Post-Christian Epoch
Do not be afraid, I have not the intention to relate or to imagine what will happen after us. I want to speak just about our epoch, the one in which we live. I nicknamed it "Post-Christian" from two reasons.
First, besides the Christians, on Terra there are people belonging to other religions, as well many unfaithful ones. This is so, without speaking about the fact that Christian churches, particularly the Catholic one, formally enlist the ones forced Christianized in different historical moments, like the Native Americans, but which still keep their faiths up to now. At a census of those who really are Christians, we would number much less, so that, from this point of view, the actual period may be called Buddhist, Islamist or even atheist, although I think the fittest name should be one of religious disputes.
Secondly, we call ourselves Christians, although we forgot long time ago the values of the Christianity, as they were thought initially. Today, the Christians are faithful people in the same measure as communist were the communists from the former USSR. As regarding the doctrine, the Islamic one has the same base with the Christian one, as proof the interpretation is more important. The stupidity of nowadays-American politic sowing dissension between Europeans and Americans on the one hand and Muslims on the other hand, may lead to the allegation of a fight for religious convictions. It is a new lay destined to manipulate masses. In reality, there always were economic and politic interests, masked under different forms.
In fact, the main condition of any religious doctrine is to be unverifiable. In other words, only the unverifiable ideas could be religious paradigms.
We could call this epoch "democratic", but it is as democratic as Christian was the previous one. Maybe it will be called post-democratic when the humanity will abandon democracy as propagandistic slogan and will invent anything else. We are not able to understand how that forthcoming "anything else" will be, but this does not mean that it will not come. It will come undoubtedly. For the moment, let us stop a little on the present and analyse is "pathophysiology".
Every society is developing ceaselessly; the traditions as well, adapt themselves to the technology of time. The church, although it should adapt its message, did not. Today, the priests’ message is no longer credible and religion felt in desuetude. People’s cultural level has grown up, so that many priests are less informed than most of their parishioners. The paradigms of democracy exacerbate the libertinism in the detriment of good traditions. In the absence of a general recognized institution, able to discern between good and evil, actively participating to the building of those traditions that are useful for the society, common people choose what seems for them to be favourable for the moment, establishing in this way fallacious traditions, because what is facile and/or pleasant usually is not equally wise. If in the past the church assumed this role, today the democracy put nothing instead, there is not a similar institution. People’s elected are, if not ignorant, interested only in businesses, political struggles or anything else except education. If common people cease to act according with tradition and base only on his own judgement, then we ought to see which are his criterions of judgement. At least these could be influenced, if not through religion, maybe through literature or arts, even if their power is smaller. Inward, people want someone to guide them, so there is a hope that they will stimulate the development of the education. Of course, then we will deal with a different kind of literature from the present day one.
In the Second World War Stalin and Hitler confronted each other. Today, for us the both are negative personages; still, for their time, each of them used to have, besides adversaries, lots of loyal follower. The question which of them was worse or better is useless. For whichever from nowadays politicians the same question will be useless after one generation? Are we now able to discern their real characteristics in a useful time? Niggardly interests make us, common people and politicians as well, to choose the compromise that seems favourable for the moment, without care for the future. Let us not forget that Hitler reached power by free elections.
I do not to enter politics now, but following that of the United States after they remained without adversary, and especially under Bush’s team, we find in it a monument of catastrophic mistakes. For what? Because apparently small arguments link with one another, amplify tiny disputes up till world conflagrations. The aggravation of the conflict between Muslims and Christians will have grave consequences for long time, and the terrorism will not disappear. On the contrary, it will take more and more dangerous forms. After a long period of prosperity, naturally, the economy of the USA was to have a small decline. The development of any economy could be linear ad infinitum. It is oscillatory. What counts is the general trend and not some momentary variations. But, the favourable period belonged to a democrat administration, and the republican that followed seemed to be disadvantaged, because common people judge on very short terms and they would conclude the democrats are better. The simplest solution always was the war. By war the equipments produced in excess are consumed, orders for new equipments appear, people have jobs and so on. The country is in an excitation mood and people no longer see the real problems, but only those artificially created. The administration is saved. This was Bush’s schema. Terrorism was only a pretext, unfortunately uninspired, just catastrophic, not as much for Bush’s team as for the humanity.
I used rather many words for a politic topic only for showing that man behaves according with some schemas acquired by tradition. Maybe it was not necessary, as Bergson already made the demonstration much better than I could do. He wrote an entire book about this topic so I might be forgiven for a poor paragraph. "The intelligence will advise first the egoism. Endowed with intelligence, wakened up to reflection, man will come back to himself and no longer think but to make his days pleasant. Primitive religion was a precaution against the danger skulking us from the moment in which man begins to think: the danger of thinking only to himself,
for himself. It is a defensive reaction of the nature against the intelligence." It could be true for very small societies of the primitive man. The nowadays-great societies got out man from his natural condition. He operates at a level of which effects he can neither control nor understand, sometime. Also, we have to note that our society is conducted by politicians, the single profession for which does not exist a previous school house. Consequently, as big is a society, as much his leaders wander from the true social liabilities.
The cause of many mistakes is the lack of some correct guiding marks. From a utopia to another, we only drift. The preoccupation of our so-called social leaders is their profit and not the management of the society. They are like a farmer who only wants to milk the cow without herding it to graze or feed it. We speak a lot about the progress of our civilisation, but it is not sure at all that it was in a positive direction. Many arguments prove the contrary.
If by civilisation we understand the technique, including the technique of fight, then we must recognize that we civilized too much. Odd enough is that even some encyclopaedic dictionaries associate civilisation with technologic level. I prefer to see in civilisation people’s behaviour inside of their community, their intercourse etc. This is why there are more adjectives for civilisation, like Egyptian, rural, mountain, Malagasy, European and so on, and there is no one for civilisation pure and simple. As for the adjective "civilized", it may be assigned to anyone that keeps the rules existing in his community. The Greek equivalent (politicos) is more correct. The one who disturbs the quiet of his neighbours with his music exaggerate amplified is not more civilised because he use a more advanced technology; on the contrary. When a country uses more sophisticated weapons against an under-developed country, it is not more civilized, but only more developed from military point of view. Again politics! It seems that we cannot get rid of it. But it is natural to not escape of politics, as man is a social animal, and the society, as any organism is structured, has leaders, so politicians. They seem to be an unavoidable evil.
Democracy? Let’s be serious! The politicians are not angels. On the contrary, they are the worst among the awful. Their single goal is the personal interest. As teamwork is more efficient than a single individual, political party appears, which are nothing else but a clique of people supporting each other. The prosperity of society does not base on politicians’ honesty, but in open dispute between the parties. This is the key of the democracy: the public and open dispute between political parties and politicians.
Does it happen now? Partially, yes, but …. Here is a contrary example: George W. Bush represented a party of right orientation, while Tony Blair one of the left. And still, they allied on a common interest, even if their parties have different doctrines. Instead, in the conflict Clinton vs. Monica Lewinsky, the members of the parliament supported one or the other according with their political affiliation and not by token of their personal opinion about the truth.
Speaking about "right" and "left" as political doctrine, we observe that they are relative. In the politics of any country there are right and left. Still, the countries are different. What is right for a country may be left for another. Let us imagine a scale on which the values are five for one and eight for another. For the first, six means right, while for the second it means a strong left. That’s why in conversations, we must keep account of such relative values.
As for the conflict Clinton vs. Monica Lewinsky, the benefit of the republicans that accused him was extremely tiny. Instead, for the democracy the loss was enormous. The American elector found out that his elected leaders are not just ok, and the mechanism of elections produced errors. Consequently, their democratic system is wrong. Of course, they will support it thenceforth as well, not from conviction, but from a nasty mercantilism: the American prosperity is that which attract people from anywhere and not political faiths.
In 2005’s spring, France rejected by referendum the project of European Constitution, even if the majority of countries accepted it with the simple approbation of their parliaments. What is important here is not the poltroonery of Jacques Chirac administration, which is a problem of French people, but the flaw of democracy. This is what this failure relieved. Immediately after the Second World War, the idea of a union of French and German people would be labelled as a stupid joke. Evidently, nobody thought then to organize a referendum on this topic. And still, the idea was fulfilled. Not by consulting the masses, but by the sapience of a few politicians (there are exceptions). One speaks today about some economic goals, the European Coal and Steel Community being an economic one. The mistake consists in the confusion between goal and means, and the proof is the fact that its initiators were politicians and not businessmen. The first on the list is Robert Schuman, France’s foreign minister at that moment, who never remarked himself as a businessman, but as a fighter in French résistance. He realized that a future war between those two states could be avoided by replacing the old divergences with common interests centred on the same resources. A little sapience – as rare it is among the politicians – leads to the nowadays European Union and, especially, to avoiding other military conflicts, at least in Occidental Europe.
*
* *
I showed in the previous chapter the importance of the language and literature of any people. Of course, there are many clever authors and good books. Unfortunately, there are also many more bad ones. In addition, from the educative point of view, television has even a more important role than books. If in the past, scholars do not write books for money, printing houses and television have turned their creation into a business. Of course, a pseudo-creations! The danger consists in the losing of the direction. People are no longer able to discern between good and bad. There are books for all tastes, which is very well, because only in this way people might be attracted to the literature. Besides, anyone can write books now. The evil comes from the publicity, which is not oriented on the quality. In this way, the demo-cracy, namely the leadership by the people risks to become true. It is not clear who wants the people to conduct and a pyramid will never stay with its top at bottom. The ones that should guide the readers are the literary critics. This is the second critic point. I already spoke about it.
And there is not only democracy. Yes, it is only a politic slogan. Unfortunately, there are many others: religion, moral, education, and what not.