BY STEWART SLATER

That the West is becoming less Christian is noted so frequently as to have become a cliché and, since nature, or perhaps human nature, abhors a vacuum, enquiring minds have turned to what comes next. Which belief system will supplant it at the centre of our lives?

To those of a socially conservative frame of mind, the answer which seems both most likely and least attractive is intersectionality, ushering in a world of almost unlimited genders and pride in everything except the historic achievements of the West.

This is, I think, mistaken.

As I argue here, successful belief systems become so by appealing to all parts of the political spectrum – Christians can seek to “Ban the Bomb” and sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers”. Intersectionality speaks solely to the left. Secondly, it has little to say about most of life, contenting itself with attempting to regulate relationships between groups. In itself, it gives one no reason not to lie, cheat or steal even if it might prefer that only I did so to members of my own identity group. To deal with such questions, it must fall back on a pre-existing morality. It is, at best, an expansion pack for our current ‘ethics’.

More importantly, however, this argument misunderstands the role that religion has traditionally played in society. For, it has long been the way we have understood both why we are here (creation stories are common to most religious traditions) and what we are here to do and, given their ubiquity, it appears that humanity needs an account which does both.

No matter the specifics of their practices, it is notable just how many belief systems have posited some form of posthumous existence and made it dependent on the believer’s behaviour in this world. An ancient Egyptian, for example, needed to pass a series of tests after death to win access to Aaru, Heaven and Hell in both Christianity and Islam exist to reward the faithful and punish sinners, while to followers of Asian religions, the karma accrued during a lifetime dictates the circumstances of an individual’s reincarnation. Acting in such a way as to secure the best possible afterlife has, therefore, become the purpose of this life. “Now, we must help each other get to Heaven,” as the Blessed Carl of Austria said to his wife the morning after their wedding.

Science has replaced religion as our way of understanding the cosmos and how humanity came to be, but it denies that we are here to do anything in particular. We are born, we live and we die while the universe carries on, indifferent. It denies human life the purpose which religion gave it and it is this which the Successor Ideology will need to offer.

This may be a new problem, but it is not a unique problem. Greek religion also offered its adherents little in the way of purpose. It had an afterlife, but it was undifferentiated. The equivalents of Heaven and Hell were reserved for the heroes and villains of myth, everyone else, no matter how they had lived, just milled around in the Underworld. There was no Greek equivalent of the Ten Commandments. To provide meaning, therefore, they invented philosophy.

The Epicureans

Most schools derived from Socrates who, having decided that Virtue was the only Good, made its pursuit the purpose of life. One group, however, took a radically different approach.

Late in the 4th century B.C. Epicurus of Samos launched a school inspired by the teachings of the earlier thinker Democritus. To them, the universe was composed exclusively of void and matter, the latter being made, ultimately, of atoms, small irreducible particles. This extended to human beings. We were a temporary arrangement of atoms which would dissolve upon death. While, like their contemporaries, they believed in the existence of a “psyche” (traditionally rendered as “soul”, but perhaps, in more scientific terms, “consciousness”), this too was composed of atoms and would dissolve like the body on demise.

It is difficult to tell from the surviving evidence if Democritus himself derived an ethical theory from his metaphysical beliefs, but the Epicureans certainly did. To those familiar with modern usage of the term, it should come as no surprise that they were hedonists, believing that pleasure was the only goal of life.

However, their understanding of this was rather different to that ascribed to them by history – they were not “epicurean” as we currently mean it. Seeking to maximise pleasure over the long term, they realised, did not give them carte blanche to lead lives of debauched over-indulgence, for many apparent sources of it bring painful consequences in their wake – eating too much can cause sickness, drinking too much leads to hangovers, etc. To maximise pleasure across a lifetime, it is not just the momentary “high” that activities bring which must be considered, it is the subsequent pain they may cause also. And in many cases, this pain will outweigh the pleasure – as anyone who has sworn never to drink again the morning after the night before will attest.

As a consequence, the Epicureans decided that the best approach was not to maximise short-term pleasure at all but to seek aponia – the absence of pain.

“By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning”

^{Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus}

The more pleasures they considered, the more potential pain the Epicureans saw. Friendships and romantic relationships would cause heartache if they broke up so were best avoided. Mortality rates meant there was a reasonable chance (40% according to some) a child would die in infancy, causing distress so parenthood was too. To have the best chance of achieving aponia, it was necessary to turn one’s back on society and lead an ascetic life in the company of a few like-minded souls.

The New Epicureans

Nietzsche noted in The Gay Science “the awakening sciences have allied themselves point by point with the philosophy of Epicurus, but point by point rejected Christianity” and the similarities between the Epicureans’ understanding of the universe and our own are undeniable. So, since they derived their way of living from theirs, might we come to a similar view of how we should live? Or have we done so already and just not noticed?

It is often remarked that Millennials and Gen Z are markedly different to their predecessors. Compared to the previous cohort, Gen X, they are substantially less likely to drink, smoke, do drugs, (all well-known sources of potential future pain), have sex, or experience a teenage pregnancy. They have fewer friends than preceding generations (and often make all of them online), are less likely to vote and less likely to drive. They are more likely to consider dropping out of the workforce and are behind the decreasing importance survey respondents ascribe to community involvement. All exactly as Epicurus would advise.

But, if younger generations are extreme, they are not unique. The friendship recession, for example, was noted in the late 1990’s, when Gen Z were still, at best, toddlers and Robert Putnam’s exploration of American social disengagement, Bowling Alone, was published in 2000. They are also influential – the “manners” of intersectionality, from trigger warnings to preferred pronouns are explicitly designed to minimise the possibility of psychological distress.

But it is not just our behaviours which are becoming Epicurean, the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain have increasingly become the lens through which we consider the problems of life. In a recent column arguing for the promotion of assisted dying, the main question Matthew Parris thought those considering it should ask was, “Is life still giving us more pleasure than pain?” There was no admission of inherent human worth, still less any acknowledgment of nobility in the face of suffering, just Epicurus’ cold hedonic calculus.

At the other end of life, declining birth rates are an oft-noted feature of the modern world and, as some such as the Financial Times’ Janan Ganesh are coming to notice, are proving relatively immune to policy interventions. Hungary, often cited as an exemplar of pro-natalism, has only seen fertility rise from 1.53 births per woman to 1.56 between 2015 and 2020. The fall in child-bearing has been accompanied by a raft of articles and videos extolling the benefits of voluntary childlessness (e.g. here), all of which focus on the enjoyment to be gained by the choice (more money, more free time for socialising etc.) and the discomfort avoided (“Why would I want to add to my problems?” asks a Russian man quoted in this study). Once more, like the ancient Epicureans, the only factor to be considered is the individual’s pleasure and pain.

If we behave like Epicureans and think like Epicureans, then it is reasonable to assume that we are Epicureans. Like them, we have discovered a meaningless universe and like them, we have filled its vacuum of purpose with the pursuit of our own pleasure. Our understanding of who we are and how we came to be offers nothing more to aim for. We have destroyed Heaven and left ourselves with nothing more than dopamine.

But in the ancient world, the Epicureans were a small group. A society containing them was able to function perfectly well. It is less obvious that a society composed of them could. Many of the phenomena cited above, such as reduced participation in the labour force and increasing childlessness may, in Epicurean terms, be good for individuals but they are bad for the community.  Those who limit their involvement in it may agree with the poet Lucretius when he wrote, “It is sweet, from the land, to witness another’s terrible struggle on a sea whipped up by mighty winds. Not because there is joyful pleasure in another’s discomfort but because it is sweet to see the troubles we have avoided.” (De Rerum Natura II 1-4 – translation author’s own) but society needs people not just to take pleasure at avoiding others’ misfortune, but to risk pain to alleviate it. A community of individuals each dedicated to maximising their own pleasure and minimising their own pain will find it difficult to form the little platoons it needs to function.

“When people choose not to believe in God,“ wrote the Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterton, “they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

It is easy to look at the modern, secular West with its profusion of new age faiths and agree. But beneath this surface, Westerners are behaving as if they do believe in something, the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure and aponia because, like their forebears, their account of the universe gives them no higher purpose.

“A man,” Viktor Frankl said, echoing Nietzsche “who has a why can bear almost any how”.

But the modern world will discover that some whys are more useful than others.

Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.