Religious Zeal, Affective Fragility, and the Tragedy of Human Existence

To start with, Ricœur’s theory of human affectivity helps us to “neutralize” religious zeal or even to appreciate it as one expression of one pole—the infinite pole—of human existence itself. That is to say, if we bracket its concrete historical manifestations, religious zeal is ethically and politically neither good nor bad but reflects a specific human need, namely the need for the unconditional, infinite, and absolute. I introduced religious zeal as a passionate phenomenon. Passions are specific kinds of concerns, namely such that are constitutive of a person’s identity. In Ricœur’s terminology, religious zeal, then, must be classified as a desire; it is directed at transcendent religious ideas and is, therefore, a spiritual rather than a vital desire. As I have shown, in Ricœur’s framework, the classification of desires as spiritual is based on their fulfillment conditions. Spiritual desires are those whose fulfillment would be indicated by happiness. However, as the regulative ideal of practical reason, happiness can never be fully achieved. Whereas bracketing the concrete forms in which religious zeal historically manifests itself allows us to appreciate religious zeal as one possible expression of the human quest for the infinite, in reality, religious zeal always already takes a specific form and realizes its destructive and/or constructive potential. In this sense, it is more appropriately described as ambiguous rather than neutral.

Ricœur’s theory also helps us to understand the totalizing tendency of religious zeal as inherent to human nature as such. As I have shown above, following Ricœur, vital feelings are isolated, partial, and finite needs whose fulfillment promises us a provisory repose. Spiritual feelings, by contrast, reflect the human demand for totalization whose fulfillment promises us lasting peace. Although all forms of religious zeal involve a reference to something absolute, they still occur in different degrees of totalization (Tietjen 2021; for a similar yet conceptually different differentiation, see Katsafanas 2019; Passmore 2003). Totalization occurs on two axes. The first is that of domains of life. Some zealots conceive of religion as one domain of their lives among others. The “totalization” in this case is restricted to these religious domains of life in which they worship the holy. Other zealots conceive of religion as the form of their life—that is, as an overarching principle that determines the meaning and goal of their life as a whole. The second axis concerns the question of to whom the zealots apply their principles. Some people zealously devote their own lives to a religious idea without showing the same form of rigidity with regard to the lives of others, be it because they take the meaning and goal of human life to be something individual—a matter of personal choice or destiny, for example—or because they do not take themselves to be in the position to judge the lives of others. Others take their religious goals to determine the meaning and goals of mankind as such. This second axis of totalization introduces a distinction between individual and collective conceptions of happiness—collective conceptions of happiness that, as such, necessarily involve conceptions of morality and politics or the political.

Cultural anthropologists, such as Jan Assmann, have pointed out that historically the totalizing tendency of religion is closely related to the emergence of Abrahamic monotheism (Assmann 2018). Drawing on the Kantian idea of happiness in proportion to virtue as the highest good, Ricœur, however, notes that the totalizing tendency of religious zeal can also be understood as inherent to human reason, action, and affectivity itself (Ricœur 1986: 101–106). In doing so, Ricœur neutralizes the idea of totalization along both axes and helps us to appreciate them as an expression of human nature. Developing a sense of what is good not only for us but for the world at large is a demand characteristic of human existence itself. Importantly, this demand for totalization is just as fundamental as the opposite demand for particularization that is represented by vital feelings.

On the personal level, the very fact of having objects in our lives to which we are wholeheartedly devoted—people we love, ideas we are enthusiastic about, values we are committed to—is something we prima facie appreciate (Frankfurt 1988b, 1988c, 2004). Moreover, not only having objects in our lives we are wholeheartedly devoted to, but also wholeheartedly devoting our lives to a (group of) person(s) or idea(s) is an object of social admiration or at least fascination. This is particularly evident if we consider non-religious forms of devotion such as the vocation of an artist, scientist, philosopher, caregiver, or medical professional to their respective profession. Of course, for our overall judgment, it matters whether the objects in question are indeed worthy of wholehearted devotion and, especially, wholehearted devotion of one’s whole life. We may admire romantic lovers for their attempt to become one with their beloved but still be worried about their depoliticized form of life. We may admire scrupulous investment bankers for their passionate devotion but still criticize them for mistakenly treating money as the only value there is. Especially, moral questions matter. Our sympathy for the football supporter’s fandom is bound to the condition that they do not become a violent hooligan. We may wonder whether it is indeed appropriate to admire artists or philosophers for their devotion to their profession although they misuse their positions of power and neglect their social responsibilities to their students. Finally, we may blame pick-up artists who zealously devote their lives to becoming the most efficient seducers for their sexism. But still, prima facie there is something appealing about wholehearted devotion in general and wholehearted devotion to one object (person or idea) in particular. The risk—and the promise—thereby increases with the degree of totalization and personal investment.

However, the juxtaposition of unpolitical mystics and intolerant violent fanatics is sorely incomplete. It ignores political mysticism and nonviolent, religiously motivated political engagement as symbolized by the figures of the mystic or the saint who, through their own exemplification of virtue, become sources of inspiration for others and society as a whole (see, for example, Bergson 2002: 209–265; Underhill 1990: 413–443). Ricœur’s theory of human affectivity reminds us that an understanding of the highest good is only complete if it involves both an individual conception of happiness and a collective conception of morality, virtue, or justice—an understanding not only of how we as individuals are supposed to live our lives, but also of how we as social beings are supposed to live together and, even more generally, what the world we inhabit together is supposed to look like. Not every totalization is totalitarian—although in being total, it bears the danger of becoming so.

Moreover, obviously, not every totalitarianism is religious—although in involving totalization, it resembles religion. Indeed, the concept of “political religion” was invented as an analytic tool to help us understand the nature and success of totalitarianism (Gentile, 2006). It captures the idea that political phenomena such as Russian Communism, Italian Fascism, and German National Socialism resemble religion in their display of typical elements of traditional religions. Since religion is a multidimensional phenomenon involving experiences and affects, doctrines and beliefs, ritualized practices and actions, communities and institutions, the quasi-religious character of totalitarian movements can be sought in different spheres. For present purposes, one key feature of political religions is the fact that they offer us a definition of “the meaning and finality of human existence” (Gentile 2005: 29). More precisely, they assert “in an exclusive and complete way … the prerogative to define the ultimate meaning and the fundamental goal of human existence on earth” (Gentile 2005: 29, my emphasis). Even if these goals are qualified as “goals of human existence on earth,” their claim to totality, ultimacy, and fundamentality still point to the fact that they function as regulative ideals and the fact that they do so is part of what lends the political movement an “aura of sacredness” (Gentile 2005: 29, my emphasis). Both “political religions” and religious zeal thus essentially involve (or are) spiritual desires. However, it is important to note that the concept of political religion is not just an analytic tool. It was invented for critical purposes. According to its inventors, political religions are perverted forms of religion whose success is directly linked to modernity and secularization (Gentile 2005: 26). So, according to this picture, totalitarianism does not prove the violent nature of religion (although it still might be interpreted as evidence for its violent potential).

Ricœur’s theory of human affectivity draws our attention not only to the fact that religious zeal resembles and can take the form of political devotion, but also to the fact that religious zeal resembles and indeed involves forms of personal devotion—that is, forms of devotion to a person or group of persons, such as friendship, love, or comradeship.

Within spiritual feelings, Ricœur distinguishes two kinds of feelings: feelings relating to “interhuman participation in various forms of ‘We’” and feelings relating to the “participation in tasks of supra-personal works that are ‘Ideas’” (Ricœur 1986: 103–105). As spiritual desires, both kinds of desires aim at happiness and in aiming at happiness they are infinite. Personal forms of devotion range from highly personalized ones like romantic love to highly collective ones like the populist’s commitment to “the people”. Moreover, as spiritual desires, personal forms of devotion involve a totalizing tendency. Exemplarily, this totalizing tendency can be observed in the romantic lover’s attempt to become one with their beloved and the populist’s mystification of “the people” as a promise of immanent salvation (Laclau 2007).

Religious zeal resembles person-directed forms of devotion in that both are spiritual desires that aim at happiness and involve a totalizing tendency. While the religious zealot aims at happiness through the realization of a specific idea, the romantic lover aims at happiness through becoming one with a beloved person. At first sight, the objects of the two classes of spiritual desires distinguished by Ricœur seem to belong to two different ontological categories: the abstract and the concrete. In terms of affects, we can distinguish two idealized types of affects corresponding to these spheres: enthusiasm and love. While enthusiasm is directed at something abstract—an idea, a value, a principle—love is directed at something concrete—a person, a people, a place. While love aims at the flourishing, well-being of, and union with what one loves, enthusiasm aims at realizing the idea one is enthusiastic about.

However, as we learn from Ricœur, both kinds of feelings—enthusiasm and love—are always already reciprocally entangled. “It is always an Idea that gives a horizon of meanings to the growth of a ‘We’ and a ‘friendship’” (Ricœur 1986: 103). What Ricœur suggests here is that groups (of two or more people) are partly constituted by shared commitments to values and ideas and that, even more relevant for our present purposes, values and ideas always already are and need to be embodied by specific persons, places, objects, or symbols in order to become an object of passionate devotion (Laclau 2007).

Exemplarily, the dialectic of concretion and abstraction inherent to the phenomenon of religious zeal is expressed in the discussion in Christian theology over whether religious zeal is to be understood as a form of zealotry or jealousy—words that, not accidentally, have the same etymology. The Hebrew concept of zeal, קנִאְָה (qin’â), which is used in the Old Testament to describe both human zeal and God’s zeal, can mean both anger (or wrath) and jealousy. As such, the contested question of how the concept in specific passages is to be translated is of both linguistic and systematic interest. It points us to two different ways in which the relationship between God and the people of Israel can be construed (Assmann 2018). Taking for granted that anger is a reaction to the violation of a moral norm (Pettigrove 2012), the conceptualization of religious zeal as an anger-like emotion represents the underlying relationship as passionate commitment of the people of Israel to the divine commandments and, therefore, as what I have called enthusiasm. By contrast, the conceptualization of religious zeal as a form of jealousy represents the relationship as a love-like (reciprocal) relationship between the people of Israel and God that (like traditional romantic love) demands exclusivity (on jealousy, see Farrell 1980; Kristjánsson 2016; see also Ricœur 2010: 35).

The shared nature of abstract and concrete forms of devotion, according to Ricœur, is most vividly visible in the phenomenon of sacrifice:

[S]acrifice attests that, at the limits of life, to give one’s life for a friend and to die for an idea is the same thing. Sacrifice shows the fundamental unity of two schemata of belonging, the schema of friendship and the schema of devotion (or loyalty). Friendship is to another what devotion is to an idea, and the two together make up the view – the Aussicht – ‘into an order in which, alone, we can continue to exist’. (Ricœur, 1986: 104)

This insight is remarkable because it attests that sacrifice—and, with it, violence—is not (only) an aberration but (also), as an expression of human transcendence, marks the border of spiritual desires themselves. Only if we take this seriously can we understand the tragedy of human existence that results from the fact that we cannot know which exceptional situations allow or demand sacrifice.

As outlined above, in Fallible Man, Ricœur uses a transcendental method to develop a theory of human nature. In this regard, his work is primarily descriptive. However, his main concern is to understand human evil. He develops a theory of human nature in general and of human affectivity in particular in order to explore the question of how evil is possible—why we are fallible. Therefore, Fallible Man implicitly—and to some extent explicitly—involves reflections on the question of what this failure may look like from the perspective of affective psychology. This allows us to develop an ethics of affects. Rather than evading conflict by dissolving it in favor of one or the other side and providing a clear answer to the question of what is right and wrong, this ethics takes the potentially conflicting nature of our desires seriously and asks us to acknowledge our own fallibility.

First, failure may occur when one of the two poles of human affectivity becomes excessive. An excess of spiritual desires consists of wrongly sacrificing one’s life (or the lives of others), wealth, power, or recognition (or those of others) for a friend, a community, or an idea. An excess of vital desires, by contrast, consists of wrongly sacrificing one’s friends, comrades, or ideas for our life. Thymic desires can become excessive, too. We can wrongly sacrifice our life, our friends, comrades, or ideas for wealth, power, or recognition.

The willingness to sacrifice—to, in extreme cases, give one class of desires absolute precedence over the others—is inherent to the logic of each of the three classes of desires itself. It is grounded in, first, the kind of fulfillment they promise us and, second, the way in which they constitute conditions of our other desires. The willingness to sacrifice is inherent to the logic of vital desires because, first, in promising us pleasure, they promise us perfection. Even if perfection is a finite form of fulfillment, it can still be treated as absolute. Second, in promising us (finite) perfection, vital feelings remind us that “living is not one activity in the midst of others but the existential condition of all others” (Ricœur 1986: 94). Accordingly, even if our life is not a condition of the existence and realization of values, it is still a condition of us valuing and realizing values. As outlined in the previous section, the willingness to sacrifice is inherent to the logic of spiritual desires because they promise us infinite perfection. In doing so, they remind us of our transcendent nature and of the fact that our life only makes sense if we are part of something greater. Accordingly, even if friendship or being part of a group and being devoted to an idea are not conditions of life as such, they are still conditions of a meaningful life. The thymic desires, finally, involve a tendency to sacrifice because by their very nature they are restless and tend to ask for more: more money, more power, more recognition. Without a predefined limit, they harbor the possibility of demanding the subordination of all other desires to them.

To summarize, Ricœur’s theory helps us to understand that the willingness to sacrifice characteristic of religious zeal—for good and bad—reflects the nature of spiritual desires and human existence as such. Each of the three classes of desires promises us a different form of perfection that may be interpreted as, in extreme cases, overriding any other demand. We are fallible in that we cannot know which exceptional situations allow or demand sacrifice. There is no “neutral” point of view from which we can decide this question.

Second, both the excess and the lack or suppression of spiritual desires can give rise to failure. To deny spiritual desires is to deny an important aspect of human existence, namely its infinite or transcendent nature. Criticizing religious zealots for their zealotry based solely on the infinite nature of their desires (or the religious character of the answers they seek to their infinite desires) is, therefore, problematic and, more importantly, dangerous. It may make us blind to the dangers of searching for happiness in pleasure, money, power, or recognition alone and—even worse—to our own implicit (secular) claims to the unconditional with reference to which we justify our own violence in the guise of secular reason (Staudigl 2020).

If both the excess and the lack of spiritual desires are dangerous, we might be inclined to seek salvation in moderation. And indeed, the whole idea of the thymos is that of mediation between our vital and spiritual desires. However, mediation is not identical with moderation; it just means that it is not some desires that we simply find in ourselves that determine our actions, but we ourselves who have the capacity to relate to them—to embrace, deny, or moderate them (Frankfurt 1988a). And moderation itself can be problematic. Even if exceptional, spiritual desires in some cases may demand sacrifice (and, again, we cannot know for sure which cases these are): “one cannot compromise over the holy without compromising the holy” (Margalit 2009: 24). Therefore, third, in our moderation we are as fallible as in our enthusiasm and love.

Fourth and finally, failure may occur due to an inappropriate appropriation of our spiritual feelings through our thymic desires for power, possession, and recognition. As argued above, in human beings, spiritual desires never occur in a pure form; they are always already infused with vital and thymic desires. Again, it is thereby not the entanglement itself that is problematic, but the entanglement comes along with a specific kind of fallibility. Exemplarily, this kind of fallibility is expressed in the critical question of whether a specific (group of) fanatic(s) really is driven by religious concerns or whether their real motive is a much more mundane desire for possession, power, and recognition.

Ricœur’s theory of affective fragility thus helps us to understand both the promise and the threat of religious zeal as a passionate form of devotion to a religious object of ultimate significance that expresses itself in uncompromising actions. As a transcendental analysis, it provides no answer to the moral question of when a specific expression of religious zeal is morally or politically praise- or blameworthy, nor to the question of why some (religious) zealots—some of us—fail more often or more badly than others. All that his theory offers us is a deepened understanding of the fact of our fallibility. Human existence is tragic not in that we necessarily fail, but in that no matter which path we take with regard to our spiritual desires—that of affirmation, rejection, or moderation—we are and remain fallible.

Against the backdrop of this analysis, the unambiguous identification of religion, passion, and violence that is characteristic of public, Western, secular discourse can be interpreted as a denial of fallibility or, more precisely, of our own fallibility—the fallibility of the standpoint of finite secular reason. Although the refutation of the claim that religious zeal necessarily comes with a lack of reason, rationality, and autonomy demands further argumentation, my analysis demonstrates why the unambiguous identification of religion, passion, and violence is both wrong and dangerous. Rather than denying (or externalizing) fallibility, we should acknowledge it as a basic feature of human existence itself that reflects the potentially conflicting nature of our desires. Conflicts thereby arise not only because, for contingent reasons, our desires are not compatible with each other; they also reflect a more fundamental tension grounded in human existence itself. Recognizing this not only helps us to acknowledge the ethical and political ambiguity of religious zeal. It also has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the complex relationship between religion, passion, violence, and politics in general. The exploration of these consequences, however, must be left open for future research. In his late article on religious belief, Ricœur (2010: 39) himself suggests that the acknowledgment of human fallibility in the domain of religion in the most advanced stage might result in a deep form of humility. We may wonder, however, whether this form of humility is still compatible with religious zeal.