Q. I detest identity politics because I believe that political elites are over-emphasizing race and deliberately inflaming racial tensions as part of a “divide and conquer” strategy, but I also cannot help but notice that many conservatives seem to entirely discount the importance of race. If bodily characteristics do matter, as we Catholics believe human beings are the union of body and soul, then can the rise of ethnonationalism be interpreted as a legitimate reaction to modern dualism?
What you say about religion is absolutely correct. Not only is religion more important than culture, it is the source of culture. Try to imagine the Iliad, the Odyssey, or any aspect of Greek culture without the Greek gods.
And the greatest example of this was the Catholic Christendom in the West of the High Middle Ages whose unsurpassed cultural excellence was entirely rooted in the absolute Truth of the religion from which it emerged. It is also why there is absolutely no culture today in the twenty first century West or the large swathes of the rest of the world its ideas have impacted; because there is no religion. (No real religion at least. I realize that the ubermaterialism of the modern West can in some ways be called a 'religion' but it is not really the same thing.)
What you say about religion is absolutely correct. Not only is religion more important than culture, it is the source of culture. Try to imagine the Iliad, the Odyssey, or any aspect of Greek culture without the Greek gods.
And the greatest example of this was the Catholic Christendom in the West of the High Middle Ages whose unsurpassed cultural excellence was entirely rooted in the absolute Truth of the religion from which it emerged. It is also why there is absolutely no culture today in the twenty first century West or the large swathes of the rest of the world its ideas have impacted; because there is no religion. (No real religion at least. I realize that the ubermaterialism of the modern West can in some ways be called a 'religion' but it is not really the same thing.)