Call them what you like, Individualism and Secularism are problematic.

I apologize for having posted this by accident yesterday while it was being drafted.

A pet-term here or there and an entire discussion can be undone by hurt feelings.

And this is for good reason. The names we call ourselves have their place and import. We shouldn’t let ourselves be called this or that without concern.

Nonetheless, when nomenclature begins to blind our ability to see the things in front of us, then there is a serious problem. When language overtakes the world in toto, we are left in a meaningless cycle of hermeneutics where nothing can truly be at stake.

I bring this up because, in my recent writings against liberalism—here, here, and here—I think that endearment with or against the word ‘liberal’ has garnered more attention than the things that the term describes. Things that are real and present among us. My use of the term ‘liberalism’ may be disputable as an issue of ordinary language, or some evolutionary view of the term’s meaning over time, yet the minimal, genealogical way I use it points very clearly to the genesis of real things like secular nation-states and the modern notion of rights that are centered in the autonomous individual.

That is to say this: I have little concern for the question of what liberalism means and opt instead to ask what it is. In order to do this let me set the term aside altogether. Today I would like to evade the thorny term—that some wear with pride and others deny to wear at all—and focus on two of its central aspects: Individualism and Secularism.

In other words, whether you like the term or not, at least these aspects of its history seem to be problematic elements that we must begin to reject and imagine a better political order without them.

Let me describe them one-by-one and make some remarks:

1. Individualism is a a word that is used in many ways that vary from one another. In its political form, it is the basis for remaking the human person. Charles Taylor describes this as the move from a porous self to a buffered self in his impressive book, A Secular Age. Individualism is centered in the belief that the self is essentially autonomous. We can make our own choices and have our own will and mind. From that autonomous state of being, a well-ordered society is one in which the individual is protected—or buffered—from the whims of others to the greatest possible extent. Individualism, in effect, is the foundation of the liberal republic of modernity and its corresponding notions of rights that follow. The greatest right, of course, is the right to autonomy itself. The political right of the day seems to emphasize this aspect of ‘liberalism’ more than its counterpart on the left.

2. Secularism is much more straightforward. It is the belief that a nation-state should remain neutral on matters of religion and other things that seem to belong to the private sector of the autonomous individual. This state neutrality allows for the autonomy of the individual to flourish in matters that are buffered from private interest and leave “less controversial” matters for the state to decide neutrally. This, of course, is premised on the assumption that religious life is something that can be buffered away from the neutral life of the commons. It is also based in the naive idea that religious affairs are the sole domain of the private, self-enclosed, autonomous individual. The political left of the day seems to emphasize this aspect of ‘liberalism’ more than its counter part.

Commentary:

Make no mistake, these two notions are deeply intertwined. For this reason, while many Republicans speak out against secularism and many Democrats lambaste individualism, they require both of these principles in order to maintain the modern nation-state and its history intact. The political status quo is wholly committed to these two ideals as matter of political fact.

From a Catholic perspective, both individualism and secularism are deeply problematic. For one, they disenchant the world and the person. Moreover, they are based on dangerous myths that do not describe things as they truly are. We are not individuals, we are persons. Social order is never a neutral affair. Individualism and secularism, then, distort the imagus Dei and the ordo amoris.

For this reason we ought to admit to the fact that the political status quo misrepresents who we are as persons and what a social order ought to be. Even if these are the only reasons to oppose the varying degrees of the aspects I mention here, aspects that we find in the history of modernity—the time after the Enlightenment that is the genealogical origin of ‘liberalism’—, then, we have good reason to consider something better.

To those who repeatedly insist on telling me that this is the best we can do, I simply would ask that you consider this question: If we are called to continual conversion and renewal, then, why not expect the same thing from our politics?

This is not a desire for the Crusades or the oppressive monarchies of the past, it is the restless desire for love to come. A love that is ever-new and ever-old.

How would this work? Well, it might work by beginning to question the divine right we have given to the individual and the secular nation-state. Much like ‘liberalism’ began in the questioning the divine right of kings.

Questions always lead the way.