An Atlas syndrome of citizens
responsible for their own society cannot develop among fatalists. The Atlas syndrome
is a modern feeling. It can grow only when we are convinced that we can
engineer society, that we can develop and improve it, and that this is what we
should do.
Fatalism
- the idea that the state of our society is not our responsibility, but our
fate - manifests in three attitudes. The first is that nothing can be done to
improve society: there will always be the same problems; human nature is
imperfect and cannot be changed. The second attitude is that this world simply
is not meant to be improved or is not worth improving. This view contends that
we should be satisfied with the world hereafter, that this life is only a test
case, a training ground or banishment for some sin in the distant past. The
third attitude is that the Lord, or people chosen by Him, will take care of the
world.
In
medieval times fatalism dominated, as it still does in many parts of the world.
Cathedrals, the most beautiful products of the Middle Ages, are great and
impressive pointers to the life hereafter. Still, many social and economic
improvements were made in response to the immediate needs and practical
ambitions of people.
The first important prelude to
modern society was the projection of an ideal society. This ideal society would
exist not in the hereafter, but in this world, be it in fairytale location: in
the distant past, the distant future, or distant and unknown countries. This
utopia became one of the most consequential social inventions ever made.
The
Thomas Edison of this invention was Thomas More, who in the year 1516 wrote
Utopia (6) and gave the genre its trade name. His ideal society appeared as a
pinnacle of both Christian and classical virtues. Its obvious inspiration was
Plato, who used the description of the ideal state to motivate and teach
citizens of his time. Utopia is a product of humanism, a true renaissance of
the classics. In the beginning of the 1600’s, writing utopias became fashionable,
possibly in response to the fierce social and religious strife of the times.
The
sting hidden in utopias is that we have to explain why this ideal state of
affairs does not yet exist. This sting is even its raison d’être. Utopias are scorpional. Thus, designers will find
reasons: lack of Christian virtues, irresponsible and incompetent leaders (then
princes and priests, nowadays industrialists, bankers and politicians), illiteracy,
exploitation.
A
farewell to fatalism carries a high price in the form of guilt, blame and
feelings of general insufficiency. The best way to deal with this cost is to
pass the buck, which means scapegoating. Since scapegoats, be they circumstances
or people, have the nasty habit of not dispelling themselves upon the sheer act
of exposure, in the end the problem returns. We ourselves have to do something
to dispel the countervailing powers that be. We have to change the world, and
as long that world is not yet changing, we have to carry it.
Therefore,
the return of utopia in 1516 gives us the first step toward today’s Atlas syndrome.
The last and thus far the most powerful utopia, the classless society of Karl
Marx, has long been a challenge of our time. But the end of communism is not
the end of utopias. New ones will follow.
The
second step toward the modern condition, and possibly the most important single
root of modern Western society, is the rise of deism, a more benevolent variety
of religion that emerged during the end of the 17th and the beginning of the
18th century. In the deistic view, God becomes less a terrible judge of the
unfaithful and more the benign creator of the universe. With the emergence of deism,
priests began preaching less about the ovens of hell and more about the beauty
of nature. Deism offered a truly great step forward in civilization, although
it has also led to extremes of sentimentality.
This
change toward deism occurred both with the coming of modern science, and with
the return of another return of another symbol of civilized society - the
gentleman, or in the original expression of the French variety that preceded
him, le gentilhomme. We refer to this symbol as returning because here also the
classics had preceded us, as had the medieval ideal of chivalry, born from the
11th-century renaissance in the Languedoc area of France.
The
most perfect description and manifestation of a gentleman, however, could be
found in China. The original Confucianism is purely a gentleman’s religion.
The Confucian idea of Kung-Tzu serves
as the prototype of the gentleman, a true man of the world, being an attentive
host to all other people who are not yet there where he is - in a state of
civilization. Modern forms of humanistic creeds also relate to classic ideas
such as humanitas, the Roman version
of Confucianism.
The
coming of the gentleman corresponds to a more gentlemanly version of God, and a
vision of society that is both critical and benevolent. This vision holds that
society should be improved toward more civilization, toward more humanity. It
should and it could, and it would. The only things necessary are a more
liberal, a more gentlemanly arrangement of society, and plenty of liberal education.
William
Penn, after hearing a woman accused of witchcraft and of riding the night air
on a broomstick, asked her if this accusation were true. When she acknowledged
that it was, he ruled that there was no law against traveling on broomsticks
and, as she had disturbed nobody’s night rest, he acquitted her. This is a good
story, whether it is true or not, because it illustrates nicely the modern
Confucian spirit of the Enlightenment, as we now call this spirit of that time.
An
important theme of the Enlightenment, a theme famously exposed by Jean-Jaques
Rousseau in Le contrat social, is
that society is originally based on rational and humane grounds. We do not need
to establish the kingdom of light against the forces of evil, but we need only
to rediscover our own natural origins. The Enlightenment knew both
revolutionary and easygoing, gradual representatives, France having more of the
first kind and England more of the second.
Optimism
and pessimism foster progressive and conservative political inclinations. These
inclinations exist separately from those progressive and conservative
tendencies that originate in judgment about the present state of society, and
in personal positions and interests. The major result of the Enlightenment was
to strengthen the utopian element, but to do so in a way that could be less
absolutist, less theocratic and less prescribed; more benign, more defined in
terms of humane conditions and relationships, more gentlemanly. Even if there
is no ideal society, it is possible to create or recreate a much better
society, one that is well-ordered, civilized, in accord with natural human
dignity.
