Religious Themes in Modern Literature
May 2, 2004
Religions of the World
“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities.”
–Sigmund Freud
———end title page——–
There are many disputes as to where the “modern” era ends and the “postmodern” era begins, but for the purposes of this study, the “modern” era will consist of the late 1800s to the late ‘50s, and the postmodern era will be anything after that. I will start my analysis with the writings of Friedrich Nietzche, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx, then continue with the philosophies of Fanz Kafka, Ayn Rand, and Albert Camus. I believe that the religious flaw of Modernity was the image of a society where all of the world’s ills would be cured by technology, not the hand of a god. I believe that the realization that technology simply exacerbates the problems of society in part created the postmodern era. We don’t drive around in hovercars; Socialism failed, diseases aren’t a thing of the past, and we can only guiltily climb back to God as we apologize for his replacement, technology. God is our only constant through modernity and postmodernity: our protective metaphysical father figure (Freud, p. 30). God is dead, and we must acclimate ourselves to the “desert of the real (Baudrillard, p. 253).”
Karl Marx is a shadowy figure in Western philosophy, mostly for his association with socialism. His writing concerns the struggle of the working classes to get free from oppression by religion as well as capitalism. He writes, “[Religion] is the opium of the people. […] The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions (Marx).” The emphasis on shedding illusions sounds Freudian, but it seems that Marx was convinced that religion (at least as defined, organized structures) would atrophy and decay. “Marx is not out to get rid of God; he is out to free man–not free him from God but from himself and from his enslavement to religion, which is his own creation. It is not God but the belief in God which must go, if man is to be free (Lauer, qtd. in Kessel).” Marx was centrally concerned with man and nothing outside of him. He did, however, have a sort of “cosmic optimism” which is quasi-religious and contradictory to his whole theme of pure materialism. From his writings it is also possible to see how he views social revolution as a positive: socialism as the next evolutionary ladder to social perfection. The twentieth century in the West is in many cases as intimately involved in capitalism as it is in religion, we should not dismiss the roots of Marx’s utopia, only recently defunct.
Nietzsche’s views on any subject are difficult to interpret without addressing his philosophy as a whole. He was one of the most virulent attackers of Christianity on philosophical grounds, and espoused a world where his ideal man, the “ubermensch,” literally, “overman” would seize power from the masses, who he viewed as inferior, weak, and slaves to Christian dogma (Nietzsche’s). His worldview was at times contradictory as he both praised war and ruthlessness while being a lover of literature, philosophy, and the arts. He feels that the suffering of the (Christian) masses is nothing to the suffering of “great” men, although it seems that for leaders he held up as examples, such as Napoleon, the only prerequisite of greatness is the talent of killing as many people as possible to enforce one’s will. “[Nietzsche] condemns Christian love because he thinks it is an outcome of fear: I am afraid my [neighbor] may injure me, and so I assure him that I love him. If I were stronger and bolder, I should openly display the contempt for him which of course I feel (Russell, p. 767).” Never in his writings does he concede that it is possible that a man could genuinely feel universal love, probably due to the hate and fear that pervade his writings, which he masks as apathy. He feels that the French Revolution and Socialism are just as detestable as Christianity in that they treat all men as equal (Russell, p. 764). That is one thing he would never swallow.
As we move closer to the turn of the century, we must mention the theories of Sigmund Freud concerning religion. He alluded to the beginnings of religion in his work Totem and Taboo, where he asserted that prehistoric murder (plots by oppressed sons to kill and eat their powerful father) were its’ beginnings. In searching for the origins of culture, his theories about religion crystallized in his work The Future of an Illusion. The main question of this work was whether society could survive without religion, the cohesive force that maintains society’s stability by implying absolute truth and justice (Freud). He argues that the foundation of the idea of God lies in the helplessness of the infant, and the all-powerful nature of the father. When the child grows up, they find themselves alone in a hostile world without a protector and create religion to help them overcome this neurosis. Freud contends that “a large part of the mythological view of the world, which extends a long way into the most modern religions, is nothing but psychology projected into the external world. One could venture to explain in this way the myths of paradise and the fall of man, of God, of good and evil, of immortality, and so on, and to transform metaphysics into metapsychology (qtd. in Freud).” He actually approached the problem of religion in a variety of ways, most of which are not mutually exclusive. From being a way to hold groups of people together, to being the return of the repressed, to simulating infantile states of bliss, it is obvious that he thought religion too complicated to brush aside in one fell swoop (Freud).
In 1934 Aldous Huxley published his prophetic novel Brave New World, a satire of family, religion and society. In his classic dystopia, sleep teaching and Pavlonian conditioning turn children into the denizens of a society where the words “mother” is an expletive, monogamy is taboo, drugs are used casually, and leisure dominates. The citizens are conditioned so well that there is no tendency to ponder their afterlife (Gelhaus). As one character remarks while flying over a crematorium, “Fine to think we can go on being socially useful even after we’re dead (Huxley).” Marx said that “religion is the opium of the masses,” but in this vision of the future the drug is called “soma.” Small quantities can be taken to improve mood “a gramme is better than a damn (Huxley)” and large quantities can be taken to induce a soma “holiday.” This drug is the metaphor for religion: a control mechanism and a way to escape reality. In Brave New World, technology became the new god, in the sense that it restricted human choice to an unparalleled extent (Campbell). This novel sets the stage for the end of Modernity, where technology fails to show itself as social tool.
Most of Franz Kafka’s writings were published after his death, and the English translations of his works such as The Metamorphosis did not appear until the late thirties, that is why I mention him after Huxley. The world of Kafka is one of conspiracy, bureaucracy, and of comic absurdity. In his works he leaves precious little of his thought towards religion, somewhat analogous to the role of religion Camus’ The Stranger. In his work The Trial, Kafka does include a chapter where the character goes into a cathedral and ends up talking to the priest who eerily knows all about the main character and is obviously cognizant of the upper echelons of the all-powerful and completely inaccessible Court (Kafka). Even though Kafka remained a Jew throughout his life, when he talks of religion he almost never talks of Judiasm but of Christianity. In my interpretation, his satirical world of bureaucracy and hazy truth and justice are the metaphor for the religion of the future, or perhaps a world in the throes of the extinction of religion, as Marx prophesied. Many of his characters cross themselves and utter religious expletives, but that is the extent of their religious behavior. It seems that in his characters religion is more a habit than a moral doctrine.
Albert Camus published The Stranger (L’etranger) in 1942, crystallizing the position of existentialism as a modern doctrine. The main character of his parable of ennui is Meursault, a man who is remarkable for his indifference to the world. In the beginning his mother dies, yet he does not cry, goes to a movie with his girlfriend. Later in the book, he shoots a stranger seemingly for no reason, and goes to jail. He acclimates himself to it, and is eventually sentenced to death. The paramount scene in regard to religion occurs when the prison chaplain visits Meursault. This passage starts with the chaplain:
(start block quote)
“‘Still, if you don’t die soon, you’ll die one day. And then the same question will arise. How will you face that terrible, final hour?’ I replied that I’d face it exactly as I was facing it now. […] ‘No! No! I refuse to believe it. I’m sure you’ve often wished there was an afterlife.’ Of course I had, I told him. Everybody has that wish at times. But that had no more importance than wishing to be rich, or to swim very fast, or to have a better shaped mouth. […] [S]omething seemed to break inside me, I hurled insults at him, I told him not to waste his rotten prayers on me; it was better to burn than disappear. […] [He] gazed at me for a moment without speaking. I could see tears in his eyes. [H]e turned and left the cell (Camus).”
(end block quote)
This attitude of existential passivity in The Stranger is in polar opposition to Nietzsche’s virulent attacks on the Christian masses. Camus sees people as equal. In one of his other works, The Plague, he talks more about Christianity. The town preacher, in the beginning of the book’s plague, chastises the citizens of the town for their evil and sinful ways, and how this was the will of God, but later he becomes more humanistic and works with the medical authorities to help the townspeople (Camus). At least in The Plague religion serves some function, albeit a hollow one. Death (especially mass death) becomes more and more commonplace, and since it is told from the position of a medical examiner, late in the book there is a blasé attitude in almost all the characters to death tolls in the thousands.
Nineteen-eighty-four, the prophetic novel that becomes more and more timely as the twenty-first century rolls on, was published in 1949. This was another novel of the applications of technology to sociology, but its’ religious undertones are more difficult to detect. In the world of 1984, the party is supreme and rules over the “proles” (the proletariat) via the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace (who conducted war), the Ministry of Love (the police), the Ministry of Plenty (which conducted economic affairs). There are three countries, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, and two are always fighting the other. Religion in 1984 takes the form of Party worship, jingoism, and the hatred of Emmanuel Goldstein, the eternal enemy of the state. “All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching (Orwell).” Religious events take place in the form of festivals where the citizens of Oceania are to reduce consumption of goods (“economic drive[s]”) or to concentrate on the evilness of the enemy country (“Hate Week”). The Two Minute Hate is another religious artifact in 1984. It is an emotionally orgiastic event, where everyone is gathered in front of the telescreen in front of a picture of the Enemy, Goldstein. “People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. […] The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’ and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. […] The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep’s bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep (Orwell).” The world of 1984 has ideological connections with fundamentalist Christianity. Who better to be “Big Brother” than an omniscient god? “Doublethink” is the word Orwell uses to describe holding two contradictory opinions simultaneously. Isn’t it doublethink to ignore scientific facts that disprove faith, as Ayn Rand would assert? Isn’t it doublethink to claim that the immense love and forgiveness of God compels you to kill pagans, atheists, and members of other religions? Sin and thoughtcrime, Goldstein and Satan, the parallels are uncanny. “We should remember that fundamentalists literally believe Satan’s influence is pervasive, just like Party members are made to believe Goldstein’s Brotherhood is constantly working against them. Never mind that there is never anything to prove that either Satan or the Brotherhood actually exist (‘Christian’).”
Ayn Rand published many books during her lifetime, but her ideas came to fruition in her novel Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. Rand was a philosopher, and she saw religious philosophy as primitive, and lacking any basis in logic. Religion, in her view, was simply the evolutionary ancestor of philosophy. In her view, reason and logic are the highest pinnacle of human achievements. When she talks of “great men,” she seems to echo Nietzsche, but with an actual philosophical underpinning instead of a deep-seated fear of the human race. Rand lusts after virtue, where Nietzsche lusts for power. They both do seem to have disdain for the unthinking masses, but Rand exhorts them to virtue where Nietzsche would just see them suffer under a tyrant. She attacks religion quite simply, in that it has no basis in logic; yet does not see it as an “illusion,” but more as a miscarriage in the development of rational moral philosophy. Freud saw religion as a necessary cohesive force in organizing the civilized world, where Rand unwaveringly held that religion had no value whatsoever in a rational, thinking society. She wasn’t one for middle-of-the-road positions such as agnosticism, and felt that instead of pleading ignorance, such positions enshrined ignorance. She says, “The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short circuit destroying the mind (Rand).”
In 1945 World War II ended, however its’ ramifications are still apparent. The belief that violence and bombs can solve the world’s problems is a scary proposition. America is the nation of violence. We’re the first to drop bombs, the first to step in and redraw the lines of countries, the first to say, “We’re right so screw you.” This attitude has spread to religion as well. “The generation that lived through World War Two accepted the concept of “total violence” as a solution to the world’s problems. The mathematics of creative suffering and the milk of human violence are the formulas that our grandparents bottled and passed down to our parents (Marilyn Manson).”
(The last paragraph it kind of trails off. I don’t know what to do for the conclusion.)
