Religious issues today cause acute confrontation in secular society. Why are conflicts based on faith so common? What, besides the difference in dogmas, becomes a source of confrontation? Explains the historian of religion Boris Falikov.
Psychology: Why is society polarizing around religious issues now? Why does religion become a cause for contention even within the same confession and culture, not to mention different civilizations?
Boris Falikov: You know, to answer this difficult question, we need a historical digression. Because, as a rule, all kinds of tops have roots. We have to see how it all started.
It all began, apparently, at the end of the XNUMXth century. Sociologists, in particular Max Weber, came to the conclusion that secularization, pushing religion to the periphery of society, replacing religious institutions with the institutions of reason, science, rationality, positivism, and so on, is an irreversible process. It began and will continue linearly to a brighter future. But it turned out that everything is not quite so.
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, sociologists began to notice with surprise that religion does not want to be pushed aside, does not want to be replaced by reason. This process, in general, is not linear. Everything is much more complicated. Texts on this topic began to appear, quite curious and analytical. A common approach has emerged: indeed, some kind of religious upsurge is expected, mainly in the so-called global South. These are Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. And opposed to this, respectively, the global North (or West, as they say out of inertia). Here, in this global South, a religious upsurge is really taking place, and it takes on political forms, fundamentalism is rising as a very active form of religiosity, when religion wants to establish itself in society, to have some kind of power.
Fundamentalism is an aggressive assertion of religious values. And this happens in all religions. We know, of course, Islam and Islamism first of all. But there is also fundamentalism in Hinduism, and they make very unpleasant incidents. Even Buddhists (we have an image of Buddhists as people who are completely unperturbed) somewhere in Myanmar run with clubs after local Muslims and break their heads. And the state pretends that nothing is happening. So the rise of politicized aggressive fundamentalism is seen in all religions.
Our state is not a neutral arbiter. Therefore, our culture wars are not as civilized as in the West.
And what is happening in the West? The fact is that the West has no immunity against this phenomenon. Fundamentalist, conservative currents are raising their heads in Europe, and in America, and here in Russia. Still, we are to some extent part of the global West, although not completely. But the fact is that this process is being held back by the ongoing process of secularization. That is, we (and in the West) have two processes at once. On the one hand, fundamentalism is rising, on the other hand, secularization continues. And as a result, there is such a thing that sociologists call cultural wars (“cultural wars”).
What it is? This is when the advocates of religious values and the advocates of secular values in a democratic society try to solve their problems. Moreover, they solve very acute issues: about abortion, genetic engineering, homosexual marriages. The ideological differences on these issues between secularists and fundamentalists are very serious. But how does the state behave in such cases?
In the West, the state, as a rule, is a neutral arbiter. Everything is decided in the legal field, there are independent courts. And in America, for example, either fundamentalists or secularists will advance something. They are on opposite sides of the barricades. In Russia, ideally, the same thing should have happened. The problem is that our state is not a neutral arbiter. The second problem is that we do not have independent courts. Therefore, our culture wars do not have such a civilized character as in the West.
Although it must be said that there are serious disruptions in the West as well. For example, in the same America, a doctor who performed abortions was recently shot dead. In general, it is, of course, paradoxical when a defender of the sanctity of life for the sake of the life of an embryo takes the life of an adult. A cultural paradox emerges.
But you don’t have the feeling that fundamentalism, on the one hand, seems to have religious foundations, and on the other hand, it’s not necessarily tied to specific religious values, that it’s just an orientation to the past, to how these people imagine moral values ? How close is the relationship with religion?
B.F.: This is where we differ somewhat with the West. Because in the West, fundamentalism is still directly connected with religious values. In our country, I don’t think that it is directly connected with religion. Because, according to our sociological data, even though 80% say they are Orthodox, this is more of a cultural national identity: they don’t go to church regularly and they don’t take communion very seriously either. We have fundamentalism, I suspect, is largely associated with anti-Westernism.
Our fundamentalists are those who believe that there, in the West, there is a complete vice
Our fundamentalists are those who believe that there, in the West, there is a complete vice. Although this is completely unrealistic. However, the perception is this. And we, as the last stronghold of the truth of Russian spirituality and history, of patriarchal values, we oppose this to the last. Island of the righteous in the fight against the decaying West. I’m afraid that our conservatism and fundamentalism is closed on this idea.
In an article about Kirill Serebrennikov’s film The Disciple, you write about a new phenomenon of non-confessional religiosity. There are people who in the West are called «nones», «none». In our country, this type includes those who are driven by the desire to take revenge on sinners, to bring down their anger on those who disagree. Why is our protest taking this form?
B.F.: I encountered this problem when I watched the film «The Apprentice» in the Gogol Center and was amazed. A seemingly Protestant fanatic is shown. At first I thought that the play was by Marius von Mayenburg, German, Serebrennikov adapted it to Russian realities — and he slightly underadapted it. Because where do we get this from? And then I thought about it and realized that the artist’s intuition turned out to be sharper than the reflections of the sociologists of religion. And indeed, look, “nones” in the West are the result of secularization, when church structures are eroded, and people retain faith in a higher principle, but at the same time they don’t care what confession they belong to. When they are asked, “Are you a Protestant, a Catholic, or a Jew?” they say, “No, I… yes, it doesn’t matter, there is something there. And I stay with this higher power, and the institutionalized form of religion is not interesting to me.”
Searching for witches leads to the fact that people stop trusting each other
In the West, this position is combined with liberal views. That is, in the culture wars, they are rather on the side of the secularists, against all fundamentalist extremes. It turns out that, as I understood after watching Serebrennikov’s film, this guy of ours is clearly non-confessional. That is why the hero sends the Orthodox priest far away: he does not feel like a member of the Orthodox Church, he is not a Protestant, he is nobody. But he constantly reads the Bible and sprinkles quotes, so that even this poor priest has nothing to say, he does not know the Bible so well. Thus, it turns out that in our country a non-confessional, so to speak, believer is rather a consequence of a religious upsurge.
This is on the one hand. And on the other hand, as we have already said, there are not purely religious factors here, but naked moralism, apparently: we are saints in white robes, and all around are sinners. It is no coincidence that in this film he fights with a teacher of biology, which symbolizes modernization, modernity. He is anti-Darwinist, he fights against the vicious West, which believes that man is descended from apes, and we do not think so. In general, it turned out to be a curious type of non-confessional fundamentalist. And I suspect that this is typical of us.
That is, all confessions are not radical enough for the hero?
B.F.: Yes, you can say that. Like, you all found some kind of modus vivendi here, but you need to always turn to the biblical God, the God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, brought down terrible fire and brimstone on them. And this is how you should behave when faced with this vicious society, immoral.
Why do you think that focusing on the past, the desire to revive the past divides us rather than unites and inspires us?
B.F.: You see, I think that’s where the problem lies. When there is an attitude to patriarchy, to all these bonds, to tradition, to the past, the search for witches immediately begins. That is, the agents of modernity, the agents of modernization, who prevent a return to the past, become enemies. There is such a point of view that this should unite: we have found common enemies and we will go against them in orderly ranks … But, in my opinion, this is a rather superficial idea that mobilization can unite. On the contrary, she is divisive.
Why? Because the search for witches leads to growing suspicion. People stop trusting each other. There are sociological studies, according to which Russia, unfortunately, is too low in terms of the coefficient of trust in society. We don’t have very good bonds of trust: everyone suspects everyone of everything, disunity is growing, alienation of people from each other, the social fabric is torn. Therefore, the search for support in the past and the rejection of modernity, modernity and the West, as a symbol of modernity, leads, in my opinion, to disunity.
Do you see any way out of this situation? It is clear that we cannot act at the state level, but at the level of human connections, horizontal connections or personal relationships? Where is the path to tolerance, not only inter-confessional, but also in cultural wars? Is there any way to soften them up?
B.F.: We really can’t change government policy and stuff. As for the psychological side, which is more interesting to you, how to fix all this? Here it is difficult. Because these passions or seemingly religious things really touch the emotions more than the mind. We need to try to turn on the mind somehow, right? It also doesn’t work very well. It seems to me that the psychoanalytic approach is the most correct one. Integration of the unconscious, when you begin to realize neuroses. If it were my will, I would increase the role of psychologists in the country.
Well, at least psychologists create a space where you can talk about it.
B.F.: Yes, where you can talk about it and come to a consensus. By the way, the degree of psychologization of Western society is very high. That is, psychologists play a serious social role there, and indeed many people use their services, and not only the rich, these services are available to many.
Psychologists can really do something to reduce tension in society, to realize what separates us and what still unites us. We will consider this an optimistic ending of the conversation.
Edekọrọ ajụjụ ọnụ ahụ maka ọrụ Psychologies "Ọnọdụ: na mmekọrịta" na redio "Culture" na October 2016.