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PARTISAN REVIEW
"psychologists," "counselors," social workers, etc., who have taken the
role played by priests, merely reinforce the popular view that all "bad"
things-from death to poverty-are due to remediable mistakes, crooked–
ness, maladjustments or defects in the social system. Such a grotesque
myth represents the beginnings of a secularized eschatology. The dangers
inherent in this can be averted only by return to a celestial one.)
According to Malinowski, religion differs from magic: it is an
attempt to accept the universe as a moral order (comforted by celestial
promises) rather than to control it. Science thus, particularly in its
application, is nearer magic than religion, though distinguished from
both by its method. But where the rational (i.e. achievable) ends of
science are replaced by irrational (unattainable) ones, by any kind of
this-worldly eschatology, the resulting para-science (or alchemy) tends
to prescribe a conduct far less reasonable than the one required by re–
ligion; and when this prescription is institutionalized, there is danger that
it will be imposed.
Religion is a useful, even a necessary opiate- a sedative protecting
us from excessive anxiety and agitation and from those who, like Marx,
thrive on agitation and therefore hate the sedative and would replace
it by the murderer's hashish. But the sedative is needed not only against
Marx's Ismailitic exploitation-it is needed ,until the patient can take his
medicine. There is hardly much danger that we will become overly
addicted to it. On the contrary, the difficulty is to evoke the faith that
makes religion effective. But this is a different problem. Surely, even
if the trend of history is "inevitably" away from religion, you would
not be addicted enough to Marxian logic to infer that you have to
approve of this trend; and once you see the social danger, you will find
a number of policies to oppose the trend.
If
religion does not reconcile us to the suffering and the "injustices"
inherent in life, men will try to eliminate them. But it is better to
promise the meek that they shall inherit the earth than to allow power–
hungry fanatics to invite them to conquer it. For the meek will always
be with us, but the Utopian attempt and the necessary failure spell
tyranny. We may have to admit with Faust:
So haben wir mit hoellischen Latwergen
in diesen Thaelern diesen Bergen
weit schlimmer als die Pest getobt.
Ich habe selbst das Gift an tausende gegeben;
Sie welkten hin, ich muss erIeben
dass man die frechen Moerder lobt.
