Knight defines “secularity” as “the term for the determination of an elite to be autonomous and to make the polis the servant and expression of their autonomy. Some are then free of external intellectual authority, but they themselves comprise an undeclared intellectual authority over others. The state would then not be the project of the formation of plural acting and enabling; rather, it would be a closed economy and property of a clique. This redefinition of religion created a sphere of tight control over public discourse with the intention of extinguishing disunity and disagreement and of bringing about acquiescence and unity under the state.” Politics because “the private function of a small group,” which amounted to a “clerisy and technocracy.”

He admits that there is a certain greatness in the rationality and politics of secularism, but concludes that “it is also just the flamboyance that hides the act of a bully.”