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ON PAGANISM VERSUS HUMANISM
DAVID BROOKS OFFERS AN OPINION PIECE “How to Survive the Trump Years With Your Spirit Intact,” The New York Times, May 1, 2025. Here are tidbits gleaned from his thoughtful analysis.
Paganism Defined. Brooks writes, “If there is one word to define Trump’s atmosphere, it is ‘pagan.’ The pagan values of ancient Rome celebrated power, manliness, conquest, ego, fame, competitiveness and prowess, and it is those values that have always been at the core of Trump’s being—from his real estate grandiosity to his love of pro wrestling to his king-of-the-jungle version of American greatness.”
“The pagan ethos,” Brooks recounts, “has always appealed to grandiose male narcissists because it gives them permission to grab whatever they want. This ethos encourages egotists to puff themselves up and boast in a way they find urgently satisfying; self-love is the only form of love they know.”
Our Pagan Century. “We seem to be entering a pagan century,” Brooks observes. “It’s not only Trump. It’s the whole phalanx of authoritarians, all those greatness-obsessed macho men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. It’s the tech bros. It’s Christian nationalism, which is paganism with worship music. (If you ever doubt the seductive power of paganism, remember it has conquered many of the churches that were explicitly founded to reject it.)”
A Need for Rehumanization. Brooks offers a counterrevolution: “If paganism is a grand but dehumanizing value system, I’ve found it necessary, in this increasingly pagan age, to root myself in anything that feels rehumanizing, whether it’s art or literature or learning.”
Even in Language. “Many great moral traditions,” Brooks notes, “have always stood against paganism and rebutted it. If paganism stands for manly dominance, Judaism, for example, stands for piety, learning and strictness of conscience. Think of the words so highly valued in Jewish life: חסד, chesed (loving kindness), שמחה, simcha (joy, especially communal joy), עֲנָוָה, anavah (humility), צדק, tzedek (justice and charity),לִלמוֹד, limud (study and learning) and קְדוּשָׁה, kedushah (holiness). Those words lift us up to an entirely different moral realm.”
An easy exercise in Google Translate provided me with confirmation of the Hebrew equivalents above.
The Cross as a Symbol. “For the Romans,” Brooks says, “the cross was a symbol of their power—their power to crucify. The early Christians took the cross as their symbol, too, but as a symbol for compassion, grace and self-sacrificial love. Christianity is built on a series of inversions that make paganism look pompous and soulless: Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The last shall be first. The poor are closer to God than the rich. Jesus was perpetually performing outrageous acts of radical generosity, without calculating the cost.”
Rival Visions of the Good. Brooks observes, “Judaism and Christianity confront paganism with rival visions of the good. The contrast could not be starker. Paganism says: Make yourself the center of the universe. Serve yourself and force others to serve you. The biblical metaphysic says: Serve others, and you will find joy. Serve God, and you will delight in his love.”
A Moral Atmosphere. “You may be a person of faith or a person of no faith,” Brooks says, “but which moral atmosphere do you want to live in? The cultural atmosphere you immerse yourself in will slowly form who you are. I don’t fault those pagans for sucking down all those muscle-building diet supplements, but I know the kind of nourishment I need these days for the strength of my mind and the health of my soul.”
A Cultural Transition. “Are we on the cusp of a new religious revival?,” Brooks posits. “The evidence is still much too flimsy and fresh to justify that kind of sweeping assertion, so color me skeptical. But I do think we’re on the cusp of a great cultural transition. On the one hand, the eternal forces of dehumanization are blowing strong right now: concentrated power; authoritarianism; materialism; runaway technology; a presidential administration at war with the arts, universities and sciences; a president who guts Christianity while pretending to govern in its name.”
The Meaning of Humanism. “On the other hand,” Brooks observes, “there are millions of humanists— secular and religious—repulsed by what they see. History is often driven by those people who are quietly repulsed for a while and then find their voice. I suspect different kinds of humanists will gather and invent other cultural movements. They will ask the eternal humanistic questions: What does it mean to be human? What is the best way to live? What is the nature of the common humanity that binds us together? As these questions are answered in new ways, there will be new cultural movements and forms.”
A Loss of Moral Knowledge. Brooks laments, “As the theologian Dallas Willard put it, there has been, over the past decades of neglect, a loss of moral knowledge. We came to a spot in 2024 in which 77 million Americans took a look at Trump’s moral character and didn’t have a problem with what they saw. But the consequences of those character failings are becoming evident in concrete ways.”
“New winds,” Brooks says, “are going to blow.”
And, yes, among my ramblings of Dellow sports cars, Handel operas, GMax aircraft, and the World’s Greatest Consulting Detective’s deductions, I hope to encourage these new winds as well. Thanks, David Brooks, for the humanistic guidance. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025
Simanaitis Says 
Good one, thanks. Many of us, unincorporated ecclesiastically or not, observe religion too often used in lieu of wonder, of boundless knowledge. Those of us around the past coupla millenia can’t help noticing the harmless, maternal, forest religions of wicca, druidism banned and trivialized by the demented, paternal, desert religions of Judiasm, Islam.
The New Testament is less harmful, but the identical story of Jesus in every last detail appears at least five times earlier going back to 2,500 BC. The story of Spartacus is as powerful, but true.
Unsure about the Life of Brian, but an attractive religion for many.
Aesop and Joel Chandler Harris left us with a certain amount of folk wisdom, and note the commonality of impoverished disseminator, both spokesmen slaves, the lowest echelon of society, as with an itinerant traveling carpenter, as opposed to Buddha, a rich guy who left his wife and kids to “find himself.” Little wonder that persuasion popular with so many boomers.
It’s hard to beat the beliefs of the Iroquoian Six Nations Confederacy, oldest participatory democracy on earth, in which squaws were accorded equal vote in all tribal matters, allowed to inherit property, not considered unclean during their time of the month, animals never killed for sport but sustenance, thanks always given to their spirits, and the mentally unbalanced considered blessed by the Great Spirit, and woe to any who harmed them. Contrast with European and Colonial women concurrently treated like chattel, not allowed to vote, and places like Bedlam. Benjamin Franklin and other founders were influenced by many of the Six Nations’ charters.
That said, i’m but an animist not above proclaiming Reformed Druidism if it gets me into the right clubs. While having no hands on experience of Dellows, being catholic in my autoholicism, welcome such knowledge, and anyone wresting an obstinate bolt from an ancient barouche, whether sporting, GT, or auld “road car,” understands the pull of animism.
Onward Christian soldiers indeed. Such one-marque-itis reminds us of Babtists as Chevrolet, Methodists the Pontiac, Lutherans the Oldsmobile, Presbyterians the Buick, Episcopalians the Cadillac. And where does that leave those of us hewing to Sceptered Isle, Continental, and other domestic fare, certainly orphaned at that?
Perhaps Twain, Mencken, as well as Thomas Paine, Spinoza, Shelley, and yes, James Madison, Jefferson and Washington, were right about religion. Google the last three for some perhaps surprising quotes.
Now, Spinoza, there was an interesting bloke. Had a nice ’30s Alfa.
Thank you, Dennis, for this actually hopeful piece. Well appreciated.
Thank you, Mike. And of course, it’s David Brooks to which the thanks are directed.