Articles of interest
04th July 2022
Book in Focus
Jacques Maritain in the 21st Century
Personalism and the Political Organization of the World
By Walter Schultz
Jacques Maritain’s biography traces the journey of a radical, agnostic, and revolutionary activist of the left through his conversion to Roman Catholicism, his stagnation as a somewhat bewildered dupe affiliated with the Christian right in France, and his return to the left from a more seasoned perspective as a Christian philosopher and activist. Intrigued with this man’s biography, which parallels my own life story as a child of the turbulent Sixties, I completed my graduate studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, attaining my MA and PhD with both theses written on Maritain: a study of his metaphysical and mystical writings followed by a look at his social and political thought. I went on to hold a Maritain Chair at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, develop a philosophy program based on Maritain’s philosophy on the secondary level with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board in Ontario, and develop and teach a course on Maritain at St. Jerome’s University with the University of Waterloo, Ontario.
My work on Maritain and the application of his thought to current issues ushered me into the Canadian Jacques Maritain Association in 1998. Since then, through my publications and serving for seven years as President of the association, as well as Editor of the association’s journal, Études maritainiennes-Maritain Studies, I have come to ever more deeply appreciate Maritain’s message for the tumultuous opening decades of the twenty-first century, continuing to give talks on Maritain and current issues in universities in Canada and the United States.
The quest for liberation defines Jacques Maritain, from his rebellious youth through to his yearning for sainthood as one of the twentieth century’s leading Christian philosophers in the Thomist tradition (adhering to the fundamental insights of the thirteenth century philosopher, theologian and Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas). In his philosophical and theological work, Maritain offers us a temporal ideal for a universal, inclusive struggle for justice while retaining the unique contribution and centrality of Jesus Christ. Maritain came to appreciate the irreplaceable grandeur of every human person as the key to unlock the tension, and far too often open hostility, between the proponents of individualism and collectivism throughout the twentieth century: individualism culminating in the “me first” mentality behind the “sink or swim” competitive jungle which is unbridled capitalism, and collectivism culminating in the “herd mentality” of communism or fascism. Rejecting the egocentric isolation rampant throughout liberal society and culture, which fuelled a pervasive pleasure-seeking consumerism enticing individuals to participate in the competitive drive to the top, along with the totalitarian collectivism so forcefully present left and right, Maritain promoted the human person in history, open by way of nature and grace to integral liberation and redemption through community.
Jacques Maritain’s spiritual and political journey throughout the twentieth century highlights a dual dilemma which has prevented the democratic experiment of modernity from realizing its full potential. The globalizing trend of international finance in step with an elitist bureaucracy, as well as the narrow concerns of nationalist, ethnic and racial exceptionalism, have harried democratic procedure for decades. Consistently critical of the liberal focus on the individual, Maritain, as a recent convert to Christianity, became a dupe of the Christian Right with its avid nationalism and fascist organization. However, when attaining spiritual maturity in the 1930s, Maritain came to advocate for Christian democracy, based on the integrity and rights of every person within a pluralist body politic. In fact, he argued that totalitarianism is the other side of the same solipsistic and self-serving coin which features liberal individualism.
Jacques Maritain’s spiritual and political journey throughout the twentieth century foreshadows in a prescient way the vicissitudes of spiritual and political struggle emerging in the twenty-first century. Cornel West, the distinguished public philosopher and Christian advocate for racial, social and political justice, has aptly referred to the 2020 presidential election in the United States as a contest between the disaster of neo-liberalism (Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic Party candidate) and the catastrophe of neo-fascism (Donald J. Trump, the Republican Party incumbent). Even if we allow for greater complexity and variation in each camp, the designations, neo-liberal and neo-fascist, identified the essential solipsistic and self-serving core fuelling both establishment parties in the United States on the eve of the 2020 presidential election. West’s observation is not concerned with any anomaly, but rather his concern is with a fundamental orientation plaguing Western and now global democratic development.
Maritain’s observations in the twentieth century remain pertinent to the challenges facing democracy in the twenty-first century. In dialogue with various postmodern and liberationist voices and movements, Maritain’s inclusive social and political philosophy may provide the necessary theoretical and practical framework for upholding the integrity and rights of every person. Respecting pluralism and the integrity and rights of every person, Maritain desires government which encompasses much more than the non-interventionist negative freedoms of the classical liberal state; he desires government in which are entrenched positive rights securing the opportunity for development of every human person, contemporary parlance might suggest the right to health care and education along with the right to a living wage. Indeed, respecting pluralism and the integrity of every person has directed Maritain to an inclusive theory of education, involving the first-hand experience of every religious and secular creed sincerely seeking dialogue and justice for all, and highlighting the development of intuition and love in the student. Every learner and educator seeking comprehension of the divisions and conflicts in the twenty-first century, as well as a practical directive for healing, would do well to become familiar with the basic insights of the twentieth century Christian philosopher, Jacques Maritain, for a greater understanding and appreciation, as well as a sound, critique of more recent voices and movements seeking social justice and the political organization of the world.
Arguably, the poignant contest of the twenty-first century continues to be a struggle between individualism and collectivism, with both approaches failing miserably to accommodate the person in community. It is the personalism of Maritain, with his commitment to human rights and the common good, together with nuanced and critical evaluations from within the conceptual structures of liberation theology and postmodernism which may enable us to glimpse what is essential for a truly human and Christian understanding of liberation and redemption in the twenty-first century. Here we will observe the writings of Maritain in relation to prominent individuals influencing social and political development in the twenty-first century, establishing Maritain’s affinity with Christian liberationists in dialogue with the secular left, who seek a more equitable distribution of wealth and influence, and his affinity with the postmodern critique of often fallacious modern certitudes which conceal the naked will to power through rationalisation. However, Maritain’s unique way of reinstating tradition and Aquinas enables him to retrieve a solid, principled foundation which allows him to criticise modernity along with criticising the danger of a merely worldly fixation in the Christian liberationist and the free-floating relativism inherent within the various voices comprising postmodernism.
As with the opening chapter in section one, which adheres closely to the introduction to my doctoral thesis with a few additions and modifications, the subsequent chapters presented here in five sections are often verbatim reprints selected from my previous publications with occasional minor revisions. Much of the material presented here has been gathered from my contributions to Études maritainiennes-Maritain Studies during my tenure as President of the Canadian Jacques Maritain Association and Editor of the association’s journal. By retaining repetitions and notation where similar or identical, each chapter stands alone and can be read independently of the others, which makes the text valuable for selected use in the classroom. However, each of the five sections maintains a singular and progressive focus, enabling the reader to appreciate the evolution of Maritain’s social critique and personalism while in dialogue with the vast spectrum of ideas and issues confronting us in the twenty-first century.
In Part I: Personalism, Jacques Maritain and Postmodern Iconography, Maritain’s personalism is defined within the existential context of his eventful life, and the eclipse of the person within the context of postmodern iconography will be explored. As a reaction to modernity, Maritain’s personalism joins the postmodern deconstruction of ideological entrapment while, in contradistinction to postmodernism, retaining a metaphysical foundation as necessary for fully appreciating the very human and progressive concerns of postmodernism.
In Part II: Personalism, Education and the Church, I address Maritain’s contribution to education from his personalist perspective, in this way explicating who and what the human person is. According to Maritain, education is primarily concerned with nurturing the innate pull of intuition and love within the student, avoiding indoctrination and encouraging exposure to a variety of sources (the world’s enduring spiritual families are specified). In a discussion of authenticity and community in relation to Maritain and the work of the Canadian Christian philosopher, Charles Taylor, we will see how the search for authenticity allows reality and truth to emerge in those adhering to their foundational intuition and love, paving the way for community and the inclusive future of Christianity.
Part III: Personalism, Global Democracy and the Political Organization of the World explores the application of Maritain’s personalism to social and political developments in the twenty-first century, beginning with a way of being human, espoused by Maritain and the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, as a response to totalitarianism. Comparing and contrasting Maritain’s pursuit of salvation history with the tenets of liberation theology and postmodernism, Maritain’s treatment of freedom and friendship engenders his Christian personalist perspective on global democracy and the political organization of the world.
In Part IV: Awareness and Resistance in the Twenty-First Century, I explore the contribution of Maritain’s personalism to an understanding of the myriad local and global movements seeking social and political justice in the twenty-first century, primarily by way of establishing a dialogue between Maritain and postmodernism. An initial discussion of empowerment without sovereignty from Maritain’s personalist perspective, in the face of what has been discerned as the twin pitfalls of neo-liberalism and neo-fascism, introduces a discussion of the futility of combat while discerning Maritain’s contribution to awareness and resistance to the forces of oppression in the twenty-first century.
In Part V: Homecoming, I look at the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and the role of Messiah emerging from a consideration of the Postmissionary Messianic Judaism of Rabbi Mark S. Kinzer, who proposes a dual ecclesia encompassing the Jewish observance of the circumcised and gentile communities. Maritain’s consideration of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity is examined in the light of Kinzer’s approach. This section depicts Maritain’s dual homecoming, looking back to the Jewish roots of the Christian experience, while looking ahead to the culmination of the Judeo-Christian mission in our collective return to the Source.
I would be amiss if I did not emphasize that the sustaining significance of Maritain’s Christian commitment, which is not loath to entertain truths and the operation of God’s grace beyond the pale of confessional Christianity, is evident in every chapter.
Walter Schultz is Auxiliary Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at the Dominican University College, Canada, and has served for seven years as President of the Canadian Jacques Maritain Association and Editor of the association’s journal, Études maritainiennes/ Maritain Studies. He received his PhD in Western Religious Thought from McMaster University, Canada, and has given courses in religious studies and philosophy at universities in Canada and the United States. Dr Schultz developed and implemented in Ontario, Canada, a senior level philosophy program at the secondary level based on the work of Jacques Maritain. His publications are primarily concerned with education and the relevance of Maritain’s thought for contemporary society and politics.
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