Hancock traces this lineage to the present day. The 20th century was tormented by catastrophic attempts to elevate individual parties, races, or nations to the status of world-dominating powers. We can call this the triumph of the Same: the fanatical aspiration to bring the whole world under the authority of one Reich or one Party. More established in our time, however, is the triumph of the Other—or what Manent has called the “religion of Humanity.” This ersatz faith, a deformation and subversion of Christianity, is a mania for the universal. Whereas any true encounter with the universal must be mediated through local human attachments, the religion of Humanity holds out the promise of unmediated access to Humanity as such. Its sacred figure is the victim—human qua human, pure, uncontaminated by the mediation of nation, class, or creed. The victim is pure negation, absolute Other.
The religion of Humanity accounts for much of the derangement in our most pressing political disputes. For example, devoted Humanitarians do not see immigrants as being from specific places, with distinct beliefs or commitments, formed in ways of life that might or might not be compatible with the nation to which they are journeying. The Humanitarian sees only “migrants,” exemplary figures of pure Humanity: “No human is illegal.” Any claims the receiving nation might wish to invoke or obligations it might wish to impose become a priori illegitimate relative to the unsurpassable moral status of the victim. In this way Humanitarianism depoliticizes core political contests, whisking urgent questions outside the realm of acceptable debate and shrinking the field of political action. The religion of Humanity is a theocracy.
The above pithy quote, by Ian Tuttle, comes from Claremont Review of Books. Tuttle is reviewing Love and Virtue in a Secular Age. That dense book was written by Ralph C. Hancock. It sounds right on.