Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Relativism vs. Fundamentalism: Is There a Middle Ground?
Peter Berger, an eminent sociologist of religion and a lifelong Lutheran, asked himself several years ago: "Would my moral convictions change if I woke up tomorrow as an atheist?" For Berger, this perplexing question led to a research project, which will culminate in the publication of two books, one later this year. One of Berger's central concerns was finding a middle ground in religious belief between fundamentalism on the one hand and relativism on the other. In an event hosted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Berger set forth his view that doubt is ultimately a key element of religious faith in liberal democracies. Responding to this contention were New York Times columnist David Brooks and noted professor of religion Seyyed Hossein Nasr.
Speaker:
Peter Berger, Director, Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, Boston University
Respondents:
David Brooks, Columnist, The New York Times
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Studies professor, George Washington University
Moderator:
Michael Cromartie, Vice President, Ethics & Public Policy Center; Senior Advisor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
In the following excerpt, ellipses have been omitted to facilitate reading.
PETER BERGER: Let me begin with a commercial. What I have to say here comes out of a project under the title "Between Relativism and Fundamentalism," recently completed by the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs,1 which I direct at Boston University.
The project, which is now finished, dealt with the question of how, using resources from different strands of the Judeo-Christian tradition, one could define a position that avoids both extremes: A relativism in which all assertions of truth are deemed to be irrelevant or unattainable, and a fundamentalism in which an alleged truth is propounded in an attitude of aggressive intolerance. Such a position boils down to a seemingly simple, but actually very complex statement: It is possible to have religious faith in the absence of certainty. I will not pursue the religious issue here, though I'd be happy to take it up if it is raised in the discussion. But there's also a moral and indeed a political dimension to the relativism and fundamentalism dichotomy. That is my topic here this morning.
Fanatics have a big advantage in politics: They have nothing else to do. This is what Oscar Wilde had in mind when he quipped, "The trouble with socialism is that it takes all of your free evenings." The rest of us do not have this advantage. Our free evenings are taken up with family, hobbies, vices. Even if we bring ourselves to act politically, we do so without the comfort of absolute certainty enjoyed by fanatics. We are rarely truly sure. We cannot suppress all doubts. We weigh the pros and cons of possible actions.
Yet, there are some moral judgments on which we are indeed certain. What are some of these judgments, and where does the certainty come from?
Relativism and fundamentalism seem, at first sight, to be direct opposites. Rather, I think, they are two sides of the same coin. Both are rooted in the same distinctly modern phenomenon. Modernization progressively undermines the closed communities in which human beings lived through most of history, communities in which there was a very high degree of consensus about the basic cognitive and normative definitions of reality. Such consensus brings about a situation in which these definitions have the status of taken-for-granted, self-evident truth.
Under modern conditions, where almost everyone lives in communities in which diversity has taken the place of consensus, certainty is much more difficult to come by. Relativism can be described as a world view that not only acknowledges but celebrates the absence of consensus. So-called post-modernist theorists like to speak of narratives and, in principle, every narrative is as valued as any other. The moral end result of this world view can be captured by imagining a television interview with a cannibal. "You believe that people should be cooked and eaten. I certainly don't want to be judgmental, but the audience will be interested. Tell us more." This is not all that fictitious.
Fundamentalists respond to the same situation of certainty-scarcity by seeking to regain absolute certainty about every aspect of their world view. No doubt is permitted. Whoever disagrees is an enemy to be converted, shunned or, in the extreme case, removed. The last two centuries of history have made it very clear that there are secular as well as religious fundamentalisms. Both relativism and fundamentalism threaten the basic moral order without which no society, least of all a liberal democracy, can exist: relativism because it makes morality a capricious game, fundamentalism because it balkanizes society into mutually hostile camps that cannot communicate with each other.
There are a number of moral judgments I am certain about, even if it can be shown I would not make them if I lived in a different period or even today in a different society. Example: Slavery is totally unacceptable. Of course, this proposition has not been accepted everywhere. Through much of history, some people enslaved others with no compunction whatsoever. However, in the course of history, there emerges a perception of what it means to be human. That perception makes it impossible to accept slavery.
I deliberately use the word "perception." In other words, unlike the propositions of religion, which are not empirically accessible, this moral judgment does not require an act of faith. It only requires an act of attention: "Look at this. It must not be." A masterful description in literature is the growing certainty of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn that he must not return the fugitive slave to his owner. And, of course, this perception had enormous political consequences not only in America, but throughout the world.
The great Rabbi Hillel was once asked whether one could explain the meaning of the Torah while standing on one leg. He replied that one could and then stated what I think was the first version of the Golden Rule, adding, "The rest is commentary." I think that the core value of liberal democracy can also be stated while standing on one leg. It is a sentence at the beginning of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany: "Human dignity shall be inviolable." The rest is commentary.
Now, obviously, the application of this core value to any practical or political problem is often quite complicated. Commentary can be a strenuous business. The centuries of rabbinical disputations since Hillel proved this very clearly. Yet, there are moments when the application becomes crystal clear, as when the British army was ordered to stop the slave trade, or when Abraham Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Emancipation or, for that matter, when the above lapidary sentence was inserted into the post-war German constitution in the passionate certainty that the horrendous assaults on human dignity by the Nazi regime must never be repeated.
In my own experience of people I have met, an exemplar of the sort of moral certainty I have in mind here is Helen Susmen, who was, for many years, the only anti-apartheid member of the South African parliament -- definitely no relativist. Her commitment to the anti-apartheid cause was infused with moral certainty, but she was definitely no fundamentalist either, a person with an open mind, questioning herself as well as others and with a wonderful sense of humor. In one of my favorite moments, when speaking in parliament, she suggested to the cabinet that they go and visit the black townships, but that they should go disguised as human beings.
What kind of political ethics emerges from these considerations? I think this question has been anticipated and, to a large degree, answered in Max Weber's famous essay, "On Politics as a Vocation."2 The essay was based on an address given by Weber before students of the University of Munich and published in 1919. The circumstances were dramatic. Many of his students were bitterly disillusioned veterans of the war, veering between cynicism and new fanaticisms. Munich, the locale of the event, had just been through a leftist uprising and was four years away from Hitler's first attempt to gain power through a coup. Yet what Weber had to say continues to be highly relevant today.
He distinguishes between two types of ethics. The first is best translated as an ethic of principle. The second is an ethic of responsibility. Let me just observe in passing that this distinction curiously amounts to a secularization of the Lutheran idea of the two kingdoms. But that is another story.
The first type of ethic dictates actions based on absolute principles, regardless of consequences. Invariably, fanatics follow this type of ethic. But it is not only fanatics who do so. Absolute pacifists also do so. As an example of this, Weber discusses Tolstoy, whom he admired -- a sentiment I do not share -- but ultimately deemed to be irresponsible and destructive.
By contrast, an ethic of responsibility may have absolute principles in the background, such as the core value I discussed earlier, but what guides actions is a sober assessment of probable consequences. To describe this option, Weber cites a thinker who might be called the anti-Tolstoy par excellence, Machiavelli, who wrote that in order to save the city, a ruler may put in peril the eternal destiny of his soul.
Relativism and fanaticism do not exhaust the possibilities of moral and political positions. There is a vibrant middle position. It is the position we would be well advised to occupy as we confront the fanaticisms of our own time.
When it comes to moral certainty, one thing I love to quote is an incident James Morris quotes in his wonderful [three-book] history of the British Empire. James Morris, as you may recall, underwent a sex-change operation and now writes under the name Jan Morris. But that's another story.
In any case, the story he -- he was still a he then -- wrote about happened early in the 19th century. General Napier, a British general, occupied the Sindh, which is now part of Pakistan, and did there what the British usually did: They left native rules, customs and laws pretty much in place except for some things they thought were totally unacceptable.
One of them was sati, the burning of widows. The story is, and I think a true story, that a delegation of Brahmins came to see the general and said, "You cannot forbid sati." He said, "Yes, I can. I have." They said, "No, no. You cannot do this. This is an ancient tradition of our people." Napier replied, "We British also have ancient traditions; when people burn a woman alive, we hang them." Let us all follow our traditions. It is a kind of moral certainty I rather admire.
MICHAEL GERSON, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Let me get at a similar question a little different way and maybe bring David [Brooks] into it, too. Unlike David, I'll make a partial defense of fanaticism. I think that, clearly, you can't organize a society based on fanaticism and fundamentalism. It's an oppressive place. It violates pluralism. But that seems to be very different than saying a society can get along without people who are fanatics or fundamentalists. If you look at the history of social change in America, you often find people willing to kill poor British soldiers because of theories of representation and taxation. You're going to find people, like abolitionists, who were deeply religiously fundamentalist and sometimes rather odd in the way they approached these things; women's rights crusaders; others who have pushed the boundaries of social change.
You could say that in history, too: Joan of Arc or Martin Luther, who was not a moderate Lutheran. He could be a very overbearing, prideful person who didn't take the middle way on many issues. "Because Martin Luther says so," was one of his responses to theological debate. You could even say that about modern dissidents in many societies. They're malcontents and often people who can't get along in the just societies they create afterwards. But they play important historical roles in trying to press boundaries and draw logical conclusions about the nature of the human person based on deep, even intolerant, theological beliefs.
[I]t seems to me social progress has some element of fanaticism and vision, even an intolerant one, that sometimes comes out and pushes history.
BERGER: I disagree when you say a society cannot be organized on the basis of fanaticism. It can. That's what we call totalitarianism. In order for the totalitarian state to re-impose taken-for-granted-ness through the society, it can only do so by stopping communication with all of those who disagree within and outside the society. I think one of the happy lessons of the 20th century is that this is extremely difficult to do successfully.
The other fanatical project, which is also difficult, but more easily done, is mini-totalitarianism. You create a sectarian sub-cultural group within which taken-for-granted-ness is enforced. That's also difficult. I think that's good news, this difficulty. Can one live with fundamentalists in some areas? Yes, of course, if they give up the idea of infecting the rest of us with their fanaticism, that's fine. We can deal with sectarians, sure, in a liberal democracy. We cannot deal with totalitarians.
DAVID BROOKS: As you were talking, I was thinking, how does a good fanatic develop? Or, how does a heroic conservative develop? The answer to that latter question is too deep and dark a question for me to address here. But it seems to me, what happens is, historically, over time, a norm develops, and it gets accepted as the accumulated wisdom of mankind, for example, that all men are created equal.
But people begin to notice the society they're living in differs from the norm they've inherited. They notice people are slaves or are unequal in their society. Then that observation is buttressed, and has to be buttressed, by an emotional reaction: sympathy for those who are suffering from this deviation, and disgust with those who are imposing it. That's what creates the fanaticism: There has to be some emotional element to it. That would be a good fanaticism, as in the case of Martin Luther King. What strikes me is it is a fanaticism driven not only by that emotional reaction and not only by the rational reaction that we're deviating from our norm, but also by strategy.
I've always been struck by a book called Stone of Hope about Martin Luther King, and the debate that happened in the Civil Rights Movement. Gunnar Myrdal came here and said, "Americans will realize that discrimination violates their own norms. And all you have to do is educate them and they'll cure the problem." But Martin Luther King, having a darker view of humanity based on Niebuhr and other things said, "No, people are too nasty; we really have to be fanatical." So he self-consciously embraced a fanaticism, as you say, exactly because you need to be somewhat fanatical in order to create that social change.
But I would say even in that just fanaticism -- I think what you do is embrace a historical truth that all people are created equal, and you begin to think that's an absolute truth, but you never actually get there, and that you always have to leave some room for doubt as your own internal guardian. When you were talking about Huck Finn, I was struck by the fact that you said, "A historical piece of wisdom turns into an absolute truth." I can't believe that can be true. I think, like that mathematical formula, you get half-way toward the truth, then you get another half and another half, but you never actually get there. In order not to become a fanatic, even in a good cause, it is necessary to preserve that little bit. But I do agree with you that you do need good fanaticism. But it seems to me it grows up organically and emotionally in people, not through some absolute form of reasoning.
Read the full transcript at pewforum.org.
Notes
1 www.bu.edu/cura/
2 "Politik als Beruf," Gesammelte Politische Schriften (Muenchen, l921), pp. 396-450. Originally a speech at Munich University, 1918, published in 1919 by Duncker & Humblodt, Munich.