Shaken AND Stirred (Up)

Madame M:

What’s The Matter With Kansas practically deserves its own complete discussion! You have delivered multiples of poignancy in what you have said already! And your point about the Christians’ tactics and what has been the effect—history repeats once again! Did not Gibbon tell us how the early Christians, who changed from a faith-based, loving , and brotherly community—nearly socialistic; how that fact is glossed over today!—into one often petty, violent, revengeful, spiteful, and hateful as Christians inserted themselves front and center into the politics and attempted to bend the culture to themselves (often by coercion!)? Gibbon, when pressed to name only one primary reason for the fall of Rome, replied simply, “Christianity.” Often this has been misinterpreted as meaning that the warlike Romans were made soft by Christianity, but as what I just described relates, the real meaning is something altogether different.

I think both Gibbon and Jesus, among others, would take pride in your words, Madame. Hard hitting truth it appears to these eyes and this discernment: “We should, if we are who we say we are, be appalled that the government would need to supply so much for so many when there are so many of us with so much.” Sounds very like something the Holy Spirit would inspire a modern prophet to say! The prophets of old, and the disciples and holy people who followed them, called out their culture when it was so wrong and/or so hypocritical.

I think that in all of what you have said in your exactingly good post, you have latched onto Hedges’ frustration with American Christianity, with what he calls “the church.” What could be the very spiritual soul-center of society, which should, if anything, be the hearth and deep-well of what is good and timelessly spiritual, has given itself over to the twisted or corrupt culture in one form or another. Worse, has often promoted it.

I have seen Hedges in interviews. Let me summarize some of what I heard him say. He has watched the rise of the Christian right—and he considers that group not Christians, but heretics. Jesus did not bless getting rich or dropping bombs. Additionally damning is that other Christian “leaders” did not denounce this zealous sanctioning of wealth accumulation and promotion of war. They refused to even remotely acknowledge that the price of the moral life may be death, as Jesus showed. The Christian right became a mass political movement wrapped in the flag and the cross. It is different only in naked violence to the fundamentalist and radical movements of the Islamic world. Most clerics are afraid to challenge the Christian right (just as many moderate Muslim clerics are afraid to challenge the radicals), and the ones that do are often silenced or impoverished and isolated (a better fate, to be sure, than the moderate imams who are killed in the Islamic world, but the chilling effect is nevertheless similar). Perhaps that is why theologian Paul Tillich once remarked: “All institutions, including the Christian church, are inherently demonic.” He understood quite well that fealty to religious value and fealty to religious institutions are different things.

Hedges is exacting in pointing out that far too many Christians hold secret and deceptive agendas. One example is Intelligent Design. Advocated as a viable alternative in teaching biological development in public schools, this seemingly reasonable “multiple viewpoints” stance is discarded in many of the Christians’ own schools—there one finds only one viewpoint taught; no alternative to learning creationism is permitted. “The Christian advocates’ purported love of alternative viewpoints and debates Is replaced by an iron and irrational conformity…” (Hedges 52)

And the minister you cite reinforces Hedges’ condemnation of the unrestrained “self.” Most especially the lack of self-restraint: “In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we neither seek nor want honesty or reality.” (49) Hedges quotes Gabler in saying that “both entertainment and consumption often provided the same intoxication: the sheer, endless pleasure of emancipation from reason, from responsibility, from tradition, from class, and from all the other bonds that restrained the self.” (49)

You have brought up Dave Ramsey, and quoting him seems appropriate here: “Children who reach the age of eighteen with their entire skill set composed of Nintendo and eating Doritos have been abused. The parents neglected the child by not giving him the character traits needed to live successfully. By giving in to every whim and attaching no consequences to actions the parents have given the child a false sense of reality.”

And this one also from Ramsey: “Giving makes children less self-centered. Giving brings your kids depth of character. Thos who never give become shallow, self-centered, and miserable adults.”

We have taken to ruinous absurdity this idea that the self should be so glorified. As if we needed more to unhinge us from reality!

“When a nation becomes unmoored from reality, it retreats into a world of magic. Our national discourse is dominated by manufactured events, from celebrity gossip to staged showcasings of politicians to elaborate entertainment and athletic spectacles. The exposure of the elaborate mechanisms behind the pseudo-event only adds to its fascination and power. Reporters…no longer ask whether the message is true but whether the pseudo-event worked or did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. The worse reality becomes—the more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment skyrocket—the more people seek refuge and comfort in illusion.” (Hedges, 50-51)

How insidious and destructive is this illusion? “The flight into illusion sweeps away the core values of the open society. It corrodes the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense tell you something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to grasp historical facts, to advocate for change, and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways, and structures of being that are morally and socially acceptable. A populace deprived of its ability to separate lies from truth, that has become hostage to the fictional semblance of reality put forth by pseudo-events, is no longer capable of sustaining a free society.” (Hedges 52)

Recall how the Roman emperors used free bread and circus shows to distract the Roman population from the cascading problems. Eventually, the entire civilization collapsed.

We, the masses of this modern culture, are too often obsessed with the trivial, or with diversions such as sports-watching. We then have no time or energy to devote to addressing the problems that are unraveling us. Our actions in effect make us ignore the powerful. And so we give a pass to what they do about war, how they champion and carry out monstrous greed, and how they keep the masses (us) addicted to spectacle.

Ever wonder why we are not galvanized into action at what our intelligence and wisdom should be telling us is avoidable calamity coming right at us? Hedges says it is because we have become lotus-eaters lost in our misty dream world of delusion: “Those who slip into this illusion ignore the signs of impending disaster. The physical degradation of the planet, the cruelty of global capitalism, the looming oil crisis, the collapse of financial markets, and the danger of overpopulation rarely impinge to prick the illusions that warp our consciousness. The words, images, stories, and phrases used to describe the world in pseudo-events have no relation to what is happening around us. The advances of technology and science, rather than obliterating the world of myth, have enhanced its power to deceive. We live in imaginary, virtual worlds created by corporations that profit from our deception.” (Hedges 52)

Removing our illusion-producing virtual reality devices (which take many forms) from our minds reveals a rotting (and perhaps rotten) heart and corrupted soul within what remains of our Republic. Nonsense from the so-called liberal class about the Republic, civilized discourse, rationality, “established programs,” and the like merely provide ammunition for the right to fixate on. They do not obscure the root rot.

Wendell Barry, always an insightful commentator on the state of things and people, is quoted by Hedges: “People whose governing habit is the relinquishment of power, competence, and responsibility, and whose characteristic suffering is the anxiety of futility, make excellent spenders. They are the ideal consumers. By inducing in them little panics of boredom, powerlessness, sexual failure, mortality, paranoia, they can be made to buy (or vote for) virtually anything that is ‘attractively packaged.’” Hedges goes on to say “there are no shortages of experiences and products that, for a price, promise to stimulate us, make us powerful, sexy, invincible, admired, beautiful, and unique.” (Hedges 53)

Hedges closes Chapter 1 with these words that should haunt the awakening: “Blind faith in illusions is our culture’s secular version of being born again. These illusions assure that happiness and success is our birthright. They tell us that catastrophic collapse is not permanent. They promise that pain and suffering can always be overcome by tapping into our hidden, inner strengths. They encourage us to bow down before the cult of the self. To confront these illusions, to puncture their mendacity by exposing the callousness and cruelty of the corporate state, signals a loss of faith. It is to become an apostate. The culture of illusion, one of happy thoughts, manipulated emotions, and trust in the beneficence of power, means we sing along with the chorus or are instantly disappeared from view like the losers on a reality show.” (Hedges 53). Perhaps like those of the 70s and 80s in Latin America, only less violent—for the moment.

Well shaken Hedges, the real Morpheus of our own Matrix! If we listen, and respond to the shaking...