ludger hagedornhistory, from the late middle ages until the rise of nihilism in the late
19th century, exhibits the unfolding of two kinds of radicalism: a re-
ligious escapism with an accompanying inflation of the Christian
doctrine of salvation on the one hand, as witnessed in the eschato-
logical movements of early modern times, and modernity’s enforced
im plementation of objectified and rationalized techno-scientific re-
ductionism on the other. What is lost in these exclusive totalizations
is the tension arising from the divergent and conflicting worldviews
that prevailed throughout the middle ages. The two main influences
on the medieval mind, Christianity, with its dramatic stress on inner
life, and the ancient heritage of objectivism and rationalism, never
really melted into one coherent view. Instead they maintained a cer-
tain tension that was not “dissolved” but stabilized. Patočka calls this
a “strained harmony,” a balance in tension.
In fact, both positions, a radicalized and aggressive belief as well as
the radicalized attempt to overcome the question of faith, are typically
modern. Viewed in this light, the tendency to “auto-immunization”
indicates nothing other than the attempt to get rid of and finally solve
the inherent tensions of the religious and the secular worldview.
Historically, the result was the mutual exclusion of faith and knowledge
that characterizes modernity. A sign of this exclusion is the rise, within
virtually all world religions, of fundamentalism with its essentially
hostile reaction to the secular-scientific worldview. Today, Islamic
fundamentalism is only one more example of the “auto-immune”
reaction on the part of religious consciousness. The consequent
difficulties are not, however, limited to it.
“Auto-immunization,” therefore, can serve as a label not only for
religious orthodoxy but for all kinds of radically unifying models that
restrict themselves to just one level of interpretation, one dimension
of life, thereby avoiding the tension of opposing claims. Thus, the
commitment to rationalism or science and their all-encompassing
“solutions” can be described as resembling the radical universalism of
fundamentalist traits in religion. Its very “contamination” with
religious claims and expectations can be seen as an example of its own
Patočka, Jan, Andere Wege in die Moderne, ed. Ludger Hagedorn, Würzburg:
Königshausen, 2006.