| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Leon Miller begins to address the thorny issue of how to create a political culture acceptable to all citizens in the absence of a dominant power. Can a "civil religion" be developed "from below" that will provide enough cultural cohesion for a democratic state in which there is cultural diversity? He writes from the perspective of Estonia where, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are about 60 percent Estonians and 40 percent Russians and foreign nationals. How can such a country create unified national symbols? Since the time of Rousseau the idea of a civil religion, as opposed to an official state religion like Catholicism, has been widely discussed. However, civil religion has to be a less comprehensive and more open-ended set of beliefs, and must rely on "truths" that appear much more "self-evident" than many religious and ideological doctrines. In a sense, Marxism was a failed attempt to create a "scientific" civil religion. However, it became closed and stagnant when allied to the power of the state. Can any civil religion transcend these problems?
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