Category Archives: conservatism

Macbeth and the Unconscious

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Macbeth confessed, “My dull brain is wracked by things forgotten.” Thus, he admitted that he was haunted by things his brain had “forgotten” which is to say his “dull brain” had not really “forgotten” them. In other words, he was beset by his unconscious.

Such is the human lot. We cannot escape the haunt of our unconscious depths, those unseemly fears, anxieties, and beastly impulses which civilization does not permit. And they have this unearthly way of slipping out when we are least expecting it. For example, I can’t help but speculate what led Michelle Bachman to select the term “deep penetration” recently in reference to her perceived infiltration of our government by Muslim extremists. Or, perhaps I’m just a dirty old man!

And the unconscious has a collective as well as an individual dimension. For example, note the present conservative emphasis on drawing boundaries between “us and them”, most obviously in their emphasis of building a fence to keep the Mexicans out. Yes, I do think they over emphasize boundaries. But, I readily acknowledge that we liberals are too prone to not set boundaries readily enough, that we are too quick to trot out the Bill Clinton “I feel your pain” and attempt to do too much to assuage the public ills.

 

A Thought about Mormonism

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The current issue of The New Yorker has an article on Mormonism entitled “The Birth and Evolution of Mormonism” by Adam Gopnik. This article provides a very good historical summary of Mormonism and its efforts to adapt over the past two centuries to a culture that has always looked askance at it.

It would be easy for a Southern-born Redneck like me to be real critical of Mormonism. But I’m not much more critical this “ism” than I am with all the rest of ‘em. AND, all of us are knee-deep in some “ism” or another, whether we like it or not. I guess I’m a social scientist at heart and enjoy reading someone’s thoughtful account of a religious expression, especially one that is so prominent in our country at present moment.

It is easy to see the lunacy of Mormonism. (I’m tempted here to trot out a few of my favorites, but will leave that selection to your devices!) But it is not so easy to see the lunacy of our own belief system and believe me, it is there.

 

Living in the Light of a Dead Star

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Le Monde recently ran an interview by Greek playwright, Dimitris Dimitriadis, in which he provided a critique of the current Greek/EU crisis which is relevant to our own country. He described recent Greek history as like “living in the light of a dead star” and described his country as refusing to accept its “own transience, and is hostile to other identities—a country which…cannot accept what it calls the enemy, and is unable to see that the ‘enemy’ is the prospect of its own future. Greece is characterized by a sort of stagnation, and an unchanging mentality: we stick with our old psychological and social habits, our lives are sustained by a dead tradition, which we never think of renewing.” He noted the marvelous history of his culture then noted that it is “stuck in the mechanism of history…and has been petrified in the form of clichés and stereotypes.”

Dimitriadis also made reference to the spiritual nature of this problem, declaring that the only resolution is the acceptance of a death of an old way of life out of which can come the new. In other words, he was saying that we have to accept change. And, change does not have to destroy tradition but, if brought about with mature leadership, can actually revivify sterile and moribund tradition

(AFTERTHOUGHT: I read this Le Monde interview in Presseurop on the internet. Presseurop is a composite of various European newspapers available in English. It provides an interesting perspective on the European circumstances which we hear so much about daily, all of which is very relevant our own country.)

 

O’Bama Care Decision

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The conservative extremists’ reaction to the John Roberts role in the recent Supreme Court decision re O’Bama Care illustrates my obsessive concern with ideologues. When you are dealing with an ideologue, you are dealing with someone who is out of touch with reality, someone who would prefer “winning” over anything else, someone who must be “right” over anything else. And when someone who is “on their side” suddenly gets an independent streak and thinks contrary to the party-line, their welfare is in jeopardy. (By “welfare”, I mean their approval by their in-group; but in rarest extremes, even their physical welfare will be in jeopardy.)

And as noted so frequently, this extremism is not the exclusive domain of conservatives! I encourage you again to watch the video posted last week of Jonathan Haidt regarding moral absolutism. Google his name and there are several other videos of him available, including one with Stephen Colbert.   AND, though he is an avowed “liberal”, his conclusions are not always in favor of “liberals.” Imagine that!

Here is the Haidt link from last week:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

Jonathan Haidt on Morality & Politics

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Jonathan Haidt is a psychologist who studies morality and emotion and how they vary from culture to culture.  He has an excellent TED talk which I will post below and several other on-line interviews, including one by Stephen Colbert.

Haidt’s studies attempt to address the issue of the human tendency to isolate into groups which become very smug and very dismissive of others.  I am particularly pleased to see him apply his theory to our particular political culture at present moment. He reports that, “Morality, by its very nature, makes it had to study morality.  It binds people together into teams that seek victory, not truth.  It closes hearts and minds to opponents even as it makes cooperation and decency possible within groups…To live virtuously as individuals and as societies, we must understand how our minds are built.  We must find ways to overcome our natural self-righteousness.  We must respect and even learn from those whose morality differs from our own.”

Now in his TED talk in particular, it is quite apparent that he is a liberal.  But he reports that as a result of his research he was given pause and had to note at one point that the conservative view point has a whole lot to offer. What his research teaches is that we must be given pause, take a look at the other view point, and stop demonizing each other.

This election is not about winning!  If we are so immature that we merely mindlessly want our pony to win the race, then we really need to do some growing up.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

Kudos to Southern Baptists!

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I was so proud to learn that the Southern Baptist Convention elected a black man as its President. Who would have thunk it! AND, just weeks ago they seriously were considering re-naming their denomination due to the baggage that was associated with its name.

I grew up a Baptist in the deep South and was taught that change of this magnitude was just not right, that the “faith once delivered unto the saints” was never to be compromised, that “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” Of course, much of this tradition was just that—tradition and had its origin in a cultural setting. “Truth” was not as rigid as we were taught back then and I’m glad the Baptists are now evolving. Yes, I hear talk that some of them are even learning to walk upright!

Do I need to be right?

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“The need to clarify, explain, or justify oneself in personal relationships, is always self-serving.” Mike Dooley shared this recently on his daily post.

There is certainly a time to explain oneself, to defend one’s position. But so much of it is unnecessary waste of energy, merely trying to “cover our ass.” There are so many times when we merely need to “offer our deed to oblivion”…verbal or otherwise…and then practice the wisdom of the Beatles—“Let It Be.” So much needless disputation amounts only to egos sparring with one another for dominance, each insistent on being right. And, of course there is no better example of this than in the nonsense which has created this current deadlock in Washington.

And, as is always the case, I speak from experience. So much of my life has been spent in trying to convince others that I was “right”, in belief and in behavior. I have now given up. But, having given up and living with ambivalence, I have firm confidence that there is a Right that graces the universe and that in some faint fashion I am part of that process.

Beware of ideologues!

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It is now about a year ago since Harold Camping had his 15 minutes of fame with his end-of-the-world insanity. Like all of his predecessors, he proved to be wrong and he and his followers were left with egg on their face. Religion Dispatches posted an article recently in which followers of Camping were interviewed about their life in the past year since they got “egged.” A few now totally denounce their former “apocalypse now” style of faith but most of merely reformulated it, offering revised interpretations of the “end of the world.” In other words, they now adopt the pose, “No, it didn’t happen as we anticipated. But, in a way it did happen and here is what I mean….”

In other words, they cling to their lunacy. And that is how we humans tend to behave—we get something in our heads and then hold on to it for dear life. Tearing someone away from a lunatic idea is like trying to take a piece of red meat away from a hungry mongrel. But, I think it goes further than that. We cling to all ideas as if they were ultimate reality and fail to look at what the ideas have reference to; we fail to “wrestle with words and meanings” (T. S. Eliot) as such an enterprise would be too scary. W. H. Auden noted, “And Truth met him and held out Her hand. And he clung in panic to his tall beliefs and shrank away like an ill-treated child.” Decades ago I read someone who noted, “Our thoughts are the belated rationalization of conclusions to which we have already been led by our desires.” In other words, we think and believe only what we want to.

Now let me clarify and be honest. The temptation of being an ideologue is not the exclusive domain of conservative religious zealots. It is a temptation for all of us. Yes, even for the “literarylew” ilk! I have seen egregious examples of this obnoxiousness with liberal, educated, “enlightened” people. It is all the same.

And I close with the oft quoted Buddhist observation about words: the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.

Churches and “group think”

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The origins of my recent concern with spiritual incest lie in my youth when I was raised in a very cloistered denominational environment. I would like to elaborate as it would help shed light on my observations.

My first year out of high school I spent in a very conservative seminary.   This seminary taught formally and rigorously themes which I had already imbibed in my church upbringing.  For example, there was pronounced emphasis on the Pauline admonishment to, “Come ye out from among them and be ye separate.”  This meant to be morally upright so that the community would clearly know that you were different because of your faith, that your Christian testimony was unsullied by the temptations of the world.  But this same teaching was applied to ecclesiastical teachings as we were taught that our churches also should be “set apart” by our doctrinal purity and by our hard-line stance on moral issues of the day.  Furthermore, we were taught that this moral and doctrinal purity had set us apart throughout history, even back to the time of Christ, as we had been the only church which had been “stead fast in the faith” even as other churches routinely departed from the “faith once delivered unto the saints.” And another dimension of this teaching was that we were the only true church, the only church with historical continuity back to the original church that Jesus had started when he noted,  “Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

We did allow that there were people in other denominations who were saved…somewhat… provided that in some shape form or fashion they had “accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior”;  but by virtue of not belonging to the “true church” they would not be part of the “bride of Christ” when they got to heaven.  This “bride of Christ” was an exalted status that would be given to the true church that had steadfastly held to the foundations of the faith throughout history.  However, there were many who were not saved and who would spend eternity in hell,  among them being Catholics, Jews, and Mormons and that is not even counting the hordes in other cultures who had not even heard of Christ.

Now, one example of the “historical scholarship” alluded to already needs to be further explained.  Great emphasis was placed on tracing church lineage back to the time of Christ as the only true church had to be able to prove historical continuity back to the time of Christ.  This was done by painstakingly researching church history and ascertaining which religious groups and movements adhered to cardinal teachings of the faith, one of which was “believer’s baptism”, meaning rejection of pedo-baptism (sprinkling of infants).

I could go on and on with an endless litany of beliefs and practices which set us apart as special people.  And, indeed it was often noted that the Bible taught that God would create a “peculiar” people (and, oh my Lord, were we ever “peculiar”!!!!), a people “set apart”, a “chosen people” who had the task of representing the Kingdom on earth.  Furthermore, we had the task of “standing in the gap” and acting as a deterrent from the onslaught of the evil forces that always beset this “wicked world.”

Now, so much of this dogma has a place if taken with moderation and with humility.  For example, I think that persons of faith will stand out and be conspicuous by simply representing quality and by seeking value in their life.  But they will not have to flaunt it!  And they certainly will not have to announce it with pride and arrogance!  They will not have to be ostentatious with it.  It will not have to be a response to an impoverished identity;  it will not have to be a fig leaf that hides them from their existential nakedness.

And this “incest” label is admittedly heavy-handed and is not exclusive to sectarian religion.  All religions, and indeed all groups, tend to be self-serving and tend to set their boundaries too rigid.  All groups tend to err towards “group-think” in which their primary purpose becomes the perpetuation of their own dogma and the exclusion of those who are threatening.  I recently quoted W. H. Auden on this note, where he described the individual who would deign to question conventional wisdom, diving into

…the snarl of the abyss
That always lies just underneath
Our jolly picnic on the heath
Of the agreeable, where we bask,
Agreed on what we will not ask,
Bland, sunny, and adjusted by
The light of the accepted lie.

Dangers of Spiritual Incest

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Incest was a common theme in the clinical word that I did as a counselor.  The incest always reflected pronounced family dysfunction, always gravely influencing each member of the family even if they were sexually abused themselves . Incest is about power and control and often occurs in families who are isolated in some respect from the local community, be that a perceived isolation or something more concrete such as geographical or socioeconomic factors.

But incest is also a term that can be applied to groups as a whole.  Some groups can function as an incested family and be similarly inverted, turned-in on themselves with minimal reference to the outside world.  Usually this internal reference is perceived as a virtue and in fact reference to the external world is not only discouraged but is often demonized.  The world is perceived as dangerous and threatening, “evil” if you please, and contamination by this world is a constant peril.  (I feel strongly that this is often an element in the home-schooling movement though certainly not in all cases.)

I would like to focus briefly on what I call “spiritual incest.”  By this I mean the tendency to isolate ourselves in groups who believe just as we do and to discourage any dissenting beliefs.  In groups like this “doctrinal purity” is inordinately emphasized.  And there is nothing wrong with purity of any sorts but when it becomes an obsession it always leads to problems.  For example, when the “doctrinal purity” demon is unleashed, it tends to never end.  Once there is a “house-cleaning” and the miscreants are expelled or “churched…to use an old frontier term…the demon remains.  So, a few years later, there arises a new doctrinal dispute and once again another “house cleaning” is necessary and the ritual is enacted again.  For, this is tremendously rewarding to be on the side of the pure and know that you are “cleansing the temple”, that you are “standing firm for the truth that was once delivered unto the saints”, etc., etc.  I know.  Been there.  Done that.  Gosh it was fun.  I felt so pious.

Oh the shame of motives late revealed, and the awareness of things ill done, and done to others harm which once we took for exercise of virtue.  (T. S. Eliot “Four Quartets”)

(HISTORICAL NOTE: Historians have noted that this quest for doctrinal purity, especially in the 19th century on the frontier, created our “denominational society” as churches routinely split over picayune doctrinal disputations, giving rise to new churches and denominations)