Daniel J. Mahoney holds the Augustine Chair in Distinguished Scholarship at Assumption College, where he is a Professor of Politics. He received his B.A. from the College of Holy Cross and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Catholic University of America. His doctoral thesis was titled “The Liberal Political Science of Raymond Aron”, and in 1999 he was the recipient of the prestigious Prix Raymond Aron. A highly regarded expert on French political philosophy, Mahoney has authored books on Charles De Gaulle, Raymond Aron, Bertrand De Jouvenel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the nature of democracy.
His most recent book is The Idol of Our Age: How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity (Encounter Books, 2018), which has been praised by Roger Scruton, R.R. Reno, Mary Ann Glendon, and Remi Brague for its critique of “the new humanitarian religion”. Professor Mahoney recently corresponded with Carl E. Olson, editor of CWR, about the roots and goals of “the religion of humanity”, critiques offered by several great thinkers, and why the Church must fight against this dangerous imposter.
CWR: What is “humanitarianism” and in what ways is it a religion? And how is different from or similar to socialism, Marxism, and secular humanism? Is there a spectrum, so to speak, ranging from a soft humanitarianism to a harsh totalitarian version?
Daniel J. Mahoney: By humanitarianism, I do not mean an admirable concern with good works or the corporal works of mercy. Everyone admires Doctors Without borders (even if the Church must be careful not construe itself as an NGO).
Humanitarianism draws on Christianity but radically distorts it in the process. It tends to see man as the “measure of everything,” and to forget the transcendental dimensions of authentic religion. It sees the project of this-wordly amelioration, of building a perfectly just social order (a rank impossibility), as the effectual truth of the Christian religion. It has little sense of sin or limits. Humanitarians tend to blame evil and criminality on “unjust” social structures (“social sin”), and believe in principle in the perfectibility of human beings and society. They dismiss the West as an essentially “culpable” civilization, racist, exploitative, and unjust, and are blind towards the totalitarian enemies of civilized order.
Humanitarianism's heart and soul is pacifistic, believing in peace at any price (a current particularly ascendant in “progressive” Catholic circles, including this “progressive” papacy). Humanitarianism has no place for the politics of prudence, what the great Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke called “the god of this world below.” As we shall see, it tends to mix moralism and relativism in a truly toxic way.
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