Adam Kirsch, in the Oct. 29/Nov. 5 New Yorker, provided a
review of The Polity:A New History of
Political Thought, by a Princeton scholar named Alan Ryan. According to
Kirsch, Ryan makes an interesting distinction between “Persian” and “Greek”
models of governance, but the part that interested me the most has to do with
the influence of Christianity on political thought, and the critical importance
of Thomas Hobbes for consequent developments.
Ryan’s
interpretation of St. Augustine, Kirsch writes, is that “we are on earth only
as pilgrims, traveling back to the God who placed us here for inscrutable
reasons. It follows that nothing we do on earth, especially politics, is of
ultimate value.” This commonplace observation about Christianity has never
struck me as 100% true. In my own experience, Christianity has been a major incentive for political activism, with
the kind of Augustinian resignation cited by Ryan-via-Kirsch serving as a
fallback position when all else fails. Yet, I have to admit, that political
events of my lifetime have led me to have low expectations of any politician,
even the ones I like.
More interesting in importance Ryan places on Thomas Hobbes,
the 17th Century English writer, whose opinion of human nature was
so negative that, in Kirsch’s words, he thought “it…in everyone’s interest to
establish a single, superior authority, which will stop us from killing each
other…[and] we live politically not, as Aristotle thought, because we are
sociable creatures but precisely because we are not.” The review goes on to
explain how Ryan sees Locke, Hegel, Marx, and contemporary political philosophy
as, in varying degrees, efforts to “come up with some more hopeful
understanding [than Hobbes’] of what people are like, and how they naturally
interact with one another.”
Hobbes was writing in the aftermath of the English Civil
War, and probably thought, with good reason, of religion as a primary cause of
social misery and conflict. In any case, there are plenty of contemporary
voices expressing this point of view. To no one’s surprise, I still believe
that there is a legitimate part to play for Christians who understand
themselves to be accountable to a Christ who values compassion, reconciliation,
justice, and nonviolence. It is our role to advocate for the oppressed, critique
the injustices of whatever social system we inhabit, and share in the
vulnerability of the least powerful. No doubt our efforts will fall short of
the kingdom of God, but that is where our status as “pilgrims, traveling back
to God” comes in handy. As the old song says,
“This world is not my home,
I’m only passing through;
Fixed it up with Jesus
In 1952.
Angels beckon me,
From earth’s shifting shore,
And I can’t feel at home
In this world anymore.”
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