Woke Theopolitics

Religion, the state, and metaphysics

Theopolitical Imagination: Christian Practices of Space and Time (2003) by William Cavanaugh is a Catholic response to both nationalism and liberalism. Cavanaugh dispenses with the idea that “politics is the art of the possible.” Instead, “politics is a practice of the imagination.” Cavanaugh, being an opponent of secularism, uses the term “imagination” to represent the religious faith of the secular state. However, if we reappropriate this term “imagination” as a synonym for faith, then Cavanaugh is touching on an idealist view of the state.

The idealist view of the state contradicts the concept that “necessity is the mother of invention.” Rather, in this view, invention is the mother of necessity. That is, the state did not arise in response to a need, but rather, the imagined myth of the state created the need which justified itself.

In Guns Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond argues this point in chapter 14, Necessity's mother: The evolution of technology. The airplane, automobile, and phonograph were all invented without obvious or immediate applications. There was no sudden need or necessity for these inventions. Society could do without them, and in their first trial iterations, they were essentially useless prototypes with no practical use. Rather, it was the imagination of the inventor who could imagine a future need which generated the invention.

In this sense, the state can be looked at as a form of technology which first emerges from imagination itself, and is maintained constantly by the reinforcement of myth. By altering this thesis slightly to view religion as a technology with its own structure of myth, Cavanaugh’s own Catholicism comes under the microscope. Cavanaugh never makes this obvious leap for partisan reasons. But despite Cavanaugh’s limits, he traces the border of the truth by walking around it:

“The nation state is an imagined community. Political theory is theology in disguise. State soteriology promises rescue from violence. The state does not exist, but is the imagined justification for real mobilization. The state justifies itself through the concept of salvation from destruction.” (pg. 1)

Cavanaugh presupposes that religion’s soteriology (theory of salvation) is valid, while the state’s is invalid. We can invert his argument as follows:

“The body of Christ is an imagined community. Christian soteriology promises rescue from hell. God does not exist, but is the imagined justification for real mobilization. The church justifies itself through the concept of salvation from destruction.”

Such an inversion, when taken together with Cavanaugh's position, does not present any contradiction. Both religion and the state can simultaneously be products of imagination and mythology, rather than necessity. This revelation, that religions and states spring from imaginary rather than material conditions, is associated prescriptively with anarchism or atheism. But this need not be the case, from an idealist position. Simply because something is imaginary does not make it false.

Mathematics is full of imaginary numbers, but this does not mean that mathematics is false. Rather, if we accept that all material conditions derive ultimately from imaginary conditions, then both religion and the state can be justified.

Physical Idealism

When we speak of the laws which govern the material universe, we generally call these “physical laws,” or “material laws,” but if these laws are physical or material, where is their position in space and time? What is their quantity of energy, in Jules, or their mass, in grams? What is their volume, speed, or density? None of these questions can be answered — yet all physical things have these qualities.

Unlike material or physical objects, the laws which govern the universe have no position in space or time, no mass or energy, no size or speed. If we suggest that the laws are “contained within the atoms,” or some smaller unit, like a quark, why do we not find variation between these laws?

Each individual particle (or wave) has its own velocity in space — at any given time, a particle is moving with speed (S) in direction (D) in three dimensional space, in a given point in time (T). A particle with no velocity whatsoever would be considered to have reached absolute 0 degrees Kelvin — yet even if such a particle were possible to observe on this planet (and the act of observation might just jiggle the given particle), since the planet itself is moving with respect to the sun, it could said to have a velocity with respect to the sun. Entire galaxies, too, have their own velocities with respect to one another. The universe seems to be expanding. Even extremely cold objects (theoretically immobile) are moving with respect to neighboring galaxies.

All of this is to demonstrate that each particle has its own velocity, and more fundamentally, its own position in space. Velocity, after all, is merely a change in position over time. If we accept, at the very least, that each material or physical object has a position in space, then we must also accept that each material object has a distinct and unique position in space. If we were to map the entire universe in a 3-dimensional grid, we could assign the center of this grid the value (0,0,0). The 8 farthest points from this center would be the eight vertices of a cube (hexahedron).

In this sense, every object in material reality is necessarily distinct and unique with respect to its position in space.¹ If each particle is unique, and the laws of physics are independent or locally generated from within particles, then why do the laws not vary slightly from particle to particle? Why does gravity have the same constant everywhere, and not a slightly different constant depending on the mass in question? Why does every proton and neutron in the universe have an equal nuclear force, to the extent that each electron can be thought of as functionally identical? Rather than a universe of arbitrary individuals, we find a universe of identical twins.

Perhaps two particles could share the same “random laws” one time, maybe twice, or three times. But billions, trillions, a seemingly infinite number of times? It cannot be held that laws are locally determined, arbitrary, or random. Rather, the laws of physics seem to permeate reality universally, without variation.

Even if we were to presuppose, somehow, that some dark corner of the universe had some variation in these laws, too far away for us to discover, this still does not at all allow for any “randomness” in what we do observe. Empirically, there is too much uniformity in the known universe to suppose that particles are acting “independently.” Instead, it appears that the laws of the universe are beyond time and space. They are, in other words, not material, but imaginary.

Without these laws, all forces in the universe would cease. There would be no collisions, propulsions, or repulsions. Light itself would stop moving, since there would be no energy to propel it forward. Atoms would fall apart, since nothing would hold them together. Without universal “imaginary” laws, everything would instantly disintegrate.

In a similar way, without faith, there is no religion, and without imagination, there is no state. The difference between mythic structures and physical structures is that humans have a choice whether or not we believe, while particles have no free will. Alternatively, we could view particles as having quantum degrees of freedom within the physical laws, due to quantum uncertainty. In the same way, mythic structures generally must adhere to certain laws, especially as relate to biology. If a mythic structure advocates for mass castration and suicide, and destroys the reproductive function, this mythic structure will inevitably disintegrate. Even within the wide degrees of freedom of politics and religions, there are still hard rules on long enough time scales.

State vs Religion

Returning to Cavanaugh, he accurately distinguishes modernity from tradition by the relation of the state and religion:

“The state has lifted itself as superior to religion when it stated that it was necessary, as opposed to religion, which was voluntary and tolerable. Heresy became tolerable, while crime remained intolerable. The separation of heresy from crime represents the side-lining of heresy and the victory of the state, a struggle it lost previously in the Investiture Contest of 1075.”

What Cavanaugh foreshadows is the return of religion, which will re-merge heresy and crime, and make the two indistinguishable. Although Cavanaugh hopes this return will be Catholic, what is currently occurring is “woke” theopolitics. Some crime remains “secular,” such as theft. Being a thief is not heretical. Sexual or racial abuse, on the other hand, are heretical, even if only imagined.

In other words, a criminal who steals from a store can be excused or dismissed, as we see now in San Francisco or Los Angeles. On the other hand, merely imagining a racist or sexist thought in one’s own private mind is grounds for condemnation. This is a post-Christian concept, which Christ introduced as the “adultery of the heart.” Even if no material sin was practiced, the mere contemplation of sin is itself sin.

Cavanaugh characterizes the secular form of politics as reducing physical violence, but “has sublimated physical violence into the emotional, psychological, and spiritual.” This seems to hearken to Deleuze, Postscript on the Societies of Control (1990):

“The separation of violence from spirituality has freed violence from the limits of divine conscience. While spiritual violence is fanatical, secular violence is ‘in cold blood.’”

Cavanaugh is not a nationalist, which should be clear by now, and in seeking to introduce a truly Catholic form of politics, believes in globalism. He contrasts this with the hierarchical, ethnocentric, or racist politics of Greece:

“The Greek conception of politics puts the Gods first, then the rulers, then the nobles, then the citizenry, then the slaves. The Christian conception of the body of Christ declares that all below Christ are entirely equal and subject to the same law. Christianity is therefore, by definition, universally global.”

Cavanaugh reintroduces the concept of necessity: “The development of Christianity in opposition to Greek politics is related to the Roman necessity for a spiritual reorientation to justify imperial expansion.” The question of invention and necessity reemerges. Did Christianity arise because it was needed to justify existing imperialism? Or did imperialism occur because it was first justified by Christianity? If we are to believe Cavanaugh’s oversimplification, then the first answer must be correct. However, Christianity was not the first imperial or universal religion. In fact, Zoroastrianism and Pythagoreanism both contain elements which Christianity only adopted later. Cavanaugh overstates the uniqueness of Christianity’s universalism — an error committed both by Christians, who see their religion as exceptional, and pagan nationalists, who blame all universalism on Christianity.

Cavanaugh, despite not being a nationalist, does admit that Christianity was central to the development of nationalism: “The concept of the body of Christ creates a sense of mutual interest which is an expansion of the Greek concept of a lineage or tribe. This would then be secularized to leave the nation as supreme over the tribe.”

Cavanaugh then clarifies a point made by Rousseau, who is often regarded as the founder of modern nationalism (as well as socialism):

“Rousseau says that there was a ‘change from freedom into bondage.’” (p15) “When Rousseau said that humanity is born free, he meant “free from one another.”” (p17)

When Rousseau speaks of the General Will, he is speaking of the will of the state, which arises out of a collection of individualists, but is opposed to those individuals. In other words, the freedom of the state to act decisively and the freedom of the individual from the state are in opposition.

Cavanaugh critiques Rousseau’s “natural law” on the following basis: “The law of nature refers to all those limitations which exist once the limitations of the church and state are stripped away. Thus, the concept [of] natural law is not an attempt to seek objectivity, but rather, to increase subjectivity.” (p17) Cavanaugh is not correct here. “Natural law” actually refers to the ratio or proportion between the freedom of the individual and the freedom of the state, which exist as natural proportions, rather than subjective proportions. Maximum freedom of the individual and the state are arrived at scientifically, rather than arbitrarily. Cavanaugh can declare that individuals are “most free under Catholic law,” but this is a mere assertion without objective grounding. Meanwhile, we can refer to the liberal empires of France and Britain as states which maximized both personal freedom as well as the freedom of the state to act in the world, at least compared to less successful states which had no freedom either in their capacity as governments nor in their license to individuals. Take for example China, which has enslaved its population in serfdom over many long centuries, binding them to tradition, without itself being capable to act politically upon the world or to expand.

Cavanaugh argues that “The nominalist concept of God’s unbounded will inspired a subjectivity of governance, leading not to freedom, but to absolute rule.” (p18) This is mere assertion. The period of Enlightened Despotism in Europe did indeed lead to freedom — without a strong central authority, Europe had already existed for centuries under the petty despotism of princes and dukes. As central authority became stronger, the whims and fancies of individual fiefdoms were reduced, allowing each individual greater autonomy.

Cavanaugh describes Hobbes as creating “a new Adam.” (P19-20) Hobbes describes the leviathan, the social organism, as having its soul in sovereignty, its laws the nerves, and so on. The creation of the leviathan is the creation of a new man, mirroring the creation of Adam. This leviathan saves humanity from the fall from Grace, rather than Christ. Cavanaugh’s assessment of Hobbes as a myth maker, or prophet of a new secular religion of the state, is accurate and ground breaking. While Hobbes is typically critiqued from the left as a “conservative reactionary,” who merely created propaganda for the state, Cavanaugh re-envisions him as a secular revolutionary in a proto-Hegelian tradition.

Rather than viewing the wars of religion as the fault of Catholicism, Cavanaugh calls them the “birthpangs” of the modern secular state. (p22) Cavanaugh sees Lutheranism as a convenient justification for the princes to finally revolt against Catholicism, which had been their aim for hundreds of years.

Just prior to Luther, “with Machiavelli we begin to see the transition to a more abstract sense of the state as an independent political entity.” Thereafter develops “a form of public power separate from both ruler and ruled.” (pg. 22) In Platonic phraseology, we could call this public power “justice,” and in fact, in Latin, the Republic is literally “res publica,” the thing of the public. The original Greek term is Politeia. A picture emerges in which the Greek conception of politics returns through Machiavelli, Luther, and Hobbes, downplaying the Christian religion, and replacing it with a new mythology of the absolute or total state. Cavanaugh bemoans this development, but it is in this return that Europe conquers the world — not the Catholic cloister which persisted in the ruins of Rome.

Cavanaugh never argues that the Pope should build an army to conquer Europe and bring it under his direct control. However, he does criticize the medieval doctrine of Defensor pacis, as described by Marsilius of Padua in 1324. Marsilius argued that since violence was secular in nature, the Pope could not rightly command armies. The argument of Marsilius is based chiefly in the life of Jesus: Christ rejected violence, and lived a life of martyrdom. Cavanaugh realizes, however, that in taking the Bible literally, institutional Catholicism doomed itself to irrelevance.

At the most, the doctrine of Defensor pacis reduced the church to having only the judicial power to make suggestions, rather than having the power to declare new laws and crusades. (pg. 23) Still, Cavanaugh stops short of advocating for a crusade himself. He defends Luther as having "rightly [seen] that the Church had become worldly and perversely associated with the wielding of the sword." (p23-24)

Rather than praising the princes who remained Catholic, Cavanaugh argues that they were essentially of the same spirit as the Lutheran princes. In this cynical view, so-called Catholic princes were as much opposed to the church as the Lutherans, but believed more could be gained through negotiation rather than rebellion. (pg. 25) Cavanaugh believes the entire European aristocracy (warrior class) is guilty for the fall of the church, not just the Protestants.

One would think that Cavanaugh would recommend, then, a new warrior class to rise up from within the church to defend it. The best example of this, the Jesuits, receives his condemnation: “The Jesuits were an attempt to restore catholic domination, but in their methods, they acted much like those Catholic princes, or of the earlier templars. They created a semi-independent governing body. Instead of attacking the church [..] from the outer mechanism of Protestantism, they fostered secularism within the guise of Catholicism.” (pg. 26.)

Cavanaugh also rejects the concept of the “concordat,” which is today seen as “theocratic”: “Wherever concordats … limited the jurisdiction of the church … there princes saw no need to throw off the yoke of Catholicism, precisely because Catholicism had already been reduced…” [pg. 26-27]

In other words, if a country remained Catholic, it was because it found the brand useful to keep under beautiful deception. Where Protestantism rose, it was because the brand itself was seen as useless and ugly. Thus, the struggle between so-called “Catholic governments” and Protestant governments was not between faithful and faithfulness, but between Machiavellian secularists and honest secularists.

Cavanaugh correctly notes that many of the Catholic aristocracy grew increasingly hostile to the church even prior to Luther. Catherine de Medici, for example, attempted to create a French form of Anglicanism, similar to the proposed reforms of Rudolf II. [pg. 28]

Cavanaugh’s intention in condemning his “fellow Catholics” of the late medieval period is to entirely absolve the church of any blame for the wars of religion. Instead of seeing those wars as fundamentally doctrinal, he says the doctrine was merely a cover or an excuse for political massacres between fundamentally secular elites. [pg. 28] This view is devastating to “Christian nationalists,” who imagine that Europe was ruled by Christians until 1945. Instead, Cavanaugh cynically reveals that Christianity was not the dominant political force in modern Europe, and that Graeco-Roman values had already re-emerged in the Renaissance. Consciously, elites may have considered themselves Christian, but subconsciously, they were pagan.

If arguments over doctrine were not the impetus behind wars of religion, what was? Cavanaugh argues that the outbreak of mass violence in early modern Europe can be blamed on centralization. Centralization, according to Hobbes, was the solution to the “nasty, brutish and short” life of the primitive. But Cavanaugh argues that was not the solution to violence, but the cause behind it. [pg. 29]

The narrative that the violent divisions in Europe were religious in origin is deceptive and ignores centralization as the driving factor. Religious excuses followed from a desire for justification, but were not its ultimate cause. [pg. 30]

In the same way, we could consider many of the ideological battles of the 20th century to be mere moral justifications for battles over centralization. Was Europe to be ruled by Britain (liberalism), Germany (Naziism), or Russia (communism)? Citizens were moralized and made fanatical under the banner of these three respective ideologies, but the fundamental conflict at play had to do with the three underlying systems which sought to dominate Europe.

This game still continues to be played between America and Russia in Ukraine. America flies the banner of freedom (wokeness), while Russia flies a mish-mash banner of communism, anti-racism, anti-Naziism, traditionalism, Duginism, and fourth-positionism. Wokeness seems to be the more “coherent” of the two ideologies, but its own weaknesses are apparent.

Understanding the origins of the modern secular state is crucial to seeing what comes next. Wokeness is making a bid to become America’s imperial religion, fusing religion and politics together once more, in a perfect inversion of Naziism. However, like all mythologies, wokism (on a long enough timescale) will eventually bump into material realities. AI and genetic engineering will test the ability of wokeness to maintain its dogmatic commitment to the metaphysical equality of all humans.

1. If black holes are a true singularity, then it seems that matter collapses upon a single point in this case. Newtonian mechanics does not allow for this, and this exception is only possible through quantum physics, which is reliant on the kind of non-local physics I am proving through Newtonian arguments. In other words, Black Holes are an exception which proves the argument I am making, which I neglect to make for the sake of simplifying and appealing to the reader’s “common sense.”