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European secularism
Why is Europe becoming ever more secular?
As in American academia, European secularism is a mark of identity and (supposed) reasonableness. Europeans are surrounded by Islam on one side, Russia on another, and the United States across the ocean. Reasonableness is a natural identity for their smart people to slot themselves into. Yes state churches have made European religion bureaucratic and sluggish, but that is not the main story. Competitive religious alternatives, albeit unfunded by government, could have sprung up and captured hearts and minds but they didn't.
Nonetheless the rise of European secularism will be reversed. Most people are only casually religious, but a chunk of every society has a tendency to be enthusiastically religious. European religions will restructure and make a comeback, at least among this chunk. Unlike in times past, I doubt if this segment will have the social status to pressure many others to go along, but it would still represent a fundamental shift in the European intellectual climate. This development would probably happen immediately, if not for the European fear of becoming too much like the United States. In any case the identity of reasonableness is not a sustainable meme for so many people in the long run; it doesn't demand enough from its adherents. Hume wrote of cycles between monotheism and polytheism, had he lived later he could have tossed secularism into that mix.
And then there is Islam.
#32 out of 50.
By the way, Happy Fiftieth Birthday to the European Union. For all its bureaucracy, it has done more for human liberty in the last ten years than any other institution. I mean "enlargement" and Eastern Europe, of course.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 24, 2007 at 08:06 AM in Religion | Permalink
Comments
This, from The Grauniad:
"On the controversial cartoons depicting Muhummad, Beck invoked the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’s distinction between secular and post-secular societies. “The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion. In this sense most continental European countries seem to exist as secular states, while Britain and America seem to be post-secular – they see atheism is only one of the belief systems and that religion still is an important voice of humanity.”
"...it’s important to understand that not everybody is going to be an atheist.” Was that assumption ever plausible? “It was the assumption of most social theory. All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realise that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many.”
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1707439,00.html
Posted by: Naadir Jeewa at Mar 24, 2007 8:42:24 AM
This analysis doesn't ring very true to me. My sense it that Europe is secular because people don't even think about God anymore. The strength of their belief either that God exists or doesn't exist is incredibly shallow. There is no need for God and because of that intellectuals and schools are given free reign to discuss openly and reasonably all of the million reasons there are for being sceptical about religion.
Posted by: jdsm at Mar 24, 2007 8:44:23 AM
"Europeans are surrounded by Islam on one side, Russia on another, and the United States across the ocean."
And because of that they choose not to believe in a god? Come on now, put some more effort in to it.
Posted by: Helge at Mar 24, 2007 9:00:01 AM
GNXP did a summary of European religious attitudes a while back, based on some European Commission report. It showed that Euros have not become explicitly atheist on leaving formal religious structures, but rather have come to believe in varying combinations of new age mumbo-jumbo about spirits & life forces. So it could be reversed. France, I recall, is most atheist, maybe cos they teach philosophy in high school.
Posted by: adrian at Mar 24, 2007 9:10:02 AM
I'd rather congratulate the EWG than the EU, but that's your choice ;)
Also, there is no "real" secularism in Europe, instead there is a multitude of believes (like the belief in an almighty state, the believe that mother nature is suffering etc.). However, it is true that the traditional religious systems have suffered for quite some time now. But is this new diversity making it worse or better?
Posted by: Max at Mar 24, 2007 9:54:03 AM
It's odd how secularism (assuming we can give such a monolithic label to such a diverse group...rather like 'paganism' in that way) manages to have such social pressure to force others to go along. To be honest, asked to think about the dominant religious beliefs of Europe, I would have little difficulty rooting those beliefs in secularism. Secularism is the religion of force (for the moment).
Posted by: nick at Mar 24, 2007 9:59:43 AM
jdsm - that seems somewhat circular. You're saying Europe is secular because they don't believe in God. Isn't that just the definition of secularism?
Posted by: Jason Voorhees at Mar 24, 2007 10:15:15 AM
Tyler, what about Stark and Finke's conjecture that the less competitive religious markets in Europe are the cause of increased secularism? The religious market is heavily regulated there, for instance - subsidies to state churches, for instance, make clergy less motivated. That sort of thing.
Posted by: Jason Voorhees at Mar 24, 2007 10:17:22 AM
"Nonetheless the rise of European secularism will be reversed"
hmm... nothing I've seen, heard or read would support that view, Tyler. Do you have anything solid to back it up?
Posted by: Suvi at Mar 24, 2007 10:40:23 AM
Tyler Cowen: "In any case the identity of reasonableness is not a sustainable meme for so many people in the long run; it doesn't demand enough from its adherents."
What what what??!?! ...what?
What a bizarre statement. Do you actually hold such a pessimistic view of "average" people? Is it that bad in the US? Have you always lived in the US? In what state is that?
Posted by: UK_Econ at Mar 24, 2007 10:45:09 AM
If anyone is interested in factual, data driven analysis of secularisation, have a look at the following (I'll summarise them below as well):
Norris & Inglehart: Sacred and Secular
Cambridge University Press 2004, 2005
and
Inglehart & Welzel: Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy
Cambridge University Press 2006 (2005?)
In short, there is now plenty of panel data from World Values Surveys, and the big picture is as follows: Growth of GDP and reduction in fertility is clearly associated with the spread of "Secular-Rational" values, in general, all over the world. The values also change from "Survival values" to "Self-Expression values". As people become accustomed to wealth and choice, traditions and religious beliefs step back. This will mean good things for democratization, womens' rights, etc.
United States is just a slight (but not major) outlier in it's religiosity. That's why things may look different from there. But it will change.
Tyler's prediction is quite likely to be wrong. Also Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" prediction is likely to be wrong.
The world is secularising. Big time. Only a long term global economic downslide would reverse the trend.
Posted by: UK_Econ at Mar 24, 2007 11:03:47 AM
Disappointing analysis. Just like witchburning has gone out of fashion, long cherished practices can disappear. Shouldn't a libertarian like Tyler ask what benefit religiosity provides in a modern world?
The social lock-in has been broken in Europe, the church no longer structures social institutions and interactions. US Religiosity has much to do with the dearth of other community building institutions and poor public education.
Posted by: jaywalker at Mar 24, 2007 11:18:20 AM
UK Econ - Most of the conflicts in the world today are caused by religion.
'The world is secularising'?
The population groups that are the most non-religious (East Asian & Euro), are barely reproducing themselves. The religious hotspots (Africa, the Middle East, India and Latin America) have population growth through the roof. The world is becoming more religious.
While atheism may be true in a technical sense, it is completely useless, both socially and on the individual level. I don't see it catching on in a big way, and in my view certainly should not be encouraged.
Posted by: adrian at Mar 24, 2007 11:37:22 AM
I think this all depends on how you define "religion". There are a lot of religious socialists and greens in Europe, and a lot of New Age types.
Environmentalism, socialism and feminism all have, in certain forms, many of the characteristics of religion, including stories of a fall from grace, sacred acts and activities, redemption through good works, belief in a set of core ideas that are not capable of empirical disproof and so on. Despite the secular snobbery in some of the earlier comments - I look forward to their convincing empirical test of the belief that unique events cannot occur - I think the world would be better off if many of these politically religious folks switched to alternatives of a more traditionally religious sort.
Evangelical atheism also has many of the characteristics of religion. Indeed, many of the most "fundamentalist" people I have met (in terms of the way they approached problems, ignored contrary views and writings, were certain that they were much much smarter not only than any other single person but also the sum of all other persons and so on) were atheists.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff Smith at Mar 24, 2007 12:06:23 PM
While atheism may be true in a technical sense, it is completely useless, both socially and on the individual level. I don't see it catching on in a big way, and in my view certainly should not be encouraged.
That is the perspective that many philosophers have held since the Enlightenment: religion was irrational, but necessary to hold societies together. Many atheistic philosophers did not challenge religion because they viewed it as necessary.
You might be surprised to find that this is not necessarily the case. here is a debate between a leading Christian philosopher and a leading atheist philosopher and even the atheists conceded that the Christian easily won. Of course, even the Christians conceded that the atheist did not try to directly engage the current issues (think of Republicans who keep repeating 'free markets work' rather than engaging DeLong or Quiggon).
here is an article about modern arguments for the existence of God, for the curious.
Posted by: Justin at Mar 24, 2007 12:12:14 PM
Tyler,
If you define liberty as the imposition of laws and regulations upon property owning citizens by a body for which they have not voted but which they have consistently been steamrollered further into by their leaders, then the EU has been a success.
If you mean that the British, Irish and Swedish business special interest lobbies have been able to access what seems like an unlimited pool of cheap labour, then it's been a success.
Otherwise, it's not been a success - it's done nothing for my 'liberty'.
And Tyler, the Poles got rid of the Russians long before the EU came on the scene.
And it's disappointing to see you fall into the trap of describing today as the EU's 50th anniversary. Today is the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which inter alia established the European Economic Community - the so-called 'Common Market' that we thought we were joining in 1973, not the 'European Union' which was foisted upon us without either a popular mandate or a referendum as a consequence of the Single European Act of 1992.
Get your facts right.
Regarding religion you fall into the classic trap laid at the feet of all ideologues and secularists, the tendency to assume permanence in affairs. The best efforts of social engineers such as the EU notwithstanding, social attitudes are not fixed - read some comparative history of the Georgian and Victorian periods in England to see how easily cultural conservatism can revive.
Islam's role in discussion of the Common European Future is overplayed. Although their birth rate is high Muslims are still numerically small, and a Christian revival would make them a demographic irrelevance.
Posted by: Martin at Mar 24, 2007 12:15:42 PM
Justin - thanks for the links. I see Peter Kreeft writes at the end of that book. I've read and listened to some of his stuff on Tolkien before, very illuminating. But his theology didn't convince me. Anyway I'm sure Tyler doesn't want this getting too off topic, so lets leave it at that.
Posted by: adrian at Mar 24, 2007 12:38:57 PM
adrian: "The population groups that are the most non-religious (East Asian & Euro), are barely reproducing themselves. The religious hotspots (Africa, the Middle East, India and Latin America) have population growth through the roof. The world is becoming more religious."
From Human Development report 2005:
Total fertility rates by region: in 1970-75 and 2000-05:
1975 2005 Region
2.6 1.8 OECD
6.7 3.7 Arab states
5.0 1.9 East Asia
5.1 2.5 Latin America
5.6 3.2 South Asia
6.8 5.5 Sub Saharan Africa
4.5 2.6 World total
Q: Where are the biggest drops in Fertility rates taking place?
A: East Asia (-3.1),Arab States(-3.0), Latinos (-2.6), South Asia, mostly India that is (-2.4)
How will these stats look 30 years from now?
I would guess they keep converging to the 2.0 ballpark. Some EU countries such as France and Finland are bouncing back from low rates as well..
With smaller families, the values change - also in Africa, also in the Middle-East.
Posted by: UK_Econ at Mar 24, 2007 1:23:57 PM
France, I recall, is most atheist, maybe cos they teach philosophy in high school.
In one sense of the term, at least, France is not the most atheist country; Sweden is. 57% of the French population believes in God. Only 15% of the Swedish population does.*
I don't know whether Swedes are taugh philosophy in high school, though I do know that many of the best philosophers here at Oxford come from that great Scandinavian country.
* Source: Grace Davie, 'Europe: The Exception that Proves the Rule?', in Peter L. Berger (ed.), The Desecularization of the World (Washington, D.C. 1999), p. 70.
Posted by: Pablo Stafforini at Mar 24, 2007 1:42:15 PM
How much of it has to do with a big chunk of the religious nuts of Europe immigrating to the US a few hundred years ago? Especially if there's any sort of genetic component of susceptibility to religious beliefs.
Posted by: Jacqueline at Mar 24, 2007 3:12:41 PM
I agree that 'Tyler nods' a bit here.
Population growth is much less important than it used to be, since a rapidly-increasing proportion of societal communications are technological (eg computers) rather than human. That said, the differentially lower reproduction of the most successfully-adapted people can't go on forever without self-destruction.
The solution could be a resurgence of more traditional, pro-children, pro-family ideals (like the US evangelical Christians) - or technologically-enhanced methods of reproduction and child-rearing which are compatible with a successful modern lifestyle.
Posted by: Bruce G Charlton at Mar 24, 2007 3:19:13 PM
Pablo - My source was an EC survey
which put Swedish belief in God at 23%, Spirit/Lifeforce 53% and atheism 23%. France was 34% God, 27% Spirit and 33% atheism.
Econ UK - OK I can't argue with the stats, but does it actually mean these societies are becoming more secular? I mean Africa in particular seems to be mad for Pentecostalism. Muslims in secular European countries tend to be more religious than their parents. Prosperous Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia or Dubai remain very religious, along with nominally secular countries like Turkey. Those stats indicate a massive proportion of future global population growth will come from Africa and the Arab states. Africa is not going to get prosperous any time soon, so its fertility rate may remain high well into the future (do you agree?).
You mentioned that values change with 'smaller families', but I don't see why that should be. Italy, for example, has a below replacement level birth rate but is still quite religious, ie. its values have not necessarily changed with smaller families.
I don't think atheism will spread very far, it is too... boring, and fails to satisfy basic human desires, even though technically I am one. Without religion or hope western societies really offer nothing more than shiny toys, which is why I agree with Tyler that a religious resurgence is inevitable. When I imagine a world without atheists I always think of that scene in the Simpsons where Lionel Hutz asks 'can you imagine a world without Lawyers?', and everybody is dancing and holding hands beneath a rainbow sky.
Posted by: adrian at Mar 24, 2007 4:06:33 PM
OK, explain to me this: How does an economist know anything more about the religious future of Europe than any bum off the street?
As far as I know, there is no commonly accepted economic model for predicting the future religious behavior of a nation or continent. In fact, I doubt Mr. Cowen knows of ANY such model.
So where do these confident predictions come from? "Nonetheless the rise of European secularism will be reversed," Tyler declares. How can he be so certain? Some societies experience periodic waves of religious revival (America) while others are secular for many centuries (Japan). There's no mean to revert to here.
So, back to my original question: Why is an economist qualified to talk about this at all?
Posted by: Mr. Noah at Mar 24, 2007 5:27:53 PM
The german Constitutional Court ordered the removal of the Christ sculptures , not the crosses, from the public school rooms.The Court said that the Christ was perturbing for the mental health of children.That was in 1993.Until today the Bavarian government have not respected the ruling.In the USA a similar order was issued about a Moses Sculpture. A judge refused to abide by it.The Supreme Court sent a Caterpillar to remove it.The Wall between the Church and the State is stronger in the USA than in Europe. By far.
Posted by: jcm at Mar 24, 2007 6:21:38 PM
"The Wall between the Church and the State is stronger in the USA than in Europe"
icm, you wouldn't be identifying the umm... those people in Bavaria with the rest of Europe, would you?
Posted by: Suvi at Mar 25, 2007 5:47:24 AM
