In recent years there has been no shortage of books with the argument that liberalism has gone wrong in the broad sense in the past generations. Every now and then I read one of these books to see what I could learn or win. When Edmund Burke said: ‘He who struggles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skills. Our opponent is our helper. ‘The antagonist of liberalism I recently read is RR Reno and his book Return of the Strong gods: Nationalism, Populism and The Future of the West.
During the following different messages I will go through his book and turn out his umbrella argument. As always when I do these extensive reviews, the first messages will simply be my attempts to sketch and explain his argument as clearly as possible, with my own views on the issue kept aside. All points of approval or criticism that I have are saved for the end of the series. To the extent that readers have questions or comments about Reno’s ideas, I will do my best in the reactions to answer them as I think he would do that, instead of my own position.
With that preamble from the way, let’s see what Reno has to say.
Reno’s book leans heavily on a metaphorical idea of strong and weak gods. This idea is not about real gods – as Reno says:
By “strong gods” I do not mean Thor and the other residents of the ancient Norwegian Valhalla. The strong gods are the objects of love and dedication of people, the sources of passions and loyalty that unite societies. They can be timeless. Truth is a strong God who beckons us for the marriage of consent. They can be traditional. King and land, as far as they still wake up the patriotic enthusiasm of men, are strong gods. The strong gods can take the form of modern ideologies and charismatic leaders. The strong gods can be beneficial. Our constitutional piety treats the American foundation as a strong God who is worthy of our dedication. And they can be destructive. In the twentieth century, militarism, fascism, communism, racism and anti -Semitism brought under ruins.
The latter point is an important item in Reno’s argument. The many gods of Greek and Norwegian mythology had wild different characters. Some of these gods were friendly and compassionate, some were powerful but aloof, and some were fickle or outright antagonistic towards mortals. Reno’s metaphorical strong gods can also be varied in the same way in their social influence. The strong gods of Reno’s work can be socially uniting and useful, but they can also be dangerous and destructive. Not everything that unites societies’ through ‘passions and loyalty’ will be peaceful or virtuous. Strong gods can be bad gods.
But, says Reno, there are also weak gods. Weak gods are ideas that are meant to make society more open and to constantly ease rough edges. The modern spirit, says Reno, “seeks the ministry of weak gods, or better, the gods of weakening those things open.” He says further
Nowadays one of our leading imperatives is inclusion, a god who alleviates differences. Transgression is appreciated for breaking down boundaries – opening things. Diversity and multiculturalism do not suggest an authoritative center.
An important feature of ‘weak gods’ is that the weak gods tend to be simple on denial – on the vices that we are trying to avoid, rather than the virtues we are trying to cultivate. Those who are the most devout in their service to the weak gods would describe themselves as being dedicated to anti -racism, antifacism, anti -discrimination and the like:
This anti Imperatives define the post -war era. Their goal is to resolve the strong beliefs and powerful loyalty that are believed to have fueled the conflicts that the twentieth century driven out.
What exactly is the result of these “anti” imperatives in the long term? Reno puts it this way,
On the pages to be followed I will show how anti-racism and anti-Totalitarism inspired a general theory of society. That theory has many forms, some explicitly, others tacitly. But it is characterized by a fundamental judgment: what is strong – strong love and strong truths – leads to oppression, while freedom and prosperity require the regime of weak love and weak truths.
Strong national loyalty runs the risk of leading to the type of aggressive, imperialist conquests of Nazi Germany. Weakening the feeling of national identity and national loyalty therefore reduces this risk. Strong beliefs in moral rules and truths can lead to the marginalization and ostracism of those who are outside the strong social consensus. The weakening of public morality – or, equivalent, which makes public morality increasingly open and the casting of moral judgment is avoided – prevents prosecution.
Here is an example that I think Reno would agree that his claim is illustrating. In American culture, the importance, even primacy, was a strong god of the traditional, two -parent household. People were expected to get married and got married before they had children. Once married, families were expected to stay together. When traditional marriage was a strong God, people who remained unmarried for too long were looked down before they got married. Divorce was avoided and single parents could be Pariahs. The strong god of traditional marriage would say Reno was replaced by the weak God of non -judgmental acceptance of all forms of family life as valid.
Truth is a strong God, and the truth is of the nature is exclusively. The truth, to be maintained, keeps us within barriers, and if you have no alignment with the truth, that is a failed one that you are responsible for resolving. The strong god of ‘the truth’, on the other hand, can be replaced by the weak God of ‘personal truth’, where everything is opened, where people can recently say unironic as a primer against ‘white supremation culture’ put down It: “Something can be true, but not my truth.” The weak god of ‘personal truth’ would also confirm the opposite – something can be valid ‘my truth’, even if it is not true.
And this, Reno thinks, is the real source of the misery with which modern society is confronted. Society cannot be kept easily through values of denial, or by being endless open-end. The real problem is not liberalism, per seBut rather the rule of weak gods about society. As Reno says,
The West goes to crisis, not because of a defective deep in modernity. Our problems do not arise from William van Ockham, the Reformation, John Locke, capitalism or modern science and technology … The fall of man left every civilization, every era under the law of entropy, and therefore the renewal of shared love is And unpretenting loyalty one of the most important arts of leadership. This is what we miss today. The distempers who nowadays affect public life reflect a crisis of post -war consensus, the weak gods of openness and weakening, no crisis of liberalism, modernity or the West … our time – this century – begs for a policy of Loyalty and solidarity, not openness and deconsolidation. We no longer need diversity and innovation. We need a home. And for that we will need the return of the strong gods.
But who has taken the strong gods from society, and why? That will be the subject of the next message.