Today is the 231th anniversary of the French Revolution, which makes it appropriate to ask once again whether there was anything like a secular religion in France after 1789. Religion there was, of course: first a reshaped, nationalized Catholicism, then a cult of the Fatherland, then worship of the Goddess of Reason, and finally that of the Supreme Being.
All these, however, were not “secular” in any sense of the word. No one had to “unmask” the real, religious nature of revolutionary ideology, for it proudly and openly declared itself religious. The altars, the vows, the feasts, the sanctuary of “all Gods” – these have never been secular in any sense of the word. It’s hard to see why Condorcet thought that calling the new plans of public education a “sort of political religion” was a denunciation. It was a religion indeed, and all revolutionary ideologues gladly acknowledged it was.
Those who thought that anything like a secular revolution may ever exist were completely mistaken. The bigger the revolution is, the more cults are needed. That is why it is almost impossible to tell how many deities were invented during the years of revolutionary frenzy. The Nation, the Fatherland, Reason, Virtues, Equality, Liberty, Humanity, Progress, and so on… None of which had any more reality than a Zeus or a Quetzalcoatl.
Which is exactly why it is a total misunderstanding to speak of anything this-worldly, secular, or merely political here. Just take a small tour at the Panthéon in Paris. And compare what you see to the allegedly “theocratic” visions of the counterrevolutionaries, for example that of the Temple at the end of Louis de Bonald’s Théorie de puovoir. Perhaps you can tell the difference; I have to admit I cannot.
