Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

The reactionary ideology is theoconservatism.¹²² Belying the flippant label (coined by the apostate Damon Linker as a play on “neoconservatism”), the first theocons were 1960s radicals who redirected their revolutionary fervor from the hard left to the hard right. They advocate nothing less than a rethinking of the Enlightenment roots of the American political order. The recognition of a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the mandate of government to secure these rights, are, they believe, too tepid for a morally viable society. That impoverished vision has only led to anomie, hedonism, and rampant immorality, including illegitimacy, pornography, failing schools, welfare dependency, and abortion. Society should aim higher than this stunted individualism, and promote conformity to more rigorous moral standards from an authority larger than ourselves. The obvious source of these standards is traditional Christianity.

Theocons hold that the erosion of the church’s authority during the Enlightenment left Western civilization without a solid moral foundation, and a further undermining during the 1960s left it teetering on the brink. Any day during the Bill Clinton administration it would plunge into the abyss; no, make that the Obama administration; no, but for sure it would happen during a Hillary Clinton administration. (Hence Anton’s hysterical essay “The Flight 93 Election,” mentioned in chapter 20, which compared the country to the airliner hijacked on 9/11 and called on voters to “charge the cockpit or you die!”).¹²³ Whatever discomfort the theocons may have felt from the vulgarity and antidemocratic antics of their 2016 standard-bearer was outweighed by the hope that he alone could impose the radical changes that America needed to stave off catastrophe.

Lilla points out an irony in theoconservativism. While it has been inflamed by radical Islamism (which the theocons think will soon start World War III), the movements are similar in their reactionary mindset, with its horror of modernity and progress.¹²⁴ Both believe that at some time in the past there was a happy, well-ordered state where a virtuous people knew their place. Then alien secular forces subverted this harmony and brought on decadence and degeneration. Only a heroic vanguard with memories of the old ways can restore the society to its golden age.

Lest you have lost the trail that connects this intellectual history to current events, bear in mind that in 2017 Trump decided to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord under pressure from Bannon, who convinced him that cooperating with other nations is a sign of surrender in the global contest for greatness.¹²⁵ (Trump’s hostility to immigration and trade grew from the same roots.) With the stakes this high, it’s good to remind ourselves why the case for neo-theo-reactionary-populist nationalism is intellectually bankrupt. I have already discussed the absurdity of seeking a foundation for morality in the institutions that brought us the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch hunts, and the European wars of religion. The idea that the global order should consist of ethnically homogeneous and mutually antagonistic nation-states is just as ludicrous.

First, the claim that humans have an innate imperative to identify with a nation-state (with the implication that cosmopolitanism goes against human nature) is bad evolutionary psychology. Like the supposed innate imperative to belong to a religion, it confuses a vulnerability with a need. People undoubtedly feel solidarity with their tribe, but whatever intuition of “tribe” we are born with cannot be a nation-state, which is a historical artifact of the 1648 Treaties of Westphalia. (Nor could it be a race, since our evolutionary ancestors seldom met a person of another race.) In reality, the cognitive category of a tribe, in-group, or coalition is abstract and multidimensional.¹²⁶ People see themselves as belonging to many overlapping tribes: their clan, hometown, native country, adopted country, religion, ethnic group, alma mater, fraternity or sorority, political party, employer, service organization, sports team, even brand of camera equipment. (If you want to see tribalism at its fiercest, check out a “Nikon vs. Canon” Internet discussion group.)

It’s true that political salesmen can market a mythology and iconography that entice people into privileging a religion, ethnicity, or nation as their fundamental identity. With the right package of indoctrination and coercion, they can even turn them into cannon fodder.¹²⁷ That does not mean that nationalism is a human drive. Nothing in human nature prevents a person from being a proud Frenchman, European, and citizen of the world, all at the same time.¹²⁸