MAGA and Brexit also play on the fears of our indigenous
populations - facing rapid change, the dominance of global capitalism, and
immigration from poorer countries. They also gain leverage by appealing to
feelings of patriotism, loyalty to local communities, and solidarity among
people overlooked by unbalanced economic development.
But at what stage does an understandable, even commendable,
attitude of belonging to one’s own people-group become something more sinister?
The theologian Paul Tillich may help with our discussion.
He escaped from Nazi Germany, to live in the United States.
Trying to make sense of the disaster, after World War Two, he resurrected the
symbol of the ‘demonic’, to explain the phenomenon of totalitarianism,
Communist as well as Fascist.
Building on the demythologisation of Rudolf Bultmann, however,
Tillich was no fundamentalist. Rather, he used the idea symbolically. In this,
he drew on the insights of Freudian depth psychology, to delve into the hidden
aspects of human nature; Jung’s shadow-side, which underlay the bright light of
Enlightenment rationalism.
For example, Socialism, Tillich believed, was a radical response
to the depradations of untrammelled capitalism. On the other hand, Communism
was a distortion of Socialism, and concentrated all power in the State, under
an over-arching ideology of absolute control. This, he claimed was a demonization
of a legitimate political position.
Likewise, Tillich perceived the deformation of patriotism
by Nazism, and, we might add, nationalism. He recognised the validity of attachment
to home, a natural feeling of familiarity with what we know; an application of
the German concept of the Heimat. Nevertheless,
Tillich saw that this everyday preference could become the vehicle of prejudice
and domination.
This occurs when a customary enjoyment of one’s own
community and habits develops into a sense of superiority, over against other groups,
upon which one seeks to impose domination. This is the demonization of
patriotism by nationalism. Here we are in the realm of the Principalities and
Powers. More than demons, these represent the structural realities which shape
our lives. Where demons can be cast out, with a word, the Powers must be ‘wrestled
with’, in close combat, longterm.
Of course, not all nationalisms are the same. The ‘little
nationalisms’, of subaltern peoples, have a different character to that the ‘greater
nationalisms’, of imperial and (neo-)colonialist powers. In the first case,
what we call nationalism, is more similar to what I am calling ‘patriotism’;
aiming at the liberation of an oppressed group, not the oppression of an other
one. But where the ‘other’, person or people, is put down and made less, then
we witness the sign of the demonic.
Politics is therefore within the sphere of spiritual
warfare; and we need the gift of discernment before we engage, and name, the
Powers we face.
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