The challenges of ideal theory and appeal of secular apocalyptic thought
| Author | Ben Jones |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885117722074 |
| Published date | 01 October 2020 |
| Date | 01 October 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
EJPT
Article
The challenges of ideal
theory and appeal of secular
apocalyptic thought
Ben Jones
Pennsylvania State University, USA
Abstract
Why do thinkers hostile or agnostic toward Christianity find in its apocalyptic
doctrines—often seen as bizarre—appealing tools for interpreting politics? This article
tackles that puzzle. First, it clarifies the concept of secular apocalyptic thought and its
relation to Christianity. I propose that, to avoid imprecision, the study of secular apoca-
lyptic thought should focus on cases where religious apocalyptic thought’s influence on
secular thinkers is clear because they explicitly reference such thought and its appeal
(e.g. Engels’s fascination with Christian apocalyptic thought). Second, it argues that the
political appeal of apocalyptic thought—and, specifically, what I term cataclysmic apoc-
alyptic thought (CAT)—partly lies in offering resources to navigate persistent challenges
in ideal theory. The ideal theorist faces competing goals: formulating an ideal that is
utopian and feasible. One potential approach to this challenge is CAT, which embraces a
utopian ideal and declares it feasible through identifying crisis as the vehicle to realize it.
Keywords
Apocalyptic thought, Christian eschatology, crisis, feasibility, Friedrich Engels, ideal
theory, revelation, secularization, Thomas Mu¨ntzer, utopia
Christianity’s apocalyptic doctrines strike many—believers and non-believers
alike—as its most bizarre elements. Despite the presence of apocalyptic doctrines
in the Christian canon, there is a tendency, stretching back to the early church, to
minimize their importance. Augustine (1972: XX.7, XX.9), for instance, urges
an allegorical interpretation of Revelation and criticizes predictions of Christ’s
imminent return to establish a millennial kingdom. Today, many churches rarely
include passages from Revelation in their services, evident from the book’s scant
presence in the lectionary (Koester, 2001: 32). As Glenn Tinder (1965: 311) puts it,
European Journal of Political Theory
2020, Vol. 19(4) 465–488
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885117722074
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Corresponding author:
Ben Jones, Rock Ethics Institute, Pennsylvania State University, 131 Sparks Building, University Park,
Pennsylvania, 16802, USA.
Email: btj7@psu.edu
the Bible’s apocalyptic themes are among the ‘‘most outworn vestments of reli-
gious faith’’. Yet attempts to suppress apocalyptic thought’s influence never wholly
succeeded. Apocalyptic prophecies and themes continue to emerge and impact
various spheres of life, including politics. Part of apocalyptic thought’s potency
in politics stems from its ability to migrate beyond the confines of religion and take
on new, secular forms—a somewhat puzzling development. If many Christians are
embarrassed by their faith’s apocalyptic heritage, why would thinkers hostile or
agnostic toward Christianity find in its apocalyptic doctrines appealing tools for
interpreting politics?
The first step in unpacking this puzzle is clarifying the concept of secular apoca-
lyptic thought and its relation to the Christian tradition, which is the focus of the
first part of this article. Despite scholarly interest in secular apocalyptic thought (e.g.
Collins et al., 1998), there has been little methodological reflection on how to define
and study it. More than a half-century ago, Judith Shklar (1965) and Hans
Blumenberg (1983 [1966]) criticized the idea of secular apocalyptic thought
for being vague and blurring important distinctions in the history of ideas.
Curiously, more recent studies discussing secular apocalyptic thought ignore
Shklar’s and Blumenberg’s concerns (e.g. Barkun, 1983; Gray, 2007; Hall, 2009),
and often prove them to be well founded. To address their concerns and guard
against reading into texts apocalyptic themes that are not there, this article makes
a methodological proposal: the study of secular apocalyptic thought should focus
on cases where religious apocalyptic thought’s influence on secular thinkers is
clear because they explicitly mention such thought and its appeal. One example is
Friedrich Engels’s fascination with the Christian apocalyptic figure Thomas
Mu
¨ntzer and the book of Revelation (Engels, 1978 [1850]; 1990 [1883];
1990 [1894]). For Engels, his political philosophy mirrors a strand in the Christian
apocalyptic tradition that I term cataclysmic apocalyptic thought (CAT), which
identifies crisis as the path to the ideal society. CAT takes secular form with the
belief that natural or human forces, not divine ones, will direct crisis toward utopia.
I then turn to examining the political appeal of apocalyptic thought, particularly
CAT, for secular thinkers. A helpful approach for understanding CAT’s appeal is
the lens of ideal theory—i.e. theorizing about the best, most just society, rather
than a marginal improvement over the present. Ideal theory that aspires to be
navigational and a moral guide to action, I argue, faces the daunting task of out-
lining an end goal that is utopian and feasible. To be worth striving for, the ideal
must be utopian in the sense of possessing sufficient moral appeal to justify the
transition costs needed to achieve it, while remaining feasible. These competing
goals result in a catch-22 for ideal theory: a more utopian ideal is a less feasible
moral goal, which diminishes reasons to strive for it and its normative force, but a
more modest and feasible ideal is a less appealing moral goal, which also diminishes
the reasons to strive for it and its normative force. In CAT is found a potential
escape from this dilemma. CAT embraces a utopian goal and declares it feasible by
pointing to crisis as the vehicle to achieve it. This approach gives a particular crisis
meaning and creates a sense of urgency to take advantage of the historic oppor-
tunity at hand. For some secular thinkers, then, apocalyptic thought’s appeal lies in
466 European Journal of Political Theory 19(4)
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