protestant principle” of progressive change that led men like Ralph Waldo Emerson beyond even the very capacious boundaries of the Unitarian faith. In a real sense, change itself—understood as a progressive response to a call whether from God or some inner, higher self—can become an object of worship in the English-speaking world.
As American religion in particular became more personalized and emotional, its identification with Abraham’s faithful response to change only deepened. From the time of Jonathan Edwards in the early 18th century to the revivals of our own day, the Great Awakenings of American history have focused on the idea of God’s call. In the Kentucky revivals at the turn of the 19th century, when strong men and pioneer women fell to the ground and shook, and in later revivals, when thousands knelt in tears on the tent floors as Dwight Moody preached and Ira Sankey sang, or when the fires of the Holy Spirit fell on the ecstatic worshippers at the Azusa Street church in Los Angeles in the early 20th century, millions of Americans felt a personal call from God to leave the familiar worlds and ideas of their past and journey toward something unknown.
In some cases, such as the Mormons, it was a literal call to imitate Abraham and move to a new promised land. In others, it meant leaving established churches for fledgling denominations. Almost always, the Great Awakenings have come at times when Americans were either engaged in or preparing for moments of great change. The astonishing outpourings of enthusiasm that followed George Whitfield’s progress across the colonies and the Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards helped prepare the way for the American Revolution. The Kentucky revivals that followed were instrumental in the creation of a frontier society and a new kind of democratic lifestyle independent of the strictures and conventions of the East.
Today’s religious revivals in the South, too—and not just the South—come at a time when old patterns of life based on segregation and farming have been replaced by very different conditions. Overall, just as the proliferation of small sects helped the transplanted countrymen of Adam Smith’s Britain adjust to new social patterns and work rhythms in the cities of an industrializing economy, so did the revival meetings, circuit riders and tiny wilderness churches help Americans adapt to a succession of dramatic and rapid changes.
The belief that every Christian must have a personal, Abrahamic experience of God’s call has for more than three centuries been strengthening its hold in American life. American Protestants stress the importance of a personal decision for Christ and a personal relationship with God. In the American context Christianity is less and less a matter of family or ethnic identity, and ever more a matter of personal choice. We must all be Abraham now.
This is a truly revolutionary way of conceptualizing religion. Historically, religious identity has largely been an aspect of a broader social and ethnic identity. One is Greek Orthodox or Hindu, because that is the faith into which one was born. The mobility of American religious life, with frequent movement mostly among the major Protestant denominations, but also beyond and across these boundaries—combined with the increasingly individualistic nature of American theology and piety—has dramatically changed this picture. Religion today is increasingly part of a self-constructed identity for Americans. It is perceived as a response to a call, an inherently dynamic religious orientation, even if the doctrines embraced are venerable.
The cultural impact of this orientation goes far beyond the pulpits and the pews of American religion. The widespread American belief that each life is a kind of project to be planned, that one has a unique dream which must be pursued through all hardships and reverses, all testify to the power of the Abrahamic archetype in the American mind (consider the ease with which Americans move hundreds and even thousands of miles in pursuit of opportunity or fulfillment).
This Abrahamic concept of a calling strengthens and intensifies the influence of Weber’s “Protestant ethic”, even as it extends its influence from the sphere of individual and family life into the broader society. As the Weberian Calvinist grimly works and saves, he or she generates the cash and the work habits that will make capitalism grow. The Abrahamic believer, convinced that God is leading the way to an unknown future in a new land, is ready to accept not only the personal but also the social consequences of capitalist life. Are the old folkways and habits passing away? Have strip malls and townhouses sprung up in the meadows and forests where one played as a child? Are gender roles melting and changing even as new immigrant groups fill the land? Is the old industrial economy of union labor and stable employment mutating into something mysterious, complex, dynamic and new?
For the soul grounded in static religion, such changes are hard to accept. For the dynamic believer, change is both a sign of progress and an opportunity to show the crowning virtue of faith. To struggle for change and reform is not to oppose the religious instinct, but to give it its fullest expression. Whether they were struggling to build businesses, change social institutions to reflect the new requirements and possibilities of a capitalist system, or simply accustom themselves to the accelerating juggernaut of change, millions of Anglo-Americans over the centuries were not trapped in a Pascalian vicious circle. They really did see something transcendent in their lives; they really did believe that they were struggling toward God. And to the degree that fulfillment comes from making a journey of faith, they didn’t just seek God. They found Him.
The history of the world over most of the past four centuries has been shaped decisively by the exploits of English-speaking people. First English then British then American power has been more economically productive and militarily and strategically successful than any other. A decisive factor in this history of success is that both the British and the Americans came from a culture that was uniquely well positioned to harness the titanic forces of capitalism as they emerged on the world scene. The British and Americans have proved better able than others to tolerate the stress, uncertainty and inequality associated with free-market forms of capitalism, and have been consistently among the best performers at creating a favorable institutional and social climate in which capitalism can thrive.
That achievement has in turn placed Anglo-American society at the forefront of technological development. Both countries have had the deep and flexible financial markets that provide greater prosperity in peace and allow government to tap the wealth of societies for greater effectiveness in war. The great business enterprises that take shape in these dynamic and cutting-edge economies enjoy tremendous advantages when they venture out into global markets to compete against less technologically advanced, poorly financed and managerially unsophisticated rivals in other countries and cultures.
This aptitude for capitalism has at least some of its roots in the way the British Reformation created a pluralistic society that was at once unusually tolerant, unusually open to new ideas, and unusually pious. In most of the world, the traditional values of religion are seen as deeply opposed to the utilitarian goals of capitalism. The English-speaking world, contrary to the intentions of almost all the leading actors of the period, reached a new kind of religious equilibrium in which capitalism and social change came to be accepted as good things. Indeed, since the 17th century, the English-speaking world for the most part has believed that embracing and even accelerating economic, social, cultural and political change fulfills their religious destiny.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Anglo-American world synthesized its religious beliefs with its unfolding historical experience to build an ideology that has shaped what is still the dominant paradigm in the English-speaking world, the deeply rooted vision of the way the world works that lies behind the physics of Sir Isaac Newton, the political economy of Adam Smith, the constitutional theories of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and the biological theories of Charles Darwin: that of the self-regulating dynamic equilibrium.
While many of these thinkers were not particularly or conventionally religious, their belief that order arises spontaneously from the play of natural forces is a way of restating some of the most powerful spiritual convictions of the English-speaking world. The idea that the world is built or guided by God in such a way that the unrestricted free play of extant forces creates an ordered and higher form of society is found virtually everywhere in the Anglo-Saxon world. It makes people both individualist and optimistic, and it has produced the “Whig narrative”, a theory of history that sees the slow and gradual march of progress in a free society as the dominant trend in not just Anglo-American history, but in all of history. Revelation and Reform
The idea that the roots of Anglo-American success are to be found in large part in religious culture runs sharply against the grain of modern historical analysis. The idea that enlightenment implies secularization is widely and deeply rooted, and the notion of civilization as a tragically necessary choice that inevitably cuts mankind off from the deepest elements in its nature was one of the most common tropes in both the 19th-century Romantic movement and 20th-century intellectual discourse. It is also a notion that has been proven as wrong as it is common: The countries that are in most respects the most thoroughly modernized by any definition that rests on economic and technological progress—19th-century Britain and the United States today—are significantly more religious than most.
The key to the ability of the Anglophone world to advance so far “West”, culturally speaking, and maintain its lead position in the global caravan is therefore not that it has been more secular than other societies. On the contrary, dynamic religion—religion that is open to change and that accords change a positive role in its sacred narrative—explains Anglophone ascendancy. Dynamic religion infiltrated and supplemented static religion in the religious life of the Anglophones. It showed that the great visions that light up the Western sky and drive us to pull up our stakes and move on stir human souls to the depths, just as do those mystic chords of memory that bind us to the past. Religion and myth are not always conservative. The mystic of progress is as god-seized as the mystic of tradition. Socrates was as pious as his executioners, if not more so.
At first glance, the religion of the Anglo-American world seems neither particularly interesting nor admirable: flexible to the point of drab, pragmatic to the point of inconsistency and calm to the point of boredom. These are, however, its chief virtues. It took a dexterous sort of flexibility, pragmatism and enforced calm to save England from bitter civil wars during the latter half of the 17th century and well into the 18th. Millions of English people accepted drastic changes to the governing religious and political philosophies of their national establishment in those years. While there were significant outbreaks of violence, English and then British society never again descended into the anarchy and bloodshed of the civil war of the 1640s.
That flexibility and pragmatism was instrumental in making the greatest event of those years, the Glorious Revolution, as peaceful as it was. Pragmatism—worldly, cynical, tolerant—enabled Britain to develop a new kind of political society, one far better than any other at coping with the stresses and demands of an emerging capitalist system.
Yet this was not secularization. Despite the exhaustion that followed the battles of the British Reformation, the new society that emerged had changed its connection to religion without severing it. A deep Christian faith continued to shape both popular and elite attitudes in Britain for almost two centuries after 1688. The United States and other colonial offshoots from Britain like New Zealand and Australia remain significantly more attached to traditional religion than most European countries. The persistence of religion in so much of the Anglo-Saxon world seems related to its ability to coexist with, and even thrive on, a kind of skepticism that is fatal to static religion.
Signs of a strange new attitude toward religious dogma in the English tradition are not hard to find. “There was never anything by men so well devised or so surely established which in age and continuance of time hath not been corrupted”, wrote the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, in 1538. With a few changes that sentence survived to become the opening words of the preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. It remains today in the prayer books of the Anglican Communion. Thomas Cranmer
This is an oddly modern-sounding opening to a Reformation religious document, but it is not the only confession of uncertainty to be found in that book. All the churches have erred “not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith”, say the Articles of Religion—for centuries the definitive statement of Church of England doctrine. The Church of Rome, like all the other ancient Christian churches—Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem—had gone wrong. Indeed, the Church of England itself had gone wrong. During the two centuries following Henry VIII’s break with the old religion, “official Christianity” in Britain changed doctrine almost as often as it changed sovereigns. If that isn’t pragmatism, pray tell what is?
Slightly reformed under Henry VIII, radically reformed under Edward VI, Catholic again under Mary I, uneasily mixed under Elizabeth I—the Church of England’s doctrines and practices have continued to shift with every passing wind from the age of the Stuarts to our own times, and it will presumably continue to change. The heresy of today is the orthodoxy of tomorrow, and perhaps the heresy of the day after that.
For the purposes of politics, this is praiseworthy, but in the Christian tradition, this is scandalous. Christianity is about revelation, about God breaking into history with a definite message. Yet here are the fathers of the Anglican Church plainly stating that the truth about God is unknown, perhaps unknowable. Does this mean that God tries and fails to reveal himself? The churches of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and medieval England thought they had Eternal Truth; they did not, say the Anglo-Saxon divines. The kind of certainty that these churches claim for their beliefs is not, Cranmer wrote hundreds of years ago, what God intends for us to have.
What is interesting about this declaration isn’t just that the Church of England made it so early. It is that the Church took the news so phlegmatically. If no church and no book can tell us the infallible truth about God, why go to church and why read the Bible? For that matter, why do good and abstain from evil? Obviously, not everyone questioning these certainties reacted so calmly. Dostoyevsky’s characters lose their faith in absolute moral order and murder their landladies. French skeptics see through dogma and become militant, anticlerical atheists. Diderot longed to see the day when the last king was strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Others have thought that, without a basis in absolute religion, no social order can stand. We hear these same worries today from neoconservative intellectuals who fear that without some kind of absolute, detailed and unchanging moral code we are slouching toward Gomorrah.
This fear has deep roots in human nature, but does the historical record bear it out? The English reformers may have lost any assurance that they possessed absolute truth, but they had no doubts about the need to maintain order. Even in later years when the English church grew milder, it still didn’t lose its spine. Its faith was defined in the Thirty-nine Articles, and until well into the 19th century those who refused to sign them could not take university degrees. In the 1930s, the church that granted Henry VIII two divorces and forgave him for two more spouses beheaded forced his descendant, Edward VIII, to renounce the throne before he married Wallis Simpson. Prince Charles was forced to apologize to the former husband of the Duchess of Cornwall before he could marry her. The English bishops of Edward VIII’s day were far more skeptical than Thomas Cranmer about the doctrines they preached, and by the 21st century it was difficult to imagine an opinion that would force a well-connected English divine to renounce a bishopric. But doctrinal uncertainty is one thing, an unseemly royal marriage quite another.
That is how church leaders treated the rich. They were no less prepared to discipline the poor. The rulers of England, though deprived of the comforts of an absolute faith in an unchanging religion, nevertheless managed for four centuries to impose order on their society. Deprived of the comforts of an absolute or closed philosophy, poor Nietzsche stared into the abyss and groaned with sick, fascinated horror, “Nothing is true and everything is permitted.” That hasn’t been the Anglo-Saxon way. English bishops faced this truth and saw not the slightest reason to leap into any abyss, philosophical or otherwise. “To be sure, in theory nothing is true and everything is permitted”, yawn the English divines with the gulf of relativism gaping beneath their slippered feet. “Now, should the Alleluia be omitted after Gospel readings in Lent? And where is that girl with the cucumber sandwiches?”
Somehow, the choice between faith and unbelief did not appear as starkly to much of the English-speaking world as it did elsewhere. The English-speaking world managed to reconcile a pragmatic and skeptical approach to history and philosophy with profound religious faith and a sense of God’s providential care. That seems to be why the chasm between religion and secular modernization that raged in 20th-century Europe, and rages still in much of the world, was never as deep in the English-speaking world. From Dogma to Dynamo
Two ideas in creative tension have coexisted for half a millennium in the Anglosphere. On the one hand, God exists and reveals His will regarding moral rules and religious doctrines to human beings; on the other hand, human understanding of these revelations remains partial, and very much subject to change.
It was thanks to this tension that, as its social evolution speeded up, the English-speaking world managed to move from an essentially static religious condition, in which a stable equilibrium was periodically shaken by episodes of religious dynamism, to a dynamic religious system anchored by persistent elements of stasis. The emerging religious structure of the English-speaking world had two outstanding features that made it particularly suitable for the growth of dynamic society. First, there was a pluralistic and multipolar religious environment, with many different denominations and theological tendencies existing side by side. And second, much of British religion, though not all, was dominated by theological formulations that were more responsive to dynamic than to static religion.
The peculiar religious evolution of the Anglosphere doesn’t seem to have happened as the result of any grand plan. It was rather more an accident—that or Divine Providence, depending on one’s tastes. To make a long and highly literary story short, by the end of the 17th century, England’s many Protestant sects recognized that no single one of them could reasonably expect to occupy the ground of the old Catholic Church. Each could still believe that it possessed the full and only gospel truth, each little chapel could glory in the knowledge that beneath its humble eaves were gathered the earthly representatives of the One True Church of God, but this was a primacy that the world-at-large would never acknowledge.
Milton was one of the first to grasp the implications of this plurality, arguing to Parliament in 1644 against government censorship of books in a famous speech, Areopagitica, named for the hill in Athens where the judges met and where St. Paul once taught. Noting that censorship was prevalent where Catholic prelates sought to impose orthodoxy through the power of the Inquisition, and reminding his audience that he, Milton, had met Galileo, “grown old a prisoner of the Inquisition” in Italy, he urged Parliament to allow free inquiry and free publishing. Truth is revealed in a process, he said, so our knowledge of God must necessarily change over time. Moreover, our knowledge grows over time: We will know more tomorrow than we do today. Truth grows when “God shakes a kingdom with strong and healthful commotions. . . . For such is the order of God’s enlightening his Church, to dispense and deal out by degrees his beam, so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it.” Change in religion was not a necessary evil, but a necessary good. Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury’s Galileo before the Holy Office
Milton himself seems to have thought a new final synthesis would emerge in time and that the chaos of progressive discovery and revelation would come to an end. But already it seemed clear, as a practical matter, that the only way to be faithful to God was to be open to religious change and new thinking: dynamic religion, not static, was needed as the basis for life. The search for truth through scripture led to the open seas, not to the safe harbors and estuaries the original reformers sought. Change was beginning to be seen as a permanent, necessary and even sanctified element of true religion.
The idea of dynamic religion, the positive acclimation to the idea of change, launched a fascinating debate in the English-speaking world of the 17th century. It rotated around the interplay of three elements: scripture, tradition and reason. It came to an apex, if not exactly a conclusion, in a reliance on what Edmund Burke called “convention.” Scripture, tradition and reason each had its place and each had its devotees, but all of them went wrong if pressed too far. You should respect the scriptures and defer to them, but not interpret them in a way that leads you into some weird millenarian sect or absurd social behavior. You honor tradition, but you do not press it so far that it leads you into the arms of royal absolutism or papal power. You employ the critique of reason against the excesses of both scripture and tradition, but without pressing reason to the point of ranting against all existing institutions, eating roots and bark for your health, or, much worse, undermining the rights of property of the established church.
One can picture John Bull scratching his head and slowly concluding that one must accept that there will always be nuts in society: Bible nuts, tradition nuts and reason nuts, or fundamentalists, papists and radicals. This is not necessarily the end of the world, because to some degree they cancel one another out. The fundamentalist zealots will keep the papists down and vice versa; the religious will keep the radicals in their place. And the competition among sects will also prevent the established church from pressing its advantages too far or forming too exalted an idea about the proper stature, prestige and emoluments of the clergy. Behold the dynamic equilibrium at work.
The result of all these offsetting forces, John Bull came to believe, was what he wanted all along: common sense and compromise. He wanted reasonableness, which is emphatically not the same thing as reason. Perhaps it would be a bit higgledy-piggledy from a theoretical point of view, but John Bull was very tired of the theoretical point of view by then. More than once he had let himself be persuaded by clever chaps with their books and their systems, and he regretted what it had led to. This pragmatism was not merely an abstract idea; it was the approach that, after the Glorious Revolution, shaped Britain’s core political institutions. Indeed, juggling scripture, tradition and reason, the English-speaking world blundered its way into an increasingly open society in which religion was constantly adjusting to the demands of social and economic change. Pluralism Above All
The religion of an open, dynamic society is not necessarily Christian, and it is certainly not always orthodox, but Anglo-American society was never completely secular and is not so now. Far from being an obstacle to the modernization of British and American society, religion became a major actor in an intensifying and accelerating process of social change and capitalist development. Constant transformation became accepted as the normal and desirable state of human affairs. As Anglo-American religion became more dynamic and less static, it also tended to become more intensely felt.
Adam Smith still gives the best description of the role of religion in an open society. Smith, whose personal religious views seem to have been much closer to those of Edward Gibbon than John Milton, argued in The Wealth of Nations that religion, even fanatical religion, is necessary to the health and happiness of society, and that free competition among religions is the best way to achieve the benefits of religion at the lowest possible cost.
In Smith’s view, there are two systems of morality, and therefore of religion, in any society. The common people, who live on an economic knife-edge, cannot afford to indulge themselves. He wrote:
A single week’s dissipation is often sufficient to undo a poor workman forever. . . . The wiser and better sort of the common people, therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their condition.
Most new sects and religions, according to Smith, have their roots among the poor, and new sects are usually marked by the stringent moral rigor they impose.
The common people need the support of a strong religious community, especially when they join the great capitalist migration from the countryside to the city. In the country, the poor workman has a reputation to uphold: He is known by all, and the community judges him according to his acts. This pressure encourages people to fulfill the responsibilities of their allotted role in the traditional world of the village. In the new condition of the city, however, the workman has less certainty about his role. He needs more than ever to maintain personal discipline and resist the temptations that have always been found in cities. The small religious congregation—the sect—replaces the social discipline of the village community.
While the manners and morals of such sects can often be, for Smith’s taste, “disagreeably rigorous and unsociable”, it is precisely their rigor and regularity that makes them effective: “In little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly.”
Religion thus no longer opposed the modernization process; it provided the psychological and social support that eventually allowed tens of millions of bewildered, hopeful, frightened peasants to find a place in the teeming cities and crowded industries of the new capitalist world. At the same time, the rise of capitalism, while destructive of religious ideas firmly based in the realities of village life, does not subvert religion in general but can lead to a new era of religious revival—and sometimes to fanaticism and fundamentalism. Indeed, Smith’s argument implies that an acceleration of capitalist growth could lead to a dangerous increase in the power of religious fanaticism—that the open society could boomerang and generate a reaction strong enough to impose a new religious dictatorship. Religion could shift back to opposing society’s Westward march.
Well aware of this danger, Smith provides steps governments can take to restrain fanatical religion. A generally high level of education, he believed, should reduce the ability of a superstitious and fanatical clergy to impose narrow ideas on the rising generation. Government should also promote public amusements as an antidote to the gloomy fantasies of religious enthusiasts, and encourage the public performance of plays that mock the wiles and shortcomings of the clergy.
In an aside full of meaning for American history, Smith also notes that the danger of religious dictatorship is much less likely where a multitude of religious groups already exists. The danger of theocracy exists when a large and established church, supported by the government, can impose conformity on dissenters. When society is divided into many religious groups, with no group able to call on government power to enforce its pretensions against its rivals, society will not dissolve into dueling fanaticisms; rather, the small sects will move toward something like a religious consensus based on increasingly moderate principles. “The teachers of each little sect”, he wrote,
finding themselves almost alone, will be obliged to respect those of almost every other sect. The concessions they would find it both convenient and agreeable to make to one another might in time reduce their doctrines to that pure and rational religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture or fanaticism, such as wise men have in all ages of the world wished to see established.
Smith would not have been surprised to find that this paragraph is a reasonably accurate summary of two centuries of American religious history.
Smith saw a virtuous circle in which religion helped human beings cope with the new demands of life in an open, changing society, and in which the operation of the open society made religion continually more fit for this purpose—and less fit to lead a reaction in favor of closed-society principles. If the history of the Anglosphere is indeed any guide, it appears that the most vigorously open society, the society that presses hardest and fastest Westward, is a religious society. To the degree that a secular society—one in which religion has been effectively marginalized—is shaped by reliance on reason rather than on the complex dance of conflicting elements that characterized the Anglophone powers at their various apogees, it is likely to be less open and dynamic than one that acknowledges more fully the irrational elements of the human psyche. The “scientific” societies of the communist world, boasting of their objective grounding in rational and scientific truth as discovered by Lenin and Marx, were considerably less flexible than the Western societies they opposed. There was less freedom in France under Robespierre and his Reign of Terror than under the less systematic and less “rational” revolutionary governments that preceded it. The ideal rational Republic Plato proposed would have been much less free and open than the messy Athenian democracy he hoped to eliminate.
Hence pluralism, even at the cost of rational consistency, is necessary in a world of change. Countervailing forces and values must contend, for without constant disputes, controversy and competition among rival ideas about how society should look and what it should do, the pace of innovation and change will slow as forces of conservative inertia grow smug and unchallenged.
This is one of the reasons the Anglophone world outpaced its continental rivals, most notably France. In France there was no multiplicity of sects like that found in Britain. Besides a small leavening of Huguenots and Jews, there were only the Catholic Church and the Enlightenment. Catholic France remained too fixed in the past—philosophically, institutionally, socially—to provide the framework French society would have needed to beat Britain in the race to the West. Secular, Jacobin France also had its rigidities, fixed perspectives and propensities to resist change rather than embrace it. The struggle between these two visions of French society propelled France to the West, but never at the speed the English traveled. Indeed, the Westward progress of any society may well reflect the degree to which many different worldviews, interest groups and subcultures find expression in its politics. Homogeneous and bipolar societies seem to be at a basic disadvantage, doomed to play catch-up in a world in which the leaders win disproportionate rewards. The social model based on the British Enlightenment and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 reflects a broad and deep pluralism that the political paradigms based on the French Enlightenment and the Revolution of 1789 lack.
The fact that the Anglosphere emerged from the British Reformation with an ability to tolerate and even welcome the conflicts, tensions and radical uncertainties of an open society helps explain the English-speaking world’s capacity to cope with the risks and stresses of capitalist society, even as they have posed obstacles for much of the rest of the world. Capitalism requires that people stop looking to conserve the past and instead fix their hopes on the future.
On a broader scale, a capitalist society is one in which the creative destruction of the market is constantly reshaping basic institutions. We are always saying goodbye to something we love, always leaving our fathers’ homes for an unknown future. This is true of individual entrepreneurs, who must risk losing the wealth they currently have in the quest for more; it is more broadly true throughout a changing society. Semper eadem was the motto of the feudal world: Always the same. The church, the state, the law, the dynasty: Every institution derived its authority from its antiquity. Semper reformanda is the motto of capitalism: Everything needs to be remade, over and over again. The older a machine, a firm, a factory, a product, a social compact, an idea or a technology, the more suspect it is.
At the same time, there must be room for nostalgia and resistance to change. There must be religious voices denouncing godless secularism and calling mankind back to eternal principles, even as they denounce one another for heresy. Human society must be torn between strongly felt ideals, because no one ideal can hold all the answers. Open society must be secular and religious, dogmatic and free. “Doxies” of all kinds must find a place there and be cherished; yet the conflict and catfights between them can never end. Abrahamic America
This is how the social and economic dynamism of capitalism confirmed rather than challenged religious beliefs and affections. And if Britain created the synergy between dynamic religion and capitalist success, America has extended it. In both cases, one Biblical image and narrative led the way: that of Abraham.
American individualism, freedom of conscience and debate, pluralism, democratic opposition to natural and social hierarchies, community institutions, and a deeply grounded practice of democracy are all historically rooted in the Protestantism that shaped early American culture. One additional element needs to be stressed: The degree to which the individualistic basis of Anglo-American religious experience links the religious life of the individual to a God who reveals Himself—as He did to Abraham—in the changes and upheavals of life, rather than in its stabilities and unchanging verities. This understanding has had a profound effect and continues to exercise a powerful force on the English-speaking world today. It has given, and still gives, direction to its spiritual striving and self-understanding, which has helped ensure that, over succeeding centuries, individuals and society as a whole continue to devote their full energy to the exploration and development of the possibilities of capitalist society.
The connections between capitalist values and the dynamic Protestant religious culture that shaped the modern English-speaking world run deeper than the mechanisms Max Weber identified just over a century ago. Yes, it is true that Calvinists sublimated fears about salvation into habits that promoted discipline—that being good somehow transmuted into doing well. But Protestants also came to believe that living in communion with God and experiencing the hope of salvation meant cooperating with, and even furthering, the waves of social change unleashed by capitalism on the English-speaking world. Increasingly, dynamic religion would become the only true religion for English speakers. Religion not only had to tolerate change; it had to advance it. advertisement
The key theological reference point for this transformation of values was the patriarch Abraham. The significance his story assumed in Anglo-American religion has roots deep in Reformation theology. Martin Luther’s interpretation of Pauline theology put the figure of Abraham front and center. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul stresses that Abraham’s faithful initial response to God’s call was the basis for salvation. Thus this narrative became, in the eyes of Luther and his followers, the bedrock of the core tenet of Protestantism—sola fide, or justification by faith alone.
As Protestants saw it, Abraham’s faith—his willingness to leave his home and family in obedience to a call from God—became the foundation for God’s redemption of the human race. Without a doubt many Protestant converts from Catholicism were sustained by Abraham’s example; they too believed they were abandoning their fathers’ beliefs to answer a higher calling. The new sense of faith as a journey that required the abandonment of the familiar became a central idea in the religious and devotional literature of the time. The wildly successful Pilgrim’s Progress is the story of how a Christian forsakes the comfortable, conventional religion of his family and community to follow a call. Next to the King James Bible, this was the most common book in English homes well into the 19th century. Next to the Bible, it was the book most commonly owned by the American pioneers.
Abraham’s faithful response to God’s promise is a deeper and more positive force than the fear that drives Weber’s Calvinist analysis. The Calvinist is running in fear from a hideous fate, but the follower of Abraham is reaching out toward something positive—a transcendent call that bespeaks a reality far richer and more rewarding. Embracing change itself becomes a sacrament. Moving from the known to the unknown brings one closest to God. Change is no longer a necessary evil that must sometimes be endured; it now has religious sanction, and to embrace change is to encounter the meaning of life.
Where Weber, like European Enlightenment thinkers, saw progress in terms of rationalization and the disappearance of the numinous from ordinary existence, for the individualistic Anglo-American Christian, the “personal relationship with God” is a powerful and effective link with the realm of the transcendent that does not wither or fade in the face of the modernizing and rationalizing processes of capitalist society. On the contrary, the experience of transcendence may become increasingly important to a population facing growing uncertainty in a world of accelerating change. The more the world changes, and the more the believer changes in response, the closer he or she comes to God. Ecclesia semper reformanda: The church and the world are always in need of renewal and change.
The pull of these values has not been limited to orthodox Protestants. Indeed, it is precisely this “Protestant principle” of progressive change that led men like Ralph Waldo Emerson beyond even the very capacious boundaries of the Unitarian faith. In a real sense, change itself—understood as a progressive response to a call whether from God or some inner, higher self—can become an object of worship in the English-speaking world.
As American religion in particular became more personalized and emotional, its identification with Abraham’s faithful response to change only deepened. From the time of Jonathan Edwards in the early 18th century to the revivals of our own day, the Great Awakenings of American history have focused on the idea of God’s call. In the Kentucky revivals at the turn of the 19th century, when strong men and pioneer women fell to the ground and shook, and in later revivals, when thousands knelt in tears on the tent floors as Dwight Moody preached and Ira Sankey sang, or when the fires of the Holy Spirit fell on the ecstatic worshippers at the Azusa Street church in Los Angeles in the early 20th century, millions of Americans felt a personal call from God to leave the familiar worlds and ideas of their past and journey toward something unknown.
In some cases, such as the Mormons, it was a literal call to imitate Abraham and move to a new promised land. In others, it meant leaving established churches for fledgling denominations. Almost always, the Great Awakenings have come at times when Americans were either engaged in or preparing for moments of great change. The astonishing outpourings of enthusiasm that followed George Whitfield’s progress across the colonies and the Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards helped prepare the way for the American Revolution. The Kentucky revivals that followed were instrumental in the creation of a frontier society and a new kind of democratic lifestyle independent of the strictures and conventions of the East.
Today’s religious revivals in the South, too—and not just the South—come at a time when old patterns of life based on segregation and farming have been replaced by very different conditions. Overall, just as the proliferation of small sects helped the transplanted countrymen of Adam Smith’s Britain adjust to new social patterns and work rhythms in the cities of an industrializing economy, so did the revival meetings, circuit riders and tiny wilderness churches help Americans adapt to a succession of dramatic and rapid changes.
The belief that every Christian must have a personal, Abrahamic experience of God’s call has for more than three centuries been strengthening its hold in American life. American Protestants stress the importance of a personal decision for Christ and a personal relationship with God. In the American context Christianity is less and less a matter of family or ethnic identity, and ever more a matter of personal choice. We must all be Abraham now.
This is a truly revolutionary way of conceptualizing religion. Historically, religious identity has largely been an aspect of a broader social and ethnic identity. One is Greek Orthodox or Hindu, because that is the faith into which one was born. The mobility of American religious life, with frequent movement mostly among the major Protestant denominations, but also beyond and across these boundaries—combined with the increasingly individualistic nature of American theology and piety—has dramatically changed this picture. Religion today is increasingly part of a self-constructed identity for Americans. It is perceived as a response to a call, an inherently dynamic religious orientation, even if the doctrines embraced are venerable.
The cultural impact of this orientation goes far beyond the pulpits and the pews of American religion. The widespread American belief that each life is a kind of project to be planned, that one has a unique dream which must be pursued through all hardships and reverses, all testify to the power of the Abrahamic archetype in the American mind (consider the ease with which Americans move hundreds and even thousands of miles in pursuit of opportunity or fulfillment).
This Abrahamic concept of a calling strengthens and intensifies the influence of Weber’s “Protestant ethic”, even as it extends its influence from the sphere of individual and family life into the broader society. As the Weberian Calvinist grimly works and saves, he or she generates the cash and the work habits that will make capitalism grow. The Abrahamic believer, convinced that God is leading the way to an unknown future in a new land, is ready to accept not only the personal but also the social consequences of capitalist life. Are the old folkways and habits passing away? Have strip malls and townhouses sprung up in the meadows and forests where one played as a child? Are gender roles melting and changing even as new immigrant groups fill the land? Is the old industrial economy of union labor and stable employment mutating into something mysterious, complex, dynamic and new?
For the soul grounded in static religion, such changes are hard to accept. For the dynamic believer, change is both a sign of progress and an opportunity to show the crowning virtue of faith. To struggle for change and reform is not to oppose the religious instinct, but to give it its fullest expression. Whether they were struggling to build businesses, change social institutions to reflect the new requirements and possibilities of a capitalist system, or simply accustom themselves to the accelerating juggernaut of change, millions of Anglo-Americans over the centuries were not trapped in a Pascalian vicious circle. They really did see something transcendent in their lives; they really did believe that they were struggling toward God. And to the degree that fulfillment comes from making a journey of faith, they didn’t just seek God. They found Him.
The history of the world over most of the past four centuries has been shaped decisively by the exploits of English-speaking people. First English then British then American power has been more economically productive and militarily and strategically successful than any other. A decisive factor in this history of success is that both the British and the Americans came from a culture that was uniquely well positioned to harness the titanic forces of capitalism as they emerged on the world scene. The British and Americans have proved better able than others to tolerate the stress, uncertainty and inequality associated with free-market forms of capitalism, and have been consistently among the best performers at creating a favorable institutional and social climate in which capitalism can thrive.
That achievement has in turn placed Anglo-American society at the forefront of technological development. Both countries have had the deep and flexible financial markets that provide greater prosperity in peace and allow government to tap the wealth of societies for greater effectiveness in war. The great business enterprises that take shape in these dynamic and cutting-edge economies enjoy tremendous advantages when they venture out into global markets to compete against less technologically advanced, poorly financed and managerially unsophisticated rivals in other countries and cultures.
This aptitude for capitalism has at least some of its roots in the way the British Reformation created a pluralistic society that was at once unusually tolerant, unusually open to new ideas, and unusually pious. In most of the world, the traditional values of religion are seen as deeply opposed to the utilitarian goals of capitalism. The English-speaking world, contrary to the intentions of almost all the leading actors of the period, reached a new kind of religious equilibrium in which capitalism and social change came to be accepted as good things. Indeed, since the 17th century, the English-speaking world for the most part has believed that embracing and even accelerating economic, social, cultural and political change fulfills their religious destiny.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Anglo-American world synthesized its religious beliefs with its unfolding historical experience to build an ideology that has shaped what is still the dominant paradigm in the English-speaking world, the deeply rooted vision of the way the world works that lies behind the physics of Sir Isaac Newton, the political economy of Adam Smith, the constitutional theories of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and the biological theories of Charles Darwin: that of the self-regulating dynamic equilibrium.
While many of these thinkers were not particularly or conventionally religious, their belief that order arises spontaneously from the play of natural forces is a way of restating some of the most powerful spiritual convictions of the English-speaking world. The idea that the world is built or guided by God in such a way that the unrestricted free play of extant forces creates an ordered and higher form of society is found virtually everywhere in the Anglo-Saxon world. It makes people both individualist and optimistic, and it has produced the “Whig narrative”, a theory of history that sees the slow and gradual march of progress in a free society as the dominant trend in not just Anglo-American history, but in all of history. Revelation and Reform
The idea that the roots of Anglo-American success are to be found in large part in religious culture runs sharply against the grain of modern historical analysis. The idea that enlightenment implies secularization is widely and deeply rooted, and the notion of civilization as a tragically necessary choice that inevitably cuts mankind off from the deepest elements in its nature was one of the most common tropes in both the 19th-century Romantic movement and 20th-century intellectual discourse. It is also a notion that has been proven as wrong as it is common: The countries that are in most respects the most thoroughly modernized by any definition that rests on economic and technological progress—19th-century Britain and the United States today—are significantly more religious than most.
The key to the ability of the Anglophone world to advance so far “West”, culturally speaking, and maintain its lead position in the global caravan is therefore not that it has been more secular than other societies. On the contrary, dynamic religion—religion that is open to change and that accords change a positive role in its sacred narrative—explains Anglophone ascendancy. Dynamic religion infiltrated and supplemented static religion in the religious life of the Anglophones. It showed that the great visions that light up the Western sky and drive us to pull up our stakes and move on stir human souls to the depths, just as do those mystic chords of memory that bind us to the past. Religion and myth are not always conservative. The mystic of progress is as god-seized as the mystic of tradition. Socrates was as pious as his executioners, if not more so.
At first glance, the religion of the Anglo-American world seems neither particularly interesting nor admirable: flexible to the point of drab, pragmatic to the point of inconsistency and calm to the point of boredom. These are, however, its chief virtues. It took a dexterous sort of flexibility, pragmatism and enforced calm to save England from bitter civil wars during the latter half of the 17th century and well into the 18th. Millions of English people accepted drastic changes to the governing religious and political philosophies of their national establishment in those years. While there were significant outbreaks of violence, English and then British society never again descended into the anarchy and bloodshed of the civil war of the 1640s.
That flexibility and pragmatism was instrumental in making the greatest event of those years, the Glorious Revolution, as peaceful as it was. Pragmatism—worldly, cynical, tolerant—enabled Britain to develop a new kind of political society, one far better than any other at coping with the stresses and demands of an emerging capitalist system.
Yet this was not secularization. Despite the exhaustion that followed the battles of the British Reformation, the new society that emerged had changed its connection to religion without severing it. A deep Christian faith continued to shape both popular and elite attitudes in Britain for almost two centuries after 1688. The United States and other colonial offshoots from Britain like New Zealand and Australia remain significantly more attached to traditional religion than most European countries. The persistence of religion in so much of the Anglo-Saxon world seems related to its ability to coexist with, and even thrive on, a kind of skepticism that is fatal to static religion.
Signs of a strange new attitude toward religious dogma in the English tradition are not hard to find. “There was never anything by men so well devised or so surely established which in age and continuance of time hath not been corrupted”, wrote the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, in 1538. With a few changes that sentence survived to become the opening words of the preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. It remains today in the prayer books of the Anglican Communion. Thomas Cranmer
This is an oddly modern-sounding opening to a Reformation religious document, but it is not the only confession of uncertainty to be found in that book. All the churches have erred “not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith”, say the Articles of Religion—for centuries the definitive statement of Church of England doctrine. The Church of Rome, like all the other ancient Christian churches—Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem—had gone wrong. Indeed, the Church of England itself had gone wrong. During the two centuries following Henry VIII’s break with the old religion, “official Christianity” in Britain changed doctrine almost as often as it changed sovereigns. If that isn’t pragmatism, pray tell what is?
Slightly reformed under Henry VIII, radically reformed under Edward VI, Catholic again under Mary I, uneasily mixed under Elizabeth I—the Church of England’s doctrines and practices have continued to shift with every passing wind from the age of the Stuarts to our own times, and it will presumably continue to change. The heresy of today is the orthodoxy of tomorrow, and perhaps the heresy of the day after that.
For the purposes of politics, this is praiseworthy, but in the Christian tradition, this is scandalous. Christianity is about revelation, about God breaking into history with a definite message. Yet here are the fathers of the Anglican Church plainly stating that the truth about God is unknown, perhaps unknowable. Does this mean that God tries and fails to reveal himself? The churches of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and medieval England thought they had Eternal Truth; they did not, say the Anglo-Saxon divines. The kind of certainty that these churches claim for their beliefs is not, Cranmer wrote hundreds of years ago, what God intends for us to have.
What is interesting about this declaration isn’t just that the Church of England made it so early. It is that the Church took the news so phlegmatically. If no church and no book can tell us the infallible truth about God, why go to church and why read the Bible? For that matter, why do good and abstain from evil? Obviously, not everyone questioning these certainties reacted so calmly. Dostoyevsky’s characters lose their faith in absolute moral order and murder their landladies. French skeptics see through dogma and become militant, anticlerical atheists. Diderot longed to see the day when the last king was strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Others have thought that, without a basis in absolute religion, no social order can stand. We hear these same worries today from neoconservative intellectuals who fear that without some kind of absolute, detailed and unchanging moral code we are slouching toward Gomorrah.
This fear has deep roots in human nature, but does the historical record bear it out? The English reformers may have lost any assurance that they possessed absolute truth, but they had no doubts about the need to maintain order. Even in later years when the English church grew milder, it still didn’t lose its spine. Its faith was defined in the Thirty-nine Articles, and until well into the 19th century those who refused to sign them could not take university degrees. In the 1930s, the church that granted Henry VIII two divorces and forgave him for two more spouses beheaded forced his descendant, Edward VIII, to renounce the throne before he married Wallis Simpson. Prince Charles was forced to apologize to the former husband of the Duchess of Cornwall before he could marry her. The English bishops of Edward VIII’s day were far more skeptical than Thomas Cranmer about the doctrines they preached, and by the 21st century it was difficult to imagine an opinion that would force a well-connected English divine to renounce a bishopric. But doctrinal uncertainty is one thing, an unseemly royal marriage quite another.
That is how church leaders treated the rich. They were no less prepared to discipline the poor. The rulers of England, though deprived of the comforts of an absolute faith in an unchanging religion, nevertheless managed for four centuries to impose order on their society. Deprived of the comforts of an absolute or closed philosophy, poor Nietzsche stared into the abyss and groaned with sick, fascinated horror, “Nothing is true and everything is permitted.” That hasn’t been the Anglo-Saxon way. English bishops faced this truth and saw not the slightest reason to leap into any abyss, philosophical or otherwise. “To be sure, in theory nothing is true and everything is permitted”, yawn the English divines with the gulf of relativism gaping beneath their slippered feet. “Now, should the Alleluia be omitted after Gospel readings in Lent? And where is that girl with the cucumber sandwiches?”
Somehow, the choice between faith and unbelief did not appear as starkly to much of the English-speaking world as it did elsewhere. The English-speaking world managed to reconcile a pragmatic and skeptical approach to history and philosophy with profound religious faith and a sense of God’s providential care. That seems to be why the chasm between religion and secular modernization that raged in 20th-century Europe, and rages still in much of the world, was never as deep in the English-speaking world. From Dogma to Dynamo
Two ideas in creative tension have coexisted for half a millennium in the Anglosphere. On the one hand, God exists and reveals His will regarding moral rules and religious doctrines to human beings; on the other hand, human understanding of these revelations remains partial, and very much subject to change.
It was thanks to this tension that, as its social evolution speeded up, the English-speaking world managed to move from an essentially static religious condition, in which a stable equilibrium was periodically shaken by episodes of religious dynamism, to a dynamic religious system anchored by persistent elements of stasis. The emerging religious structure of the English-speaking world had two outstanding features that made it particularly suitable for the growth of dynamic society. First, there was a pluralistic and multipolar religious environment, with many different denominations and theological tendencies existing side by side. And second, much of British religion, though not all, was dominated by theological formulations that were more responsive to dynamic than to static religion.
The peculiar religious evolution of the Anglosphere doesn’t seem to have happened as the result of any grand plan. It was rather more an accident—that or Divine Providence, depending on one’s tastes. To make a long and highly literary story short, by the end of the 17th century, England’s many Protestant sects recognized that no single one of them could reasonably expect to occupy the ground of the old Catholic Church. Each could still believe that it possessed the full and only gospel truth, each little chapel could glory in the knowledge that beneath its humble eaves were gathered the earthly representatives of the One True Church of God, but this was a primacy that the world-at-large would never acknowledge.
Milton was one of the first to grasp the implications of this plurality, arguing to Parliament in 1644 against government censorship of books in a famous speech, Areopagitica, named for the hill in Athens where the judges met and where St. Paul once taught. Noting that censorship was prevalent where Catholic prelates sought to impose orthodoxy through the power of the Inquisition, and reminding his audience that he, Milton, had met Galileo, “grown old a prisoner of the Inquisition” in Italy, he urged Parliament to allow free inquiry and free publishing. Truth is revealed in a process, he said, so our knowledge of God must necessarily change over time. Moreover, our knowledge grows over time: We will know more tomorrow than we do today. Truth grows when “God shakes a kingdom with strong and healthful commotions. . . . For such is the order of God’s enlightening his Church, to dispense and deal out by degrees his beam, so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it.” Change in religion was not a necessary evil, but a necessary good. Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury’s Galileo before the Holy Office
Milton himself seems to have thought a new final synthesis would emerge in time and that the chaos of progressive discovery and revelation would come to an end. But already it seemed clear, as a practical matter, that the only way to be faithful to God was to be open to religious change and new thinking: dynamic religion, not static, was needed as the basis for life. The search for truth through scripture led to the open seas, not to the safe harbors and estuaries the original reformers sought. Change was beginning to be seen as a permanent, necessary and even sanctified element of true religion.
The idea of dynamic religion, the positive acclimation to the idea of change, launched a fascinating debate in the English-speaking world of the 17th century. It rotated around the interplay of three elements: scripture, tradition and reason. It came to an apex, if not exactly a conclusion, in a reliance on what Edmund Burke called “convention.” Scripture, tradition and reason each had its place and each had its devotees, but all of them went wrong if pressed too far. You should respect the scriptures and defer to them, but not interpret them in a way that leads you into some weird millenarian sect or absurd social behavior. You honor tradition, but you do not press it so far that it leads you into the arms of royal absolutism or papal power. You employ the critique of reason against the excesses of both scripture and tradition, but without pressing reason to the point of ranting against all existing institutions, eating roots and bark for your health, or, much worse, undermining the rights of property of the established church.
One can picture John Bull scratching his head and slowly concluding that one must accept that there will always be nuts in society: Bible nuts, tradition nuts and reason nuts, or fundamentalists, papists and radicals. This is not necessarily the end of the world, because to some degree they cancel one another out. The fundamentalist zealots will keep the papists down and vice versa; the religious will keep the radicals in their place. And the competition among sects will also prevent the established church from pressing its advantages too far or forming too exalted an idea about the proper stature, prestige and emoluments of the clergy. Behold the dynamic equilibrium at work.
The result of all these offsetting forces, John Bull came to believe, was what he wanted all along: common sense and compromise. He wanted reasonableness, which is emphatically not the same thing as reason. Perhaps it would be a bit higgledy-piggledy from a theoretical point of view, but John Bull was very tired of the theoretical point of view by then. More than once he had let himself be persuaded by clever chaps with their books and their systems, and he regretted what it had led to. This pragmatism was not merely an abstract idea; it was the approach that, after the Glorious Revolution, shaped Britain’s core political institutions. Indeed, juggling scripture, tradition and reason, the English-speaking world blundered its way into an increasingly open society in which religion was constantly adjusting to the demands of social and economic change. Pluralism Above All
The religion of an open, dynamic society is not necessarily Christian, and it is certainly not always orthodox, but Anglo-American society was never completely secular and is not so now. Far from being an obstacle to the modernization of British and American society, religion became a major actor in an intensifying and accelerating process of social change and capitalist development. Constant transformation became accepted as the normal and desirable state of human affairs. As Anglo-American religion became more dynamic and less static, it also tended to become more intensely felt.
Adam Smith still gives the best description of the role of religion in an open society. Smith, whose personal religious views seem to have been much closer to those of Edward Gibbon than John Milton, argued in The Wealth of Nations that religion, even fanatical religion, is necessary to the health and happiness of society, and that free competition among religions is the best way to achieve the benefits of religion at the lowest possible cost.
In Smith’s view, there are two systems of morality, and therefore of religion, in any society. The common people, who live on an economic knife-edge, cannot afford to indulge themselves. He wrote:
A single week’s dissipation is often sufficient to undo a poor workman forever. . . . The wiser and better sort of the common people, therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their condition.
Most new sects and religions, according to Smith, have their roots among the poor, and new sects are usually marked by the stringent moral rigor they impose.
The common people need the support of a strong religious community, especially when they join the great capitalist migration from the countryside to the city. In the country, the poor workman has a reputation to uphold: He is known by all, and the community judges him according to his acts. This pressure encourages people to fulfill the responsibilities of their allotted role in the traditional world of the village. In the new condition of the city, however, the workman has less certainty about his role. He needs more than ever to maintain personal discipline and resist the temptations that have always been found in cities. The small religious congregation—the sect—replaces the social discipline of the village community.
While the manners and morals of such sects can often be, for Smith’s taste, “disagreeably rigorous and unsociable”, it is precisely their rigor and regularity that makes them effective: “In little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly.”
Religion thus no longer opposed the modernization process; it provided the psychological and social support that eventually allowed tens of millions of bewildered, hopeful, frightened peasants to find a place in the teeming cities and crowded industries of the new capitalist world. At the same time, the rise of capitalism, while destructive of religious ideas firmly based in the realities of village life, does not subvert religion in general but can lead to a new era of religious revival—and sometimes to fanaticism and fundamentalism. Indeed, Smith’s argument implies that an acceleration of capitalist growth could lead to a dangerous increase in the power of religious fanaticism—that the open society could boomerang and generate a reaction strong enough to impose a new religious dictatorship. Religion could shift back to opposing society’s Westward march.
Well aware of this danger, Smith provides steps governments can take to restrain fanatical religion. A generally high level of education, he believed, should reduce the ability of a superstitious and fanatical clergy to impose narrow ideas on the rising generation. Government should also promote public amusements as an antidote to the gloomy fantasies of religious enthusiasts, and encourage the public performance of plays that mock the wiles and shortcomings of the clergy.
In an aside full of meaning for American history, Smith also notes that the danger of religious dictatorship is much less likely where a multitude of religious groups already exists. The danger of theocracy exists when a large and established church, supported by the government, can impose conformity on dissenters. When society is divided into many religious groups, with no group able to call on government power to enforce its pretensions against its rivals, society will not dissolve into dueling fanaticisms; rather, the small sects will move toward something like a religious consensus based on increasingly moderate principles. “The teachers of each little sect”, he wrote,
finding themselves almost alone, will be obliged to respect those of almost every other sect. The concessions they would find it both convenient and agreeable to make to one another might in time reduce their doctrines to that pure and rational religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture or fanaticism, such as wise men have in all ages of the world wished to see established.
Smith would not have been surprised to find that this paragraph is a reasonably accurate summary of two centuries of American religious history.
Smith saw a virtuous circle in which religion helped human beings cope with the new demands of life in an open, changing society, and in which the operation of the open society made religion continually more fit for this purpose—and less fit to lead a reaction in favor of closed-society principles. If the history of the Anglosphere is indeed any guide, it appears that the most vigorously open society, the society that presses hardest and fastest Westward, is a religious society. To the degree that a secular society—one in which religion has been effectively marginalized—is shaped by reliance on reason rather than on the complex dance of conflicting elements that characterized the Anglophone powers at their various apogees, it is likely to be less open and dynamic than one that acknowledges more fully the irrational elements of the human psyche. The “scientific” societies of the communist world, boasting of their objective grounding in rational and scientific truth as discovered by Lenin and Marx, were considerably less flexible than the Western societies they opposed. There was less freedom in France under Robespierre and his Reign of Terror than under the less systematic and less “rational” revolutionary governments that preceded it. The ideal rational Republic Plato proposed would have been much less free and open than the messy Athenian democracy he hoped to eliminate.
Hence pluralism, even at the cost of rational consistency, is necessary in a world of change. Countervailing forces and values must contend, for without constant disputes, controversy and competition among rival ideas about how society should look and what it should do, the pace of innovation and change will slow as forces of conservative inertia grow smug and unchallenged.
This is one of the reasons the Anglophone world outpaced its continental rivals, most notably France. In France there was no multiplicity of sects like that found in Britain. Besides a small leavening of Huguenots and Jews, there were only the Catholic Church and the Enlightenment. Catholic France remained too fixed in the past—philosophically, institutionally, socially—to provide the framework French society would have needed to beat Britain in the race to the West. Secular, Jacobin France also had its rigidities, fixed perspectives and propensities to resist change rather than embrace it. The struggle between these two visions of French society propelled France to the West, but never at the speed the English traveled. Indeed, the Westward progress of any society may well reflect the degree to which many different worldviews, interest groups and subcultures find expression in its politics. Homogeneous and bipolar societies seem to be at a basic disadvantage, doomed to play catch-up in a world in which the leaders win disproportionate rewards. The social model based on the British Enlightenment and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 reflects a broad and deep pluralism that the political paradigms based on the French Enlightenment and the Revolution of 1789 lack.
The fact that the Anglosphere emerged from the British Reformation with an ability to tolerate and even welcome the conflicts, tensions and radical uncertainties of an open society helps explain the English-speaking world’s capacity to cope with the risks and stresses of capitalist society, even as they have posed obstacles for much of the rest of the world. Capitalism requires that people stop looking to conserve the past and instead fix their hopes on the future.
On a broader scale, a capitalist society is one in which the creative destruction of the market is constantly reshaping basic institutions. We are always saying goodbye to something we love, always leaving our fathers’ homes for an unknown future. This is true of individual entrepreneurs, who must risk losing the wealth they currently have in the quest for more; it is more broadly true throughout a changing society. Semper eadem was the motto of the feudal world: Always the same. The church, the state, the law, the dynasty: Every institution derived its authority from its antiquity. Semper reformanda is the motto of capitalism: Everything needs to be remade, over and over again. The older a machine, a firm, a factory, a product, a social compact, an idea or a technology, the more suspect it is.
At the same time, there must be room for nostalgia and resistance to change. There must be religious voices denouncing godless secularism and calling mankind back to eternal principles, even as they denounce one another for heresy. Human society must be torn between strongly felt ideals, because no one ideal can hold all the answers. Open society must be secular and religious, dogmatic and free. “Doxies” of all kinds must find a place there and be cherished; yet the conflict and catfights between them can never end. Abrahamic America
This is how the social and economic dynamism of capitalism confirmed rather than challenged religious beliefs and affections. And if Britain created the synergy between dynamic religion and capitalist success, America has extended it. In both cases, one Biblical image and narrative led the way: that of Abraham.
American individualism, freedom of conscience and debate, pluralism, democratic opposition to natural and social hierarchies, community institutions, and a deeply grounded practice of democracy are all historically rooted in the Protestantism that shaped early American culture. One additional element needs to be stressed: The degree to which the individualistic basis of Anglo-American religious experience links the religious life of the individual to a God who reveals Himself—as He did to Abraham—in the changes and upheavals of life, rather than in its stabilities and unchanging verities. This understanding has had a profound effect and continues to exercise a powerful force on the English-speaking world today. It has given, and still gives, direction to its spiritual striving and self-understanding, which has helped ensure that, over succeeding centuries, individuals and society as a whole continue to devote their full energy to the exploration and development of the possibilities of capitalist society.
The connections between capitalist values and the dynamic Protestant religious culture that shaped the modern English-speaking world run deeper than the mechanisms Max Weber identified just over a century ago. Yes, it is true that Calvinists sublimated fears about salvation into habits that promoted discipline—that being good somehow transmuted into doing well. But Protestants also came to believe that living in communion with God and experiencing the hope of salvation meant cooperating with, and even furthering, the waves of social change unleashed by capitalism on the English-speaking world. Increasingly, dynamic religion would become the only true religion for English speakers. Religion not only had to tolerate change; it had to advance it. advertisement
The key theological reference point for this transformation of values was the patriarch Abraham. The significance his story assumed in Anglo-American religion has roots deep in Reformation theology. Martin Luther’s interpretation of Pauline theology put the figure of Abraham front and center. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul stresses that Abraham’s faithful initial response to God’s call was the basis for salvation. Thus this narrative became, in the eyes of Luther and his followers, the bedrock of the core tenet of Protestantism—sola fide, or justification by faith alone.
As Protestants saw it, Abraham’s faith—his willingness to leave his home and family in obedience to a call from God—became the foundation for God’s redemption of the human race. Without a doubt many Protestant converts from Catholicism were sustained by Abraham’s example; they too believed they were abandoning their fathers’ beliefs to answer a higher calling. The new sense of faith as a journey that required the abandonment of the familiar became a central idea in the religious and devotional literature of the time. The wildly successful Pilgrim’s Progress is the story of how a Christian forsakes the comfortable, conventional religion of his family and community to follow a call. Next to the King James Bible, this was the most common book in English homes well into the 19th century. Next to the Bible, it was the book most commonly owned by the American pioneers.
Abraham’s faithful response to God’s promise is a deeper and more positive force than the fear that drives Weber’s Calvinist analysis. The Calvinist is running in fear from a hideous fate, but the follower of Abraham is reaching out toward something positive—a transcendent call that bespeaks a reality far richer and more rewarding. Embracing change itself becomes a sacrament. Moving from the known to the unknown brings one closest to God. Change is no longer a necessary evil that must sometimes be endured; it now has religious sanction, and to embrace change is to encounter the meaning of life.
Where Weber, like European Enlightenment thinkers, saw progress in terms of rationalization and the disappearance of the numinous from ordinary existence, for the individualistic Anglo-American Christian, the “personal relationship with God” is a powerful and effective link with the realm of the transcendent that does not wither or fade in the face of the modernizing and rationalizing processes of capitalist society. On the contrary, the experience of transcendence may become increasingly important to a population facing growing uncertainty in a world of accelerating change. The more the world changes, and the more the believer changes in response, the closer he or she comes to God. Ecclesia semper reformanda: The church and the world are always in need of renewal and change.
The pull of these values has not been limited to orthodox Protestants. Indeed, it is precisely this “Protestant principle” of progressive change that led men like Ralph Waldo Emerson beyond even the very capacious boundaries of the Unitarian faith. In a real sense, change itself—understood as a progressive response to a call whether from God or some inner, higher self—can become an object of worship in the English-speaking world.
As American religion in particular became more personalized and emotional, its identification with Abraham’s faithful response to change only deepened. From the time of Jonathan Edwards in the early 18th century to the revivals of our own day, the Great Awakenings of American history have focused on the idea of God’s call. In the Kentucky revivals at the turn of the 19th century, when strong men and pioneer women fell to the ground and shook, and in later revivals, when thousands knelt in tears on the tent floors as Dwight Moody preached and Ira Sankey sang, or when the fires of the Holy Spirit fell on the ecstatic worshippers at the Azusa Street church in Los Angeles in the early 20th century, millions of Americans felt a personal call from God to leave the familiar worlds and ideas of their past and journey toward something unknown.
In some cases, such as the Mormons, it was a literal call to imitate Abraham and move to a new promised land. In others, it meant leaving established churches for fledgling denominations. Almost always, the Great Awakenings have come at times when Americans were either engaged in or preparing for moments of great change. The astonishing outpourings of enthusiasm that followed George Whitfield’s progress across the colonies and the Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards helped prepare the way for the American Revolution. The Kentucky revivals that followed were instrumental in the creation of a frontier society and a new kind of democratic lifestyle independent of the strictures and conventions of the East.
Today’s religious revivals in the South, too—and not just the South—come at a time when old patterns of life based on segregation and farming have been replaced by very different conditions. Overall, just as the proliferation of small sects helped the transplanted countrymen of Adam Smith’s Britain adjust to new social patterns and work rhythms in the cities of an industrializing economy, so did the revival meetings, circuit riders and tiny wilderness churches help Americans adapt to a succession of dramatic and rapid changes.
The belief that every Christian must have a personal, Abrahamic experience of God’s call has for more than three centuries been strengthening its hold in American life. American Protestants stress the importance of a personal decision for Christ and a personal relationship with God. In the American context Christianity is less and less a matter of family or ethnic identity, and ever more a matter of personal choice. We must all be Abraham now.
This is a truly revolutionary way of conceptualizing religion. Historically, religious identity has largely been an aspect of a broader social and ethnic identity. One is Greek Orthodox or Hindu, because that is the faith into which one was born. The mobility of American religious life, with frequent movement mostly among the major Protestant denominations, but also beyond and across these boundaries—combined with the increasingly individualistic nature of American theology and piety—has dramatically changed this picture. Religion today is increasingly part of a self-constructed identity for Americans. It is perceived as a response to a call, an inherently dynamic religious orientation, even if the doctrines embraced are venerable.
The cultural impact of this orientation goes far beyond the pulpits and the pews of American religion. The widespread American belief that each life is a kind of project to be planned, that one has a unique dream which must be pursued through all hardships and reverses, all testify to the power of the Abrahamic archetype in the American mind (consider the ease with which Americans move hundreds and even thousands of miles in pursuit of opportunity or fulfillment).
This Abrahamic concept of a calling strengthens and intensifies the influence of Weber’s “Protestant ethic”, even as it extends its influence from the sphere of individual and family life into the broader society. As the Weberian Calvinist grimly works and saves, he or she generates the cash and the work habits that will make capitalism grow. The Abrahamic believer, convinced that God is leading the way to an unknown future in a new land, is ready to accept not only the personal but also the social consequences of capitalist life. Are the old folkways and habits passing away? Have strip malls and townhouses sprung up in the meadows and forests where one played as a child? Are gender roles melting and changing even as new immigrant groups fill the land? Is the old industrial economy of union labor and stable employment mutating into something mysterious, complex, dynamic and new?
For the soul grounded in static religion, such changes are hard to accept. For the dynamic believer, change is both a sign of progress and an opportunity to show the crowning virtue of faith. To struggle for change and reform is not to oppose the religious instinct, but to give it its fullest expression. Whether they were struggling to build businesses, change social institutions to reflect the new requirements and possibilities of a capitalist system, or simply accustom themselves to the accelerating juggernaut of change, millions of Anglo-Americans over the centuries were not trapped in a Pascalian vicious circle. They really did see something transcendent in their lives; they really did believe that they were struggling toward God. And to the degree that fulfillment comes from making a journey of faith, they didn’t just seek God. They found Him.
The history of the world over most of the past four centuries has been shaped decisively by the exploits of English-speaking people. First English then British then American power has been more economically productive and militarily and strategically successful than any other. A decisive factor in this history of success is that both the British and the Americans came from a culture that was uniquely well positioned to harness the titanic forces of capitalism as they emerged on the world scene. The British and Americans have proved better able than others to tolerate the stress, uncertainty and inequality associated with free-market forms of capitalism, and have been consistently among the best performers at creating a favorable institutional and social climate in which capitalism can thrive.
That achievement has in turn placed Anglo-American society at the forefront of technological development. Both countries have had the deep and flexible financial markets that provide greater prosperity in peace and allow government to tap the wealth of societies for greater effectiveness in war. The great business enterprises that take shape in these dynamic and cutting-edge economies enjoy tremendous advantages when they venture out into global markets to compete against less technologically advanced, poorly financed and managerially unsophisticated rivals in other countries and cultures.
This aptitude for capitalism has at least some of its roots in the way the British Reformation created a pluralistic society that was at once unusually tolerant, unusually open to new ideas, and unusually pious. In most of the world, the traditional values of religion are seen as deeply opposed to the utilitarian goals of capitalism. The English-speaking world, contrary to the intentions of almost all the leading actors of the period, reached a new kind of religious equilibrium in which capitalism and social change came to be accepted as good things. Indeed, since the 17th century, the English-speaking world for the most part has believed that embracing and even accelerating economic, social, cultural and political change fulfills their religious destiny.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Anglo-American world synthesized its religious beliefs with its unfolding historical experience to build an ideology that has shaped what is still the dominant paradigm in the English-speaking world, the deeply rooted vision of the way the world works that lies behind the physics of Sir Isaac Newton, the political economy of Adam Smith, the constitutional theories of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and the biological theories of Charles Darwin: that of the self-regulating dynamic equilibrium.
While many of these thinkers were not particularly or conventionally religious, their belief that order arises spontaneously from the play of natural forces is a way of restating some of the most powerful spiritual convictions of the English-speaking world. The idea that the world is built or guided by God in such a way that the unrestricted free play of extant forces creates an ordered and higher form of society is found virtually everywhere in the Anglo-Saxon world. It makes people both individualist and optimistic, and it has produced the “Whig narrative”, a theory of history that sees the slow and gradual march of progress in a free society as the dominant trend in not just Anglo-American history, but in all of history. Revelation and Reform
The idea that the roots of Anglo-American success are to be found in large part in religious culture runs sharply against the grain of modern historical analysis. The idea that enlightenment implies secularization is widely and deeply rooted, and the notion of civilization as a tragically necessary choice that inevitably cuts mankind off from the deepest elements in its nature was one of the most common tropes in both the 19th-century Romantic movement and 20th-century intellectual discourse. It is also a notion that has been proven as wrong as it is common: The countries that are in most respects the most thoroughly modernized by any definition that rests on economic and technological progress—19th-century Britain and the United States today—are significantly more religious than most.
The key to the ability of the Anglophone world to advance so far “West”, culturally speaking, and maintain its lead position in the global caravan is therefore not that it has been more secular than other societies. On the contrary, dynamic religion—religion that is open to change and that accords change a positive role in its sacred narrative—explains Anglophone ascendancy. Dynamic religion infiltrated and supplemented static religion in the religious life of the Anglophones. It showed that the great visions that light up the Western sky and drive us to pull up our stakes and move on stir human souls to the depths, just as do those mystic chords of memory that bind us to the past. Religion and myth are not always conservative. The mystic of progress is as god-seized as the mystic of tradition. Socrates was as pious as his executioners, if not more so.
At first glance, the religion of the Anglo-American world seems neither particularly interesting nor admirable: flexible to the point of drab, pragmatic to the point of inconsistency and calm to the point of boredom. These are, however, its chief virtues. It took a dexterous sort of flexibility, pragmatism and enforced calm to save England from bitter civil wars during the latter half of the 17th century and well into the 18th. Millions of English people accepted drastic changes to the governing religious and political philosophies of their national establishment in those years. While there were significant outbreaks of violence, English and then British society never again descended into the anarchy and bloodshed of the civil war of the 1640s.
That flexibility and pragmatism was instrumental in making the greatest event of those years, the Glorious Revolution, as peaceful as it was. Pragmatism—worldly, cynical, tolerant—enabled Britain to develop a new kind of political society, one far better than any other at coping with the stresses and demands of an emerging capitalist system.
Yet this was not secularization. Despite the exhaustion that followed the battles of the British Reformation, the new society that emerged had changed its connection to religion without severing it. A deep Christian faith continued to shape both popular and elite attitudes in Britain for almost two centuries after 1688. The United States and other colonial offshoots from Britain like New Zealand and Australia remain significantly more attached to traditional religion than most European countries. The persistence of religion in so much of the Anglo-Saxon world seems related to its ability to coexist with, and even thrive on, a kind of skepticism that is fatal to static religion.
Signs of a strange new attitude toward religious dogma in the English tradition are not hard to find. “There was never anything by men so well devised or so surely established which in age and continuance of time hath not been corrupted”, wrote the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, in 1538. With a few changes that sentence survived to become the opening words of the preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. It remains today in the prayer books of the Anglican Communion. Thomas Cranmer
This is an oddly modern-sounding opening to a Reformation religious document, but it is not the only confession of uncertainty to be found in that book. All the churches have erred “not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith”, say the Articles of Religion—for centuries the definitive statement of Church of England doctrine. The Church of Rome, like all the other ancient Christian churches—Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem—had gone wrong. Indeed, the Church of England itself had gone wrong. During the two centuries following Henry VIII’s break with the old religion, “official Christianity” in Britain changed doctrine almost as often as it changed sovereigns. If that isn’t pragmatism, pray tell what is?
Slightly reformed under Henry VIII, radically reformed under Edward VI, Catholic again under Mary I, uneasily mixed under Elizabeth I—the Church of England’s doctrines and practices have continued to shift with every passing wind from the age of the Stuarts to our own times, and it will presumably continue to change. The heresy of today is the orthodoxy of tomorrow, and perhaps the heresy of the day after that.
For the purposes of politics, this is praiseworthy, but in the Christian tradition, this is scandalous. Christianity is about revelation, about God breaking into history with a definite message. Yet here are the fathers of the Anglican Church plainly stating that the truth about God is unknown, perhaps unknowable. Does this mean that God tries and fails to reveal himself? The churches of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and medieval England thought they had Eternal Truth; they did not, say the Anglo-Saxon divines. The kind of certainty that these churches claim for their beliefs is not, Cranmer wrote hundreds of years ago, what God intends for us to have.
What is interesting about this declaration isn’t just that the Church of England made it so early. It is that the Church took the news so phlegmatically. If no church and no book can tell us the infallible truth about God, why go to church and why read the Bible? For that matter, why do good and abstain from evil? Obviously, not everyone questioning these certainties reacted so calmly. Dostoyevsky’s characters lose their faith in absolute moral order and murder their landladies. French skeptics see through dogma and become militant, anticlerical atheists. Diderot longed to see the day when the last king was strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Others have thought that, without a basis in absolute religion, no social order can stand. We hear these same worries today from neoconservative intellectuals who fear that without some kind of absolute, detailed and unchanging moral code we are slouching toward Gomorrah.
This fear has deep roots in human nature, but does the historical record bear it out? The English reformers may have lost any assurance that they possessed absolute truth, but they had no doubts about the need to maintain order. Even in later years when the English church grew milder, it still didn’t lose its spine. Its faith was defined in the Thirty-nine Articles, and until well into the 19th century those who refused to sign them could not take university degrees. In the 1930s, the church that granted Henry VIII two divorces and forgave him for two more spouses beheaded forced his descendant, Edward VIII, to renounce the throne before he married Wallis Simpson. Prince Charles was forced to apologize to the former husband of the Duchess of Cornwall before he could marry her. The English bishops of Edward VIII’s day were far more skeptical than Thomas Cranmer about the doctrines they preached, and by the 21st century it was difficult to imagine an opinion that would force a well-connected English divine to renounce a bishopric. But doctrinal uncertainty is one thing, an unseemly royal marriage quite another.
That is how church leaders treated the rich. They were no less prepared to discipline the poor. The rulers of England, though deprived of the comforts of an absolute faith in an unchanging religion, nevertheless managed for four centuries to impose order on their society. Deprived of the comforts of an absolute or closed philosophy, poor Nietzsche stared into the abyss and groaned with sick, fascinated horror, “Nothing is true and everything is permitted.” That hasn’t been the Anglo-Saxon way. English bishops faced this truth and saw not the slightest reason to leap into any abyss, philosophical or otherwise. “To be sure, in theory nothing is true and everything is permitted”, yawn the English divines with the gulf of relativism gaping beneath their slippered feet. “Now, should the Alleluia be omitted after Gospel readings in Lent? And where is that girl with the cucumber sandwiches?”
Somehow, the choice between faith and unbelief did not appear as starkly to much of the English-speaking world as it did elsewhere. The English-speaking world managed to reconcile a pragmatic and skeptical approach to history and philosophy with profound religious faith and a sense of God’s providential care. That seems to be why the chasm between religion and secular modernization that raged in 20th-century Europe, and rages still in much of the world, was never as deep in the English-speaking world. From Dogma to Dynamo
Two ideas in creative tension have coexisted for half a millennium in the Anglosphere. On the one hand, God exists and reveals His will regarding moral rules and religious doctrines to human beings; on the other hand, human understanding of these revelations remains partial, and very much subject to change.
It was thanks to this tension that, as its social evolution speeded up, the English-speaking world managed to move from an essentially static religious condition, in which a stable equilibrium was periodically shaken by episodes of religious dynamism, to a dynamic religious system anchored by persistent elements of stasis. The emerging religious structure of the English-speaking world had two outstanding features that made it particularly suitable for the growth of dynamic society. First, there was a pluralistic and multipolar religious environment, with many different denominations and theological tendencies existing side by side. And second, much of British religion, though not all, was dominated by theological formulations that were more responsive to dynamic than to static religion.
The peculiar religious evolution of the Anglosphere doesn’t seem to have happened as the result of any grand plan. It was rather more an accident—that or Divine Providence, depending on one’s tastes. To make a long and highly literary story short, by the end of the 17th century, England’s many Protestant sects recognized that no single one of them could reasonably expect to occupy the ground of the old Catholic Church. Each could still believe that it possessed the full and only gospel truth, each little chapel could glory in the knowledge that beneath its humble eaves were gathered the earthly representatives of the One True Church of God, but this was a primacy that the world-at-large would never acknowledge.
Milton was one of the first to grasp the implications of this plurality, arguing to Parliament in 1644 against government censorship of books in a famous speech, Areopagitica, named for the hill in Athens where the judges met and where St. Paul once taught. Noting that censorship was prevalent where Catholic prelates sought to impose orthodoxy through the power of the Inquisition, and reminding his audience that he, Milton, had met Galileo, “grown old a prisoner of the Inquisition” in Italy, he urged Parliament to allow free inquiry and free publishing. Truth is revealed in a process, he said, so our knowledge of God must necessarily change over time. Moreover, our knowledge grows over time: We will know more tomorrow than we do today. Truth grows when “God shakes a kingdom with strong and healthful commotions. . . . For such is the order of God’s enlightening his Church, to dispense and deal out by degrees his beam, so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it.” Change in religion was not a necessary evil, but a necessary good. Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury’s Galileo before the Holy Office
Milton himself seems to have thought a new final synthesis would emerge in time and that the chaos of progressive discovery and revelation would come to an end. But already it seemed clear, as a practical matter, that the only way to be faithful to God was to be open to religious change and new thinking: dynamic religion, not static, was needed as the basis for life. The search for truth through scripture led to the open seas, not to the safe harbors and estuaries the original reformers sought. Change was beginning to be seen as a permanent, necessary and even sanctified element of true religion.
The idea of dynamic religion, the positive acclimation to the idea of change, launched a fascinating debate in the English-speaking world of the 17th century. It rotated around the interplay of three elements: scripture, tradition and reason. It came to an apex, if not exactly a conclusion, in a reliance on what Edmund Burke called “convention.” Scripture, tradition and reason each had its place and each had its devotees, but all of them went wrong if pressed too far. You should respect the scriptures and defer to them, but not interpret them in a way that leads you into some weird millenarian sect or absurd social behavior. You honor tradition, but you do not press it so far that it leads you into the arms of royal absolutism or papal power. You employ the critique of reason against the excesses of both scripture and tradition, but without pressing reason to the point of ranting against all existing institutions, eating roots and bark for your health, or, much worse, undermining the rights of property of the established church.
One can picture John Bull scratching his head and slowly concluding that one must accept that there will always be nuts in society: Bible nuts, tradition nuts and reason nuts, or fundamentalists, papists and radicals. This is not necessarily the end of the world, because to some degree they cancel one another out. The fundamentalist zealots will keep the papists down and vice versa; the religious will keep the radicals in their place. And the competition among sects will also prevent the established church from pressing its advantages too far or forming too exalted an idea about the proper stature, prestige and emoluments of the clergy. Behold the dynamic equilibrium at work.
The result of all these offsetting forces, John Bull came to believe, was what he wanted all along: common sense and compromise. He wanted reasonableness, which is emphatically not the same thing as reason. Perhaps it would be a bit higgledy-piggledy from a theoretical point of view, but John Bull was very tired of the theoretical point of view by then. More than once he had let himself be persuaded by clever chaps with their books and their systems, and he regretted what it had led to. This pragmatism was not merely an abstract idea; it was the approach that, after the Glorious Revolution, shaped Britain’s core political institutions. Indeed, juggling scripture, tradition and reason, the English-speaking world blundered its way into an increasingly open society in which religion was constantly adjusting to the demands of social and economic change. Pluralism Above All
The religion of an open, dynamic society is not necessarily Christian, and it is certainly not always orthodox, but Anglo-American society was never completely secular and is not so now. Far from being an obstacle to the modernization of British and American society, religion became a major actor in an intensifying and accelerating process of social change and capitalist development. Constant transformation became accepted as the normal and desirable state of human affairs. As Anglo-American religion became more dynamic and less static, it also tended to become more intensely felt.
Adam Smith still gives the best description of the role of religion in an open society. Smith, whose personal religious views seem to have been much closer to those of Edward Gibbon than John Milton, argued in The Wealth of Nations that religion, even fanatical religion, is necessary to the health and happiness of society, and that free competition among religions is the best way to achieve the benefits of religion at the lowest possible cost.
In Smith’s view, there are two systems of morality, and therefore of religion, in any society. The common people, who live on an economic knife-edge, cannot afford to indulge themselves. He wrote:
A single week’s dissipation is often sufficient to undo a poor workman forever. . . . The wiser and better sort of the common people, therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their condition.
Most new sects and religions, according to Smith, have their roots among the poor, and new sects are usually marked by the stringent moral rigor they impose.
The common people need the support of a strong religious community, especially when they join the great capitalist migration from the countryside to the city. In the country, the poor workman has a reputation to uphold: He is known by all, and the community judges him according to his acts. This pressure encourages people to fulfill the responsibilities of their allotted role in the traditional world of the village. In the new condition of the city, however, the workman has less certainty about his role. He needs more than ever to maintain personal discipline and resist the temptations that have always been found in cities. The small religious congregation—the sect—replaces the social discipline of the village community.
While the manners and morals of such sects can often be, for Smith’s taste, “disagreeably rigorous and unsociable”, it is precisely their rigor and regularity that makes them effective: “In little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly.”
Religion thus no longer opposed the modernization process; it provided the psychological and social support that eventually allowed tens of millions of bewildered, hopeful, frightened peasants to find a place in the teeming cities and crowded industries of the new capitalist world. At the same time, the rise of capitalism, while destructive of religious ideas firmly based in the realities of village life, does not subvert religion in general but can lead to a new era of religious revival—and sometimes to fanaticism and fundamentalism. Indeed, Smith’s argument implies that an acceleration of capitalist growth could lead to a dangerous increase in the power of religious fanaticism—that the open society could boomerang and generate a reaction strong enough to impose a new religious dictatorship. Religion could shift back to opposing society’s Westward march.
Well aware of this danger, Smith provides steps governments can take to restrain fanatical religion. A generally high level of education, he believed, should reduce the ability of a superstitious and fanatical clergy to impose narrow ideas on the rising generation. Government should also promote public amusements as an antidote to the gloomy fantasies of religious enthusiasts, and encourage the public performance of plays that mock the wiles and shortcomings of the clergy.
In an aside full of meaning for American history, Smith also notes that the danger of religious dictatorship is much less likely where a multitude of religious groups already exists. The danger of theocracy exists when a large and established church, supported by the government, can impose conformity on dissenters. When society is divided into many religious groups, with no group able to call on government power to enforce its pretensions against its rivals, society will not dissolve into dueling fanaticisms; rather, the small sects will move toward something like a religious consensus based on increasingly moderate principles. “The teachers of each little sect”, he wrote,
finding themselves almost alone, will be obliged to respect those of almost every other sect. The concessions they would find it both convenient and agreeable to make to one another might in time reduce their doctrines to that pure and rational religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture or fanaticism, such as wise men have in all ages of the world wished to see established.
Smith would not have been surprised to find that this paragraph is a reasonably accurate summary of two centuries of American religious history.
Smith saw a virtuous circle in which religion helped human beings cope with the new demands of life in an open, changing society, and in which the operation of the open society made religion continually more fit for this purpose—and less fit to lead a reaction in favor of closed-society principles. If the history of the Anglosphere is indeed any guide, it appears that the most vigorously open society, the society that presses hardest and fastest Westward, is a religious society. To the degree that a secular society—one in which religion has been effectively marginalized—is shaped by reliance on reason rather than on the complex dance of conflicting elements that characterized the Anglophone powers at their various apogees, it is likely to be less open and dynamic than one that acknowledges more fully the irrational elements of the human psyche. The “scientific” societies of the communist world, boasting of their objective grounding in rational and scientific truth as discovered by Lenin and Marx, were considerably less flexible than the Western societies they opposed. There was less freedom in France under Robespierre and his Reign of Terror than under the less systematic and less “rational” revolutionary governments that preceded it. The ideal rational Republic Plato proposed would have been much less free and open than the messy Athenian democracy he hoped to eliminate.
Hence pluralism, even at the cost of rational consistency, is necessary in a world of change. Countervailing forces and values must contend, for without constant disputes, controversy and competition among rival ideas about how society should look and what it should do, the pace of innovation and change will slow as forces of conservative inertia grow smug and unchallenged.
This is one of the reasons the Anglophone world outpaced its continental rivals, most notably France. In France there was no multiplicity of sects like that found in Britain. Besides a small leavening of Huguenots and Jews, there were only the Catholic Church and the Enlightenment. Catholic France remained too fixed in the past—philosophically, institutionally, socially—to provide the framework French society would have needed to beat Britain in the race to the West. Secular, Jacobin France also had its rigidities, fixed perspectives and propensities to resist change rather than embrace it. The struggle between these two visions of French society propelled France to the West, but never at the speed the English traveled. Indeed, the Westward progress of any society may well reflect the degree to which many different worldviews, interest groups and subcultures find expression in its politics. Homogeneous and bipolar societies seem to be at a basic disadvantage, doomed to play catch-up in a world in which the leaders win disproportionate rewards. The social model based on the British Enlightenment and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 reflects a broad and deep pluralism that the political paradigms based on the French Enlightenment and the Revolution of 1789 lack.
The fact that the Anglosphere emerged from the British Reformation with an ability to tolerate and even welcome the conflicts, tensions and radical uncertainties of an open society helps explain the English-speaking world’s capacity to cope with the risks and stresses of capitalist society, even as they have posed obstacles for much of the rest of the world. Capitalism requires that people stop looking to conserve the past and instead fix their hopes on the future.
On a broader scale, a capitalist society is one in which the creative destruction of the market is constantly reshaping basic institutions. We are always saying goodbye to something we love, always leaving our fathers’ homes for an unknown future. This is true of individual entrepreneurs, who must risk losing the wealth they currently have in the quest for more; it is more broadly true throughout a changing society. Semper eadem was the motto of the feudal world: Always the same. The church, the state, the law, the dynasty: Every institution derived its authority from its antiquity. Semper reformanda is the motto of capitalism: Everything needs to be remade, over and over again. The older a machine, a firm, a factory, a product, a social compact, an idea or a technology, the more suspect it is.
At the same time, there must be room for nostalgia and resistance to change. There must be religious voices denouncing godless secularism and calling mankind back to eternal principles, even as they denounce one another for heresy. Human society must be torn between strongly felt ideals, because no one ideal can hold all the answers. Open society must be secular and religious, dogmatic and free. “Doxies” of all kinds must find a place there and be cherished; yet the conflict and catfights between them can never end. Abrahamic America
This is how the social and economic dynamism of capitalism confirmed rather than challenged religious beliefs and affections. And if Britain created the synergy between dynamic religion and capitalist success, America has extended it. In both cases, one Biblical image and narrative led the way: that of Abraham.
American individualism, freedom of conscience and debate, pluralism, democratic opposition to natural and social hierarchies, community institutions, and a deeply grounded practice of democracy are all historically rooted in the Protestantism that shaped early American culture. One additional element needs to be stressed: The degree to which the individualistic basis of Anglo-American religious experience links the religious life of the individual to a God who reveals Himself—as He did to Abraham—in the changes and upheavals of life, rather than in its stabilities and unchanging verities. This understanding has had a profound effect and continues to exercise a powerful force on the English-speaking world today. It has given, and still gives, direction to its spiritual striving and self-understanding, which has helped ensure that, over succeeding centuries, individuals and society as a whole continue to devote their full energy to the exploration and development of the possibilities of capitalist society.
The connections between capitalist values and the dynamic Protestant religious culture that shaped the modern English-speaking world run deeper than the mechanisms Max Weber identified just over a century ago. Yes, it is true that Calvinists sublimated fears about salvation into habits that promoted discipline—that being good somehow transmuted into doing well. But Protestants also came to believe that living in communion with God and experiencing the hope of salvation meant cooperating with, and even furthering, the waves of social change unleashed by capitalism on the English-speaking world. Increasingly, dynamic religion would become the only true religion for English speakers. Religion not only had to tolerate change; it had to advance it. advertisement
The key theological reference point for this transformation of values was the patriarch Abraham. The significance his story assumed in Anglo-American religion has roots deep in Reformation theology. Martin Luther’s interpretation of Pauline theology put the figure of Abraham front and center. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul stresses that Abraham’s faithful initial response to God’s call was the basis for salvation. Thus this narrative became, in the eyes of Luther and his followers, the bedrock of the core tenet of Protestantism—sola fide, or justification by faith alone.
As Protestants saw it, Abraham’s faith—his willingness to leave his home and family in obedience to a call from God—became the foundation for God’s redemption of the human race. Without a doubt many Protestant converts from Catholicism were sustained by Abraham’s example; they too believed they were abandoning their fathers’ beliefs to answer a higher calling. The new sense of faith as a journey that required the abandonment of the familiar became a central idea in the religious and devotional literature of the time. The wildly successful Pilgrim’s Progress is the story of how a Christian forsakes the comfortable, conventional religion of his family and community to follow a call. Next to the King James Bible, this was the most common book in English homes well into the 19th century. Next to the Bible, it was the book most commonly owned by the American pioneers.
Abraham’s faithful response to God’s promise is a deeper and more positive force than the fear that drives Weber’s Calvinist analysis. The Calvinist is running in fear from a hideous fate, but the follower of Abraham is reaching out toward something positive—a transcendent call that bespeaks a reality far richer and more rewarding. Embracing change itself becomes a sacrament. Moving from the known to the unknown brings one closest to God. Change is no longer a necessary evil that must sometimes be endured; it now has religious sanction, and to embrace change is to encounter the meaning of life.
Where Weber, like European Enlightenment thinkers, saw progress in terms of rationalization and the disappearance of the numinous from ordinary existence, for the individualistic Anglo-American Christian, the “personal relationship with God” is a powerful and effective link with the realm of the transcendent that does not wither or fade in the face of the modernizing and rationalizing processes of capitalist society. On the contrary, the experience of transcendence may become increasingly important to a population facing growing uncertainty in a world of accelerating change. The more the world changes, and the more the believer changes in response, the closer he or she comes to God. Ecclesia semper reformanda: The church and the world are always in need of renewal and change.
The pull of these values has not been limited to orthodox Protestants. Indeed, it is precisely this “Protestant principle” of progressive change that led men like Ralph Waldo Emerson beyond even the very capacious boundaries of the Unitarian faith. In a real sense, change itself—understood as a progressive response to a call whether from God or some inner, higher self—can become an object of worship in the English-speaking world.
As American religion in particular became more personalized and emotional, its identification with Abraham’s faithful response to change only deepened. From the time of Jonathan Edwards in the early 18th century to the revivals of our own day, the Great Awakenings of American history have focused on the idea of God’s call. In the Kentucky revivals at the turn of the 19th century, when strong men and pioneer women fell to the ground and shook, and in later revivals, when thousands knelt in tears on the tent floors as Dwight Moody preached and Ira Sankey sang, or when the fires of the Holy Spirit fell on the ecstatic worshippers at the Azusa Street church in Los Angeles in the early 20th century, millions of Americans felt a personal call from God to leave the familiar worlds and ideas of their past and journey toward something unknown.
In some cases, such as the Mormons, it was a literal call to imitate Abraham and move to a new promised land. In others, it meant leaving established churches for fledgling denominations. Almost always, the Great Awakenings have come at times when Americans were either engaged in or preparing for moments of great change. The astonishing outpourings of enthusiasm that followed George Whitfield’s progress across the colonies and the Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards helped prepare the way for the American Revolution. The Kentucky revivals that followed were instrumental in the creation of a frontier society and a new kind of democratic lifestyle independent of the strictures and conventions of the East.
Today’s religious revivals in the South, too—and not just the South—come at a time when old patterns of life based on segregation and farming have been replaced by very different conditions. Overall, just as the proliferation of small sects helped the transplanted countrymen of Adam Smith’s Britain adjust to new social patterns and work rhythms in the cities of an industrializing economy, so did the revival meetings, circuit riders and tiny wilderness churches help Americans adapt to a succession of dramatic and rapid changes.
The belief that every Christian must have a personal, Abrahamic experience of God’s call has for more than three centuries been strengthening its hold in American life. American Protestants stress the importance of a personal decision for Christ and a personal relationship with God. In the American context Christianity is less and less a matter of family or ethnic identity, and ever more a matter of personal choice. We must all be Abraham now.
This is a truly revolutionary way of conceptualizing religion. Historically, religious identity has largely been an aspect of a broader social and ethnic identity. One is Greek Orthodox or Hindu, because that is the faith into which one was born. The mobility of American religious life, with frequent movement mostly among the major Protestant denominations, but also beyond and across these boundaries—combined with the increasingly individualistic nature of American theology and piety—has dramatically changed this picture. Religion today is increasingly part of a self-constructed identity for Americans. It is perceived as a response to a call, an inherently dynamic religious orientation, even if the doctrines embraced are venerable.
The cultural impact of this orientation goes far beyond the pulpits and the pews of American religion. The widespread American belief that each life is a kind of project to be planned, that one has a unique dream which must be pursued through all hardships and reverses, all testify to the power of the Abrahamic archetype in the American mind (consider the ease with which Americans move hundreds and even thousands of miles in pursuit of opportunity or fulfillment).
This Abrahamic concept of a calling strengthens and intensifies the influence of Weber’s “Protestant ethic”, even as it extends its influence from the sphere of individual and family life into the broader society. As the Weberian Calvinist grimly works and saves, he or she generates the cash and the work habits that will make capitalism grow. The Abrahamic believer, convinced that God is leading the way to an unknown future in a new land, is ready to accept not only the personal but also the social consequences of capitalist life. Are the old folkways and habits passing away? Have strip malls and townhouses sprung up in the meadows and forests where one played as a child? Are gender roles melting and changing even as new immigrant groups fill the land? Is the old industrial economy of union labor and stable employment mutating into something mysterious, complex, dynamic and new?
For the soul grounded in static religion, such changes are hard to accept. For the dynamic believer, change is both a sign of progress and an opportunity to show the crowning virtue of faith. To struggle for change and reform is not to oppose the religious instinct, but to give it its fullest expression. Whether they were struggling to build businesses, change social institutions to reflect the new requirements and possibilities of a capitalist system, or simply accustom themselves to the accelerating juggernaut of change, millions of Anglo-Americans over the centuries were not trapped in a Pascalian vicious circle. They really did see something transcendent in their lives; they really did believe that they were struggling toward God. And to the degree that fulfillment comes from making a journey of faith, they didn’t just seek God. They found Him.
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