EVERY SECT THINKS IT'S SPECIAL:

Intellectual Treason (Meera Nanda, Jan 07, 05, New Humanist)

The second-term election victory of George Bush - and India's own experience with Hindu nationalist BJP rule, off and on, through the last decade - captures a dangerous moment in world history. We are witnessing the world's first and the world's largest liberal constitutional democracies, officially committed to secularism, slide toward religious nationalism. By voting out the BJP and its allies in the last election, the Indian voters have halted this slide, at least for now - a heartening development, compared to the virtual take-over of America by Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists.

The question that interests me in this electoral route to faith–based governance is how this counter–revolution is actually accomplished, or to put it differently, how the spirit of secularism gets subverted, without any formal abrogation of secular laws. Unless we understand the ideological mechanism of this sacralisation of politics, we will not be able to combat the ongoing coups against secularism under nominally secular democracies.

As a student of the history and philosophy of science, I have been watching with concern how modern science itself — perhaps the single most powerful force for secularisation — is being re–coded as sacred, either as affirming the Bible or the Vedas, or as ‘lower knowledge’ of ‘dead matter’, in need of spiritualisation. As an old–time partisan of the Enlightenment and scientific temper, I have been watching with concern as my fellow intellectuals and activists, in the United States and India, who identify themselves with social justice, anti–imperialism, women’s rights and sustainable development, have themselves paved the way for re–enchantment or re–sacralisation of science.

Rather, the traditionally religious have just gotten wise to the game and recognized that sciencism, secularism, Darwinism, Relativism, etc. are religions too. they have a place in the discussion but not pride of place.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 10, 2005 1:24 PM