Solidarity in a Secular Age: From Political Theology to Jewish Philosophy

Liberal democracies need solidarity. They need citizens who sacrifice for their country, rally for justice, and help their neighbors. Yet according to critics of liberalism like Carl Schmitt, the solidarity liberal democracies need comes from sources they cannot themselves produce, like religion. Thus in a time of declining religiosity and rising nationalism, how can we form strong social bonds without racism, demagoguery, and xenophobia? Can we have not only solidarity, but liberal solidarity, in a secular age? Solidarity in a Secular Age responds to Schmitt’s challenge by proposing a new liberal-democratic solidarity rooted in personal sacrifice, shared fate, and moral destiny. Narrating an untold story of European political theology and spotlighting a neglected strand of Jewish philosophy, the book diagnoses solidarity’s pathologies, reinterprets canonical theorists, and forges a new theoretical path. Part 1 uncovers religion’s underlying role in European thinking about solidarity since the Enlightenment through readings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and Jürgen Habermas. Each thinker rejects Schmitt’s argument. Yet the way they do that, the book shows, is by secularizing different concepts from religion. Their political theologies leave behind not-fully-secularized religious remainders: Rousseau’s “general will,” Kant’s concept of “spontaneity,” and Habermas’ “linguistification of the sacred.” Part 2 reimagines liberal-democratic solidarity by looking to the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Buber, and George Eliot. Rather than secularizing theological ideas, they propose imitating elements of religion in our everyday solidarity with others. They give us resources for responding to Schmitt’s challenge, and show how Jewish ideas can contribute to rethinking our social bond for the twenty-first century.