As described in earlier reports in this series, RR Reno believes that what he calls the strong gods must return to public life. This is not something that he considers in itself desirable – it is something that he regards as inevitably. Somehow the strong gods will return:
We want to join others, not only in the ties of marriage, but also in social and religious ties. The “we” arises from love, a wild power trying to rest in something bigger than themselves … Our hearts remain restless. They try to rest in loyalty to strong gods who are worthy of the dedication and sacrifice of love. And our hearts will find what they are looking for.
This costs work and active efforts. An important feature that untenage strong gods separates from division weak gods is that the unknowingly strong gods require persistent involvement and effort:
The solidarity found in the ‘we’ is always politically in the broadest sense. Because the ‘we’ is not natural – that is, it is not only a consequence of our shared humanity or a biological dynamic of genetic connection – the special feature requires intentional effort to create, guide and support. In short, the “we” does not happen alone.
The same cannot be said for the dark gods of identity policy:
They do not require free activity to support and promote shared love. They are gods of identity, not from the political community … that memory and that flourishing requires human freedom of choice, because what has ended, must be told, and the ties of solidarity must be renewed. The brutal fact of shared skin color, on the other hand, does not require such a human freedom of choice, although in the artificial environment of universities an Ersatz “We” has formed around complaints and theories about systemic injustice.
So what will the return of strong benevolent gods guarantee, instead of strong dark gods? Reno has a few suggestions. People should not be motivated by grievances, nor by a purely negative notions of vices that must be avoided, but by a shared feeling of love for the divine, love for truth, love for the country, love for family … It drives us outside of ourselves, the breaking of the limits of the ME-Constructed existence. Love tries to unite with and rest in that where is loved. ‘
But, says Reno, these uniting loves are treated with contempt by the elites – they are “love that the powerful do not seem to share.” Elites’, for example, ‘taking’ worries about the stability of the family in the twenty -first century America to be expressions of ‘patriarchate’ or ‘heteronormativity’. Patriotic calls are ‘exposed’ as racist or xenophobic … In these and other ways, our leadership class deals with unwanted political challenges such as phobias to be seen instead of ideas to be thrown on to their own conditions. ‘
Reno, on the other hand, sees patriotic loyalty as an essential strong God for keeping the people of a nation together:
Our shared love – love for our country, our history, our founding myths, our warriors and heroes – take us to a higher viewpoint. We see our private interest as part of a larger whole, the ‘we’ who evokes our freedom to serve the body politically with intelligence and loyalty. As Aristotle recognized, this loyalty is intrinsically satisfactory, because it meets the human desire for transcendence.
Real patriotism is also a counterweight against the rise of strong men and dangerous leaders:
For true and breeding love, of which the patriotic enthusiasm is certainly one, people will turn to demagogues and charlatans that offer them false and debasing love.
Loyalty of the family and religious communities are also strong gods that must be emphasized – not least because they too serve as a disappointing force against the strong gods of perverse nationalism:
Modernity encourages us to give our hearts to politics and the nations, which is why ideological passions are activated so easily. We easily imagine that the nation is more than our civilian house; It’s our savior. To combat this idolatry, we must feed to primary sources of solidarity that limit the claims of the Civic “we”: the domestic society of marriage and the supernatural community of the church, synagogue and other communities of transcendence.
When these three social forces are all treated with the right type of respect, they achieve a kind of harmony that brings out the best in all:
In the history of the West, communities of transcendence poured the nation from above, while the marital and domestic ties of family cycle have made it from below. Let’s learn from this history: the best guarantees against the dangers of the perversion of love are the love that we breed and give us peace. The solidarity of domestic life and religious community are not at odds with the Civic ‘We’. On the contrary, the strong gods can reinforce each other and prepare our heart for many devotions.
Reno thinks there is a political part of this recovery. Tax and labor policy can have consequences for the margins. “But political policy cannot be the most important engine -” cultural politics is more important. ” Those who try to ensure that the noblest versions of the strong gods return must become involved and move forward:
Our task is therefore to restore public life in the West by developing a language of love and a vision of the ‘we’ who fits our dignity and appeals to both our reason and to our hearts. We have to attend the strong gods that come from above and animate the best of our traditions. Only that kind of leadership will prevent the return of the dark gods who rise from below.
This concludes my summary of Reno’s book. In the following messages I will outline what I think Reno is right and where I think he’s going wrong.