An Officer of Civilization

by Nurit Buchweitz

  In his non-literary texts – theoretical essays and writings about his private life4 – Houellebecq also expresses indifference toward religious experience, based on his non-belief in God and his basic inability to consider the concept of the Holy Spirit too seriously.5 He sees no real value in religion per-se, and his scientific-logical views lead him to understand religion as a social construct that uses virtual thinking6 to meet various human needs. For this reason he explains why people “gather in prayer” in the following manner (my translation):

  Religion offers a quite original formula: to audaciously deny separation and death by asserting that, contrary to all appearances, we are immersed in God’s love while making our way to a blessed eternity. A religious ceremony where all participants would have faith, should therefore give the unique example of a successful celebration. Some agnostic participants may even, during the celebratory process, feel overcome by a feeling of faith; but then, they take the risk of a terrible descent (somewhat like in the sexual act, but worse). ← 120 | 121 →

  [«La religion propose une formule tout à fait originale: nier audacieusement la séparation et la mort en affirmant que, contrairement aux apparences, nous baignons dans l’amour divin tout en nous dirigeant vers une éternité bienheureuse. Une cérémonie religieuse dont les participants auraient la foi donnerait donc l’exemple unique d’une fête réussie. Certains participants agnostiques peuvent même, durant le temps de la célébration, se sentir gagnés par un sentiment de croyance; mais ils risquent ensuite une descente terrible (un peu comme pour le sexe, mais pire)». (“La fête”, Interventions 2, pp. 87–88)]

  Regarding the relation between science and religion, he maintains that

  «La science remplacera Dieu avec un meilleur résultat, je veux dire, sans les effets pervers de la religion […] Dans le futur, comme j’ai déjà expliqué, une religion compatible avec la science et la physique quantique, basée sur l’altruisme et la morale, organisera la vie des hommes.»7

  [Science will replace God with a better result, I mean, without the perverse effects of religion […]. In the future, as I have already explained, a religion, compatible with science and quantum physics, relying on altruism and ethics, will organize men’s lives.]

  One technique used by authors to express their opinions is to place them in the mouths of characters.8 Thus, Michel Djerzinski, the scientist in The Elementary Particles, asks himself, “But how long could Western civilization continue without some kind of religion?” (p. 135) [«mais combien de temps la société occidentale pourrait-elle subsister sans une religion quelconque?» (Particules, p. 162)] and in Lanzarote Rudi claims in his letter that “for one reason or another, human societies have always had great difficulty in organizing themselves without reference to a higher principle” (p. 66) [«pour une raison ou une autre, les communautés humains ont toujours eu le plus grand mal à s’organiser sans référence à un principe supérieur» (Lanzarote, p. 71)]” These examples clearly indicate that Houellebecq’s writing is essentially atheistic and that he refuses to grasp onto a naïve ideal lying beyond the social. His lamentation of the lack ← 121 | 122 → of religion is not rooted in reasons of essence but rather in the problems arising in societies governed by the cultural logic of late capitalism; Houellebecq is aware that without a minimum degree of solidarity it is impossible to maintain social ethics and proper social functioning. The globalized market has created atomized people, and it is these problems that Houellebecq addresses – loss of familiarity, communality, and society. These issues raise two main questions – “how will society continue to exist?” and, furthermore, “what is a worthy society and how can it be managed?”. Even if Gnosticism is a demand for absolute knowledge, and this absoluteness will enable believers to detach themselves from ethical systems, the question of ethical life continues to hover overhead, since ethical life is the foundation of all social existence. Houellebecq opposes dogma and does not recognize the transcendent; therefore he does not search for a sublime authority nor does he suggest returning to a life based on religious doctrines. In addition, Houellebecq’s world is deeply secularized, and scientific methodology provides the backdrop and scenery for discussions and thematic developments in his works.9 According to Houellebecq, even if science cannot address moral questions, it offers a modus for understanding the world, one that is no less serious than ideologies based in prejudiced metaphysics – such as religion. Houellebecq prefers science as a participant in the renewed negotiations concerning the meaning of life, as is evident from his inclusions of extensive and discursive discussions of scientific facts and principles.

  Houellebecq rejects the proposition that, lacking an orthodox dogma, secular ethics can be shaped in various ways by the very strength of the human being. When the concept of free will has collapsed, and there is «un certain manque de personnalité, perceptible chez chacun» [“a lack of personality, perceptible about everyone”], (“Approches du désarroi”, Interventions 2, p. 37, my translation), the onus of social responsibility cannot be placed on self-elevation and the power of individuals.10 In addition, ← 122 | 123 → according to Houellebecq in “D’abord, la souffrance” (Rester Vivant, p. 9, henceforth my translation), the basic condition of the world is «une souffrance déployée. A son origine, il y a un nœud de souffrance» [«a deployed pain. At its origin, there is a knot of pain”], and man’s total inability to be happy is the “founding event” of his works.11 All of these factors set the stage for Houellebecq to develop the Elohimite religion in The Possibility of an Island; its evolution and tenets form the arena in which the author wrestles with the possibility of belief in a secularized world.

  The Possibility of an Island goes back and forth between describing contemporary Europe, in which the demise of monotheistic religions coincides with the ascent of the Elohimite church, and a future world, two millennia away. In this future, Elohimism will be the dominant religion – the only religion – following the collapse of all monotheistic religions. Houellebecq’s Elohimism is directly related to late capitalism, based on the cornerstones of mass consumption, sexual permissiveness, and leisure. This is a faith which promises, for the first time in human history, happiness in this world, not in the next.12 The Elohimites offer a present of hedonistic enjoyment and a future of eternal life, by simply depositing DNA which can be revived in a younger body. Houellebecq describes the formation of Elohimism in great detail, listing its organizational mechanisms and its means of dissemination. He includes its dogmas and sacraments, even the gospel of one of its first believers. This parody of religion is written from a clearly gnostic platform – atheism replaces monotheism, a cynical lack of morality replaces morality, and lack of revelation replaces redemption.13

  Like early Christianity, the new religion develops from a small sect, Elohimite, at the turn of the twenty-first century. According to the religion’s beliefs, the Anakim, visitors from outer space, created humanity in a laboratory setting millions of years earlier. The believers, the Elohimites, live in expectation of the revival of the New Heavenly Jerusalem. The story of the religion is related by a witness to its early days, Daniel1, who lived around 2015 and converted to Elohimism, then writing ← 123 | 124 → its gospel. Daniel25, his cloned offspring and an Elohimite neohuman living two thousand years later, offers an account of the religion in the future. The Elohimites worship the extraterrestrials who created humanity and await their return. They live in expectation of the Coming of the Future Ones, which will come to pass after the Third Decrease of the world’s population. The man-made apocalypse had already taken place in the First Decrease, when Earth’s climate changed and its population dwindled. Once humanity became extinct, and neohumanity emerged, the Supreme Sister, who is worshipped by the Elohimites and guides them through her writings,14 appeared, together with the seven founders of the central city of neohuman communities. The three pillars of Elohimitism are “the rigorous duplication of the genetic codes, meditation on the life story of the predecessor, the
writing of the commentary.” (Possibility, p. 125) [«La duplication rigoureuse du code génétique, la méditation sur le récit de vie du prédécesseur, la rédaction du commentaire.» (Possibilité, p. 179)]. These three pillars, as well as the prophet’s three disciples and the unity of father and son, are all evocative of fundamental Christian beliefs.

  The crystallization of the Elohimite religion is reminiscent of the story of early Christianity, but at the same time the two stand in total opposition.15 As with all founding stories, the faith was established by a prophet-leader following Divine revelation. Daniel, the hero of the novel, provides a link to Christianity, which adopted Daniel’s apocalyptic visions as detailed in the Hebrew Bible. Daniel1 is a satirist, an ironic representation of the biblical Daniel, the wise man who solved problems and told the future. However, he is also a modern reincarnation of this character, a variation on the voice of reason in a rationalistic culture. The sight of the Elohimite prophet in his white robe refers back to the image of God in the Book of Daniel,16 and is clearly reminiscent of Christian iconography.17 ← 124 | 125 → The prophet, like Christ, first attracts the poor and downtrodden,18 followed later by the wealthier members of society. The latter have good reasons for joining, as we shall see shortly. The prophet is accompanied by a triumvirate of founders (Possibility, p. 209; Possibilité, p. 296), the disciples intended to disseminate the gospel following the prophet’s death and (fake) resurrection. These are Knowall, the neurology professor who will invent cloning; Cop, who manages the organizational aspects of religion; and Joker, who has accompanied the leader since the religion was first established thirty-seven years earlier.19 The prophet’s message is an inversion of religion based on faith, transcendence, good moral virtues and a preference of soul over body. Additionally, the prophet teaches that “the traces of Adam’s sin had disappeared, and now we lived according to the new law of true love” (Possibility, p. 188) [«les traces du péché d’Adam avaient disparu, nous vivions maintenant sous la loi nouvelle du véritable amour» (Possibilité, p. 266)]. According to the tenets of the Elohimite religion:

  The Elohimites rarely form stable couples; they can live together for two or three years, sometimes more, but the prophet strongly encourages everyone to keep their autonomy and independence, particularly financial, no one must consent to a durable reduction of their individual freedom, whether through marriage or through a civil union, love must remain open and be able to be constantly renewed, such are the principles decreed by the prophet. (Possibility, p. 136)

  [«Les élohimites forment rarement des couples stables, ils peuvent vivre ensemble deux ou trois ans, parfois plus, mais le prophète encourage vivement chacun à garder son autonomie et son indépendance, en particulier financière, nul ne doit consentir à un dessaisissement durable de sa liberté individuelle, que ce soit par un mariage ou un simple PACS, l’amour doit rester ouvert et pouvoir être constamment remis en jeu, tels sont les principes édictés par le prophète.» (Possibilité, p. 192)] ← 125 | 126 →

  The Elohimite faith considers love and conjugal relationships to be instrumental, short term, reversible, and material; the opposite of attitudes espoused by the monotheistic faiths. Similarly, the Elohimite “Christmas”, called the Marvelous Encounter (with the extraterrestrials), resembles a nudist New Age free-love workshop. The modest refreshments served are not an expression of modesty or humility, but rather the fashionable adherence to maintaining a supple, youthful figure:

  I had expected a more or less sumptuous meal, punctuated by sybaritic delights; I was quickly disillusioned. When it came to food, the prophet was a devotee of the greatest frugality […]. Not only was he a Cretan Diet fanatic, he did an hour of gymnastics every day, along the lines of movements precisely designed to tone the cardiovascular system, and took tablets of Pantestone and MDMA, as well as other medication, available only in the USA. He was literally obsessed by physical aging, and the conversation was almost uniquely about the proliferation of free radicals […]. (Possibility, p. 163)

  [«Je m’attendais plus ou moins à un repas somptueux, ponctué de délices sybaritiques; je dus rapidement déchanter. En matière d’alimentation, le prophète entenait pour la plus grande frugalité […]. Non seulement il était régime Crétois hard-core, mais il faisait une heure de gymnastique par jour, selon des mouvements précisément conçus pour tonifier l’appareil cardiovasculaire, prenait des comprimés de Pantestone et de MDMA, ainsi que d’autres médicaments disponibles uniquement aux USA. Il était littéralement obsédé par le vieillissement physique, et la conversation roula presque uniquement sur la prolifération des radicaux libres.» (Possibilité, p. 230; emphasis in the original)]

  In light of this it is not surprising that Daniel1 refers to the Elohimites as “the Very Healthy Ones” (Possibility, p. 81) [«les Très Sains» (Possibilité, p. 114)], emphasizing their preference for flesh over spirit, life on earth over the afterlife, and the Elohimite worship of the physical body.

  Elohimism is not Houellebecq’s own invention, although he imbues it with a great future that it is yet to experience. The Elohimites are based on the Raëlian sect, named after its founder, Raël (Claude Vorilhon), who is the prototype for Houellebecq’s prophet. In Lanzarote, the narrator relates Vorilhon’s life story and how, after the extraterrestrials revealed themselves to him, he was moved to found Raëlism. Many of the technological ideas in Possibility are influenced by Raël’s ideas, especially the concept of trans-humanism found in Raël’s book Yes to Human Cloning. Houellebecq draws upon this work in shaping the notion of genetic cloning, the idea of accelerated growth (the ability to create adult individuals directly at their physical and mental prime) and that the predecessor’s personality ← 126 | 127 → and memory will be transferred to the cloned creature; Houellebecq also published a non-literary essay that suggests cloning may be a means of ensuring eternal life (see “Consolation Technique”, Interventions 2, pp. 207–214). Likewise, Elohimite values are based on Raël’s teachings, which emphasize maximum enjoyment and self-fulfillment.

  It is all but impossible not to note the connection between the tenets of this new religion and the foundations of contemporary western society, to the point that an homologous relationship appears to exist between them. First, the new religion is based on science and technology, not miracles – in keeping with contemporary western mentality’s tendency toward rational secularism. Similarly, underlying its structure is the value of reason, and its epistemology is scientific. Furthermore, this is not a religion that believes in a monotheistic god – Elohimite extraterrestrials are not perceived as a sacred authority that dictates a specific lifestyle. Indeed, the western world adheres to the concept of autonomous individuals shaping their world according to their own choices, rather than the absolute commandment of a spiritual authority. In secularized western society, even people who view themselves as believers find it hard to indicate how this belief affects their everyday life. Another similarity between Elohimism and western society is the emphasis on meeting individual needs to the maximum possible degree: in this way the religion appeals to Westerners living in a competitive social system which elicits selfish behavior; to those with a prominent and developed egotistical dimension of their personality, who see the world as external to the self, as a mere instrument to satisfy their needs.

  Moreover, the narrator, Daniel1, who is credited with giving reliable commentary, directly and explicitly highlights the ties between this religion and contemporary culture. Daniel1 is portrayed as possessing a good grasp on reality and the talent to present it to his audience unabashedly, thus likening him to the author.20 Like the Biblical Daniel, Daniel1 is skilled at extracting meaning from the riddles of reality (a meaning that is, at times, meaningless). He possesses keen awareness, clear vision, and a good understanding of dismembered twentieth-century society, which he describes as a humanist “end of the line” (Possibility, p. 26) [«une ← 127 | 128 → ambiance de fin de partie» (Possiblité, p. 36)]. In the very firs
t chapter of Daniel1’s autobiography, he repeats the words “I was, indeed, a cutting observer of contemporary reality” (Possibility, p. 14; emphasis in the original) [«En résumé, j’étais un observateur acéré dela réalité contemporaine» (Possibilité, p. 21; emphasis in the original)] and compares himself – or rather states that criticism has compared him – to “the French moralists three centuries before” (Possibility, p. 15) [«les moralistes français trois siècles auparavant» (Possibilité, p. 22)], returning to Balzac. He sees himself as sharing their abilities to read the roadmap of reality and analyze it clearly. Daniel1 reports that in his lifetime he has witnessed “the dissolution of societies with strong religious moral strictures” (Possibility, p. 145) [«la dissolution des sociétés à morale religieuse forte» (Possibilité, p. 205)], and identifies contemporary culture with the consumerism of which “capitalism was […] a natural habitat” (Possibility, p. 133) [«le capitalisme était […] un milieu naturel» (Possibilité, p. 188)], a culture that glorifies the intensification of desires, increasing them “to an unbearable level while making the fulfillment of them more and more inaccessible” (Possibility, p. 57) [«jusqu’à l’insoutenable tout en rendant leur réalisation de plus en plus inaccessible» (Possibilité, p. 83)]. Daniel1 also notes that “in the modern world you could be a swinger, bi, trans, zoo, into S&M, but it was forbidden to be old” (Possibility, p. 148; emphasis in the original) [«Dans le monde moderne, on pouvait être échangiste, bi, trans, zoophile, SM, mais il était interdit d’être vieux.» (Possibilité, p. 209; emphasis in the original)], and thus he concludes:

  During the first phases of my rise to fortune and glory, I had occasionally tasted the joys of consumption, by which our epoch shows itself so superior to those that preceded it. You could quibble forever over whether men were more or less happy in past centuries. You could comment on the disappearance of religions, the difficulty of feeling love, discuss the disadvantages and advantages of both; you could mention the appearance of democracy, the loss of our sense of the sacred, the crumbling of social ties […] but it remains the case that, on the level of consumption, the preeminence of the twentieth century was indisputable: nothing, in any other civilization, in any other epoch, could compare itself to the mobile perfection of a contemporary shopping center functioning at full tilt. I had thus consumed, with joy, shoes most notably; (Possibility, p. 21)