The Influence of Pantheism on Politics

Abstract

In this article I present - in a very general way - the influence of various types of pantheism on the broadly understood sphere of politics. I distinguish - by sketching the historical background - three types of pantheism: harmonious, dynamic and emanative. I argue that after the defeat of dynamic pantheism (the political effect of which was Nazism and Communism), we are now dealing with a qualitative upheaval in Western civilization and culture, which - from the philosophical point of view - is patronized by a new type of harmonious pantheism. It is the binder (a common and integrating part) of three strongly influencing cultural streams within the so-called "high culture": radical ecological philosophy and environmental ethics, new spirituality and post-humanism. This wave strikes with particular force the main components (I distinguish five) of the modern Platonic-Christian-Enlightenment paradigm (and - related to the latter - liberalism in politics). I am afraid that by fighting the flaws of the old paradigm and replacing it with a new one, based on a harmonious pantheism (prompting us to think utopian and anti-individualistic), “we throw the baby out with the bathwater” and "we jump out of the frying-pan into the fire”.