After God’s Exit: How the Humanities Dropped the Compass - Deep Dive

A Table, Not a Throne: Rebuilding Shared Rules for a Post-Religious Age

https://www.nerdreflections.blog/p/after-gods-exit-how-the-humanities-c79?r=4cjwpb

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The Post-Religious West and the Search for a Moral Compass

Decline of Religion and the Moral Framework Vacuum

Over the last century, Western societies have undergone a profound secularization. Organized religion – particularly Christianity – has steadily lost influence and credibility in public life . In Europe and North America alike, church attendance and religious affiliation have plummeted, especially among younger generations . For example, the percentage of Americans identifying as Christian fell from about 77% in 2008 to 65% a decade later . In Western Europe, most people still call themselves Christian when asked, but only a small minority regularly attend church or uphold traditional doctrines . As one cultural observer put it, we now live in a “doubly secularized” age – post-religious and post-canonical – in which Christianity has become just one option among many, and even the once-revered “high culture” that tried to replace religion has lost its authority .

This decline of religion has created what many describe as a moral framework vacuum in Western society. For centuries, the churches provided a shared ethical foundation – a sense of absolute moral truths, communal values, and narratives that imbued life with meaning. As institutional faith receded, that common grounding weakened. Sociologists note that secularization “created a void which could be filled by an ideology claiming a hold on ethical… matters,” essentially removing a unifying moral compass . In the immediate post–World War II era, disillusionment with organized religion’s failures (e.g. its complicity in colonialism or war) accelerated the loss of trust in churches . Modern prosperity and consumer culture offered new individualistic identities, further eroding the appeal of traditional Christian virtues like humility and self-denial . Scientific advances and existentialist philosophy (think of Sartre or Camus) provided secular explanations and humanist alternatives to religious dogma . By the late 20th century, religion had been largely “marginalized” in the West – no longer the unquestioned source of truth, but “just one option” on a pluralistic menu of worldviews .

The result has been a society-wide search for a new moral North Star. Some commentators warn that as Christianity’s influence wanes, a “moral vacuum” and identity crisis can emerge . Indeed, evidence of such fragmentation is apparent: without Christianity as a unifying force, Western communities became more pluralistic but also more fragmented, with competing worldviews replacing once-shared values . Unlike in past eras where a broad consensus on right and wrong came from the pulpit, today there is little agreement on moral fundamentals. Each individual or group is often left to cobble together their own ethical outlook. A recent cultural research report found that 66% of American adults now reject the idea of absolute moral truth, instead deciding right and wrong based on personal feelings, situational factors, or popular opinion . Even among self-identified Christians in the U.S., well over half no longer affirm absolute truth, reflecting a broad shift toward subjective morality . As researcher George Barna observes, “everyone becomes his or her own arbiter of truth”, leading to “little consensus” and a confounding unpredictability in the moral choices people make . In short, the decline of religious authority has left a gap that our culture has not yet fully succeeded in filling with a coherent alternative.

Taking the New Moral High Ground – Without a Map

Humans’ need for moral order did not disappear with organized religion’s retreat. In the absence of widely trusted religious doctrines, many people have sought new ways to signal virtue, enforce norms, and find meaning. Over the past 100 years, this impulse often latched onto secular ideologies and social movements – sometimes with fervor resembling the religious zeal they supplanted. History offers stark examples: political ideologies of the 20th century took on quasi-religious roles, filling the void with their own dogmas. Scholars note that totalizing movements like communism and fascism functioned as “secular religions” in many respects, demanding absolute loyalty, providing a vision of utopia, and designating heretics or enemies to be purged . As the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau presciently argued back in the 18th century, if traditional faith wanes, civil or political religions will arise to hold society together . In the 1900s, we saw this unfold: the decline of the old Christian order helped enable the rise of radical creeds. From revolutionary Marxism to ultra-nationalism, these movements promised a new moral order – yet often delivered tyranny or violence in practice. The secular crusaders of the last century demonstrated how, without the tempering checks of longstanding religious ethics, moral certainty can turn dangerous. Totalitarian regimes exhibited their own pseudo-“sacred” values and messianic missions, but lacking any higher authority above the state, they justified any means (propaganda, purges, even genocide) to achieve their vision of “good” . In hindsight, the utopian secular ideologies that tried to replace religion frequently became intolerant dogmas themselves – political cults of personality and persecution, rather than the enlightened moral communities they claimed to be.

In more recent decades, the secular West has generally rejected overt totalitarianism, yet a subtler form of moral fervor has proliferated in our democratic, online age. Many individuals – often well-intentioned – feel compelled to “take the moral high ground” on social and political issues, loudly condemning what they see as wrong. In the absence of a priesthood to police sin, Twitter and other social media have become arenas for lay-preachers of outrage. This phenomenon is epitomized by what we today call “cancel culture.” Public shaming campaigns enforce unofficial codes of conduct, from speech to behavior, often by rallying mass outrage. Sociologists note that those leading these call-outs sincerely see themselves as standing on righteous high ground. They exhibit “a lot of righteous indignation,”convinced of their own virtue, and invite others to join in a public shaming exercise against the perceived sinner . In a sense, the crowd appoints itself both inquisitor and judge – sometimes even executioner – of reputations. Cancel culture is not entirely new (history has seen moral panics and witch hunts before), but what is new is the sheer speed and scope with which online mobs can punish an individual for a transgression. A single offensive remark or unpopular opinion can lead to someone being “called out,” denounced, and socially exiled (canceled) within hours . The fervor and certainty with which these judgments are pronounced often resemble a kind of secular Puritanism: a zealous enforcement of moral norms without any established church.

The crucial difference, however, is that these new moral crusaders lack the formal grounding and safeguards that religious morality traditionally provided. They fervently enforce rules, yet the rules are shifting and hotly debated. There is no equivalent of a catechism or a council of scholars to thoughtfully delineate ethical principles – more often, what is “acceptable” or “offensive” is determined by the loudest voices or the passions of the moment. The result can be highly emotional, reactive moral action, rather than deliberative ethical reasoning. Even prominent proponents of justice worry that online call-outs can devolve into a counter-productive “mob mentality”, driven less by reasoned principle and more by cathartic anger . Nuance, context, and forgiveness – virtues in most religious ethics – are often casualties of this approach. As former U.S. President Barack Obama critiqued, “That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far” . Unlike religious traditions which, at their best, temper justice with mercy (“hate the sin, love the sinner”), the cancel culture model often offers no path to redemption for those who err. An apology under these conditions frequently serves only to affirm the crowd’s moral superiority, rather than to facilitate reconciliation . In short, many people today assume a mantle of moral authority without an underlying moral theory – a scenario that can become as self-righteous as it is unstable.

Humanities in Disarray: No Replacement for Lost Doctrines

One might expect that the academic and intellectual sphere – the humanities – would step in to develop new, coherent moral frameworks in a post-religious age. After all, disciplines like philosophy, ethics, literature, and social theory have long concerned themselves with how humans ought to live and find meaning. However, the past century has seen the humanities themselves fall into disarray and crisis, leaving them ill-prepared to substitute for religion’s role in grounding morality. In fact, the decline of religion and the decline of the humanities appear to be parallel trends stemming from a common cultural shift . In universities, humanities majors have plummeted in popularity (dropping 30–60% in many departments over the last decade) and public funding for humanistic research is harder than ever to justify . Wider society, preoccupied with technology and utilitarian outcomes, increasingly dismisses the humanities as “useless” in a world that worships utility .

More importantly, the humanities have struggled to provide a unified moral vision that could replace the cohesive theories of religion. Unlike the church, which (despite internal debates) offered a relatively clear set of doctrines and ethical commandments, the humanities have “never had a single project or ethical center” . Modern humanistic scholarship is radically dispersed – a cacophony of viewpoints and theories, often contradicting each other. As one commentator noted, the humanities “possess no essence, no specific doctrines and ethical principles” that everyone in the field agrees upon . Far from establishing a new Ten Commandments or universally accepted ethos, the academic humanities proliferated into specialized subfields with disparate agendas. In the 20th century, grand philosophical systems that aimed to define universal morals (like Kantian ethics or utilitarianism) lost ground to a wave of postmodern skepticism. Influential thinkers began to argue that morality is culturally relative, or chiefly about power dynamics, or endlessly interpretable – casting doubt on the very idea of objective moral truth.

By the turn of the 21st century, confidence in the “ethical and intellectual value” of the traditional humanities had eroded . The classic Western canon that once underpinned liberal education – works of philosophy, literature, history presumed to carry civilizational values – came under fierce critique. Feminist and post-colonial perspectives (quite reasonably) pointed out biases in that canon, but the “displacement of the idea of Western civilization” left nothing comparably cohesive in its place . Where religion had a core narrative and purpose for humanity, the secular humanities offered many narratives. They excelled at questioning and critiquing, but not at agreeing on answers. “All kinds of…arguments that go in different directions politically and morally” are found in the humanities, notes cultural theorist Simon During – “they preach many messages besides empathy and tolerance,” and certainly cannot claim to consistently make people more moral or more united . Essentially, the humanities world fragmented into a marketplace of ideas with no referee. Each new theory – Marxist, Freudian, Nietzschean, postmodern, deconstructionist, identitarian, etc. – attracted adherents and detractors, but no single humanist vision gained the kind of broad legitimacy that the old religious worldview once had.

This failure to develop a consensual secular moral theory has had real consequences. Education in ethics and character became ad hoc. Public debates about values grew more polarized, with no neutral arbiter of truth. Outside of academia, most people simply fall back on personal intuition or group allegiance when moral questions arise – exactly as the survey data on “truth by feelings or public opinion” suggests . In a telling statistical finding, two-thirds of adults believe moral truth is conditional and over 80% are comfortable mixing and matching beliefs from different sources as suits them . Sociologist Peter Berger once described this modern condition as “heretical imperatives” – everyone chooses what to believe, as if from a cafeteria line. The downside is a populace that shares no common ethical grounding, only a patchwork of subjective values. Little wonder, then, that moral discourse often devolves into shouting matches (whether on cable news or Twitter feeds), with each tribe convinced of its own righteousness and baffled that others do not see the world the same way.

Even within religious institutions, similar confusion took hold in recent decades. Many mainline churches, in an effort to modernize, “abandoned their origins, theology, culture, and tradition” – but, as novelist Marilynne Robinson observed, “what has taken the place” of that rich old theology? “With all due respect, not much.” . In other words, even those who haven’t fully left religion often diluted its teachings without developing an equivalently robust philosophy, leading to lukewarm, hollowed-out institutions. The net effect across society has been a kind of ethical drift: the humanities and even liberal churches jettisoned the old moral certainties, yet their new ideas (while often insightful) never coalesced into a widely accepted framework for living a good life. As one commentator quipped, modernity made “everyone his own priest and professor of ethics”, with each individual acting as the measure of right and wrong . The problem, of course, is that millions of miniature moralities do not add up to a coherent society.

Consequences: Fragmentation, Outrage, and “Moral Turbulence”

The lack of a shared moral framework and the rise of ad hoc moralizing have put Western societies under significant strain. One evident consequence is social fragmentation. Without a common baseline of values, communities have splintered into subcultures and ideological camps, each with its own “truth.” The Times of Israel describes how, as Christianity declined, Western societies became more diverse in thought but “also more fragmented… leading to increasing cultural and ideological polarization.” . We see this in the palpable divisions over political and social issues – people struggle to even agree on basic facts, let alone ethical principles. Identity politics fills the void for some, providing a sense of belonging and righteousness tied to race, gender, or other group identities, but often at the cost of further polarizing “us vs. them” dynamics. In the extreme, this fragmentation breeds tribalism, where empathy extends only to one’s in-group and demonization of outsiders becomes routine.

Another outcome has been a widespread sense of rootlessness and anxiety in the population. Secular liberalism grants immense personal freedom, but it often struggles to supply the existential meaning and purpose that religion once offered . Especially for younger generations, the question “What is the purpose of my life?” can loom painfully large when no cultural narrative provides an answer. Studies and commentators have linked this existential uncertainty to rising rates of mental health issues, loneliness, and substance abuse in affluent secular societies . As one analysis put it, “secular liberalism…struggles to provide the existential meaning that religion once offered”, contributing to feelings of disconnection and despair . In short, many people have more “freedom to choose” than ever, yet feel less sure than ever what they should choose – a recipe for angst. Even the pursuit of virtue can become neurotic in this context: without clear principles, one may constantly fear being not virtuous enough or on the “wrong side” of some moral line that is itself moving.

The cancel culture phenomenon discussed earlier also illustrates the social turbulence of our moral moment. On one hand, grass-roots moral movements have done real good – for instance, the #MeToo movement publicly held sexual abusers accountable when official systems failed, a form of justice and empowerment for the vulnerable . However, the same tools of outrage can be misused, turning into “bullying, injustice, and threats that can be worse than the supposed offense” . When moral crusades are not guided by consistent principles, they risk descending into vigilantism and excess. A single thoughtless joke or old remark, dragged into the unforgiving spotlight of social media, can destroy a person’s career in hours. As the Britannica analysis notes, “all sense of decency is lost amid the mob mentality’s rash rush to condemn and cancel”, treating individuals as disposable rather than as people capable of growth . The irony is that a culture which prides itself on being non-judgmental (having shed old religious “judgmentalism”) has spawned new forms of harsh judgment and punishment, often delivered with less mercy or due process. The concept of forgiveness – central to Christian and other religious morals – is often absent in online cancellation campaigns. Once labeled transgressor, a person is cast out with a virtual scarlet letter, with few paths for rehabilitation or dialogue . This not only devastates lives; it also short-circuits the very conversations and learning that could lead to genuine moral progress.

On a broader scale, social researchers detect a state of “moral ambiguity” across Western cultures: a feeling that our moral anchors have come loose. As one writer observed, “the transition from moral absolutes to liberal relativism has eroded clear definitions of right and wrong. While tolerance and inclusion have expanded, this shift has also weakened the moral frameworks that once anchored behavior and governance.” . In other words, the gains of a more open, pluralistic society come with a trade-off – we are less sure about anything. Some level of consensus on fundamental values is necessary for a society to cohere. Without it, we see increasing turbulence and instability, as each new controversy becomes a zero-sum clash of wills rather than a discussion grounded in mutual principles. George Barna, after surveying the patchwork beliefs of Americans, bluntly concluded that “philosophical and spiritual chaos” is the natural result of rejecting any shared moral absolutes and relying on fickle feelings as our guide . In his assessment, the “unfortunate reliance on feelings as the ultimate determination of truth” combined with “widespread acceptance of unreliable or misleading sources of wisdom” has yielded a confused culture that struggles to find common ground . The symptoms are all around: bitter culture wars, endless debates over what speech or behavior should be permitted, a collapse of trust in institutions (from government to science) because no authority is universally recognized as legitimate.

Perhaps the deepest damage is to societal cohesion and solidarity. When people cannot agree on even basic virtues, it becomes hard to work together for the common good. The social fabric frays. In past eras, neighbors who differed in faith or politics still often shared some overarching moral commitments (e.g. honesty, charity, the Golden Rule) that transcended their disagreements. Today, it sometimes feels as if every moral belief is contested. This erodes our ability to assume goodwill in our fellow citizens. The public square takes on a combative, nihilistic tenor: if “truth” is just whatever my side holds, why listen to the other side at all? Each faction believes it has the moral high ground, so compromise appears as a sellout of principle. Democratic discourse suffers; extremism thrives in the void of consensus. As one former Chief Rabbi of the UK, Jonathan Sacks, warned, “anger [may] expose the problem but never delivers the solution.” Society must channel moral outrage into constructive debate and policy – a task made harder when our only common value is outrage itself .

Conclusion: Rebuilding Foundations for a Pluralistic Age