Current commentary: The arc of civil liberation³⁶

Abstract

This book has offered differing perspectives on the concepts of science and religion, and the intertwining of their roles in modern societies. In the following I wish to take a closer look at three transformative political-symbolic experiences. They are Barack Obama, Tahrir Square, and the Occupy Wall Street movement. These cases serve as examples of how the sacred and profane is placed back into the idea of the secular, and show how they remain at the core of modern life. Our modern society is often perceived as rational, and traditional society as religious. Science, rationality and individual autonomy are given as characteristics of the ethos of modernity, juxtaposed as radically different from what they call traditional society. That is, we only believe what we see before our eyes - a kind of empirical sensibility - whereas traditional society was filled with mysteries. However, people still need broad, metaphysical beliefs and narratives, not necessarily in a super-natural world, but beliefs that are not proven empirically. No matter how sophisticated we are, no matter how much we say that we see ambiguity, we understand it, we can tolerate ambivalence, none the less I believe that certain core convictions are important in social organization. We still need sweeping social passions, symbols, the role of rituals and sentiments in contemporary and so-called secular society.