I recently discovered that I am standing on the front line of a battle that will determine the fate of Western civilization. It turns out the line runs through the hearts of the eighteen-year-olds in my classroom.
The culture wars that started in the 1960s, it seems, have spawned an intramural skirmish. The last half-century has witnessed a multi-theater conflict between traditionalists (mostly Christians from many denominations but also many conservative Jews) and their more progressive fellow citizens over a range of social, cultural, and political questions that define who “we” are. That battle rages on, now with a number of public figures joining the fray against various stripes of “wokeness,” militant Islamism, empty nihilism, or quasi-religions like antihuman environmentalism. Some have announced their conversion to Christianity (Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Niall Ferguson) while others play coy about what they actually believe as they write very long books detailing why much about the world we live in is unimaginable and will become dysfunctional absent a Christian worldview (Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland). Still others awkwardly acknowledge their status as “cultural Christians,” indifferent or even hostile to the truth claims of the faith but deeply pessimistic about humanity’s prospects should the Church disappear (Richard Dawkins, Elon Musk).
Now, this alliance of true believers with sundry fellow travelers has given pause to many who might otherwise be expected to welcome new recruits. Critics alternately doubt the sincerity of these converts, or regard such conversions as purely intellectual exercises, or prefer the disappearance of nominal forms of the faith as addition by subtraction, or find the whole enterprise to be crassly utilitarian, if not incompatible with authentic Christianity, preoccupied as it is with preserving a cultural legacy and not cultivating an existential encounter with the way, the truth, and the life.
Maybe the “can’t-live-with-it-can’t-live-without-it” case for Christianity will attract enough enlistments—or prevent enough defections—to keep the West from falling apart. Maybe it won’t. Whether the persistence of a civil religion constitutes a victory or a fatal compromise with the post-Christian spirit of the age is an internal debate that believers may not be able to avoid. Jesus himself at different moments said, “If you are not with me, you are against me,” and “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Matthew 12:30; Mark 9:40). Only one thing is certain: My students are the adults of the near future who will decide whether cultural Christianity delivers the results its defenders promise.
I am trying to discern whether this experience with my students is grounds for optimism or for pessimism.
I stumbled into this debate while teaching Plato’s Republic to college freshmen in a Great Books-style seminar. For many years, I’ve taken the Noble Lie in Book 3, also called the Myth of the Metals, as a point of entry for discussing the ethics of lying. In this passage, Socrates proposes that in order to facilitate the peaceful flourishing of the state, rulers should tell the citizens they all have a common origin in the earth but that the souls of some are comingled with gold, some with silver, and some with iron or brass. These three classes correspond to those who are fit to act as leaders, soldiers, and producers. Moreover, it is forbidden for anyone to serve in a role that does not correspond to their soul’s metallic constitution. The objective is to impress upon citizens the importance of unquestioningly devoting themselves to their work, as their station in life is foreordained. This arrangement is essential for the smooth functioning of the city. The ideal city Socrates is trying to sketch requires that everyone does his or her part, which may or may not be the work they would choose if they were free to choose. The myth is a lie, but it is noble—beautiful, even, as the Greek can be translated—and therefore ethically permissible, in that it promotes the well-being of the state as a whole.
Such a proposal strikes my students as crazy, however well they can understand the goals of cohesion and efficiency behind it. Yet it is too fanciful for them to take seriously, even if they were to affirm as noble the objectives pursued by means of Socrates’ lie. They universally reject it as unethical (and also creepy, when they get to the accompanying proposals for procreation and child-rearing in Book 5, which remind some students of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World).
Much easier to appreciate is a different scenario I describe involving a Guatemalan peasant I call Camila Lopez. In her self-titled memoir, I tell my students, Lopez recounts the trials she has endured: An illiterate peasant of Mayan ancestry, Lopez describes how her family’s land was stolen by the government during the course of her country’s civil war in the 1980s, how one brother died of starvation, and how her other brother was burned alive in the town square by a paramilitary group as she and her sisters were forced to watch. In reality, however, most of the particulars of her life story were made up or “borrowed” from other people who had suffered such horrors. Lopez claims her memoir is no less “true” on account of these events having happened to other Guatemalans with whom she stands in solidarity, even if they did not happen to her.
Student evaluations of this instance of lying are mixed. While many condemn her dishonesty as manipulative and self-serving, others concede it is untruthful but nevertheless acceptable or even praiseworthy given the justice of her cause—namely, to shine a light on a human rights catastrophe. (Some are visibly uncomfortable, however, when I reveal that I’ve borrowed my “hypothetical” from the case of Rigoberta Menchu, winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize.) This position leaves the morality of lying per se unaddressed inasmuch as it censures only lying for a disfavored cause.
At this point, I propose my own noble lie. My proposal, however, is based firmly on empirical facts. There is a whole raft of social-scientific literature demonstrating the pro-social benefits of religious belief and practice in the United States. All other things being equal, religious young people are much more likely than “nones” to give to charity, do volunteer work, and be involved with social institutions. They are less likely to smoke, drink, use drugs, report feeling depressed, attempt suicide, get arrested, or experience obesity-related health problems. They are more likely to attend college and more frequently report experiencing such emotions as joy, wonder, love, and peace. Furthermore, it doesn’t seem to matter which religion is under consideration. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Baháʼí—they all appear to enhance the quality of life of their adherents, at least in the American context.
Given such impressive outcomes, I ask, shouldn’t we encourage religious observance, even if we believe the religions we’d be inculcating were entirely false in their fundamental claims about reality? Wouldn’t we want everyone to be religious, merely for the demonstrably salutary side effects? Yes, we’d be spreading a very big lie. Having established the precedent that a worthy cause can justify otherwise flawed methods, this should not be a deal breaker.
My students are not buying it.
Over many years of teaching, I have had students willing to entertain all manner of unorthodox notions, some more outrageous than others: that earthquakes are caused by humans; that Mother Teresa is in hell; that Helen Keller was a fraud who could, in fact, see, hear, and speak; that gravity is socially constructed; that we are living in a computer simulation being conducted by intelligent beings from another galaxy. I have had students assert that humans don’t have souls, only to agree to sell me theirs in the next breath. Suggesting that religion may have some socially redeeming value and ought to be encouraged, however, is apparently beyond the pale.
For some, the data in question is dubious. They question the sample size of the studies and accuse the researchers of eliding correlation and causation. These are reasonable suspicions, though it often feels like they are bending over backwards to find alternative explanations of the data and thus to resist the validity of an impressive body of robust research findings. Others are no doubt convinced that religion produces measurable social benefits but feel uncomfortable saying so. Never has a student endorsed the knowing perpetuation of false religious claims, even if they demonstrably raise standards of living.
How might one make sense of their strong resistance to my noble lie? There are a few possibilities.
Many believe the negatives that come with religion outweigh any positives. They may not have learned about the Thirty Years’ War in high school, but they are certain religion breeds intolerance, and intolerance begets violence.
Then there is the matter of the First Amendment. My mostly American students are firm believers in the separation of church and state. Students think that my proposal would necessarily mean the government shoving religion down the throats of its citizens.
Perhaps they already realize, with all the other co-combatants, that telling lies about ultimate things is no way to win a culture war.
Also, because they live in the United States, many seem to equate “religion” with Christianity. When I remind them the research finds little difference between religions in terms of their positive effects and that my proposal does not stipulate any particular religion being favored, they persist in their objections. Besides, they insist, my scheme could not possibly work (even as they nod along when, later in Book 3, Socrates says that lies about the gods can be a very effective drug [Rep. 389b]).
My point here is not to mock my students for being silly. Indeed, I strive to keep my classroom a safe space for exploring weird ideas, in part to reverse the well-documented trend of self-censorship on college campuses. Nor am I simply trying to scold them for their inconsistency.
Rather, I am trying to discern whether this experience with my students is grounds for optimism or for pessimism. On one hand, they will tolerate just about any idea if it can be justified on the grounds of some utilitarian benefit and find their ethical scruples only when it comes to religion. One also suspects their wariness of religion, and Christianity in particular, comes from an inchoate sense that it requires real sacrifice. Taboos related to sex loom large in their minds on this score. Human nature suggests these qualms will not disappear anytime soon.
On the other hand, their resistance to the idea of instrumentalizing religion shows they retain an instinctive repugnance when confronted with blatant examples of dishonesty. Moreover, it may indicate some vestigial awe with respect to the sacred. Lying about God may feel like playing with fire. These might be positive signs.
However one reads these signs, the ancient historian Livy beat me to the punch a little over two thousand years ago. He approvingly describes how Rome’s second king, Numa Pompilius, centuries earlier purposefully sought to instill fear of the gods as “an invaluable constraint” on a people in need of civilizing. According to Livy, observance of religious myths and rituals, even fabricated ones, helped to establish justice and the rule of law (1.9). Just a few pages earlier, in the preface to his monumental history of the city, he states that his purpose is to describe the principles that were the source of Rome’s greatness up until “the advent of our age,” when “we can endure neither our vices nor the remedies needed to cure them.”
To be honest, I’m not sure how I would respond if a student were to call my bluff and sign up for spreading my noble lie. The funny thing about myths is that they must be regarded as true and not as myths or else they lose their social and cultural potency. Most proponents of “cultural Christianity” are smart enough to understand this. Not that my students are thinking in such terms. But perhaps they already realize, with all the other co-combatants, that telling lies about ultimate things is no way to win a culture war.