The following uncited quotation appears in The Early Modern European Catachism by Joshua Gibbs. He includes many quotes from philosophy and literature but does not cite any of his sources. Would anyone be able to provide a citation?
Modernity aims to achieve its goals by erecting walls and boundaries that will keep the world neatly divided and under control. The wall of separation between religion and politics will save politics from irrational passion. For moderns, distinguishing ‘us’ from ‘them’ is thus both temporal and spatial: temporal because it distinguishes sharply between the present and the past, spatial because it distinguishes sharply between those who are up to date and those who are mired in a past that moderns have transcended. We moderns organize ourselves into rationally constituted nations; they are organized by irrational blood-bound tribes. We recognize the difference between religion and politics; they confuse the two. We separate fine arts from daily life; with them arts and life are commingled. We believe in equality and freedom; their lives are dominated by hierarchy and slavery. We are rational; they are irrational. Above all, the modern theory of progress rests on the notion that we know nature as it truly is and thus have the ability to control nature in the ways they never imagined.”
