Renault for the expulsion of strong gods – Econlib

In my first post in this series, I outlined the idea of ​​RR Reno for strong gods and weak gods as metaphors for the types of ideas that organize societies. Renault claims that the strong gods were expelled, or at least critically reduced, in favor of the weak gods. What led to the expulsion of strong gods?

Renault describes the expulsion of strong gods as a result of post -war consensus among prominent leaders in politics and intelligentsia. In the first half of the twentieth century, a generation witnessed and suffered two devastating world wars and examined the horror of the atrocities committed during these conflicts. The Second World War restricted this process to the introduction of weapons that could make more than a simple equalization of cities – they introduced the very real prospect of destroying all humanity. Reno writes,

The history of the first half of the twentieth century seems to speak of itself: German militarism and the seduction of aggressive nationalism caused the First World War; In the social disorder that followed the truce, Mussolini rose to power as the supreme leader of a paramilitary political party; Nazism combines anti -Semitic animus with a cruel ideology of power; And, of course, communism has been ruled in the Soviet Union for decades, eating the same totalitarian temptations. The inevitable lesson that most believed was that war and destruction arise from close regimes of life and thought.

Remember that in the description of Renault, the “strong gods” are the ideas that command and inspire loyalty and reverence. But Renault does not deviate from the fact that the strong gods can be born, and he does not deny that the horrors that drove the world wars were committed in the service of strong gods. He freely admits that those who have taken advantage of this anxiety has a real meaning:

I am not against the antitalitarian struggles of the last century. The post -war consensus arose for valid reasons.

The good causes of the post -war consensus were the desire to ensure that the horrors of the twentieth century would never be repeated:

The imperative is scandalously simple: never again. We will never again allow totalitarian governments to appear. They will never reach the societies of the temperature of ideological fanaticism again. Never again, Auschwitz’s stoves do not consume their victims. This imperative – never again – plans strict demands for us. Western civilization is necessary to achieve self -critical maturity with courage and determination that Popper hoped to set an example with his full attack against Plato, founder of our philosophical tradition. We need to banish the strong gods of a closed society and create a truly open.

Guaranteeing that nothing is sacred and over critical control is necessary to ensure that nothing can be made strong enough to encourage people to do atrocities:

We must undress our inheritance of the remnants of the sacred authority, which blink the mind of men, which makes them vulnerable to ideological fanaticism. No cultural or religious piety is needed today, but rather independence and bold criticism. Open society needs open minds. In order to encourage them, we must release the growing generation from its defense habits.

But the expulsion of strong gods was a slow process that continued in a slippery way on the slope. The original intention was not to throw the gates wide to complete openness (and thus a total weight loss) – the goal was simply to open the door to a bigger critical question of the hereditary traditions and institutions of society. As an example of this change, Renault describes a report entitled General education in free societyProduced by the Faculty of Harvard University, which aims, according to the report itself, “both form the future and provide the foundations of our free society.”

The Harvard Committee did not want to undercut the value of traditional Western civilization, Renault says, “Since the Western tradition itself is the source of the ideals of free society, the committee said, it must be passed on to the next generation. But precisely because critical exploration and freedom are crucial to Western heritage, we must avoid slave devotion to the past. “The goal was to balance these two equalization forces.

The Harvard Committee works to combine traditional critical content content. The educational philosophy of the future, they have noticed, must “reconcile the sense of model and direction stemming from the heritage with a sense of experiment, resembling innovation resulting from science that they can exist fruitfully together.”

Similar programs were conducted by elites at other top universities – and they were also not initially put to reject the traditional Western Canon, but by promoting a critical assessment of it as part of its inheritance:

In the initial stages of the post -war era, there was an emphasis on authority, true but not very imposed and always open for experimentation. Convinced that a free society requires a foundation in Western tradition, Robert Maynard Hatchins, the famous President of Chicago University, has launched an ambitious project for great books for a mass audience. Still, he also tilted against power, even when he praised the authoritative texts. – The [great] Books have to talk about themselves, “he writes,” and the reader must decide for himself. “Tradition, yes, but the free individual has the last word.

But, says Renault, the opening of the idea that rejection of the traditional foundations of Western civilization is a viable and even respected option would inevitably cast the gates wide open. From Harvard’s approach, says Reno,

The Harvard Committee sought a delicate balance between the authority of the great books and the independence of critical interrogation. But the latter enjoyed the prestige of moral progress, and over time he prevailed.

In the same way, Hatchins’ approach to balancing the inheritance of the Western cannon with continued criticism of it, says Reno, says,

It was a dynamic trend, not a stable position. The development arrow always points to more openness, more deconsolidation of the old authorities, more discontent, which is why the revolutionary rhetoric of the 60s, though certainly destructive, was more in continuity with the 50s of the last century than in the rebellion Against him.

This trend has led to the expulsion of the strong gods and the rise of the weak gods – not immediately or all at once, but as an inevitable process that will continue with an increase in speed over time. As John Maynard Keynes once said, “The world is governed by a little more” beyond “the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong.” After this consensus was reached among the elites and intellectuals in the post -war society, it will inevitably be broadcast for everyone else.

Renault has a lot to say about both the social and the political consequences of the expulsion of the strong gods. In the next post, I will outline what he accepts to be the social consequences.