Vol.1, No 3, 1999 pp. 361 - 364
Vojislav Stanovčić
POLITICAL IDEAS AND RELIGION
(Političke ideje i religija)
1-2 (370 and 359 pp.), Beograd, 1999,
published by Udruženje za političke nauke Jugoslavije, (pocket-size
book)
Lying in front of us is a work of the prominent professor of the Faculty
of Political Sciencies in Belgrade, the member of the Serbian Acadamy of
Sciencies and Arts, erudite and moralist, dealing with a wealth of complex
questions of fundamental importance in the field of political science,
history of political doctrines, science on religion and theology. This
work is a unique one in the Serbian scientific literature; prior to it,
dealing in details with similar topics, was a book by Andrija Gams, a recently
passed away professor of the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, but which was
confined to the political implications of Bible; the two books by Stanovčić
widen the frame of these implications to all worldwide religions. Covered,
in this connection, are Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity and
Islam. The greatest attention has been paid to the Western Christianity,
that is western Churches as institutions.
Of importance with such works is the basic attitude of the author towards
the religion. Stanovčić is not a believer. He, therefore, does not approach
the consideration starting from the dogmas of a certain religion, but from
the supposition that the religion is a human creation which, like all other
human creations, is subject to historical development. At the present moment
of that development, Nietzsche's judgement: "God is dead" can be applied.
From that point of view, of importance is only a political and ethical
function of the religions, that is, whether they contribute to the political
conflicts, first of all to wars, or peace, whether they serve to the improvement
or regression of a man as a morally responsible being. According to Stanovčić,
these functions of the religions are rather negative than positive – the
so-called religious "fundamentalism" is particularly a source of unforeseeable
dangers. A preventive measure, however, is not a forced atheisation resorted
to by Marxism, but serious cherishing a religious tolerance characteristic
of the countries of the western cultural milieu. Stanovčić is an adherent
to the positive traditions of this cultural milieu as well, atop of which
are restricted (free) government and the rule of law.
Book One is divided into Introduction, which together with notes, takes
more than half of the book, Chapter One: Ethical and Political Teachings
of the Worldwide Religions Founders, Chapter Two: Ruler's Sceptre and Bishop's
Stick (The role of the religion/Church in legitimizing the power) and Chapter
Three: Secular and Sacred. Book Two is divided into Chapter Four: Social
Role of Myths, Symbols and Rituals, Chapter Five: Society – Culture – Religion,
Chapter Six: Religious Consciousness and Modern Social Thought, Chapter
Seven: Political Culture and Political Mythology and Chapter Eight: Ideas
and Law Frameworks of the Religious Peace and Tolerance. Finally, the book
ends with selected references in Serbian and other languages. A mention
should be made here that added to each chapter are a lot of notes, some
of which are by themselves small treatises; impressing is a wealth of erudition
reflected in discussing each single question. The author's approach differs
in Book One and Book Two. Book One was written using a historical method,
where presentation follows in a concrete manner, while Book Two appears
mainly as an abstract and critical meditation. Therefore, Book One can
easily be read by anyone who masters general education, while Book Two
can be completely understood only by those who possess certain professional
knowledge.
Surprising in Introduction is the title of one section: "The Devil
and the Morals in Politics". Although the author reduces God and the gods
to the contents of religious thinking, it is obvious that Stanovčić believes
in the reality of the devil. Only that he nowhere explicitely says what
he means by this. Instead of depicting the devil by the language of concepts,
he depicts him by the language of pictures: by a series of examples from
the world's literature, where, among the sources, the most prominent place
occupy Marlowe's and Goethe's Faust, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazoffs
and Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margherita. Nevertheless, conceptually,
the devil approaches us when he is brought in contrast to the moral views
of liberalism. On the one hand, he represents placing power above all other
goods, which is particulary reflected in the political amorality of Machiavelli
and in the teaching on the "national cause". On the other hand, he comes
forth from the moral apsolutism of certain religions with, first of all,
Roman Catholicism in mind, as well as theories and practices of the totalitarian
states of order, the founder of which would be Plato, the Greek philosopher.
The section on the faith as an inspiration for chiliastic teachings
and political utopias also attracts particular attention in Introduction.
The fact is that a number of ideas of the early Christianity caused utopian
projects of various religious sects to appear. In addition, of importance
is the fact that the writers of utopian works featuring the pre-industrial
epoch were closely connected with the Christian religion. Thomas More was
canonized, Thomas Münzer was a theologian and a revolutionary, Campanella
was a Dominican friar, Meillet a priest and Morelli an abbot. Although
he recognizes totalitarian elements in certain utopias, Stanovčić concludes
anyway: "Both the older and the newer utopian literature is inspiring
Permanently making every efforts that a human community should be created,
it is, therefore, on the whole and in a vast number of individual utopias,
deeply humanistically inspired, inspiring to humanistic deeds as well."
It is strange that Stanovčić's detailed review on the utopian literatures
misses the views of Ernst Bloch, who, based on the utopian grounds, strived
to reconcile Marxian atheism and Christianity.
Also, religion, discussed in Chapter Three, represents a basis for
the state power legitimacy, offering legitimizing formulas. But, those
formulas extremely differ from religion to religion. As an example for
that extremity of particular mention are the formulas of Hinduism and Islam.
In the old Indian community, the most important law monument (document)
of which is the Manu Code, legitimacy of the power is provided by one social
class (caste), Brahmans, which had the responsibility of morally directing
the community, but they were forbidden to directly take part in the acts
of power. That division of roles between the priests and the king bears
the elements of "social pluralism" as well. On the contrary, the Islamic
cultural milieu feature close power-to-religion reciprocity. Muhammad,
the prophet and founder of Islam, introduced, at the same time, a new,
monotheistic religion pretending it to be the only worldwide religion and
created a unique Arabic-Moslem state. In addition, regulating duties of
believers to lead a holy war (jihad) against the unbelievers, he made Islam
– at least dogmatically – one of the most militant among the religions.
Faith, law and politics make in it an unbreakable unity: "The Islamic religion
offers legitimization for the purpose of achieving religious regulations
by means of power and law system." The consequence, on one side, is that
"Islam
has legitimized that power which had forces to sustain itself,
i.e. to sell itself" and, on the other side, that the Islamic law system
most likely results in a "totalitarian society". But, the author is of
the opinion that "regardless of the contents, religions can hardly become
universal instruments of legitimacy"; that effect is reserved only for
the instruments developed by the secularised Western culture, and namely
for "democratic procedures such as elections, agreement, participation
"
It goes without saying that this discussion covers questions of political
culture and mythology as well. Religion is a field and determinant of the
culture. At the same time, a myth precedes a religion, and those were only
the three akin religions of the Middle East: Judaism, Christianity and
Islam that broke ties with it. But driven from the religion, the myth has
cast anchor in the political consciousness. The attitude of the author
towards the political myth is a negative one as well. Although the myth
had a legitimizing function in the past, it is obsolete and harmful nowadays:
"In spite of the matchless progress of science and development of technologies,
the 20th century is witnessing an enormous spread and domination of the
mythological consciousness over huge masses of people. This has taken huge
proportions and monstrous forms with tragic consequences." Political culture
is, on the contrary, something unavoidable, and it is just here and now
that we appear as the observers of and participants in the conflicts between
the positive, democratic and negative, authoritarian political culture.
"The outcome of that epochal conflict considerably depends on the fact
how much we will succeed in cherishing democratic political culture. Educational
process and teaching system should play a great role." In addition to the
governing political cultures, there is today a multitude of subcultures,
which are particularly reflected through the so-called tribalism and those
religious sects carrying within themselves theocratic tendencies as well.
Unfortunately, the work lying in front of us cannot provide us with an
answer to the question what a political culture is. But, isn't it – if
abstracted from the religion and the myth, on one side, and the mere custom
(convention), on the other side – the same as the political morals is,
primarily the political morals of a nation? If it is so, and if, consequently,
the conflict of the political cultures is the conflict of the political
morals, then we cannot claim that one of them must retreat before the other,
as we can neither require that one religion must retreat before the other,
say Islam before Buddhism, etc. Here, a question is imposed shouldn't the
principle of tolerance, we are striving for to be applied among different
religions, be widened to the relations among different political cultures
as well? Here, the political pedagogy and andragogy could treat a certain
negative phenomenon, for example, the Balcanic cult of a leader-superman
or the North American cult of violence as an absence of the political culture
in general, i.e. unculture.
An objection to this book could be made which we consider to be a question
of principle, and which also concerns the phenomenon of culture. The author
seems to agree that it is only one, the Western cultural milieu, that originates
from the Christianity. But, the most prominent historian of culture, Arnold
Toynbee, whom the author frequently quotes, speaks yet of another cultural
milieu (literally society or civilization) the birth of which was given
by the same religion – it is a cultural milieu of the Christian Orthodoxy
to which the Serbian people belong on the whole or partially as well. For,
it is upon the fact whether there is one or two Christian cultural milieus
that our judgement depends on both Christianity and ourselves.
Finally, an objection on account of the publisher. There are a lot
of impermissible technical errors in this valuable and inspiring work,
which could be eliminated if a proofreader or reader were engaged.
Milan Petrović
