It would be a waste to gently knead such an delicious topic as the Pantheon, without dipping a cut of one’s own stale baguette into the thick sauce of the French Revolution; a period of French history so rich in flavour that it makes even the Coq au Vin at La Grande Maison de Bernard Magrez, taste a little “p p p p ….mmm…needs salt”. The French Revolution gave it to the monarchy square in the groin, stuck a Republican coloured flag in the nations’ crème brûlée and kicked off a period of massive social and political turmoil that had the establishment peeking out from behind their duck down duvets in white lipped fear. The servants, one assumes, did a thick trade in family silver. It was, basically, all change.
The French Revolution, though, had a far wider impact, diverting the frothy body of modern history and sparked spittle flecked altercations from the Caribbean to the Middle East. The causes were a complex web of issues that are still sliced and diced over the supper tables of academia to this day. Fault has been levelled at the Government – an obvious target – who, having gone all in on a bit of warmongering, found itself flat broke and, in an effort to keep up appearances, resorted to the poplar ruse of taxing the backsides off its citizens. Citizens who were, at the time, a little itchy after some poor grain harvests and years spent watching the aristocracy rattle past in shiny carriages with full bellies, and scornful eyes. Lots and lots of French citizens, it appears, didn’t like the idea of higher taxes and, despite numb fingers and hollow cheeks the country was well up for it.
Fanning the flames was a body of writers, philosophers and pamphleteers who, through the rapier of the written word, were able to skewer the beliefs and ideology that had long glazed the upper-crust in butter. Out went the feudal system and emancipation of the individual; in went equality and respect. The French Revolution was, also, of a different hue to previous bloody uprisings, and many an African coup since, in that it was intended to benefit all of humanity, everyone, not just those with a keen eye for the plundering of a state coffer and a comfy exile in the sun. Out went compulsory Sunday church, in came ‘isms’, like London buses down Piccadilly on a Spring morning; as ideas of liberalism, radicalism and secularism gripped previously barren minds. Imaginations were let loose by the discovery that one’s hoe, for long a symbol of a sore back and dawn starts, when stuck through a wheel, could easily upturn a shiny carriage.
Of all the isms, the eye – on this occasion – falls on secularism, defined as the ‘indifference to, or rejections or exclusion of, religion and religious considerations’. Bad news for any power hungry Vicar, good news for those into science, nature, a bit more weekend golf and the writings of Locke, Diderot and Voltaire. Now Voltaire – ooh la la – there was a thinker; a poet, essayist, indeed a prolific writer of pretty much every literary form going, whose work had lit up the Enlightenment and a man who did much to challenge the religious orthodoxy of the age. Christians got it, Muslims got it, Jews too, wore his contempt. Priests, in the provocative mind of Voltaire, rose ‘from an incestuous bed’ and after getting collared up, would ‘manufacture a hundred versions of God, then eat and drink God’ and then he went on, downhill, but this is a family publication, so you’ll have to read that yourself. All told, strong stuff.
The ideas and philosophy of secularism, go way back though; back beyond the acerbic Voltaire. Intellectual roots are pulled from ancient Greek and Roman times, when life was all robes, peeled grapes and midweek orgies. With time to think on a sun dappled chaise longue in between. Zeno of Citium, who founded the Stoic school of philosophy – a frame of mind informed by logic and the natural world – was one who got the juices going; so too Marcus Aurelius the last of the Five Good Emperors of Pax Romana, who sat over a period of relative peace. He too, took the religious narrative with a pinch of salt infused perhaps, by his own Stoic leaning. Later, alongside Voltaire, the likes of the great Dutch rationalist Baruch Spinoza, did a lot of hmmming and beard stroking in Sunday chapel, and later still the statesman Thomas Jefferson – yes he, Founding Father and third President of the United States – took a pin to the stitching of Christianity. ‘In every age’ Jefferson wrote to his old friend Horatio Spatford, ‘the priest has been hostile to liberty….they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon’. Anyone interested in the full letter can go look it up in the National Archives. Later still, it’ll come as no surprise that Bertrand Russell had a bit of game. Religion, in the Nobel Laureate’s eyes, was nothing more than a superstition more likely to do harm, than good. It also served to stifle knowledge, invoke fear and dependency and was basically the root cause of much of the world’s wars, oppression and misery. Bertrand Russell wasn’t a man to leave his bat hanging limply outside off stump. He got on the front foot and lavished his V500 on a rising ball.
In purely political terms, secularism is the snipping apart of government institutions and the meaty breath of it’s bureaucratic lackeys, from religious institutions and associated dignitaries. Basically governments should remain neutral on religious matters, should not clamp down on any group who want to worship Matt Le Tissier in a more formal way, and generally let the people get on with it. It is also a no-no for Government to coerce and cajole people into Church, any Church, and make them believe what they want them to believe. Given the form of politicians, whose appetite for sexual and financial misadventure keeps the tabloid press in business, this is without doubt a good thing. Critics of secularism often frame the debate in tones that suggest it is anti-religion, and an attempt to chase religion out of society and replace with the spiritual void of atheism. Who knows. It’s easy to get the beef about something one doesn’t like, but a society where everyone can chose who they worship, from JC to Matt Le Tissier, and where politicians stick to calling each other names and morally exotic personal indiscretions; all sounds about right.
Amen to that.
Hepburnsays 