Searching for the Arc of History: The Secularization of American Politics

IF 0.4 3区社会学 Q4 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Critical Review Pub Date : 2023-10-04 DOI:10.1080/08913811.2023.2259650

Samuel Goldman

{"title":"Searching for the Arc of History: The Secularization of American Politics","authors":"Samuel Goldman","doi":"10.1080/08913811.2023.2259650","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTMichael Rosen’s The Shadow of God includes an account of historical theodicy, which is the idea that the arc of history justifies the ways of God. Formulated by the German Idealists, its American expositors influenced the ideas of the nineteenth-century American theologian and activist Theodore Parker. As the orginator of the phrases “arc of history” and “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” Parker’s influence extends to presidents and Supreme Court justices, demonstrating the long and influential afterlife of the German philosophical discourses that Rosen explores. But examining this afterlife also challenges the assumption that we can discern the arc of history without the monotheistic presuppositions present in Parker.Keywords: KantHegelSchleiermacherParkerKingObamaBushLincolntheodicyrace Notes1 Rosen (Citation2022, 45) argues not simply that religions can be rational or Socratic, but that Socratism is, itself, “religious.”2 “Oval Office Redesigned,” https://www.nbcwashington.com/local/oval-office-redesigned/1877556/3 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf4 Rosen (Citation2022, 4-5) distinguishes his own Nietzschean image of “the shadow of God” from Schmittian secularization on the grounds that the latter indicates discontinuity as well as continuity. This difference does not seem very great to me. As with Nietzsche’s critique of modern science, the overall argument of Political Theology is precisely that modern adaptations of religious concepts make no sense because they are stripped of their original meaning and removed from their original context. True, Schmitt hints that we might be able to return to the original meaning by embracing religious faith, whereas Nietzsche sees this as impossible for any honest person. Despite his professions of Catholic piety, however, it is doubtful that Schmitt took this step himself and it is simply unclear whether he regarded it as a serious option for others.","PeriodicalId":51723,"journal":{"name":"Critical Review","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2023.2259650","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACTMichael Rosen’s The Shadow of God includes an account of historical theodicy, which is the idea that the arc of history justifies the ways of God. Formulated by the German Idealists, its American expositors influenced the ideas of the nineteenth-century American theologian and activist Theodore Parker. As the orginator of the phrases “arc of history” and “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” Parker’s influence extends to presidents and Supreme Court justices, demonstrating the long and influential afterlife of the German philosophical discourses that Rosen explores. But examining this afterlife also challenges the assumption that we can discern the arc of history without the monotheistic presuppositions present in Parker.Keywords: KantHegelSchleiermacherParkerKingObamaBushLincolntheodicyrace Notes1 Rosen (Citation2022, 45) argues not simply that religions can be rational or Socratic, but that Socratism is, itself, “religious.”2 “Oval Office Redesigned,” https://www.nbcwashington.com/local/oval-office-redesigned/1877556/3 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf4 Rosen (Citation2022, 4-5) distinguishes his own Nietzschean image of “the shadow of God” from Schmittian secularization on the grounds that the latter indicates discontinuity as well as continuity. This difference does not seem very great to me. As with Nietzsche’s critique of modern science, the overall argument of Political Theology is precisely that modern adaptations of religious concepts make no sense because they are stripped of their original meaning and removed from their original context. True, Schmitt hints that we might be able to return to the original meaning by embracing religious faith, whereas Nietzsche sees this as impossible for any honest person. Despite his professions of Catholic piety, however, it is doubtful that Schmitt took this step himself and it is simply unclear whether he regarded it as a serious option for others.

查看原文本刊更多论文

寻找历史的弧线:美国政治的世俗化

摘要迈克尔·罗森的《上帝的影子》论述了历史神正论，即历史的轨迹证明上帝的行为是正当的。由德国理想主义者制定，它的美国解释者影响了19世纪美国神学家和活动家西奥多·帕克的思想。作为“历史之弧”和“民有、民治、民享的政府”这两句话的创始者，帕克的影响延伸到了总统和最高法院大法官身上，展示了罗森所探索的德国哲学话语长期而有影响力的后世。但是，对来世的研究也挑战了这样一种假设，即我们可以在没有帕克的一神论前提的情况下辨别历史的弧线。关键词:kanthegel schleiermacherparkerking奥巴马布什林肯theodicyrace注1 Rosen (citation202,45)不仅认为宗教可以是理性的或苏格拉底主义的，而且苏格拉底主义本身就是“宗教的”。2“重新设计的椭圆形办公室”，https://www.nbcwashington.com/local/oval-office-redesigned/1877556/3学生公平录取公司对哈佛学院校长和研究员，https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf4罗森(Citation2022, 4-5)将他自己的尼采式的“上帝的影子”形象与施密特的世世化区分开来，理由是后者既表明了连续性，也表明了连续性。在我看来，这种差别并不是很大。与尼采对现代科学的批判一样，《政治神学》的总体论点恰恰是，宗教概念的现代改编毫无意义，因为它们被剥夺了原始意义，脱离了原始背景。诚然，施米特暗示，我们或许可以通过拥抱宗教信仰而回归原意，而尼采认为这对任何诚实的人来说都是不可能的。然而，尽管施米特自称虔诚天主教，但他自己是否迈出了这一步令人怀疑，而且我们也不清楚他是否认为这对其他人来说是一个严肃的选择。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Critical Review POLITICAL SCIENCE-

CiteScore

1.30

自引率

12.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society is a political-science journal dedicated to advancing political theory with an epistemological bent. Recurrent questions discussed in our pages include: How can political actors know what they need to know to effect positive social change? What are the sources of political actors’ beliefs? Are these sources reliable? Critical Review is the only journal in which the ideational determinants of political behavior are investigated empirically as well as being assessed for their normative implications. Thus, while normative political theorists are the main contributors to Critical Review, we also publish scholarship on the realities of public opinion, the media, technocratic decision making, ideological reasoning, and other empirical phenomena.