Democracy Devoid of the Sacred

The desacralizing effect of the Jewish and Christian revelation which René Girard so masterfully explicated is not to be confused with an ideological agenda which enshrines in the place of meaningful moral and political norms saccharine bromides — tolerance and inclusion — designed to detach political rights from moral responsibilities. The distinguished Italian philosopher Agusto Del Noce understood this.

“In the Western world we have reached a ‘democracy devoid of the sacred.’ Some will reply, resorting to a standard rhetorical device, that this is precisely the [meaning of] progress. This kind of democracy marks the transition to an ‘open society,’ which accepts and respects all forms of thought and enables religion to become purer by separating politics from religion, and so on. In actuality, this democracy ‘devoid of the sacred’ coincides with absolute atheism. But is this new atheism a new foundation of values, or does it mark the impossibility of speaking in terms of values?” 

Agusto Del Noce, 1970