JOHN DIGGINS
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idea whose time has passed . In a sympos ium on "R el igion and the
In tellec tua ls" tha t ra n in
PR
in 1950 , most American writers - J ames
Agee bein g the empha tic exception - a nswe red "no" to the ques tion :
"Assuming tha t in the pas t reli gions nouri shed ce rta in vita l human
values, can these values be ma in tained withou t a widespread belief
in the superna tura l?" The troubl e with this formul a tion , as H a nnah
Arendt pointed out , is tha t "one canno t reall y escape the ques tion of
tru th a nd therefore cannot trea t the whole ma tter as though God had
been the not ion of some es pec ia ll y clever pragma ti st who knew what
it is good for. " The sugges tion tha t rel igion ought to be organi zed as
"an insti tu tion onl y because one likes to have a culture" struck
Are nd t as "rathe r funn y ."
R obe rt Nisbe t is one Durkheimia n who would not agree. In
Twilight of Authority ,
he laments the "eros ion of the sac red in huma n
affairs" a nd bla mes the murder of legitima te a uthority on "the
intellectua l ." Throughout hi story, intellectua ls have bee n the
handma idens of a utho rity, able to help legitima te a ny give n poli tical
order or social sys tem through a rgument a nd di scourse. But wha t
they hel ped ma ke they may a lso destroy, and they may ques ti on the
authority of ex isting institu tions without being di sloyal
to
their
country a nd culture. M odc rn sociologists ove rl ook Arendt's
reminder th a t re li gion a nd a u thority cannot escape "the ques tion of
truth ." T he relu cta nce to reso rt to reli gion in order to endow society
with spiritu al significance a nd ma ke politics itself redemptive cannot
be blamed on the "cultura l moderni sts" of our age, as Bell implies.
T he Camp Dav id intell ec tua ls who me t with Pres ident C a rter in
1979 may bel ieve in the syn thes i of religion and politics, bu t wha t
Bell call s "the disj unction of the realms" cannot be traced to the
nihili stic a rtists a nd writers of the twent ieth ce ntury . T homas
J eHerson had mo re to do with it tha n d id J ackson Poll ock .
The Federalist
a uthors , H ami lton and M adi son , rejected reli gion
as a means of soc ia l con trol because reli gious sects a ppeared no
better tha n political factions in their common tendency to tyranni ze
over mino riti es. J ohn Adams mo t sombe rl y warned that trad itional
reli gion would prove incapa ble of di sciplining powe r a nd sustaining
virtue . "I have been long se ttl ed in my own opinion ," Adams wrote
to J eHe rson , "that ne ither Philo ophy, nor R eli gion , nor Mora lity,
nor W isdom, nor In terest, wi ll ever gove rn na tions o r pa rties,
agai nst the ir Va nity, P ride, Resen tment or R evenge , or their
Ava rice o r Amb ition . No thi ng bu t Fo rce a nd Power a nd Strength
can restra in them. " Adam also perce ived tha t the "cul tu ral
