Secularization as Kenosis

222 | postmodern condition and secularity
the meaning it attached to history. 231 Löwith apppreciates the non-historicist character
of Christianity (and Stoicism for that matter). Vattimo, on the other hand, stresses the
equivalence of Christianity and historicism and sees it as a necessary stage in the history
of Being.
Politically, Vattimo’s idea of a postmodern secularization is a more radical secularization.
Vattimo no longer understands secularity as a relative independence of religion
and politics, rather he sees it as the dissolution of religion in politics. Vattimo’s weak
thought and his emphasis on charity and love might at first sight seem to be the most
modest with regard to historical contingencies. A closer look has demonstrated that not
only does his philosophy of secularization result in a dissolution of world and history,
but it also leaves political philosophy bereft of tools to distinguish between religion and
politics, since Vattimo intends to overcome this distinction. The final outcome of Vattimo’s
religion of love is that he has a hard time granting religion its rightful place as a
historically, contingent phenomenon. 232
Compared to Rorty, Vattimo has a significantly different approach to the postmodern
condition. Whereas both reject the ideal of representational knowledge, for Rorty
this is by and large a theoretical matter, which has no further consequences for liberal
institutions. On the contrary: he tends to reinstall a form of classical liberalism that
insists on a rigid separation of public and private and is repressive of religion. The
secular ideal and the Enlightened institutions of state, economy and public sphere (including
media) are the best suited tools for realizing this secular Utopia. For Vattimo on
the other hand, the stakes are quite different. He sees how the changes in late modern
culture call for a new understanding of culture and liberal institutions, as in a process
of weakening. For Vattimo it is a good thing that liberal institutions loosen their grip
on our lives. In the postmodern, centreless society, human creativity can fully flourish.
As he sees it, in the emergence of mass media, the dissolution of liberal institutions is
irreversible. This is not to be resisted, rather it is the realization of Being.
The political consequences of the fundamental continuity of Christianity and Western
secular society can be worked out in contrast with Rorty’s thoughts on the subject.
For neither Rorty, nor Vattimo is there a public role for religion. Rorty denies religion
the right to public recognition, because religion is a private affair and the public sphere
does not allow for religious rhetoric. For Vattimo there is a completely different reason
why the Church does not interfere in the public sphere: not because Christianity excludes
secularity; rather the opposite. Far from being a party claiming recognition in the
public sphere, the Christian religion is the silent presupposition that made secular society
possible. Vattimo, in a way attempts to overcome the duality of public and private.
As Raymond Aron explains, in Marxist philosophy, the duality of sacred and profane
is functionally equivalent to the distinction between private and public. 233 Rorty in a
way rejects Marx’ embargo on this distinction, as he explicitly makes a case for religion
and irony as private. Vattimo, on the other hand, follows Marx in his rejection of the
231 Löwith, 207–9.
232 Vattimo, Belief, 81.
233 “Het politieke staatsburgerschap is, met betrekking tot de werkzaamheid van de arbeider, vergelijkbaar
met de bestemming van de onsterfelijke ziel volgens het christendom met betrekking tot het ellendige
bestaan op deze aarde. Deze twee splitsingen, deze twee vervreemdingen lopen parallel: de tweespalt van het
profane en het heilige evenals die van het private en het publieke hebben tot oorzaak de niet-vervulling door
de mens van zijn menselijkheid.” Raymond Aron, Essai sur les libertés (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1965), 24.