Taking Religion Seriously
by RÉMI BRAGUE, PIERRE MANENT, DANIEL J. MAHONEY, PAUL SEATON
Editor’s Note: This exchange between French philosophers Pierre Manent and Rémi Brague originally appeared in the January issue of the French journal L’Incorrect as “Rémi Brague & Pierre Manent: Duel de Géants” in January. L’Incorrect is a new conservative-minded journal of ideas in France that challenges the presuppositions of political correctness. We are grateful to the editors of L’Incorrect for permission to reprint this important discussion and to Daniel J. Mahoney and Paul Seaton for their translation.
Islam and the West
Interviewer: Michel Houellebecq recently said in Der Spiegel that in order to resolve the problem of Islam in France, Catholicism would have to become the state religion. What do you think of that suggestion?
Pierre Manent (PM): The idea seems basically on point to me. Not that Catholicism should be recognized as the religion of the State, no one seriously entertains that, but that the role of the Catholic religion in the history of France, but also in the social life of the country, in the consciousness of the country, should be recognized in public forms. However, during the past thirty years we have agreed to espouse the big lie according to which there is no Muslim problem, in fact there can’t be any problems posed by any religion, because we have found the solution to all problems of this sort: laicité or secularism.
In truth, however, depending upon whether there are hundreds of thousands of Muslims or ten million, whether the Catholic churches are full or empty, society will be radically different, even if the secular regime has not changed. We have made ourselves prisoners of a much too restrictive definition of the French regime, by reducing it to the categories of a rather aggressive secularism. We need to enlarge our understanding of ourselves and, in this enlargement, grant an adequate place to the Catholicism that played such a great role in French history and consciousness. To be sure, that cannot take on an institutional or constitutional form, and that is where Houellebecq’s proposition goes beyond the limits of a reasonable proposal, as he himself knows very well.
This would be an essential element in giving a definite physiognomy and consistency to the community that receives Muslims. Muslims have a very strong collective awareness of their religion, one which nourishes social affects and extremely significant shared mores. One cannot give them as their only destination a society exclusively defined by individual rights, by the neutrality of the State and other institutions vis-à-vis religion, this is to invite them into an empty space, into a wasteland. Whether the society of individuals repulses or tempts them, or both, it does not bring them any new principle of association, it gives them no reason to go beyond a total and complete identification with Islam, in order to participate in a new form of community, or communion. In order for Muslims to be decently received and live happily in France, it is important that they know that they are not in a Muslim nation, that this nation possesses a Christian mark, that Jews play an eminent role here, and that religion does not give commands to the State and the State does not give commands to religion.
We therefore have a complex operation to conduct, which is to persuade the Muslims that we do want to receive them in reasonable numbers, that they do have their place in society, and that this society as a collectivity, this nation as a human association, is not and does not wish to be a Muslim society, but will remain and wants to remain a nation of a Christian mark, where the Jews play an eminent role, and where both the State and the religion embrace a regime of secularism.
Remi Brague (RB): I have not read this interview with Michel Houellebecq, but it is clear that he overstated his real thought. In speaking of Catholicism as a state religion, I believe that he was thinking, above all, not of the State, but of civil society, and of the way in which the nation ought to understand itself, and did understand itself until a rather recent date. In fact it continues to do so. As Benedetto Croce put it after the war: “We are not able not to call ourselves Christians.” To be sure, Croce understood this in a certain way. As a good Hegelian, he wanted to say that Christianity had fulfilled itself, that one therefore ought to move on to another stage, but while still retaining a certain fidelity to the heritage. Croce, in other words, was a “faithful atheist” (in Italian a “devout atheist”). This awareness would be the way in which the true color of the painting would emerge from behind the overlays with which one wanted to cover it over, which were more or less artificial and even entirely deceptive.
I too believe that it is necessary that we no longer lie, that we cease acting as if the history of France began ex nihilo on July 14, 1789, that we stop telling these lies. I believe this would be a first step to take, to allow Muslims not to imagine that they enter into a void. Pierre Manent employed the wonderful image of a “wasteland”: when one is in a wasteland, the best thing to do is to remain in one’s vehicle. In order to get Muslims to get out of their vehicles, one must very cordially explain that they are among human beings, that they will have to respect certain rules, just as when one is invited to take mint tea in Morocco.
I speak of actual Muslims, men and women of flesh and blood, who have with Islam a relationship that is as complex and nuanced as Christians, and those of Christian tradition, have with their own religion. I do not speak of the Islam which is presented as a system of civilization, “keys to everything in hand,” which in principle is capable of determining the right way of conducting oneself in all circumstances, including how to dress, do one’s hair, bathe, and comport oneself in family life. Here there is a double difficulty, which Pierre Manent addresses in his book. Islam is not another religion that enters into a civilization, but a civilization that enters into another civilization.
Moreover, as I argued in a book that recently appeared, the word “religion” itself is deceptive. We have the habit of conceiving religion on the model of Christianity. Islam would be a sort of Christianity, with some things added and some things taken away, but whose list is fairly easy to come up with. In fact, however, I believe we distort the phenomenon of Islam, because in a Christian regime we are not at all accustomed to follow rules of conduct that claim to be derived from the religion, and which are other than those of common morality. This is a rather exceptional peculiarity of Christianity, one we have a hard time seeing, because we take it for granted. Christianity does not ask men to do anything other than what the most prosaic morality requires of them. It does not have any rules for clothing, no rules for what to eat.
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