Secularization as Kenosis

212 | postmodern condition and secularity
challenges of postmodernism. 180 This turn to communism is comparable to his conversion
to Christianity, of which he wrote in the essay Belief. To his mind there is a great
deal of similarity between communism and socialism on the one hand and Christianity
on the other, as both are radically unnatural projects. 181 In its shared utopian intention,
Vattimo sees the possibility of developing a Christian communism.
If there is such a thing as a postmodern politics, it must be the awareness of the end
of meta-narratives. The awareness of unlimited plurality makes postmodernism preeminently
political. 182 For Vattimo this is the central idea of a postmodern politics. 183
Postmodern politics emerges with the disenchantment of utopian ideologies. The great
political ideologies of the twentieth century tried to realize an ideal society. Even when
these political programs were carried out in the name of the good, or the human, they
often lead to horrors on a massive scale. 184 Postmodern politics attempts to shape a new
European identity. The quest for this identity acquired a new urgency when the Soviet
Union collapsed in 1989. The absence of an ideological counterpart created the need
for more substantial identity. Vattimo detects two trends in this quest for a European
identity. 185
In the first place there is what he calls the Catholic integralist identity. It defines
the essential European identity as a Christian identity that stands in radical opposition
to the secular character of modernity. The other position is the secularist position that
defines Europe as essentially rooted in Enlightenment rationalism and sees this as discontinuous
with the Christian past. Despite their differences, the two positions agree in
the idea that there is an opposition between secularity and Christianity. Vattimo argues
for a middle position. He neither wants to identify solely with Christian exclusivism,
nor with the idea that secular modernity is independent from its religious past. Vattimo
holds that modern, secular Europe is essentially a secularization of Christianity. Europe
is the non-religious form of Christianity and it embodies values and practices that originate
in Christianity. Only in the regions where Christianity was once the dominant
religion has secularity flourished. In the discussion on European identity, Vattimo argues
that in the constitution of the European Union, no reference needs to be made to
Christianity. This is not because he would find Christianity of no value to the European
community, but because Europe is itself an embodiment of Christianity. 186 Christianity
should not present itself as a fraction, that fights for its case, rather it is the presupposition
on which a multicultural and multi-religious Europe rests.
Postmodern theory does not simply do away with utopian ideas, rather it first of all
criticizes the intertwinedness of utopian politics with a teleological account of history,
or the sacralization of the utopian goal as in totalitarian regimes. 187 Instead, in postmod-
180 Gianni Vattimo, Wie werde ich Kommunist (Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, 2008), 32.
181 Vattimo, Kommunist, 15.
182 “Denn in der Postmoderne wurde die bislang eher latente Pluralität vordringlich und unübersehbar.”
Welsch, Postmoderne Moderne, 242.
183 Gianni Vattimo, ‘The End of (Hi)story’, Chicago Review 35:4 (1986), 20–30.
184 Hans Achterhuis, De erfenis van de utopie (Baarn: Ambo, 1998).
185 Vattimo, After Christianity, 73–4. See also Vattimo, Kommunist, 19. For Milbank on the relevance of
communism for the ideological course of the West see: Milbank, ‘Gift of Ruling’, 232: “Communism . . . gave
the West a binding purpose: oppose the gigantomachy of totalitarian regimes.”
186 “Voor mij moet in de Europese grondwet niet naar het christendom worden verwezen omdat seculariteit
tot het christelijk patrimonium behoort.” France Guwy and Gianni Vattimo, ‘Europa en religie (3):
Gianni Vattimo. Voor een christendom zonder religie’, De Standaard 01/07 (2004).
187 Michael Burleigh, Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda (New