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But the deeper question is whether the faiths of religion are stronger
than the forces of democracy. Those who believe that is the case often
cite Tocqueville's passage in which two questions are raised: "How
could society escape destruction, if, when political ties are relaxed,
moral ties are not tightened? And what can be done with a people mas–
ter of itself if it is not su bject to God?"
Tocqueville poses the questions precisely because they cannot be
answered positively. In democratic society religion has people "follow–
ing their habits rather than their convictions," and woe to any religion
that dares stand in the way of the ingrained habit of self-interest and its
pursuits. "Religion is often powerless to restrain men in the midst of
innumerable temptations which fortune offers.
It
cannot moderate their
eagerness to enrich themselves, which everything contributes to arouse,
but it reigns supreme in the souls of women, and it is women who shape
the mores." Yet once women begin to demand rights and the equaliza–
tion of social relations, they, too, will leave religion behind as they pur–
sue interest and power. "A passion for well-being" is "inflamed by
equality" and stands as the "most striking and unalterable characteris–
tic of democratic ages.
It
may be that, should any religion attempt to
destroy this mother of all desires, it would itself be destroyed thereby."
Throughout the last decade many conservatives and much of the
Republican Party convinced themselves that America enjoyed a "moral
majority" of deeply religious people who would eventually oust the lib–
eral Democratic Party for allowing America's moral ties to wither.
Indeed, public opinion polls seemed to confirm that Americans believe
that religious morality is indispensable. Yet when the Clinton scandals,
involving sex in the Oval Office and the use of the Lincoln bedroom for
fund raising, hit the press, the people praised the President for the coun–
try's economic performance while conservatives cried, "Where's the out–
rage?" Ironically, Tocqueville is a hero to many conservatives; had they
read him properly, however, they would have understood that in demo–
cratic America religion and ethics cannot compete with a "passion for
well-being" whose demands have no threshold of satisfaction.
The idea that America is a profoundly religious country comes up
again and again in American history. In the 1950s,
Partisan Review
had
a symposium on "Religion and the Intellectuals," and most contributors
saw through the shallowness of the religiosity that would mark the
Eisenhower years. Religion is secular rather than spiritual, lacking pas–
sion and conviction. Will Herberg wrote
Protestant-Catholic-Jew
to
demonstrate that religion in America is a sociological phenomenon with
each denomination affording people their identity in a mass society.
It
