The Day the Enlightenment Went Out
"...surveys have shown, that many more Americans
believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution." Publicado en
el New York Times del 4/11/2004
The Day the Enlightenment Went
Out
By GARRY
WILLS
Published: November 4,
2004
Evanston,
Ill.
This election confirms the
brilliance of Karl Rove as a political strategist. He calculated that the
religious conservatives, if they could be turned out, would be the deciding
factor. The success of the plan was registered not only in the presidential
results but also in all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage. Mr. Rove
understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the
Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of
evolution.
This might be called Bryan's
revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in which William Jennings Bryan's
fundamentalist assault on the concept of evolution was discredited.
Disillusionment with that decision led many evangelicals to withdraw from direct
engagement in politics. But they came roaring back into the arena out of anger
at other court decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag
and, now, gay marriage. Mr. Rove felt that the appeal to this large bloc was
worth getting President Bush to endorse a constitutional amendment banning gay
marriage (though he had opposed it
earlier).
The results bring to mind a
visit the Dalai Lama made to Chicago not long ago. I was one of the people
deputized to ask him questions on the stage at the Field Museum. He met with the
interrogators beforehand and asked us to give him challenging questions, since
he is too often greeted with deference or
flattery.
The only one I could think of
was: "If you could return to your country, what would you do to change it?" He
said that he would disestablish his religion, since "America is the proper
model." I later asked him if a pluralist society were possible without the
Enlightenment. "Ah," he said. "That's the problem." He seemed to envy America
its Enlightenment heritage.
Which raises
the question: Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than
in evolution still be called an Enlightened
nation?
America, the first real democracy
in history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence,
tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the
founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then
modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the Declaration of
Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Respect for
evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the
elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either
worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of
9/11.
The secular states of modern Europe
do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what
they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble
those nations less than we do our putative
enemies.
Where else do we find
fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and
hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We
find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists.
Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so
single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no
matter whose zeal is being expressed.
It
is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We torture the
torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one American general put it,
in words that the president has not
repudiated.
President Bush promised in
2000 that he would lead a humble country, be a uniter not a divider, that he
would make conservatism compassionate. He did not need to make such false
promises this time. He was re-elected precisely by being a divider, pitting the
reddest aspects of the red states against the blue nearly half of the nation. In
this, he is very far from Ronald Reagan, who was amiably and ecumenically pious.
He could address more secular audiences, here and abroad, with real
respect.
In his victory speech yesterday,
President Bush indicated that he would "reach out to the whole nation,"
including those who voted for John Kerry. But even if he wanted to be more
conciliatory now, the constituency to which he owes his victory is not a
yielding one. He must give them what they want on things like judicial
appointments. His helpers are also his
keepers.
The moral zealots will, I
predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans.
Jihads are scary things. It is not too early to start yearning back toward the
Enlightenment.
Garry Wills, an
adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University, is the author of "St.
Augustine's Conversion."
Posted: Dom - Noviembre 14, 2004 at 06:11 AM