"Written with passion and clarity, The Idol of Our Age identifies the false moralism that threatens to shipwreck the West. Not satisfied to lament, Mahoney rouses us to defend our political heritage rooted in reason and truth." --R. R. Reno, editor of First Things "Daniel Mahoney is one of those true intellectuals whose wide reading feeds into and is fed by his experience of life. The world he lives in is a world illuminated by books, and one in which books are also put to the test. Few writers today are so aware of the pervasive influence of ideas, especially among those who have no ability to grasp them. In this study of the religion of humanity, propagated by Auguste Comte, but now the source of a thousand escape-routes from the burden of responsible existence, Mahoney shows the great damage done by forgetting that man is made in God''s image.
His devastating criticisms of the self-congratulatory sentimentalism of Pope Francis are backed up with refined studies of thinkers who today are unjustly neglected, partly because they saw what is at stake in the religion of humanity: the American Catholic convert Orestes Brownson, the Russian social thinker Vladimir Soloviev, and the Hungarian phenomenologist Aurel Kolnai--all three of them at odds with the humanism of their day. Those thinkers do not agree about the alternative to humanitarian ways of thinking, but, as Mahoney shows, they are united in their belief that being human consists in the search for something higher than the human. I recommend this book to all who share that belief, and who want to know exactly why it should be adhered to." --Roger Scruton, writer and philosopher "With rare clarity, The Idol of Our Age exposes the degree to which a post-political, post-Christian humanism has acquired quasi-religious status in contemporary Western societies to the detriment of authentic political life. Like a Paul Revere of the spirit, Daniel Mahoney sounds an alarm that should be heeded by all who are concerned about maintaining the indispensable cultural conditions for common life in a decent polity." --Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University "Christ said: ''Ye are the salt of the Earth, love your enemies.'' The new humanitarian religion says: ''Ye should be the sugar of the Earth, you have no enemies.'' This spiritual diabetes affects Christians, too, and deprives them of any possibility of action.
The new idol is all the more dangerous that it apes Christian charity and tries to replace it. As a diagnosis, and proposal of a cure, Dr. Mahoney draws upon the insights of Orestes Brownson and the great Russians Soloviev and Solzhenitsyn, as well as the little-known Hungarian Aurel Kolnai. By unmasking the ''Religion of Humanity'' as the soft version of the old enemy of mankind, Dr. Mahoney gives us a precious help for us to exorcize it." --Rémi Brague, professor emeritus of philosophy, University of Paris, University of Munich"In this short book, Daniel Mahoney brilliantly lays bare the shallow and facile but dictatorial modern religion of optimistic humanitarianism: shallow and facile because it does not acknowledge the depth and persistence of human evil, and dictatorial because it will brook no rival." --Anthony Daniels, author and contributing editor of City Journal "Following the collapse of the revolutionary projects of the twentieth century, modern governments have generally adopted policies reflecting a gentle and pacifist post-Christian Humanitarianism. This seeming heir to Christianity, however, may be its most subtle enemy.
As Daniel Mahoney cogently argues, drawing on European and American thinkers from Orestes Brownson to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, its denial of evil, its hostility to human differences, and its elevation of comfort as the highest good doom it to produce the opposite of what it promises: egalitarian tyranny, coercive bureaucracy in personal relations, the spread of euthanasia and abortion, the collapse of the future, and a growing listlessness in politics, culture, and religion. In matters spiritual, Dr. Mahoney advises, accept no substitutes." --John O''Sullivan, senior fellow, National Review , former advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.