Draft:Lord of the World
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Lord of the World is a 1907 British dystopian novel written from a Catholic standpoint by Robert Hugh Benson. It describes the rise of the Antichrist, touching on issues relevant to an Edwardian era Englishman like the rise of socialism/humanism (often conflated), a perceived decline in western moral standards, and the rise of powers outside of Europe. A modern viewer might recognize it as "Left Behind but Catholic." Prominent modern Catholics have praised the book as “prophetic[1]” which is hilarious if you read it from a more neutral standpoint.
The setting[edit]
The time is around a century into the future. The Earth is divided between three religious groups; Catholicism,[note 1] atheistic Humanism, and the "Eastern Religions" which Benson treats as if they were one group. The world is also divided into three power blocs, similar to 1984.
The European Confederation (which also dominates Africa) is a Marxist one-party state which uses Esperanto as a lingua franca. It prides itself on the persecution of nationalism and religion, and has substituted it with this bizarre Freemason-inspired Cult of the Supreme Being knock-off. Catholicism survives as a much-scorned and very small subculture, centered around Rome which has been given as a city-sate to the pope.[note 2] The confederation might remind a modern reader of the Soviet Union, Oceania from 1984, or perhaps a strawman of the EU, though none of these existed at the time Lord of the World was written. A more accurate real-world inspiration would be none other than the Labour Party-it had just been founded by the time this book came out, and was much more overtly socialist than it is today. Even then it is a strawman, so if you really want a modern analog think of right wing hate-fantasies about "The UK under the tyrannical rule of Jeremy Corbyn" or "the sad state of America under the Biden Junta."
Then we have...America. Yes, that one, though it has somehow occupied all the new world. Because Benson has that classically pre-war European disdain for anything outside of the old world as a whole and Europe in particular, the U.S. pretty much exists so it can swallow up the western hemisphere and spare him from writing about it. It has fallen under the same "evil humanism" seen in the Confederation. It turns out to be the homeland of the Antichrist, a charismatic socialist Senator from Vermont named Bernie Sanders Julian Felsenburgh.
Finally, we have Eastasia the "Eastern Empire," a bloated Imperial Japan tailor-made to prey upon "Yellow Peril" sentiments common in Europe, then inflamed by the Russo-Japanese war showing an Asiatic power beating a European one. Before the start of the book they have conquered China, most of the Islamic world, Asiatic Russia, and the Antipodes. The East is the only power where religion is still widespread and "humanistic Marxism" is not the dominant ideology-all of the religions traditionally practiced by the empires' subjects are tolerated so long as they somehow integrate veneration of the emperor (usually called the "Son of Heaven") into their observances. They are also on the brink of war with the Confederation, which gives Felsenburgh a chance to extend his reach beyond America by preventing the outbreak of hostilities and becoming a nigh-universally admired global celebrity afterword.
Themes[edit]
Like most religious dystopian works, a central conceit of the novel is that normalizing secularism would ultimately lead to the direct harm of theists. The passage of the Test Act by Felsenburgh, forbidding religious belief on pain of death, is treated as the inevitable endgame of a humanist society and most of the secular characters see nothing wrong with it-in fact, roving secular mobs are trying to kill Christians before Felsenburgh himself orders it. Other prominent strawmen include the old "all atheists are Marxists" chestnut, and atheists being unable to value life because they don't believe in the supernatural.[note 3]
In addition to that humans are stressed to be inherently religious creatures who must seek out the supernatural no matter how secular they claim to be. Humanism will be described by its own proponents as an anti-theistic movement and a religion worshiping man in the same breath. According to Benson humans are so inherently spiritual they will recreate the mechanisms of organized religion even as they run away from it. In fact, Humanism is the most evil of all religions-as befits the religion of Christ's ultimate opponent-because it denies original sin. Saying "human nature is the source of good" or "reason is a superior foundation for society compared to faith" allows our inherently sinful impulses to run amok.[note 4]
Good government, good religion, and good morals, are all tied with respecting divinely ordained hierarches. There are two sets of politcal views you can choose from, good catholic reactionism or evil socialism. In the backstory, the spread of atheism and the overthrow of the European monarchies are treated like one process. All liberal republics have become socialist, and this is treated as the natural path for them to take-if you don't have a king, why swing to its antithesis! Catholic monarchy acts as a katechon keeping atheism/socialism back and Protestants are explicitly called out for dooming their nations to atheistic socialism, because you can't sustain proper Christianity beyond the authority of Catholic Church, and without widespread adherence to proper Christianity the basis for proper monarchy falls apart. Socialists cannot be Christian because that requires them to support the divine right of kings and socialism is treated as the political ideology every atheist ends up at.
On a less religious note, you can also see fear of non-European powers throughout the work. The Confederation lost a lot of territory to the Eastern Empire a few decades before the book begins, and an important plot point is the threat of a second war.[note 5] This reflects the anxiety felt throughout the west after the Russo-Japanese war, fresh in memory when Benson was writing. And, of course, the Antichrist ultimately turns out to be an American.
Claims of modern relevance[edit]
Lord of the World is often said, usually by outspoken Catholics, to predict the state of modern society. Technologically, this refers to his use of passenger air travel (albeit through modified zeppelins rather than planes), and the proliferation of extremely powerful explosives which make conventional warfare between great powers almost obsolete. On a political note, the European Confederation is often compared to the Soviet Union, and the charismatic movement around Felsenburgh foreshadowed mass movement authoritarian politics of the Hitler/Lenin/Mao type. Of course, the people then go on to talk about how things like the Test Act represent the evils of godless modern society persecuting noble and honest Christians and corrupting everybody with Humanist/Marxist/Politically Correct/Fascist/whatever dogma even though no secular society has made adherence to religion punishable by death yet, so take these claims with a grain of salt.[2]
On the other hand, a secular reader would find it in fact very dated. He was writing around 1907 and it shows-
-The Confederation still rules Africa as a successor state to the great colonial empires even though the book is implied to take place around 2007. The mere thought of decolonization did not occur to him, even if Europe was under a radical leftist regime.
-Speaking of the Confederation, he still associates Communism with, well, its birthplace in Western/Central Europe. Even Marx himself thought Communist societies had the best chance at emerging in the regions, and the spread of Marxism in the less industrialized nations is not present.[note 6]
-Since Benson is a catholic protestants are portrayed negatively. By undermining the divinely ordained hierarchy of the church they act as a trojan horse by which secular humanism may corrupt Christian communities. (Most protestant strongholds have embraced humanism by 2007.) The is hilariously ironic to a modern reader as fundamentalist Protestantism is basically the face of modern reactionary Christianity.[note 7]
-And, of course, even though secularism has been normalized through most of the developed world we have not devolved into I-can't-believe-it's-not-theocracy hell holes. The spread of secularism, let alone the spread of outright atheism, has not resulted in a culture remotely similar to what Benson describes.
External links[edit]
- Lord of the World complete text at Project Gutenberg
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Other forms of Christianity technically still exist but are on the verge of extinction and thus play no relevant role in the story.
- ↑ Think of it like the Lateran pacts.
- ↑ Shown by the Confederation having a mass euthanasia program even for treatable injuries.
- ↑ More crudely put, the message of the book is every trite cliché atheists arguing with Christians on the internet have ever encountered, but it sounds cooler in old-timey prose.
- ↑ Almost everything about the Eastern empire is also described in extremely racialized terms.
- ↑ Contrast this to Titan, son of Saturn, which was written two years earlier but at least correctly predicts a socialist revolution in Russia. J.B. Burroughs also gets points for the most ridiculous yet awesome idea as to the identity of the Antichrist.
- ↑ For added irony most Christian dystopias written later were composed by evangelicals who insist Catholics are the satanic trojan horse!