The neurosis of John Waters is now tedious

John Waters's neurosis is tedious. The neurosis over the feminisation of our world is drearily familiar. Less familiar, but certainly not novel, is a neurosis over religion, how modern society attempts to sideline religion, thereby marginalising and denigrating religious folk such as himself.

In today's (Monday 5 March) Irish Times, he is in praise of Bertie Ahern who last week warned of the dangers of “aggressive secularism” (according to Waters “the most dangerous trend in modern societies”). Bertie Ahern had said: “So much of what is happening within our society and in the wider world is bound up with questions of religion, religious identity and religious belief, that governments which refuse or fail to engage with religious communities and religious identities risk failing in their fundamental duties to their citizens."

Waters regards the utterance of such banalities with awe. “It is some time since I heard a public figure identify precisely why this is such a dangerous trend,” he writes.

He quotes Bertie Ahern again:

“We are suffering from a form of aggressive secularism which would have the state and state institutions ignore the importance of the religious dimension. They argue that the state and public policy should become intolerant of religious belief and preference, and confine it, at best, to the purely private and personal, without rights or a role within the pubic domain. Such illiberal voices would diminish our democracy. They would deny a crucial dimension of the dignity of every person and their rights to live out their spiritual code within a framework of lawful practice which is respectful of the dignity and rights of all citizens. It would be a betrayal of the best traditions of Irish republicanism to create such an environment."

Since Waters agrees with this it is unsurprising he regards it as “profound”. He says:

“Human beings have a deep need for what religion offers, and that the right to practice is therefore a fundamental human entitlement. Although the current fashionability of atheism, agnosticism and secularism tends to convey that religion is merely a hangover from outmoded tradition, there is considerable evidence that it is, in fact, a natural and essential element of the human psyche”.

Waters continues:

“As we observe our society plunging into the secular paradise promised by the liberal ideologues who triumphed over the custodians of tradition, we observe also the manifestation of the many baneful symptoms of this shift. Alcohol, drugs, rampant consumerism, sex crimes and countless related phenomena tell us that there is something in the human being that is voided by secular, material society”.

Human beings have a deep need for what religion offers but what does that prove? Human beings have lots of other “deep needs” – the need to dominate, for instance. So what significance has a need for religion have? Even a “deep” need for religion?

We may indeed have a deep need to believe we have some manifest destiny, that life does not end with death, that we are part of a greater scheme of things? So what? What does the “need” prove?

As for the “current fashionability” for atheism, agnosticism, secularism, what current fashionability? The “fashionability” is for religion, look at the rise of Islam, of Evangelical Christianity in America, in Africa? And if Catholicism were not “fashionable” today, why would the vast majority of parents want their children baptised, educated in Catholic schools and married in Catholic churches? And they want themselves buried from those same churches. So what is this “fashionability” thing, if not that familiar neurotic obsession with a species of construed Dublin Four?

Tedious.

But actually what Bertie Ahern said was far more telling than Waters' “take” on it.

Bertie too seems to be suffering from a similar neurosis. How else to explain: “We are suffering from a form of aggressive secularism which would have the state and state institutions ignore the importance of the religious dimension.”

Who is arguing this?

“They argue that the state and public policy should become intolerant of religious belief and preference, and confine it, at best, to the purely private and personal, without rights or a role within the pubic domain”. Who are “they”?

“They would deny a crucial dimension of the dignity of every person and their rights to live out their spiritual code within a framework of lawful practice which is respectful of the dignity and rights of all citizens”.
Again, who are “they”?

The issue in argument is not whether the state should respect people's religious beliefs but whether particular religious beliefs should be given precedence by the state over other beliefs.  Is it now proposed that this state again become a secular state, and if that is not the proposition advanced by Bertie Ahern and, apparently, cheered on by John Waters, what is it that is now proposed?

As for alcohol, drugs, rampant consumerism, sex crimes and countless related phenomena being the product uniquely of modern secular society? Grow up.