According to Proverbs 30 there are “three or four things that are never satisfied”. What are they? Well… The world of the dead and a childless wife, the thirsty earth and a flaming fire. However, today there are three or four things that are rarely heard: the bees, the birds and the babies. I shall write about the most interesting fact that children are nowadays less and less expected or born in the West. I will look at this, however, not as a demographer or a politician or even a political philosopher of politics; I will do it as a philosopher of religion, referring to the first ages and schools of Christian thought as well as to the Eastern tradition, which rejects the sharp division between philosophy and theology.
So, yes, we will talk, with Proverbs, of the “world of the dead”—which can be seen as tradition—and “childless wives.” What position can we adopt towards them? Which position choose and for what reason? The answer to this question is given in the term “re-enactment.” We will seek a link between the demographic issue and the Logos going through all nature and human bodies and say: what is created needs to pro-create! Which also means: re-enact!
Re-enactment is a term derived from R.G. Collingwood’s historiography. It was adopted by Henri-Irénée Marrou, originator of the critical philosophy of history. I will be using it only in this theoretical context. This term appears in various works on history and philosophy. It is often encountered in the philosophy of culture. What interests me however, is not the term “re-enactment” itself, but the attitude of “re-enactment.” It consists, as Marrou elaborated on the basis of Herodotus and Thucydides, in rediscovering the ancient units of meaning, axiologai. Axiologai are what is used to bring answers to the question of all human being: what is there in life to be desired? What to live for? What to die for and how? Re-enactment is the mechanism of tradition. It goes from the dead, through the elder living, through the young living, to those who are expected (if they are expected). If there are no children, there can be no re-enactment (in this world, at least).
Re-enactment in the Context of the Philosophy of History
Plato and Aristotle believed that the prerequisite for understanding and measuring time is placing oneself in the atemporal position. This was also the case with the theory of historical knowledge. For a long time, it was believed that historical understanding could only be achieved by separating oneself from the object of knowledge. Some historians (Marrou, Braudel) questioned this paradigm and began to consider history as an art of participation in the past. Marrou, following Herodotus, wrote about axiologai – units of meaning. The task of the historian is to find them and transfer them to the historian’s own times so that they can reveal the powers of explanation and motivation which remain relevant. This is therefore an effort of presence in relation to the past.
Importantly, this “effort of presence” does not have to be only the task of the historian, but of every human being, because man is not only a temporal being (“homo temporalis”), but also a historical being (“homo historicus”). To understand oneself is to understand one’s place on the axis of time of the community to which one belongs: family, city or municipality, nation or polis. Some would also mention the eschatological community: the community of the living and the dead. We can go even further, as from a confessional perspective one may speak of the community of those who live now and those who live forever.
On this axis of time, the deposit developed by past generations is passed on, including what they consider their particular treasure: usually religion and the model of piety, the developed model of political community and the sacrifice of life and work associated with it. Also family history and family memorabilia. What is passed down is defined by the Latin term “traditio,” tradition. So who is this homo temporalis who understands that he is also homo historicus, and who therefore constantly strives for re-enactment? As it turns out, he is a traditionalist.
Importantly, in our times tradition increasingly has the structure of a symbol. σύμβολον sýmbolon – in the world of the Greeks – was a small object made of clay, bone, wood, or metal, such as a tablet or ring, which attested to some agreement (for example a marriage contract or a land right). The cut or broken halves served as a token for two people who were bound by some agreement, transaction, or bond. The verb συμβάλλω symbállō meant “to collect” or “to compare, to put together, to connect.” The symbolon could only be understood by those who knew what agreement the object confirmed. Therefore, its meaning was not clear to everyone, for many it was mysterious. Symbolon was also a mysterion. Its meaning could only be recognized by the initiated person – mysta (“mysta” is the one who knows the mystery). Today’s inherited Western tradition is increasingly a symbol known only to the mysts. For vast numbers of Western citizens, tradition is not an inheritance (that which is received), it is not a symbol (a sign of an agreement made with past generations), because they are not mysts – the initiated.
However, there are still heirs here who feel obliged to fulfill the ancient agreement. Therefore, the traditionalist can be regarded as “called to be a historian” or a “philosopher of history.” His task would be to find and recreate past meanings, ancient axiologai. The prerequisite for historical understanding is friendship. Let us recall this wonderful phrase by Marrou (on this issue, he corresponded with Etienne Gilson as well):
If understanding is (...) a dialectic of Me and Other (...), it presupposes the existence of a broad basis of fraternal agreement between the subject and the object, between the historian and the source (and more precisely: also with the person who reveals himself through the source, the sign). How can one understand without this internal disposition that makes us sensitive and compassionate towards the other, allows us to feel his emotions, ponder his thoughts, and that in the same context as him – in a word, to be in communion with the other. The term ‘sympathy’ is therefore even insufficient. Between the historian and his object, we have friendship, which should be established, if the historian wants to understand, because, according to Augustine’s beautiful formulation, ‘no one can be known except through friendship,’ et nemo nisi per amicitiam cognoscitur.
In other words, mysts exist today, they have the loving memory of past generations which preserves what it remembers and feel responsible for the material and spiritual heritage of our civilization.
To know through friendship! However, does the West today engage in friendship with its own past, or rather subject it to constant, exhaustive, patronizing judgment? If indeed ‘no one can be known except through friendship,’ it means that hostility, resentment, and judgment lead to a kind of historical illiteracy. This corresponds to MacIntyre’s conclusion, that the barbarians are not only already here, but rule the West. Who are they? Who can be accused of disseminating hostility towards our past? Who are the masters of the hermeneutics of suspicion? The answer is well known. Paul Ricœur pointed out three figures: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. What they were all suspicious of was: rational tradition and religion.
If, however, every human is homo temporalis and therefore may be or even should be homo historicus, than we should not only think of names of philosophers, but trace the philosophies of everyday existence. What are the everyday philosophies of people who we meet in the streets, at the bazaars, in opera houses, in cafes? It seems that today many of them are the proponents of emancipatory ideologies. Successive waves of emancipation, it seems, “make all things new” (Rev. 21:5). And – as their proponents may think – having triumphed over history, they now seek to triumph over nature. These are emancipators and emancipated.
And what danger lies before traditionalists? They risk succumbing to the Golden Age syndrome. They may tend to regard the past as a reservoir of reliable answers to questions about all human phenomena. Also, by considering emancipatory ideologies as compromised and laughable, they may believe that by not being leftists, they are automatically right. This is not the case. The past and the history of our communities also include the history of mistakes, distortions, cruelties, and injustices. Moreover, the present time – our ‘now’ – is also a time of injustice brought about by us.
Here, I’d like to make a brief digression to present a hypothesis. It stems – albeit indirectly – from what has been said so far. It seems that there is a difference in fundamental axiological orientation here. Let’s call it the “consciousness bias.” The emancipator – it seems – calculates good deeds (“today, I stood up for ‘women’s rights’, ‘gay rights’, ‘animal rights’, for ‘climate.’ Maybe not enough, but still, I contributed some good to this world”). The traditionalist, however – it seems – calculates, or should calculate, rather the bad deeds, as the tradition of Western piety teaches. This is most evident in the Catholic tradition with the remarkable issue addressed by Jesus: “Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone.” (Mark 10:18). Therefore, the opposition between the emancipator and the traditionalist is (perhaps) the opposition between the person fundamentally satisfied and the one dissatisfied with themselves. Between a person of moral success and a person of moral failure. Between an emancipator who “fixes the world” every day and the traditionalist who makes efforts every day not to ruin it. So to end my digression: the emancipator tries to be “a good person”, while the traditionalist tries not to be a bad man.
The issue of the place of tradition in our communities takes on a particular hue depending on how we answer the question about the human soul: is it immortal or is it not? And about the human person: is she destructible or is she not? The confessional answer is: even after death, the person continues to exist in relation to the atemporal Person of God. In this way, each individual human person is still “present,” which makes friendship with her possible, and even desirable. Therefore, my loyalty and “carrying of the thread” of tradition is aimed at maintaining a relationship with invisible, yet present persons. This is the Christian position, but also – on their own terms – the Jewish and the Greek position. For them, the dead are, somehow, alive.
However, what if we reject the assertion of the indestructibility of the human person? What can be an atheist or agnostic position towards the dead? Here we must confront the interesting question of whether a gift-friendship is possible. That means a one-sided relationship, which is solely giving, and “empty” on the recipient’s side. Is friendship possible only as a giving with personal interest, memory, respect? My answer is: yes, one can experience friendship in this way: as a carrying attitude towards the Other, even if I do not consider her or him as enduring.
I have an old daily missal. Acquiring it was a certain effort for me. These books are not found so easily nowadays. Their supply has its irregularities. Published in 1960, it has yellowed pages, and the ribbon-markers are worn and too short, so that the loop tied at the end does not protrude beyond the pages but retreats between them. At the end of the booklet, there is a liturgical calendar for the years 1960-1966. At the time of publication, it is known that it will reach the thousandth anniversary of Poland’s baptism, but also the last dates covered by the calendar will coincide with the years of intense work on the liturgical reform undertaken by the Second Vatican Council. This daily missal will become – in a sense – ‘invalid’ in 1970 when on March 26, Holy Thursday, a new Roman Missal, known as the Missal of Paul VI, is released [in Poland], announced a year earlier. All of this was hidden from the person using the missal at the time she acquired it around 1960. She also could not know that John Paul II would apologize for the abuses during the implementation of the liturgical reform – abuses against the liturgy.
It is known, however, that the reform was caused, among other things, by the fact that many faithful did not understand the meaning of the priest’s gestures and words, that they were bored, that the celebration was unclear and inaccessible. Did the owner of my missal belong to those who were impatient? Was she or he bored? The yellowed pages do not reveal this to me. However, they give me access to her or his meanings, axiologai. Even if the person felt boredom, the worn-out booklet indicates that she must have regularly participated in devotional practices. What stood behind this perseverance? The thought leads to the Council of Trent, when the Holy Mass was codified. And even further to the essence of various forms of ancient celebration, which always meant awaiting the second coming of Christ. This was expressed by the priest’s universal orientation ad Orientem, towards the east. Expecting, as Saint Augustine reminds us, is the presence of future things. It takes place in the “chronotic” temple (simply in the building) and in everyday life, on sunny and rainy Sundays, with the faithful’s joint pain or headaches, with their ordinary worries about family and bread… And at the same time, this chronos (linear, secular time) is united with God’s kairos (sacred time) in the Mass. This event is witnessed by presence, which is also memory.
Today, connecting memory and presence is an especially challenging effort. The loss of the traditional Roman liturgy is one of the most serious and least discussed collapses of the West and the Western sphere. The Pope Benedict XVI - a traditionalist in many ways - sought to preserve and renew it by issuing the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum in 2007, while Pope Francis – the pope of discontinuity, the “emancipatory” pope, recently dubbed the “Woke Pope” – issued his motu proprio Traditionis Custodes in 2021, aiming to eliminate the Roman liturgical tradition. The significance of this is colossal, as I will explain shortly. Let us just add that even unbelievers have stood up in defense of the traditional Roman rite, understanding that it is an important thread creating the fabric upon which the history of the West is embroidered. Therefore, we should pose a question about agnostics and atheists: can a non-believer be the protagonist of “friendship with the (no longer existing) Other”?
The missal is a material link that introduces us to the past, it is the most literal transgenerational connection. It is also a presence through memory and participation of a person who – alive today or already deceased – had a certain hope. This experience of friendship with the historical Other, which I am trying to illuminate here with a grandeur worthy of Jean-Paul Sartre and his “J’ai rendez-vous avec Pierre à quatre heures…” (“I am meeting Peter at four o’clock”) is a kind of relationship that sustains awareness of the existence of the Other. There doesn’t have to be talk of active reciprocity, and it is not a necessary condition of this attitude or an element of this feeling. It flows “from me,” penetrates into the past, which is also the past of the Other. If I am the master of myself, then I am the master of my relationships, including my friendships. The condition of my feeling does not come from the Other, for it is mine.
Is all of this not overly sentimental, though? Does the tradition-loving mysta not simply become a sentimental person? Admittedly, history often evokes encounters with ancestors, siblings, or role models from the past, sometimes in an atmosphere of moving lyricism. However, we shouldn’t expect too much from history, as if it would always enable us to avoid dangerous distortions and mistakes. Solutions to pressing problems don’t always come from history. Therefore, we should approach history with friendship, but without risking the loss of critical thinking and the potential for development. Historical research is not just about instruction from the past to the future; it’s a meeting of two worlds of values: the world of the one studying and the world being studied. This passion, far from blinding us, makes the critical attitude even more demanding.
But what is the method of historical knowledge? What to re-enact and how? This question can receive safer or riskier answers. Today, let’s choose risk.
Re-enactment through Reading
What is there to be read in the central myth of Europe, namely the Christian “myth”?
Ancient Greeks identified four tasks facing every human: to learn how to live, to learn how to die, to learn how to converse, and to learn how to read. Clearly, at least three of them (living, dying, and conversing) relate to communal life, especially family life. Reading can be done in solitude... Ultimately, however, one reads in order to learn how to live and... how to die.
Let’s consider this quartet of ancient philosophy, starting with reading. What can be subject to reading? What can be read? Books, maps, musical scores, paintings, photographs... One reads gestures and facial expressions, in general, “the other person”... Weather, omens, signs are also read... But one also reads symbols and myths, and precisely through them, tradition and history are read. It is about this quartet (symbol, myth, tradition, history) that I want to speak now in the context of learning how to live, how to die, and how to converse. Living, dying, conversing are social, are political, and are also familial. Family life is what is to be exposed in my expose.
Various responses are given to the question of how symbol and myth exist. Ultimately, the answer depends on how deep each of us is willing to leap. Perhaps among us, there is someone willing to adopt even a position close to that formulated by Justin Martyr (Justin the Philosopher) in the 2nd century and expressed in his “Apology” (1). In a commentary on Plato’s “Timaeus,” Justin referred to the observation that before the Demiurge created the world, he made an X on it, dividing matter or primordial matter into 4 parts. Now, Justin argued, Plato did not understand the nature of the sign he saw. It was not an X, but it was a Cross. Thus, even before the creation, matter or primordial matter was marked with the Cross. Let’s briefly compare the world to clay, from which it is constantly kneaded by the “hands” of the Logos. One could even argue that the Logos “kneads” and “shapes” the world precisely through the symbol. That the symbol is a way of the Logos’ action (actus), the stress of the Logos on being. Let’s put it this way: the symbol is its “hands.” Myth – its “tongue” and… its language. However, this is a deep leap, and to understand my standpoint, it suffices to adopt a more psychological or sociological approach to the symbol.
Where is the symbol given? What is it assigned to? The symbol is primarily assigned to the domain of myth. Myth can be understood as a sacred speech. This is clear, if we understand, that Logos is Reason and Word. And that Logos (Reason-Word) is the arche of the world – the world is the word. Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. / In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Logos tries to communicate with humans but can only do so in an approximate form. This approximation: “what is told – what is heard” is precisely the myth. Myth can be also understood, let’s say, trivially – as a system of more or less complicated histories framing communities and calming down individuals. It’s however important to remember that we don’t know of any civilization that isn’t organized around some mythic core, around its Central Myth and a peripheral system of myths. Therefore, to remove the Myth from a civilization is like removing the backbone and the entire skeletal system from a human, expecting the organs to somehow remain connected in a bag of skin. However, we see that even if such a person stands for a while due to inertia, we still begin to deal with a being not only shapeless and doomed to fall but essentially already lifeless – Staying Dead.
The social significance of myth arises, among other things, from the fact that “the inheritance of myth is the inheritance of values that the myth imposes” (Y. Congar). The myth of the West, the myth of Europe, is the Christian myth. Before we ask “what values does it impose?” let’s ask where and how it is given. As has been said, the Western guardian of the Christian myth, namely the Catholic Church (both in the West and in the East), distinguishes the following “monuments of tradition”: 1. Magisterial teaching. 2. Liturgy. 3. Fathers and doctors. 4. Holy Canons, facts from the life of the Church, and holy customs. 5. Theologians. In short we name those three: liturgy, Fathers (including the Magisterium), and spontaneous expressions of Christianity. What can be read in them?
In Part 2, we will look at the connection between the central myth of Europe, namely the Christian myth, and the situation of our societies, specifically the demographic collapse (childlessness, by which I mean the declining birth rate).
