Civic Liturgy and Civic Cataclysm
The cataclysmic histrionics of those most engaged in politics is the greatest single factor contributing to the apathy towards civic liturgy prevalent among the rest of American society.
While some faiths incorporate aspects of both, there is often a marked difference between religions that can be classified as liturgical on the one hand and cataclysmic, apocalyptic, on the other. In liturgical religions, the emphasis is on rituals, beliefs, and statements of faith that compose a path, a roadmap, for how to live life in accordance with divine principles. In cataclysmic religions, the emphasis is on preparing for the end of life as we know it or for some great life-changing event. This impending cataclysm requires specific actions of the faithful that have more to do with being fully prepared for or ushering in the cataclysm than in establishing principles for how to live day-to-day life.
The pros and cons of religions that vary between these two forms of theology can appear somewhat obvious. A liturgical religion helps establish ideals for ordinary living and seems to be a more utilitarian form of worship. However, purely liturgical faiths can sometimes create apathetic disciples who are not asked to sacrifice in the name of their faith and, therefore, engender a form of worship that allows for loose commitment to its creeds rather than provides a path to enlightenment. A cataclysmic religion imports a sense of urgency in its adherents and can more easily break patterns of decadence in its followers. However, purely cataclysmic religions can lead to zealotry, radicalism, fundamentalism, and cult-like behavior. The belief in impending cataclysm can disconnect adherents from ordinary life and lead to behavior that ignores traditional norms and mores, even those that the theology itself claims to uphold. In extreme cases, cataclysmic beliefs lead to mass suicide, mass murder, sexual decadence, child abuse, and a myriad of other abuses and criminality that religion should be in place to guide people away from rather than enable.
The healthiest religious traditions seem composed of theology that leans into the liturgical but still has healthy elements of cataclysmic belief. Many Buddhist adherents focus on developing inner peace in the here and now but are also concerned with their belief in an eventual reincarnation predicated upon how their lives were lived. Most Abrahamic religions focus on paths of discipleship that establish patterns of righteous living but also embrace various revelatory ideas about the end of the world and what must be done to prepare for it. Many Asian traditions focus on honoring ancestors and family, with expectations of how to live an honorable life, yet such “honor-shame” belief systems often look upon death as preferable to dishonor and prepare adherents to embrace death more readily. Many Native American and African traditions seek peace with nature but also understand that the circle of life brings death and change.
Like religion, civic cultures and ideologies can also take liturgical and cataclysmic forms. Absolute monarchy, for example, is extremely liturgical, requiring subjects to view their lives, their endeavors, and their loyalties as fully in obsequious obedience to the King. Subjects need not be concerned with how the King’s authority began, and it is treasonous to consider that the King’s authority might end. Communism, on the other hand, is nearly wholly cataclysmic, envisioning a perpetual revolution that would extend to the entire world, bringing down capitalism and establishing proletariat utopia.
Democracy and republicanism require a form similar to that which we discussed for healthy religion. To exist in a healthy and effective manner, a free nation’s civic culture must lean into liturgy while also maintaining a healthy dose of cataclysm. There are certain things that a free nation must do, certain norms and mores that help create a bulwark to maintain a form of government that, human history being considered, is quite rare. We vote, we respect the results of a vote, we let people speak their minds, we allow protests, we respect the loyal opposition, etc. We must do all the things that safeguard liberty lest it slip away. This is the healthy combination of liturgy and cataclysm in a free society. We must have an ideal of what an upright, free citizen in a republic is supposed to do, and we must consider that, as Ronald Reagan warned, freedom “is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.”
But one of the dangers that exists in a free society is the unwieldy swing from apathy to histrionics. When a free society becomes too liturgical, the people take their form of government for granted and fail to engage in the republican liturgy. But then they are awoken suddenly by some triggering event, and they go full bore cataclysmic, uprooting the norms and moors that are truly the safeguard of their freedom in their sudden panicked belief that freedom is slipping away.
I believe that, presently, we are at an interesting segment in American history where a large segment of our society has grown apathetic, taking the liturgy for granted, while a small but loud minority has grown cataclysmic and panicked. Far too few Americans, for example, participate in the primary processes of our major political parties, and this apathy has damaged this crucial element of our meritocracy, allowing for the rise of candidates who do not truly represent any broad segment of the country. But in the general election, we allow voting to rise to a form of cataclysm rather than a form of liturgy. The same public who fails to show up in the primaries is cajoled into record levels of participation, not to seek effective representation in government but to save the country from destruction from whichever party they are led to believe is about to snuff out the fire of liberty.
Thus, we are somehow beset upon, as a country, by the consequences both of unhealthy, stale liturgy and cataclysmic hysteria and cultish behavior that uproots the norms and mores of free society.
The question for the ages is what can be done to address this strange situation. How do we get more people to understand the importance of engaging in the healthy liturgy of a free society, to wake up from their apathy, to engage in such things as primary elections, to go to their city council meetings, to engage in good faith with their friends and neighbors instead of wasting their time in the fever swamps of social media? Conversely, how do we dial down the cataclysm that has overwhelmed the minority of voters who are heavily politically engaged? How do we turn down the temperature in the general election? How do we get people to stop being easy marks for negative partisanship, for existential dread, for lesser-of-two-evil enabling of poor candidates, for being cajoled by narratives and vibes instead of substance and policy? In short, how do we fix American politics? Because, while the process remains sound, the way we engage in it has grown extremely dysfunctional.
The whole point of having a representative form of government is that the people wielding the levers of power are supposed to represent the people who elected them. But a primary process with low engagement will not lead to candidates that effectively represent broad sections of America. A general election where voters vote against the “greater evil” and offer begrudging support to “lesser evils” will not lead to legislation or policy that reflects what anyone actually believes about government. In such a scenario, the very principle of democracy ceases to effectively exist.
While specific solutions to the difficult questions of our times often feel out of our grasp, I can offer one observation that might point us toward solutions. While it seems discordant that we are beset upon by apathy to civic liturgy and extremely unhealthy civic cataclysm, I think these things exist in a dark symbiosis. I contend that the cataclysmic histrionics of those heavily engaged in politics is the greatest single factor contributing to the apathy of those who are not so heavily engaged.
The apathy that exists in America today typically results from a strong sense of learned cynicism that is constantly reinforced by the behavior of both our political elites and the grassroots efforts of highly engaged citizens, whose cataclysmic behavior tears at the foundations of America’s civic liturgy. The constant wearing away of norms and mores in response to existential dread and histrionic fears makes our civic liturgy feel like an empty exercise. Those of us who are so extremely engaged have essentially established a form of high cataclysmic civic religion, whose justifications for seemingly incomprehensible rhetoric and behavior to those uninitiated in the forms of our cataclysmic dread are nearly impossible to navigate.
The average voter cannot understand why an otherwise popular governor would get booed and heckled at a state Republican convention, as happened in Utah. The average voter cannot understand why Democrats would celebrate the endorsement of someone they once denounced as a war criminal, or why Democrats are endorsing Republicans and Republicans are endorsing Democrats even as both parties behave in more and more radical ways and promise more and more radical governance. The belief in impending political cataclysm among those who are heavily engaged in American politics has created a disconnect between them and the ordinary voter and is leading to behavior that ignores traditional norms and mores of American civic liturgy, and leading many of us to endorse, support, and campaign for political figures, policies, and laws that go against our own claimed values and principles.
So, the best suggestion I can offer, the advice that I would encourage highly engaged citizens to take under consideration, is to re-commit ourselves to a more liturgical view of political engagement and to dial back considerably our cataclysmic instincts. We must re-establish our faith in the system so that we can engage in politics in a more day-to-day manner. Establish healthy habits and healthy forms of engagement that can create patterns for long-term engagement, patterns that will trickle down to the rest of society, and establish a better civic culture that affords broader commitment to civic liturgy. Engage according to principle and have a sense of real values, where we each actually stand in terms of belief, and engage with these things chief in our minds instead of setting such things aside in response to a view of impending cataclysm.
The symbiosis between apathy and existential dread is a cycle that will continue until someone breaks the pattern. It falls to those of us who recognize this pattern to break the cycle. There needs to be a subset of heavily engaged citizens willing to step away from the civic cataclysm that the average citizen cannot understand or navigate, that drives them into apathy, and begin re-establishing a broad and accessible form of civic liturgy that will invite the average American to re-engage in the process.
We indeed live in strange and unprecedented times, and there are many serious issues we can and should wrestle with, with all seriousness in considering the real consequences of allowing the issues to continue to fester. I am not advocating for a “sunshine and daisies” way of viewing our political moment that ignores the fact that, yes, we have serious problems. But we need to recognize that dialing up the anxiety, dialing up the existential dread, dialing up the level of our civic cataclysm further enables the problems we face. We must confront the reality that those of us who most recognize many of the issues facing our society might just be the ones most contributing to the atmosphere that has been causing these issues to fester. We need to accept responsibility and be the change that we want to see in society.
Justin Stapley is a graduate student at Utah Valley University, studying constitutional governance, civics, and law. He is the founding and executive director of the Freemen Foundation, editor-in-chief of the Freemen News-Letter, and the state director for the Utah Reagan Caucus. @JustinWStapley