Sunday, October 30, 2005
Courage in a dismal time
I sent out to a half dozen people the 2002 USA Today information about religion in the USA hoping to scare up a little optimism in our pessimistic and fear full ranks on this Hallowed evening. We hear that the USA has become close minded, that the Enlightenment has glaucoma, that literal dogma has taken over. Polls show the opposite happening for the last fifteen years.
Nevertheless, the responses I've received have all been pessimistic and fear full. There is a tendency to believe we have fallen into the swamp of despond. That Ratzinger's elevation is a gibbous canary in our cultural coal mine.
But I don't think we need to be pessimistic and we must not let outselves fall into the trap of fear fullness which is what the leaders in power and industry and religion have been using to keep us in line. Besides, that kind of pessimism is toxic and paralytic. The powerful know that. They've been using fear since Constantine to control the gates of heaven and hell. They know it works. Too bad for us.
I do not have any statistics to make this case, only my experience, but I think we are in a situation a lot like the sixties and seventies where a segment of the population was given leave by circumstances like Vietnam, like a general loosening of the old cultural restrictions to throw off societal restraints.
Call it the Hippie Years. For some it was a natural time. For others it had to be tried. For others it made no sense. And it shocked the natural conservatives in the country. I think all those people -shocked and long haired - are still with us unless they died.
And then reaction set in. We are living through reaction now. Restrictions abound. Fear has been set loose again.
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
(WBYeats, Second Coming, 1939!)
For some it is a natural time to be heard and to evangelize the virtues of a restricted, anal community (if virtues there truly be in such a community). For others it has to be tried. For others it makes no sense. We are in a time that has shocked the natural liberals in the country.
Tit for tat.
But, I cannot believe that the Bush II era has done anymore than bring these reactionary political and religious evangelicals out of the closet. They were there all the time. And, if some have tried it, many of them are being turned off by the excesses of the regime and the churches just as people were turned off by excesses in the Hippie Years. I am not at all convinced that there have been millions of religious converts during this regime. Maybe it has been the opposite because the voices of protest have continued unabated even if we have no articulate leaders to champion our cause (See National Democratic Party).
And this too will pass. Out of action and reaction will come a new ethos. Some Hippie era excesses will be cleared away, some excesses from this era will be cleaned out and the society will begin to come together again. And it will be different from the 50's & the 60's or 2005.
I reject using fear to mobilize. I will not be motivated or governed by fear. I reject action based on fear whether it comes from the liberal or the conservative ranks. I put terrorism in the same category as weather. We can't control either. We can be prepared with plywood for our windows or with careful police work to secure our tunnels. That's all. Beyond that: Courage.
What are the colors of Homeland Security? Yellow,Orange,Red. Are they your colors? They are not mine. Those colors are all about stopping, running, hiding. There is no GO out there in these dismal days.
We have been pushed and pulled by the voices of fear for too long. Security security security. Everything from baby toys to automobiles to sunspots have to be made safe and secure. Enough already. Shit happens.
We are told that Bush can become a Hitler. Yea. Could be. I could even envision a scenario. But there are still obstacles in place from the Senate, the Congress, the courts, the military, the states, the universities, his own corporate constituencies, the people themselves (I see it in my brother in law, an active member of that most conservative of all organizations, the American Legion. He and many of his local comrades have turned against the Commander in Chief because they see the Commander in Chief as having betrayed them and the country!) Bush has been weakened. Our army has been weakened by his policies.
Let us not permit fear to govern our lives. Instead? Courage. Yes, be prepared as the Boy Scouts say, but that is not to be led by fear, but by intelligently applied courage. Courage intelligently applied: it is more dangerous on the road than in an airplane. But where are we led by our fears? On the road? NO.
We read all the terrible things that Bush will do to us if he gets a chance. True. I'm concerned. Yes. Hitler could happen here. But shall I panic and urge near panic upon my friends? NO. But how far shall I fall into the swamp of fear? Shall I take steps to seed my concern about him? ...steps to make it harder for him to hitlerize this country? I do everyday. Do I need to lose sleep? NO. Shall I fly to Europe or LA? Yes.
The fact is that if you look around you will see that good and powerful things are happening all the time. Courageous people are on the march. We'll not go back to the sixties. No. And we'll not go back to the 50's either.
Courage [OE- Corage - Heart]: a quality of spirit that enables one to face danger without showing or being governed by fear. (Hyperdictionary)
Nevertheless, the responses I've received have all been pessimistic and fear full. There is a tendency to believe we have fallen into the swamp of despond. That Ratzinger's elevation is a gibbous canary in our cultural coal mine.
But I don't think we need to be pessimistic and we must not let outselves fall into the trap of fear fullness which is what the leaders in power and industry and religion have been using to keep us in line. Besides, that kind of pessimism is toxic and paralytic. The powerful know that. They've been using fear since Constantine to control the gates of heaven and hell. They know it works. Too bad for us.
I do not have any statistics to make this case, only my experience, but I think we are in a situation a lot like the sixties and seventies where a segment of the population was given leave by circumstances like Vietnam, like a general loosening of the old cultural restrictions to throw off societal restraints.
Call it the Hippie Years. For some it was a natural time. For others it had to be tried. For others it made no sense. And it shocked the natural conservatives in the country. I think all those people -shocked and long haired - are still with us unless they died.
And then reaction set in. We are living through reaction now. Restrictions abound. Fear has been set loose again.
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
(WBYeats, Second Coming, 1939!)
For some it is a natural time to be heard and to evangelize the virtues of a restricted, anal community (if virtues there truly be in such a community). For others it has to be tried. For others it makes no sense. We are in a time that has shocked the natural liberals in the country.
Tit for tat.
But, I cannot believe that the Bush II era has done anymore than bring these reactionary political and religious evangelicals out of the closet. They were there all the time. And, if some have tried it, many of them are being turned off by the excesses of the regime and the churches just as people were turned off by excesses in the Hippie Years. I am not at all convinced that there have been millions of religious converts during this regime. Maybe it has been the opposite because the voices of protest have continued unabated even if we have no articulate leaders to champion our cause (See National Democratic Party).
And this too will pass. Out of action and reaction will come a new ethos. Some Hippie era excesses will be cleared away, some excesses from this era will be cleaned out and the society will begin to come together again. And it will be different from the 50's & the 60's or 2005.
I reject using fear to mobilize. I will not be motivated or governed by fear. I reject action based on fear whether it comes from the liberal or the conservative ranks. I put terrorism in the same category as weather. We can't control either. We can be prepared with plywood for our windows or with careful police work to secure our tunnels. That's all. Beyond that: Courage.
What are the colors of Homeland Security? Yellow,Orange,Red. Are they your colors? They are not mine. Those colors are all about stopping, running, hiding. There is no GO out there in these dismal days.
We have been pushed and pulled by the voices of fear for too long. Security security security. Everything from baby toys to automobiles to sunspots have to be made safe and secure. Enough already. Shit happens.
We are told that Bush can become a Hitler. Yea. Could be. I could even envision a scenario. But there are still obstacles in place from the Senate, the Congress, the courts, the military, the states, the universities, his own corporate constituencies, the people themselves (I see it in my brother in law, an active member of that most conservative of all organizations, the American Legion. He and many of his local comrades have turned against the Commander in Chief because they see the Commander in Chief as having betrayed them and the country!) Bush has been weakened. Our army has been weakened by his policies.
Let us not permit fear to govern our lives. Instead? Courage. Yes, be prepared as the Boy Scouts say, but that is not to be led by fear, but by intelligently applied courage. Courage intelligently applied: it is more dangerous on the road than in an airplane. But where are we led by our fears? On the road? NO.
We read all the terrible things that Bush will do to us if he gets a chance. True. I'm concerned. Yes. Hitler could happen here. But shall I panic and urge near panic upon my friends? NO. But how far shall I fall into the swamp of fear? Shall I take steps to seed my concern about him? ...steps to make it harder for him to hitlerize this country? I do everyday. Do I need to lose sleep? NO. Shall I fly to Europe or LA? Yes.
The fact is that if you look around you will see that good and powerful things are happening all the time. Courageous people are on the march. We'll not go back to the sixties. No. And we'll not go back to the 50's either.
Courage [OE- Corage - Heart]: a quality of spirit that enables one to face danger without showing or being governed by fear. (Hyperdictionary)
Comments:
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Well said, Wally! Courage indeed! What we need is more courage on both sides of the cultural divide to fight it out in the realm of ideas, and not on the streets with fists and guns. That's what is so great about this blog (and others like it, I would guess:thrust and counter thrust with digital bits, not rapiers. I leave you with a little tidbit that is only marginally related to the main suggestion of "courage", but perhaps a little "benign neglect" (in the phrase made famous by Daniel Patrick Moynihan) on some issues might be good, too. So, concerning benign neglect about science versus religion:
"The experience of being a scientist makes religion seem fairly irrelevant. Most scientists I know simply don't think about it very much. They don't think about religion enough to qualify as practicing atheists."--Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Austin, on science and religion, The New York Time, August 23, 2005, as quoted in the American Physical Society (APS) News, October 2005.
Now, there's a man after my own heart! He's also the man who famously said "the more we know about the universe, the more pointless it seems", or words to that effect. Perhaps the same could be said about the culture wars and the alarums and excursions, or whatever the phrase is, about Bush as Hitler, the Patriot Act and your library card,whether Darwin or whatever kind of design you might be in favor of is right, etc. etc. and so forth.
So, in the immortal words of Dan Rather, and now Wally Weet, Courage!
DOW
"The experience of being a scientist makes religion seem fairly irrelevant. Most scientists I know simply don't think about it very much. They don't think about religion enough to qualify as practicing atheists."--Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Austin, on science and religion, The New York Time, August 23, 2005, as quoted in the American Physical Society (APS) News, October 2005.
Now, there's a man after my own heart! He's also the man who famously said "the more we know about the universe, the more pointless it seems", or words to that effect. Perhaps the same could be said about the culture wars and the alarums and excursions, or whatever the phrase is, about Bush as Hitler, the Patriot Act and your library card,whether Darwin or whatever kind of design you might be in favor of is right, etc. etc. and so forth.
So, in the immortal words of Dan Rather, and now Wally Weet, Courage!
DOW
# posted by 
: 6:41 PM
: 6:41 PM
Some random thoughts about religious expression.
I think Alfred Hitchcock had it wrong with his suspence thriller, "The Birds." It seems the winged creatures actually like to hang around people. They most likey view us bipeds as flighless kinfolk, small Ostrich. Whether birds give vent to religious expression is doubtful, but they certainly express a pecking order. We humans certainly understand the distribution and excercise of power through the time honored rituals of pecking order. Our minds seem to run a different track when it comes to visualizing and responding to our perceptions of cosmic scale pecking orders: i.e. the supposed larger order of the celestial realm.
I saw a Nova program on PBS detailing recent archaeological recoveries at the tops of mountains in Peru which confirm the complaint of Spanish missionaries of the 16th century that the Incas practiced child sacrifice of a brutal nature at the tops of their sacred mountains. It was long thought that the Spaniards exagerated the existence of the practice for their own devious purpose. What is useful in examining the practice of ancient religions is that there are few toes to trample in the current pecking order while at the same time it is possible to learn some shred of understanding of how the human psyche responds with a deep fear in discovering the magnitude of forces beyond its control. That deep anxiety is certainly a component in what we recognize as religious expression.
Now, quoting the quote given in the prior comment:
'the man who famously said "the more we know about the universe, the more pointless it seems", or words to that effect'
I think of a long vanished culture and people, the Minoans, their island world a jewel of social achievement in cultured sophistication. They descended to the point of human sacrifice when the island we know as Santorini in the Aegean exploded with such catastrophic force as to bring their sea empire to its knees, not to recover. Their universe seemed pointless.
We live in times of peril not only in the ever present present, but throughout all of eternal knowledge.
Pylos
I think Alfred Hitchcock had it wrong with his suspence thriller, "The Birds." It seems the winged creatures actually like to hang around people. They most likey view us bipeds as flighless kinfolk, small Ostrich. Whether birds give vent to religious expression is doubtful, but they certainly express a pecking order. We humans certainly understand the distribution and excercise of power through the time honored rituals of pecking order. Our minds seem to run a different track when it comes to visualizing and responding to our perceptions of cosmic scale pecking orders: i.e. the supposed larger order of the celestial realm.
I saw a Nova program on PBS detailing recent archaeological recoveries at the tops of mountains in Peru which confirm the complaint of Spanish missionaries of the 16th century that the Incas practiced child sacrifice of a brutal nature at the tops of their sacred mountains. It was long thought that the Spaniards exagerated the existence of the practice for their own devious purpose. What is useful in examining the practice of ancient religions is that there are few toes to trample in the current pecking order while at the same time it is possible to learn some shred of understanding of how the human psyche responds with a deep fear in discovering the magnitude of forces beyond its control. That deep anxiety is certainly a component in what we recognize as religious expression.
Now, quoting the quote given in the prior comment:
'the man who famously said "the more we know about the universe, the more pointless it seems", or words to that effect'
I think of a long vanished culture and people, the Minoans, their island world a jewel of social achievement in cultured sophistication. They descended to the point of human sacrifice when the island we know as Santorini in the Aegean exploded with such catastrophic force as to bring their sea empire to its knees, not to recover. Their universe seemed pointless.
We live in times of peril not only in the ever present present, but throughout all of eternal knowledge.
Pylos
# posted by : 1:58 PM
: 1:58 PM
Dear Wally and Pylos,
I believe that so long as men (in the non-gendered sense) are aware of the everpresent threats of the pointless universe, they will practice religion to ward off the willies. It may not be the religion of Pat Robertson or the religion of neo-Darwinians, but there will be something to have faith in to give them (us) courage in the face of ever-looming disaster. I, myself, fancy a return to the old-time religion, i.e. the religion of the ancient Greeks, or the religion of the ancient Israelites. Both of them gave rise to good stories.
An amused reader of the blog,
Hephaestus
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I believe that so long as men (in the non-gendered sense) are aware of the everpresent threats of the pointless universe, they will practice religion to ward off the willies. It may not be the religion of Pat Robertson or the religion of neo-Darwinians, but there will be something to have faith in to give them (us) courage in the face of ever-looming disaster. I, myself, fancy a return to the old-time religion, i.e. the religion of the ancient Greeks, or the religion of the ancient Israelites. Both of them gave rise to good stories.
An amused reader of the blog,
Hephaestus
# posted by : 3:22 PM
: 3:22 PM << Home
