The Crisis of the Modern World (The Collected Works of Rene Guenon)

by René Guénon

What has never been seen before is the erection of an entire civilization on something purely negative, on what indeed could be called the absence of principle; and it is this that gives the modern world its abnormal character and makes of it a sort of monstrosity, only to be understood if one thinks of it as corresponding to the end of a cyclical period,

a philosopher’s renown is increased more by inventing a new error than by repeating a truth that has already been expressed by others.

Protestantism, like the modern world, is built upon mere negation, the same negation of principles that is the essence of individualism; and one can see in it one more example, and a most striking one, of the state of anarchy and dissolution that has arisen from this negation.

religion, for many, is simply a matter of performance and custom, not to say of routine, and there is a deliberate refusal to attempt to understand anything about it, a refusal that even reaches the point of thinking that it is impossible to understand it, or perhaps that there is nothing there to be understood; moreover, if one really understood religion, could one accord it such a mediocre place among one’s preoccupations? Thus, doctrine is in fact forgotten or reduced to almost nothing, which gets close to the Protestant conception, since it is an effect of the same modern tendencies, which are opposed to all intellectuality; and, what is even more deplorable, the teaching commonly given, instead of reacting against this state of mind, favors it by adapting to it only too well: there is constant talk of morality, while very little is said about doctrine, on the pretext that this would not be understood; religion has now become mere moralism, or at least it seems as if nobody cares any longer to see what it really is—and this is something different.