Secularization as an Opportunity
Fernando De Haro, Alessandra Gerolin - Gerolin, a professor at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, is one of the great specialists in the thought of the philosopher Charles Taylor. The ideas of the Canadian thinker greatly help those who do not want to take an "anti-modern" position.
For Taylor, the secular age, with its many limitations, offers an opportunity for free inquiry. A secular framework can, paradoxically, encourage the emergence of the question of self-identity in the absence of shared religious beliefs. The opportunity is lost when a traditionalist position is defended. Modernity, for Taylor, is not something inherently negative to be fought.
Faced with the phenomenon of secularization, there are usually two positions. That of the nostalgists, who lament the disappearance of a world in which God was present, and that of the triumphalists, who believe that man has finally freed himself from God. Does Taylor represent a "third way"? If so, why?
I believe that Taylor's thought represents a "third way" to the polarizations to which we are increasingly addicted and reflects contemporary Western culture's great difficulty in imagining a world not trapped in the debate of thesis-antithesis. For the Canadian philosopher, both perspectives, either the one that celebrates the advent of secularization as an experience of liberation from ecclesiastical authority and beliefs considered obscure or the one that judges it as an irreparable loss of truth and fundamental values, would be nothing more than two sides of the same coin.
Those who are "nostalgic" for the past and those who welcome the phenomenon of secularization as a liberation from constraints deemed unacceptable cannot see that it does not consist in the "disappearance" of certain beliefs but in a new, original form of human self-understanding. In Taylor's view, how we now experience the world and conceive of ourselves can only be understood in the light of major cultural shifts, new conceptions of the self, human agency, time, and society that have emerged within Western modernity. Thus, it becomes clear, to use his own words, that "the right path to take is neither the one recommended by the praisers at all costs, nor the one favored by the total detractors," for "both the praisers and the detractors are right, but in ways that a simple weighing of benefits and costs cannot do justice to" (Taylor, The Discomfort of Modernity).
Instead, it is necessary to examine the indispensable goods identified during modernity (such as freedom, autonomy, and authenticity), question their origins, and ask why they constitute an essential reference point for people today. Only in this way will it be possible to understand the significance of the changes that have taken place and to intervene to promote the development of these values, correcting any limitations. With an awareness of these changes, it is possible to arrive at a critical understanding of the identity of contemporary man.
Is secularization an opportunity for Taylor? Why is it an opportunity? Can only secularization save us?
For Taylor, secularization is characterized neither by a deterministic origin (according to which scientific progress would inevitably "drop the veil" of religion) nor by an inevitable outcome (the "end" of religion). The phenomenon of secularization, which cannot be reduced to a change in beliefs or practices, must be interpreted within the framework of the human search for meaning and wholeness. According to the Canadian philosopher, man cannot but live within inescapable "horizons of meaning ."Both believers and non-believers are protagonists of such a search. It is certainly no coincidence that today, believers and non-believers can establish a wholly unexpected and unpredictable alliance and common journey. The secular age, along with its many limitations, offers the possibility of a profound rediscovery of human identity and its irreducibility: no cultural, social, or political context can alter the essence of the person as an openness to meaning and the capacity to recognize the true, the good, the right, and the beautiful.
Moreover, in the contemporary Western context, adherence to a religious faith cannot be attributed to social or political conditioning: this element promotes (but does not "guarantee") adherence to the faith based on free choice, which implies exercising personal judgment and responsibility. In this sense, the presence of a secular framework can paradoxically facilitate the emergence of the question of the identity of the self because of the absence of shared religious convictions. In contrast, until a few decades ago, all this could have led to forms of social exclusion that were difficult to tolerate.
To say that secularization is an opportunity is not to say that it is automatically or necessarily so. The openness of the individual subject's freedom to search for and recognize the true and the good plays a fundamental role in this possibility.
Secularization does not contain any "saving" power within itself, just as no "faith" can save man apart from the implication of his freedom. Taylor does not remain silent about the important negative consequences of secularization and the many dangers that permeate the contemporary world, identified primarily in individualism, the eclipse of ends, and the loss of political freedom. By no means does the Canadian philosopher intend to endorse any outcome of modern secularized culture, recognizing that there is "much that is admirable" in it as well as "much that is degrading": understanding the relationship between these two aspects, in his view, "means recognizing that the question is not how high a price (in terms of negative consequences) to pay for positive fruits, but rather how to steer these developments toward their most promising potential, and how to avoid slipping into degraded forms" (Taylor, The Discomfort of Modernity).
What does Taylor mean when he talks about "sense-seekers"?
A 'sense-seeker' is any person who would not exchange the search for meaning in their life for any material good nor any certainty not acquired through experience, an accessible path, and a personally formulated evaluation. It is, therefore, a search involving both believers and non-believers and is not conducted according to the conditions of a purely intellectual inquiry.
Instead, it takes on the character of an integral human "journey," often traversed by doubt and uncertainty, toward a "beyond" capable of giving direction, meaning, and joy to human life. The "seekers of meaning" are those who have the patience to "stand" in the question without rushing to arrive at an "answer" in the Enlightenment sense of the term (i.e., a doctrinal formulation that does not arise from the bowels of the embodied subject), aware that the answer already "dwells" in the question. In addition, the "seekers of meaning," confronted by the specificities that distinguish them, share important moments of their journey since they are animated by questions and needs that are similar to each other, capable of creating relationships of friendship rooted in the search for meaning with people who often do not identify with their original spheres of origin.
Why do traditionalists react against "meaning seekers"?
What is called "traditionalism" is not so much a cultural position or a political arrangement as it is an attitude of freedom to which human beings are constantly exposed: security and certainty are placed in a prior tradition (real or supposed) that needs to be continuously reconfirmed in its content, believed to be eternal and unchanging, in its ritual (even if exclusively secular), and its ethical-normative arrangement.
Taylor devotes particular attention to the latter element and, echoing the thought of Iris Murdoch, contends that morality in contemporary times no longer focuses on what it is good to be and what it is good to love but instead places an almost exclusive emphasis on what it is right to do. If questions of meaning open us to a work of self-understanding and hermeneutics of the world in which we live (thus inevitably "forcing" us through uncertainty and confronting us with the possibility of error), a system of norms to be followed would provide us with greater "security," would "protect" us from error, would have the merit of offering us knowledge based on clarity and evidence of procedures to which we can conform without excessive involvement on the part of the acting subject. The latter, moreover, would, by adhering to the relevant ethical codes, feel on the side of the 'just.' Those who reject such codes would be confined to the status of 'sinner' to be redeemed or even of 'enemy' to be fought.
The dynamic of scapegoating finds its deepest roots precisely in the importance of nomolatry at the expense of the search for meaning. The latter, while not denying the value of justice, affirms that no pre-established rule can replace human beings in their ability to evaluate and recognize the good. The search for meaning emphasizes the primacy of practical reasoning (Aristotelian phronesis), freedom, and interpersonal relationships with "significant others" who can be located both within and outside one's group.
On the contrary, traditionalism is characterized by a radical anthropological individualism: interpersonal relations do not manifest a substantive character but instead provide the occasion and the instrument for recognizing oneself within the group, whose core identity is precisely guaranteed by a set of doctrines and norms to which one must conform to continue to be part of it. In this sense, "traditionalism" embodies many of the drifts of modernity: nomolatry, nominalism, individualism, power without authority, and ethical voluntarism.
On the other hand, authentic tradition can only be experienced and rediscovered in the light of an openness to a present that challenges it and allows for its continual development, as John Henry Newman already argued in the 19th century.
Why does Taylor disagree with MacIntyre when he calls for a "return to the origins"?
According to MacIntyre, to live as a human being, one must be embedded in certain shared life practices that make essential human goods possible. We call these "human goods" because they realize the characteristics proper to each human being, and they correspond ultimately to what Aristotle calls "ends," which are realized when moral virtues are embodied. These human goods are always concretely understood within communities where ends and goods are shared because their reasonableness is continually defined in the mutual confrontation of opinions in the light of truth.
MacIntyre's vision proceeds from a critique of modernity, starting with the moral crises it expresses today. MacIntyre radically rejects modernity because it has formulated abstract and theoretical models of life expressed in rules and norms as ends in themselves. In this sense, he sees liberalism as the most eloquent manifestation that masks the irreducible conflict of individual preferences with an abstract theory, effectively hiding the reality of a rule of the strongest of those with the most power. In his view, however, it is possible to resist this practice: it is still possible to recover the model of ethics inspired by authentic human goods and virtues, which animated social and political structures in past centuries but which are still present in the life of small communities, often, but not only, of local scope.
Taylor, while coming from youthful experiences similar to MacIntyre's and at times sharing their political engagement, does not accept a "Manichaean" view of modernity; that is, he does not see modernity as something inherently negative to be fought and subverted or resisted while waiting for better conditions. On the political level, his reflection is based on the situation of liberal democratic and pluralistic societies (Taylor has been active in the politics of his country, Canada). For this reason, he does not think that he can refer, as MacIntyre does, to a framework such as Aristotelian or medieval Christian society because, in fact, our societies no longer share a unified religious and theoretical frame of reference. What the two authors do share, however, is the importance of the person and freedom. However, Taylor's proposal is not eclectic or relativistic; instead, he references ethical reasonableness and shared politics in the dynamic of free and conscious adherence to paths of knowledge of belonging directed toward the fullness of one's being.
What is Taylor's proposal for a "republican patriotism" that sustains democratic life?
The patriotism advocated by Taylor has nothing to do with exclusivist or even sectarian political views based on ethnic, religious, or cultural homogeneity. Still, it consists of a bond of solidarity within the social and civil community formed based on a common enterprise. At the root of every society, from the smallest to the largest, there is a "we" identity, a "we" that represents the ultimate meaning and value of that same bond.
This primordial unity is constantly nourished by goods considered inalienable, called "common" goods. Thus, if there are public or converging goods in a society (and there must be), such as national defense or public utility resources, that same society cannot exist without common goods, which are essential to the attainment of the good life both as individual citizens and as subjects belonging to a "we.
"Belonging to a "we" is essential to the fulfillment of the individual citizen; in this sense, for Taylor, there are no individual goods that are not at the same time common goods. The Canadian philosopher thus takes up the value of Aristotelian friendship in a view of solidarity as the foundation of modern democratic life.
Taylor's republicanism has nothing to do with secularism or even liberal proceduralism since republican freedom is characterized as "freedom from" rather than "freedom of." Suppose the former describes an ideal of the common good fostered by active citizen participation in public affairs. In that case, negative freedom is a defense of private interests rooted in an atomistic perspective. But atomism itself, when put to the test, cannot provide a solid foundation for democratic life, which is more thirsty than ever for a sense of life and life together.
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