reality check
Along with many others, Michael Bérubé blogged the Suskind article in the NY Times on Bush's faith. (I can acknowledge a good thing in the Times when it comes along.) A Bush aide aparently tells Suskind that as a member of the reality based community, he can only sit back and watch as the faith-based community, the true actors of history make realities for Enlightenment skeptics to ponder.
In the midst of reading Kevin Phillips' Wealth and Democracy and after having finished Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire, I find the following conclusions unavoidable: the costs of Empire on the domestic economy have undermined working conditions for all working Americans, which means most Americans. Unrelenting globalization, the undermining of public education and the recent Republican plutocrat-favoring politics have left most of famed Middle America so beleaguered that faith is the only thing they have left.
How else to account for the fervor with which so many Americans have embraced an evangelical and apocalyptic Christianity? They may rightfully perceive that their fates on Earth are overdetermined by forces beyond their control and that God may be a better guarantor of some sort of rough justice than our present political system.
More than ever, we need to defend the values of the Enlightenment over the values of Empire and its delusions. Can we be warriors for reason?
In the midst of reading Kevin Phillips' Wealth and Democracy and after having finished Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire, I find the following conclusions unavoidable: the costs of Empire on the domestic economy have undermined working conditions for all working Americans, which means most Americans. Unrelenting globalization, the undermining of public education and the recent Republican plutocrat-favoring politics have left most of famed Middle America so beleaguered that faith is the only thing they have left.
How else to account for the fervor with which so many Americans have embraced an evangelical and apocalyptic Christianity? They may rightfully perceive that their fates on Earth are overdetermined by forces beyond their control and that God may be a better guarantor of some sort of rough justice than our present political system.
More than ever, we need to defend the values of the Enlightenment over the values of Empire and its delusions. Can we be warriors for reason?
2 Comments:
Apocalyptic evangelical Protestantism has been on the rise not just in the United States, but worldwide -- particularly in the slums of Latin America.
My partner once had a long discussion about the increasing popularity of evangelical Protestantism with a Catholic Guatemalan liberation theologist who explained the following: The brand of Protestantism that is really thriving right now emphasizes personal control (e.g. no drinking, no sexual promiscuity, etc.) and presents the world's problems in terms of societal moral failure. Thus, the real problem isn't economic exploitation or a lack of democracy but too much drinking, sex, dancing etc. This is an incredibly appealing message to the truly destitute and powerless; it offers easy prescriptions for self improvement, social improvement and the key to heaven.
Interestingly, (I heard this from a political scientist who studies religion in Latin America) this brand of Protestantism has been especially popular with poor Latin American women, because it has been helpful in keeping men more faithful and better able to hold down a job, etc.
It is going to be a major challenge to confront these attitudes (in a secular manner, no less).
In reply to Nick -- thanks for reminding me about the success of this kind of Evangelism in Latin America.
The Evangelism that has so much appeal right now is also based upon radical individualism -- self-help if you like and is actually against any notion of Christian community based movement for social justice.
In concert with the worship of the market, these sorts of faith based initatives are against the promotion of public culture, public sphere, public institutions in general. Personal accountability to God replaces any notion of political or public accountability to democratic values.
I think we have to change Marx's drug analogy though because it doesn't seem that opium is the right drug with which to compare Evangelism.
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