Jul 25, 2020
The human mind, like nature, hates a vacuum, and politics rushes in to fill the mental space that religious belief once occupied. In “Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold says:
𝕨𝕖 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕒𝕤 𝕠𝕟 𝕒 𝕕𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕚𝕟
𝕊𝕨𝕖𝕡𝕥 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕗𝕦𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕣𝕞𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕦𝕘𝕘𝕝𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕗𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥,
𝕎𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕚𝕘𝕟𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕥 𝕒𝕣𝕞𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕔𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕙 𝕓𝕪 𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥.
“Where ignorant armies clash by night”: Is that not a summary of our present sociopolitical situation? America has ceased to be different from the rest of the Western world in remaining religious, with the result that politics is the new religion. It has removed transcendence and salvation from the private and personal sphere to the public realm, where it can lead only to conflict. I say this as someone who has no religious belief.
- Theodore Dalrymple