Steven Douglas Smith, whose works are always worth the read IMHO, has cranked out a 60-page essay titled The Plight of the Secular Paradigm (abstract here). Since everyone believes that state power must be justified to be morally legitimate, and almost everyone believes that such a justification must be secular (whatever that means exactly) and not religious (as if there's any agreement on what that is), why hasn't anyone come up with such a unitary, historically persistent, and universally accepted justification (or paradigm)? Why are there so many secular paradigms and why do folks keep dreaming up new ones? To put it another way, why are there as many dissenters to the various secular paradigms as there ever were to older, "religious" ones? Easier to answer than these questions is what the holders of various paradigms do about dissenters: assimilate or marginalize is Smith's answer.
Smith draws on Charles Taylor's magisterial work, A Secular Age, at this point for the when and how of the rise of secular paradigms so I'll proceed simply by noting that I blogged extensively on Taylor's book in four parts here, here, here, and, yes, here. Smith focuses on the how; how have the proponents of the variegated secular paradigms assimilated and marginalized dissenters, particularly in the U.S.?
Indoctrination: "Perhaps the primary seminary of secularization has been the public schools." (p. 34) Since religious dissenters remain, proponents of secular paradigms have turned to
Projection: "While acknowledging the present significance of religion, secular thinkers have repeatedly predicted that as societies become more modern, urbanized, and educated, religion is destined to dwindle." (p. 37) Yet fair-minded supporters of the secular paradigm must admit that at least so far their millenarian hopes remain unfulfilled, so they try
Incorporation and marginalization: "governmental secularity is neither favorable nor unfavorable to religion, but merely neutral." (p. 38) Religion, so long as it is limited to the personal sphere, is unobjectionable and dissenters who argues to the contrary is "are depicted as obstreperous and unassimilable– as 'unreasonable.'" (id.) Of the three strategies Smith notes, this has been most persistent and effective. Yet the "non-neutrality" of "neutrality" is barely out of public view. (Take a look at what I wrote here, pp. 739-40 for some amplification.)
Now what? If the three strategies of dealing with dissenters to the secular paradigm of political legitimacy aren't succeeding in the U.S. (much less in much of the rest of the world), what can we expect? In other words, are the times ripe for a "paradigm shift," in the words of Thomas Kuhn?
Smith avoids predictions of what will occur but suggests a framework for what might work: constitutionalism. Constitutionalism is an idea that predates and undergirds secularism and is both supported by many dissenters from the secular paradigm. It is also consistent with many forms of religious establishment. In so many words, Smith suggests constitutionalism as a second-best approach that retains many of the benefits of political pluralism while acknowledging the reality of many vigorously non-secular paradigms of political legitimacy. "Although ideas of popular sovereignty and constitutionalism are in themselves secular, not theological, they need not mandate that governments must be secular." (p. 58)
Smith's conclusion is far weaker than this arguments. Yet, in his reticence to propose a truly Kuhnian paradigm shift, he leaves open a way by which inhabitants of the modern world may be able to muddle through. Perhaps that's enough.
Smith draws on Charles Taylor's magisterial work, A Secular Age, at this point for the when and how of the rise of secular paradigms so I'll proceed simply by noting that I blogged extensively on Taylor's book in four parts here, here, here, and, yes, here. Smith focuses on the how; how have the proponents of the variegated secular paradigms assimilated and marginalized dissenters, particularly in the U.S.?
Indoctrination: "Perhaps the primary seminary of secularization has been the public schools." (p. 34) Since religious dissenters remain, proponents of secular paradigms have turned to
Projection: "While acknowledging the present significance of religion, secular thinkers have repeatedly predicted that as societies become more modern, urbanized, and educated, religion is destined to dwindle." (p. 37) Yet fair-minded supporters of the secular paradigm must admit that at least so far their millenarian hopes remain unfulfilled, so they try
Incorporation and marginalization: "governmental secularity is neither favorable nor unfavorable to religion, but merely neutral." (p. 38) Religion, so long as it is limited to the personal sphere, is unobjectionable and dissenters who argues to the contrary is "are depicted as obstreperous and unassimilable– as 'unreasonable.'" (id.) Of the three strategies Smith notes, this has been most persistent and effective. Yet the "non-neutrality" of "neutrality" is barely out of public view. (Take a look at what I wrote here, pp. 739-40 for some amplification.)
Now what? If the three strategies of dealing with dissenters to the secular paradigm of political legitimacy aren't succeeding in the U.S. (much less in much of the rest of the world), what can we expect? In other words, are the times ripe for a "paradigm shift," in the words of Thomas Kuhn?
Smith avoids predictions of what will occur but suggests a framework for what might work: constitutionalism. Constitutionalism is an idea that predates and undergirds secularism and is both supported by many dissenters from the secular paradigm. It is also consistent with many forms of religious establishment. In so many words, Smith suggests constitutionalism as a second-best approach that retains many of the benefits of political pluralism while acknowledging the reality of many vigorously non-secular paradigms of political legitimacy. "Although ideas of popular sovereignty and constitutionalism are in themselves secular, not theological, they need not mandate that governments must be secular." (p. 58)
Smith's conclusion is far weaker than this arguments. Yet, in his reticence to propose a truly Kuhnian paradigm shift, he leaves open a way by which inhabitants of the modern world may be able to muddle through. Perhaps that's enough.
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