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And yet there are people who still believe in "intellegent design".
Well, Jacob Bronowski said that science can go wherever it goes, it doesn't have to stay in the United States. The sad thing is that the majority of Christians don't have any problem with science, it's the cult of fundamentalists and, more so, the oligarchs who are destroying science education in the United States. Starving public education to better rule a hoard of ignorant, superstitious and frightened serfs.
This will not get better until education is taken out of the hands of local school boards, ironically enough. And until the public education in the United States is funded equally across the country, not dependent on local taxes.
all rules must apply to all people, no pluralism
I don't really understand what this means, because it sounds alright to me. What's so bad about all rules appying to all people? It's certainly better than all rules applying to some people. Or some rules applying to all people. Or whatever.
Wow! You might be on to something...
(Try googling "Bill Kristol", "Weekly Standard", "Paul Wolfowitz", "Richard Perle" "NATIONAL GREATNESS"...these terms-- all together
(take a look...)
We're talking about religious fundamentalists. It means that theirs are the only rules. If you're a hindu or an atheist, tough shit.
Oh yeah, right. Duh. Thanks, Digby.
This is what I mean. You guys are totally unfamiliar with anything but the most stereotypical aspects of the right.
I'm sure you guys have heard of those ole evil neocons but have you bothered to read up and understand their philosophy of "national greatness conservatism" which has operated on just the same...eh... "meme"...
Cecelia,
Who knew? I'm kinda dumb and uninformed as you, of all people, know so very well.
Those national greatness conservatives were on to something, for sure (although I do draw the line at building monuments to Reagan in every town in America.)
Too bad Dubya sold the party's soul to the fundamentalist preachers --- it ran Marshall Wittman right out of the Party. McCain has been marginalized to gadfly and Kristol and Wolfowitz have always been neocons --- which uses certain aspects of national greatness to justify military dominance. It's now a dead idea in the GOP.
Left us quite an opening, didn't it?
:D
Here's an idea, Digby... a new Democratic/liberal slogan, a pledge we could say at public meetings:
"We the people WILL form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
Someone suggested that on DailyKos almost two years ago, and I've thought ever since that the idea kicks enormous amounts of ass.
It strikes me that the strategy you propose is PRECISELY the one FDR used throughout his presidency, particularly in the famous "Five Freedoms" speech. He basically tied the liberal (D)emocratic agenda to the anti-Nazi struggle (obvious enough) and identified Americanism with liberalism:
freedom of information, freedom of religion,
freedom of speech, freedom from fear, and freedom from want
There was a lot more of this energy back then simply because the enemy WAS fascism.
I think you're absolutely right that this approach can be effective--it's essentially the founding strategy of the modern Democratic party.
Digby,
Kick-ass entry. I think you've really hit the nail on the head here. Now, please call Herry Reid and the rest of the clan and get them on board.
Truly, between Bull Moose, Liberal Oasis, Marshal, you, etc. I've seen some really great ideas on the web. I hope some Congressional staffers are reading the blogs.
Digby,
Interesting comment in light of Bush's election victory despite Iraq being a FUBAR and an appeal to "the sacred symbols and rhetoric of traditionalism" certainly applies to those ole Puritanical mores...
What were the two biggie issues in exit polls?... terrorism (nationalism) and... "moral values"....
I'm not an admirer of "national greatness conservatism" and you guys are welcomed to have a go at your version of it, its utopian aspects are well-suited to liberalism.
However, you'll have to get beyond grievance-group-identity power struggles and that's not been an easy thing for the left.
Cecelia, Theory is the easy part, as thousands of Iraqis and our military are finding out on the ground today.
It's so easy for the neo-conmen to come up with garbage, so hard for the real world to accomodate them. Guess the markets were all out of rose water the day they "liberated" the city.
Come back when your brilliant theorists have ended the three-or-more-way civil war they've started in Iraq and the regional war that will almost certainly spring from it. Then we can talk about whether they don't have their heads up their asses.
Perhaps if they went over to explain to the Iraqis how it's SUPPOSED to all work?
grievance-group-identity
I'd suggest reading Ellen Goodman's column in today's Boston Globe re: Jeff Jacoby's recent recycling of his "the University is mean to conservatives" "meme".
EPT,
Some extemely cynical people might aruge that it worked by keeping a Republican in the White House and the House and Senate in Republican hands.
Well, why aren't they in Iraq telling they why their country needed to be invaded. You'd almost think that what happened to little Wolfie last summer has got them all too chicken to put their own sweet fat where their fat mouths are.
I would add that not everyone's genetic encoding is the same, since man surely didn't evolve in just one way. Dick Cheney, for example, is a paranoid predator. Bill Clinton gets his high when people feel good. Arnold Schwarzenegger can't live without adulation. Mother Teresa sacrificed everything for the general good.
So the distinction I've come to, which I think fits what you've been saying about tribal identity, and also fits with the linked article, is that the current crop of Republican / conservatives are narcissistic predators. Their primary locus for all decisions is 'self', and their instinct is to hunt and kill. [more]
The Democrat/progressives, on the other hand, are distinct in a few ways. There's plenty of narcissism on this side too, but I think the decision locus is oriented differently. Progressives look outward with empathy toward others, and see an obligation to society as a whole. They seek ways to accommodate the uniqueness of each individual and the variety of existing cultures.
Facing a threat, a progressive believes an organized coalition can defeat an enemy much more efficiently than tanks and bombs. Look at how the world's institutions neutered Saddam Hussein by forcing him to give up his weapons of mass destruction by, what was the official report, the mid-90s? So there we had a case where military invasion wasn't necess... what? We went to war anyway? Predators. Case closed. [more]
Bringing this back to your thesis, I think it is very much about tribal identity and always has been. This is good old American marketing, which you've noted more than once. But we have to have a top dog who can articulate a vision much in the way Kennedy and King did. I think Barack Obama is our man.
We need the branding touted by Oliver Willis, but we also have to unbrand the opposition. That's why it's so important to label them narcissistic predators, since that's what they are, and since their behavior can be traced to those characteristics. They want a singular, homogenous society, which makes us all targets of their predatory instincts. Gays, liberals, non-believers, you name it. Us against them. Again, their frame of reference in all cases is 'self', not as in individual, but as in selfish. [done]
Excellent post, and echoes certain things I've felt for a long time. For example, we should never let the other side claim that only they deserve to wave the flag. We love this country as strongly as they do.
This country was founded on one prinicple: MYOB. We are indeed a Christian nation, that was founded by christians who wanted the privacy to practice their religion as they wished with no outside interference. Which the founding fathers, in their great wisdom, enshrined into law.
The other guiding principle in this country is : Fair Play. A level playing field. This is the nation of Second Chances, but that is only true if everyone gets an equal chance. The meritocracy that runs this nation, and led to our becoming a superpower is a few hundred years, only works if ALL Americans get an equal chance.
Rant continued:
The Declaration of Independence begins with the phrase: "We hold these truths to be self-evident". Jefferson uses the words of a poet in the service of an argument that has the cold precision of a geometrical proof. This is a country founded, build and sustained by REASON, for only Reason will protect your right to practice your Faith. When you are sick, do you care whether the doctor has had an affair, or whether he received straight A's in Med School. When you drive over a bridge, does it matter what the personal thoughts of the engineer were? When NASA engineers, not wishing to delay the launch of the Challenger space shuttle had faith that the freezing temperatures would not affect the elasticity of the rubber O-rings, they were proven wrong. Nature does not care what we believe, and facts are stubborn things. In the 11th century Faith governed all life, but in the 21st century, Reason has set us free.
This concludes the rant.
"This Land Is Your Land"? That's OK, but there's a much, much better example:
We need to make the Declaration of Independance and the Preamble to the Constitution *our* sacred texts, and by constantly using them, show people why *we* are right. Those are words that are drilled into anyone's head by the time they get to high school. As long as *we* show them what phrases like "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" mean, we can save our country.
The flip side, that Dibgy describes very well, is to cast the Fundamenalists as The Other. Personally, I like the phrase "American Taliban", but I think it would take some work to get it to resonate. Actually, I think "Republican Taliban" would work much better, since it stains all Republicans with the accusation that they're like the Taliban.
And that, my friends, is the true name of the game: Make the word "Republican" a dirty, dirty word. Try it out, you'll like it!
Digby says, "We have to start thinking in terms of how to communicate our ideals and our vision in symbolic terms. Go for the gut, not the head.
As a person who considers himself to be rational and views the world in a rational manner, I am forced to, sadly, agree.
Here's the secret.
You must inflate people's self-importance beyond any rational expectations. You must offer them a chance, even a slim chance, at super-humanity. You must make people think that being a Liberal is like being a god, or something close to it.
Agreed, the first Democrat/liberal to address our agenda in nationalistic/Christian terms will rule the world.
Alex
Since the election, I've thought that Dems must become the Constitution Party and revisit the sacred texts of our democracy--particularly the 1st Amendment--to make them new again. I see nothing wrong with national greatness when hitched to the liberal cart.
The Thugs saw a longing for pride and group identity while Dems appealed to guilt about wrongs to be redressed. Most people would rather feel pride. It explains why economic arguments were not enough in this election.
In Iraq it's futile to say the Pentagon and the occupation are evil--even if true. Better to say un-American, unworthy of our greatness. This was Bush's defensive position about bad apples. It's should be our offense.
For a brief moment after 9/11 we were united as a people. Bush's sin is that he squandered that by harnessing our finest instincts to a greedy, vile partisan agenda. We must grab that back for the Dems.
Clarification: I had to edit due to Haloscan limitations. When I say "we are a Christian nation", I am advocating ju-jitsu on the right. Rather than deny the role of religion in this country, argue that only Reason and Fairness will safeguard this religion. Who doesn't want to protect their right to practice their faith (personally I'm a devote agnostic, but that's irrelevant to my point). We don't want to appear anti-christian, or anti-religion. The other side, by accepting the dictates of a few religous demogagues, is anti-American, because a true American , not wanting to be told what to think and do, doesn't require this of others either.
I've long thought that the major emotional impact of 9/11 was to shock the nation into generalized tribal thinking. Clearly the territorial violation led to directly to circling the wagons, so to speak, and drawing a bright boundary between "us" and "them". It also made that notion of the alpha male much more important, as evidenced by the rhetoric of this past election. Basically, the rhetoric centered on whose was bigger, but that concept was a stand-in for who would most aggressively defend the tribe. Since the contest for alpha male position is usually a life-or-death struggle, it's no wonder the election was so nasty. [more]
The thing that interests me is that this evolutionarily less-evolved way to approach human relationships has been in competition for thousands of years with what is (in my view) a more evolved approach, represented by several great religious thinkers, including, notably and ironically, Jesus Christ. In that view, all humans are members of our tribe, and we owe care and consideration to them all. Some of the best aspects of the American political system (e.g., the Bill of Rights) are derived from that approach, and of course those are the first to be tossed when something like 9/11 happens.
d'oh. sorry about the second post, folks; I did a "reload" to look at the new messages, and forgot that that would cause my message to be posted a second time.
I can see this very clearly, it ties into a theory about religion and ethics. I think that religion is quite often used to lend justification to the status quo of material wealth and social position.
Think Calvanism and Compassionate Conservatism. I like to call it Selective Darwinism.
poputonian said: "I would add that not everyone's genetic encoding is the same, since man surely didn't evolve in just one way. Dick Cheney, for example, is a paranoid predator. Bill Clinton gets his high when people feel good. Arnold Schwarzenegger can't live without adulation. Mother Teresa sacrificed everything for the general good."
wow. radical naturism. what, no nuture? how everyone's, including other animal's, genetic encoding did evolve in one way was for behavior to be selected by it's consequences. ahnold was not born unable to live without adulation. evolution does not operate at the level of the individual. it operates at the species level. so, evolutionarily speaking, yes, every human did evolve in the same way.
Victor,
I admire your passion but I wouldn't be too quick to equate nature with reason And the founders certainly didn't make such a comparision either. They did not conclude rights came out the reasoning ability of man or the law of the jungle (nature). They argued that it was self-evident for men to conclude that our most basic rights were endowed to us by our maker.
I'm highly skeptical of evolutionary psychologists' claims.
That said, those five commonalities are giving me a lot to think about.
I don't think that fundamentalism/fascism is the "natural" or "default" setting for humans--rather, I think many people believe it to be and want it to be the natural setting, and conservatives can exploit that. Liberals are stuck appealing to the "better angels" of people's natures, while conservatives can appeal to the desire for order and might-makes-right and Big Daddy-type protectors who smash anyone who gets in their way.
I think your suggestions about making this about fundamentalists vs. America are great. I know I'll be mulling over this topic for at least a week...
Right, smiley. That's why everyone has blonde hair and blue eyes.
mamayaga,
You've just provided a brilliant illustration of the post's thesis. World religions, at least in their liberal forms, perform precisely the same maneuver: by making all humanity ones "tribe," they keep one foot rooted in tribalism while moving the other foot forward.
We humans seem to forget that, evolutionary speaking, we only just emerged from caves. It's a lot easier to go back to what we only just were than it is to move forward. It is only by stepwise enlightenment that we can continue our advance.
poputonian,
Most people have two arms and two legs. Likewise, tribalism is probably part of how we're all wired -- it's not a superficial characteristic. That's not to say that inherited temperament combined with environment lead to large differences in how that tendency is manifest.
"Evolutionary psychologists" may go overboard a bit in tying behavior to universally inherited traits. And I think most would admit that there is a whole lot more going on than us acting our our genetic destinies. But it's a different way of looking at some of the commonalities among people that, say, Jung looked at (and with its own set of flaws, to be sure).
That's not to say that inherited temperament combined with environment doesn't lead to large differences...
[Damn, I wish haloscan had preview!]
I've long thought the Repubs were appealing to reptilian hates and fears in their campaigns. Moving up the evolutionary tree to the "social animal" stage, Dems might reclaim some of those souls, i.e. the Sermon on the Mount - feed my sheep - pray not in public Jesus, same rights for everyone, nobody goes hungry or is turned away. The appeal to using the Constitution and the Declaration sounds like a good way to go.
No worries Modus. I actually read the doesn't into it anyway. That said, I'm either not understanding the nuance of your point, or I'm not seeing how my point is being interpreted. I'm not saying that man didn't evolve from tribal units. What I'm saying is that the way in which individual behavior evolved surely varied from region to region. Take a hypothetical: If food was scarce in one region perhaps aggression was rewarded (evolutionarily speaking) over the generations. In another region, perhaps food was plentiful, so cooperation was rewarded. The characteristics then, of the individual leaders of the tribes, and the methods with which they defended the tribes, would be different. You call them inherited characteristics. That's all I'm saying. Some people today have predatory instincts, while others solve problems in other ways.
There's a problem with this strategy; unless you are extraordinarily careful, it's going to play as ugly American triumphialism overseas. There are countries that see themselves as more liberal, more humane and more dedicated to human rights than the US - and you may need their help.
Victor von Doomic
'Credit where credit's due' historical correction:
From Walter Isaacson, author of “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life:”
On June 21, after he had finished a draft and incorporated some changes from Adams, Jefferson had a copy delivered to Franklin, with a cover note far more polite than editors generally receive today. “Will Doctor Franklin be so good as to peruse it,” he wrote, “and suggest such alterations as his more enlarged view of the subject will dictate?”
Franklin made only a few small changes, but one of them was resounding. Using heavy backslashes, he crossed out the last three words of Jefferson’s phrase, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” and changed it to read: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”
Fascism and fundementalism are both authoritarian. It isn't suprising they they would have similiar pathologies.
ontinued:
The concept of “self-evident” truths came less from Jefferson’s favored philosopher, Locke, than from the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of Franklin’s close friend David Hume. Hume had distinguished between “synthetic” truths that describe matters of fact (such as “London is bigger than Philadelphia”) and “analytic” truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition. ( “The angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees” or “All bachelors are unmarried.”) When he chose the word “sacred,” Jefferson had suggested intentionally or unintentionally that the principle in question—the equality of men and their endowment by their creator with inalienable rights—was an assertion of religion. By changing it to “self-evident,” Franklin made it an assertion of rationality.
Is it just me, or were these guys thinking their ASSES off?!?
It's not just you, jexter. Let's just say that George W. Bush would not have been invited to the party.
Phoenecian --- I agree, but it's less problematic than the hyperpower hegemonic crap we are seeing today. I think it would be quite easy to join with "others who believe as we do." However, there is no way in hell that Americans are ever going to admit -- or even believe -- that there is any country on earth that is "better" than we are. They just don't think that way. The best you can hope for is that we will allow that you foreign bastards are sort of ok too.
Hey, it's better than global military domination...
jexter and Cecelia:
I stand corrected. My only defense, since my own calculations were perfect, is that it must have been more of the insufferable meddling from that infernal Richards!
Richaaaaaaards!!!!!
Almost makes you nostalgic for the Cold War, don't it? That puppy, it seems to me, absorbed much of the energy of the anti-moderns, wherever they were - it was global, it subsumed local conflicts of culture and politics in a grander East/West conflict, it was territorially clear. Very much an over-simplification (think 3rd world, or proxy wars), but that simplicity seems to have a strong appeal to the fundamentalist mind.
I really don't think it's accidental that the wingnut Right got really hot after the Berlin Wall fell, and began to focus its attention on Enemies Within (e.g., the Clintons, the Culture War). The attempts to bring Joe McCarthy back from the dead are quite serious; the liberals=commies formula is shrouded in longing - "If only they were...then they must be"
Fundies love those leaps of faith. [more]
it places us with, as the author says, "one foot solidly in our deep territorial impulses with the other foot free to push the margin, to expand the definition of those who belong in “our” territory." ...
I am concluding more and more that we are dealing with a pre-modern political situation in a post modern world. It's not about issues, it's about tribal identity.
This is exactly my view. Expanding the borders of the tribe is the essential liberal project. This is why I've maintained that community is a great buzzword for us to use: because it is scaleable. We can evoke warm fuzzy images of town-meeting style community, and scale the concept to fit our foreign policy. We can use it to suggest the comfortably familiar, our literal neighbors, while expanding it to protect the strange out-group, our symbolic neighbors.
poputonian,
I don't think we're necessarily disagreeing, here. Different perceptions of "tribe" fit different situations. Cooperation and even altruism within ones tribe is probably universal. The innate part is how we tend to deal with those we feel are within our tribe versus those we feel fall outside it. Perhaps for truly enlightened people the latter is the null-set. But for most of us, the "us" vs. "them" duality is going to underpin a lot of our feeling and behavior toward others. Like sexuality, there is infinite variation on the tribal theme, but also like sexuality, it is an innate force that is not easily denied.
It was the misfortune of the Carter admin to get blindsided by the Iranian Revolution, which did not fit the mold, but all that clarity was breaking up elsewhere - Poland, Afghanistan, the Yugo fragmentation. Reagan's simplicity was very consoling, but it also masked how unstable the familiar bipolar world had become. Without the Evil Empire, the Axis of Evil post-9/11 was a lavish gift, a whole new world of enemies that seemed to justify the need for "American Greatness." Thing is, the Right was LOOKING for just such a defining threat, and the Left was not. We got caught with our pants down by not recognizing how vital those ur-territoriality needs were.
[more]
I don't think it's necessary to assume that fundamentalists are "less evolved" in order to buy the scenario described here. Rather, fundamentalists and other authoritarians favor the strategy at which they already have a perceived advantage. If you are an authoritarian-leaning male, it's no wonder that you should feel threatened by things that might detract from your advantages - devaluing your status as a male, for instance, by increasing the relative status if females. You can see why you'd also have an interest in maintaining a state of sexual ignorance - If you're a woman, once you got babies, your economic leverage is decreased relative to men unless you enter into an arrangement like marriage. Postponing such alliances increases women's power with in them.
(cont'd)
I once heard a Republican describe their essential project as letting social coercion rather than legal or state coercion be the major organizing force in society. This strikes me as just right, and of course - people who perceive themselves as being safely within the ingroup (white, Christian, straight, etc) would tend to favor social coercion, because it's exactly where their advantage lies: in numbers.
Nice post, Digby.
I think we're primed for replacement as the dominant species on this planet.
You might argue that the post-modern progressive represents an entirely different sub species variant of Homo sapiens, if only because we have such very unusual definitions of self and tribe.
Speciation, though, requires physical isolation. So unless we get discovered by Vulcans or attacked by Kzinti anytime soon, we're stuck in the same gene pool as, for example, Strom Thurmond.
So we'd better figure out a way to placate the pre-historic among us, or continue to suffer the tough love of the alpha males.
this is great post, and will take some time for me to think through...
a couple of preliminary thoughts about human behavior.... and a question.
while i am willing to agree that there are likely some behaviors genetically "hard-wired", i think the authors are overstating the contribution of genetic evolution to the observations they've made about fundamentalisms.
i'd argue that the main characteristic of human behavior that is of genetic origin is the tremendous plasticity of behavior. as an example i'll use the issue of torture... most of us are quite capable of torturing someone, even to death, given the proper social structure (stanley milgram).... but, in our normal social structure we would probably never even consider it.
-continued...
- continuation...
so, while i think digby's ideas of how to describe our world view (americans against fundamentalism) could be of great help (modified to include our non-american friends who stand with us - thanks to a Phoenician in a time of Roma), i don't think this is enough.
we also need to think about the social stuctures that bring out the best in us - because the same people can be torturers or generous and kind... and the only thing that's changed is the social situation.
and finally, my question - can empathy be taught?
i should also say that it's quite possible i don't buy the genetic thesis because i don't want to think i'm so abnormal....
all the flag waving, blood lust and "united we stand" signs after 9/11 made my skin crawl.
One more thing: I've noticed that there's a knee-jerk disclaimer appended to practically every invokation of evolutionary psychology in another context (like politics) - especially among liberals.
The basic claim of evolutionary psychology -- that human behavior is shaped by adaptation just like the brain is -- is really uncontroversial among behavioral scientists. It's only specific predictions that can be "facile," but this is true of non-behavioral evolutionary arguments too. There's a strong tendency to misinterpret the idea of adaptive advantage so as to read every feature as somehow optimized by natural selection, but of course this is not so. This tendency, however, is part of all evolutionary arguments and protecting ourselves against it is what argumentation and peer-review is for.
What I'm saying is, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
More than one way to isolate -- we could become a subspecies if the females among us would elect not to reproduce with alpha-type males.
It strikes me that the seamless shift from Al-Q to Saddam - and the ease with which, as a really really flawed analysis, it took in so many liberals - stems from a conflation of Cold War habits of mind and mischaracterisation (and misunderstanding) of a globalized world. For every benefit of the breakdown of barriers, there was (and is) for many an equal threat to their identity - American fundies are scared shitless (beneath their postures of contempt) for an EU that disagrees with them. That Golden Age to be restored keeps receding further into the past with every snub.
[more]
"all the flag waving, blood lust and "united we stand" signs after 9/11 made my skin crawl."
Mine too, but there was another kind of unity displayed at that time. I'm thinking of crowds out on the streets leading to Ground Zero, cheering for rescue workers. Spontaneous demonstrations of grief and community. The world offering us sympathy and aid. Rescue workers from every state coming to New York--Sin City!--to help. The lines at blood banks. The outpouring of cash donations. The yearning to do something, anything, to help the nation. And Bush told us to go shopping.
I love the 'America vs. Fundamentalism' idea. Just one caveat. Don't mention the Christian fundamentalists. Don't even think about them. Just pretend they don't exist. Make it tribal. America vs. al Qaeda, defenders of liberty vs. the forces of tyranny. Freedom of religion vs. religious oppression. Fact-based education vs. religious indoctrination. Equality for all vs. sexual oppression.
When the 'Christians' talk about religion in schools and second-class citizenship for woman, act shocked, disbelieving. "But those are al Qaeda values, Taliban values. Surely you don't believe in that!"
We'll achieve two things by redrawing the us-them line this way: make fundy Christians 'them' and make non-fundy Muslims 'us'. Domestically rededicate ourselves to American ideals, and internationally take the wind out of the pan-Muslim jihad. Talk about win-win!
This is all vastly over-simplified, and for you and your readers probably just stating the obvious, but if the Left has dropped the ball on the "Safe" issue (and I am thinking more and more that that was the determinant in this Election), the answer for us will lie in wresting the definition of the world from the Right. (We are not now, and have never been, pussies!) No such definition, for political purposes, can be overly complicated, but it can at least be less thoroughly wrong, and dangerous, than what this govt is selling.
I agree with going back to the elements of the constitution for grounding. I would add that where the wheels started to come off our focus in America is when "we" allowed the motto to change from E Pluribus Unum or "Out of many, one" to "In God we trust". What a step backward...the founding fathers started spinning in their graves at this point.
Karen Armstrong gives a pretty good historical rundown of the parallels in the fundamentalists movements between the big three mono-theistic faiths in "The Battle for God".
The only way all fundamentalisms can have the same agenda is if the agenda preceded all the religions.
I think this is the key sentence from the article, as it demonstrates that for those who think in fundamentalist terms religion itself is a vehicle to achieve a secular agenda.
Hey selise,
"i should also say that it's quite possible i don't buy the genetic thesis because i don't want to think i'm so abnormal....
Not abnormal; you're actually just getting more mileage out of your neocortex than your brainstem (A.K.A. lizard-brain).
As for the flags: My wife and I thought it was a refinery fire across the river in Elisibeth, NJ. Turned out 13 members of our community died that day in the Towers. The flags gave the city tremendous comfort during those eary days, because the world was with us, and we should keep that in our hearts.
"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."-Mark Twain
early days...
"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." -Mark Twain
Got it, Modus. Thanks for the response. It's beyond me to differentiate when an ancient characteristic becomes innate, but I would think that man evolved under a multiplicity of conditions, and therefore a variety of responses to inter-tribe conflict, or threats, could have made its way into the DNA. In other words, I believe that even today one individual's DNA strand can show a gene for aggression, while another's might lack such a marker, and the two would show different evoked responses to the same external threat. Maybe it's like the fight or flight syndrome that some have purported is part of our ancient wiring. Whatever the case, I agree with most everyone here that tribal identity is why 60 million people voted for George Bush.
would someone please explain to poputonian the difference between the heritable propagation of traits versus evolution? i'm too tired. thanks. love,
smiley
I think this is the key sentence from the article, as it demonstrates that for those who think in fundamentalist terms religion itself is a vehicle to achieve a secular agenda.
Paul
The thing that unites all fundamentalists is the same thing that unites conservatives in general, the insistence that things be done their way. The center of the universe for all of these people is "ME". I've yet to hear any fundamentalist admit that they could possibly be mistaken or that someone else could be right. It's probably not a genetic trait but a failure to develop past the stage of fairly early childhood. I suspect it's a moral failure.
Karen Armstrong is an unusually clear thinker about religon. It is probably that though she is a good scholar she is, above all, practical and realistic. No -isms.
It doesn't matter smiley. I'll yield that you are better versed in the semantics, but the essence of my point remains the same.
I'm exhausted, so this is kind of rough, but: I think it's true that we have to talk to the lizard in people.
In advertising, you _never_ talk about the product or service, you instead show how the product/service will solve the consumer's problem.
And there are only three problems, basically: safety and comfort at home, sex, and death.
So a good ad says: if you buy this product/service you will
1) get laid
2) have a safe, pleasant home
3) you will never die
How to transform these ideas into strong branding and advertising for Liberalism?
The UCC ad campaign
http://www.stillspeaking.com
/default.htm
speaks to the safe and pleasant (and expanded, inclusive--safety in numbers, maybe?); it's very good and points in the right direction.
thanks jester... i spent many months wondering what insanity had come over my community (work, neighbors,...) or alternatively what insanity had come over me.
i'm glad the flags were a comfort to you and to many others.
i just wished for a comforting symbol that wasn't so easy to pervert into nationalistic desire to strike out with redirected agression. a symbol to represent the unity max wrote of:
"...crowds out on the streets leading to Ground Zero, cheering for rescue workers. Spontaneous demonstrations of grief and community. The world offering us sympathy and aid. Rescue workers from every state coming to New York--Sin City!--to help. The lines at blood banks. The outpouring of cash donations. The yearning to do something, anything, to help..."
Tom Tomorrow nailed it in these cartoons a couple of years back:
Strange bedfellows (06/24/02)
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo...tomo/
index.html
War information council (10/22/01)
http://archive.salon.com/comics/...tomo/
index.html
Hmm. I've thought for some time that the many common, sacred roots of liberalism: safety, community, acceptance, reverence (for life even, canya believe that?), strength through respect, interconnectivity, etc etc, should all be aggressively established by Dems.
One easy way to do it would be to just wait for the righties to make noises about religion and have a value prepared to cut straight to. Do it a lot, build in progressions, all that.
>>when fundamentalists say they are obeying the word of God, they have severely understated the authority for their position
try again
"when fundamentalists say they are obeying the word of God, they have severely understated the authority for their position"
Of course they believe that authority is absolute.
Our opponents are very credulous. They BELIEVE. It may only be waving the flag or putting a ribbon on their car but they go to church and try to do the right thing.
We DEMS allow ourselves to be disqualified in many voter's minds due to a couple of issues like gay marriage and abortion. We need to fix those positions to keep the moderate message while vigorously opposing positions that are not morally defensible in the eyes of the middle-left 75%
We need to get beyond sarcastic intellectualism to a credulous optimism gounded in tradition along with the indignant heat that true belief fuels.
Great post.
selise, I read the flags as nonsensical nationalism too. If you read Norman Mailer's Why Are We At War?, he accentuated this point well, even though he seemed to drift in and out of sanity on some others.
The center of the universe for all of these people is "ME" -EPT
I keep coming to the same conclusion, although I'm still inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. Their (the fundamentalists) morality does seem to be ultimately self-serving and hypocritical.
Helluva post. I'll have to print it and read it more thoroughly. Standing out: American liberals must decry Muslim Fundamentalism while decrying its American counterpart. Yes, yes, and triple fucking yes.
Those fucks who flew airplanes into buildings full of thousands of people ARE REALLY BAD PEOPLE. The people willing to take a large knife in their very hands (put yourself right in their place now) and cut the heads off of living human beings (in the name of God) people ARE REALLY BAD PEOPLE.
We should decry them not as a tactic to gain some ground here in the U.S. but because it's fucking horrible human behavior. We should be decrying American Christian fanatics with their warped spirituality for their attempts to take over our country on the way to their goal of taking over the world—but spread the criticism out. Go after them all. They all deserve it.
In other words: "Yes, liberals stand up to fundamentalists—worldwide. We're all in this together." (Maybe they are
Lost the end on that last comment there, sorry—(Maybe they are too.)
Maybe the Bush doctrine of "things getting worse is a sign of things actually getting better because it proves that enemy is desperate" applies here.
Maybe fundamentalists of all stripes are getting desperate because fundamentalism is on its way out!
Oh shit, did I say, "...for their attempts to take over our country…"? Damn, that was dumb, wasn't it. I was thinking of the abstinence only crap, and "Intelligent design" ruse. Truth is, George Bush is a Christian fundamentalist, and it's Christian fundamentalism dropping bombs on Iraq right now, isn't it? Bringin' on the Rapture. Jesus, I'm depressed.
http://sciencepolitics.blogspot....of-
history.html
http://sciencepolitics.blogspot....and-
future.html
http://sciencepolitics.blogspot....-and-
manic.html
etc.
What makes this so hard to eradicate, is that you add the self-righteous business element to the self-righteous fundamentalism and you get Puritanism.
You guys are complicating matters and are far too pessimistic about your future take-over.
I think all it would take for you to have the citizenry by the balls would be to nationalize healthcare.
Not that health care is in the hands of consumers now, it’s the province of employers (usually corporations) and the government. However if it is taken entirely out public hands you’ll have a political football that will make tampering with Social Security look as trivial as a one cent tax hike via a bond referendum.
Well... let me qualify that too... with millions of aging baby boomers the future of Social Security is HUGE as well. That’s why it’s vital that Republicans make it less of a government program. But you put healthcare into politicians hands and it’s game over.
mg_65
"So a good ad says: if you buy this product/service you will
1) get laid
2) have a safe, pleasant home
3) you will never die
How to transform these ideas into strong branding and advertising for Liberalism?"
That might make for a whole new avenue for Martha Stewart, Inc contributions. Martha Stewart call- girl/faith healers!
It's a good thing... :D
This country is finished.
Do we understand that the internet and all this good talk is also soon to be finished? Do we understand that Karl Rove's plans call for another terrorist attack, which will conveniently involve the internet, and Atrios and Digby et al will be invited to shut down or go to Guantanamo? Do we understand that this country is finished?
Cheer up, Sharkbabe, we'll always have Paris...
sharkbabe - i'm not particulary liking the odds right now... but this country is NOT yet finished. we may yet lose... but, if we give up now we will CERTAINLY lose.
another thought... for all digby's excellent analysis - i see a roadblock ahead.
at the moment i don't see many dem political leaders that i trust worth a damn... other than to do what they think is in their own best self interest. indeed, in my more cynical moments i sometimes wonder if most of the dem political leadership don't have more loyalty to the repub policial leadership than they do to us.
i worry that our party may not, at this time, be capable of using these good ideas any analysis.
any ideas? i'm thinking that many of digby's ideas can be just as easily used by (hopefully) united progressive social movements.
Find the slender Peter Singer book published a few years ago, A Darwinian Left. It also looks at some hard wired behavior that are natural winners for liberals, such as willingness to cooperate for the common good. It does get back to tribe, though. I have always thought that there would be more support for many government programs if a lot of people didn't feel in their gut that they were giving someone in a different tribe a free ride.
More from Davidson Loehr here:
http://austinuu.org/sermons/
2004...derFascism.html
“This list will be familiar to students of political science. But it should be familiar to students of religion as well, for much of it mirrors the social and political agenda of religious fundamentalisms worldwide. It is both accurate and helpful for us to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. They both come from very primitive parts of us that have always been the default setting of our species: amity toward our in-group, enmity toward out-groups, hierarchical deference to alpha male figures, a powerful identification with our territory, and so forth. It is that brutal default setting that all civilizations have tried to raise us above, but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to be achieved over and over and over again.
Continued:
Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. See how much you think his statements apply to our society today.
“The really dangerous American fascist,” Wallace wrote, “… is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”
Continued: In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism he saw rising in America, Wallace added, “They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.” By these standards, a few of today’s weapons for keeping the common people in eternal subjection include NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, union-busting, cutting worker benefits while increasing CEO pay, elimination of worker benefits, security and pensions, rapacious credit card interest, and outsourcing of jobs — not to mention the largest prison system in the world.”
So we'd better figure out a way to placate the pre-historic among us, or continue to suffer the tough love of the alpha males.
Make the taking of LSD and psilocybin mushrooms mandatory around college graduation...
Those fucks who flew airplanes into buildings full of thousands of people ARE REALLY BAD PEOPLE. The people willing to take a large knife in their very hands (put yourself right in their place now) and cut the heads off of living human beings (in the name of God) people ARE REALLY BAD PEOPLE.
The people pointing guns at and laying bombs for occupying American troops and their Iraqi toadies are, however, not necessarily REALLY BAD PEOPLE - no more than the French Resistance against the Germans and Vichy governments.
A thought also struck me about these "slaughter houses" in Fallujah - were these just a case of these fundies enforcing their interpretation of Shariah law? Nasty and brutal, sure - but let's not forget that a certain US ally also publicly executes people based on teh same law...
Continued: easy surplus value says: Personally, I can’t see the Democratic Party, as it is presently composed, addressing any of the weapons for keeping the common people in eternal subjection. I would suggest that you worry about addressing and acting on substantive issues more than you worry about framing the issues. I will believe the democrats claim that they “Kick Ass” when I see them actually do something that works for the wage-dependent-slaves in this country.
and finally, my question - can empathy be taught?
I'd say no. You can educate a child to consider others feelings, but the natural instinct to empathize is something you're born with. IMO.
As for fundamentalism, you're exactly right on with your description. IMO, christian fundamentalism is worse than the islamic variety because of the stealth factor. The wider public is starting to get a peek at what they're up to, but they're not really taking them seriously yet. (cont.)
(the rest) Also, right on with the appeal to the constitution and declaration... But first we have to de-demonize ourselves. Right now they aren't going to hear what we say, no matter how inspired or sensible. We're damned you see, and there isn't anyway to overcome that (in their eyes, anyway).
As for the tribal thing, I had my own epiphany reading your post. No wonder I feel like such a fish out of water in modern america. I don't belong to any "tribe" in any emotional sense. Surely I'm not the only person out here who feels that way.
Ack. A depressing subject. Maybe we are doomed.
The people pointing guns at and laying bombs for occupying American troops and their Iraqi toadies are, however, not necessarily REALLY BAD PEOPLE - no more than the French Resistance against the Germans and Vichy governments.
Just so. Though even the media perpetuates that meme by always describing them as "the enemy."
John Flynn, 1944:
"The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and
barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by
the Deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets,
to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples while blundering accidentally
into their oil wells."
Good idea to attack Islamist FUNDAMENTALISM ... bad idea to try to connect the dots plainly that American FUNDAMENTALISM is the same thing.
The reason connecting the dots plainly between Islamic fundamentalism and Christian, or American, fundamentalism is that if you do that you get a severe backlash from the majority of Americans who do not want to hear that they and their church leaders are just al-Qaeda of a slightly different stripe.
So actually the whole idea is a bad idea, because liberals simply can't resist connecting dots plainly (this is as it should be, we are not conspiratorial folk, unlike conservatives, who are very capable of keeping mum about their hidden agenda and even eating their own when one of their own reveal it).
fourlegsgood said "No wonder I feel like such a fish out of water in modern america. I don't belong to any "tribe" in any emotional sense. Surely I'm not the only person out here who feels that way. "
yeah, me too. and you give me an idea - maybe that's why i keep fantasizing about moving to new zealand... i want a tribe to belong to... and i'm not so fond of the ones i see here.
fourlegsgood, selise you do belong to a tribe of sorts... this tribe that likes to read Digby, etc... and anyone who needs to can always come up to Toronto and camp out in my living room and plan a resistance if it comes to that!
Obviously we must deal with the fundamentalists the way we do any biological pests....Sterilization!
Now there is a fine conservative (fascistic) idea to be wrapped in liberal rhetoric.
It has always interested/repulsed me how fundamentalists selectively use religious texts to justify their bigoted/fascist world view. They get away with it for a number of reasons. For one, those of us on the Christian left allow the Fundies to be the only(or at least loudest) voice of Christianity in America. Also, those of us on the secular left are ignorant of the Biblical texts. This allows Falwell and Co. to spew out Bible quotes (or, as frequently happens, make up their own Bible quotes) without being challenged.
I hope we can remedy this situation. Some suggested reading: "Rescueing the Bible from Fundamentalism," & "Why Christianity Must Change or Die" both by John Shelby Spong, "Reading the Bible Again for the First Time" by Marcus Borg, "The Battle for God" by Karen Armstrong.
I
Here's a great cartoon (note the armbands).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
cartoo...1367426,00.html
Seems the Repubs are way ahead of you and are already trying to steal the Declaration of Independance:
http://tinyurl.com/5kgkh
thanks dena!
Wisdom down from the mountain, in comic fantasy no less.
"It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly derpressing to thing that they were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things."
--Terry Pratchett, Jingo
Patrick stated: "those of us on the Christian left allow the Fundies to be the only(or at least loudest) voice of Christianity in America."
Don't blame the left. It all started with Reagan. His FCC deregulated the television industry which among other things, did away with the "free time for religious programming" rules for the broadcasters. Until that time, Sunday morning television was mainline protestantism.
These are the denominations which supported the civil rights movement and took issue with the war in Vietnam.
continued below...thekeez
Finishing up...
After the rule changes, the nets started charging for Sunday morning and the mainliners dropped out, leaving the barn door open for the Falwells, Robertsons, etc. who were more than happy to pay for it.
Now, the television face of Christianity is evangelical fundamentalism, and it follows that the dominant Christian force in politics is evangelical fundamentalism.
So, if you want to change the visible face of Christianity in the USA, you've got to come up with the money to get the mainline church back on the air. Very expensive prospect...thekeez
It is unfortunate that the Right was given another threatening external out-group (i.e. a worldwide Islamist insurgency) to rally the country after the fall of another external out-group (i.e. communism and the Soviet Union). There's not much we can do in the short-term provided we stop the neocons from keeping us in perpetual war. The Right is only successful if there's an enemy.
We are and will become an even more pluralistic country. Hence, we progressives must devise strategies that unite these disparate groups as Americans. I'm not sure why, but what is it that makes Canadians and northern Europeans willingly choose socialized reforms and safety nets that benefit the majority? I once heard a Canadian say that they believe in a greater collective responsibility toward other Canadians. Why is that lacking in our country? Are we still fighting the Civil War?
Cont'd: B/C we need to view ourselves as a pluralistic in-group and all in the same boat, I keep going back to economic themes that unite us and allow all of us a fair chance to succeed. And to themes of freedom, privacy (MYOB), and equality for all. I also think we need to reexamine our position on the cultural and moral values issues b/c the republicans have split the electorate on these wedges. We first need to get power back before we can effect other changes. Speaking of moral issues and saving babies, fight the fundies and anti-abortion crowd by shaming them about this country's unacceptable infant mortality rate (41st in the world).
Cont'd: I also think there are structural impediments in our form of government that perpetuate control by a powerful elite over the less powerful masses. Personally I believe parliamentary systems might actually be more democratic in that they assure a greater number of coalitions and representative voices (vice a winner take all in our electoral system). Is it a coincidence that all the industrial democracies that have universal health care are parliamentary systems? I also believe there are two republican parties (i.e. business parties) in this country. The democratic party is a business party and the respublican party even more so. We've really never had a true labor party in this country.
Gotta go...
Oh, I see! We need to become liberal fascists. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Man this is a good blog!!! Lots of great comments too. We do need to use these ideas in practical terms: it's the republican EXTREMISTS, the conservative FUNDAMENTALISTS, it's the christian EXTREMISTS,etc. We shouldn't refer to "9/11" but rather the "AlQuaida attacks". The use of the date makes the whole attack sort of transcendental but referring to as "attack" reminds us of the specifics. etc. When they talk about the "ownership society" we should say "responsibility society" That focuses on (perceived) individuality so important to Americans as well as a call to basic territoriality. We need a whole new vocabulary which Digby is pointing to.
I find this topic very interesting, and I think a good bit of this ties into the Psychological issues associated with conservatism in general.
Some time ago, there was a study done at Berkely and Stanford wherein conservatism was studied and certain features (symptoms, so to speak) were found to be common amongst conservatives. The study was criticised because some thought it treated conservatism as a disorder.
In any case, the study, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition", found that certain common psychological factors are linked to policitical conservatism. These are:
-Fear and aggression
-Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
-Uncertainty avoidance
-Need for cognitive closure
-Terror management
It seems to me that these are intertwined with this fundamentalism study. Certainly worth some thought.
Click homeplage for link to the study.
I once heard a Canadian say that they believe in a greater collective responsibility toward other Canadians. Why is that lacking in our country?
Because our system rewards private greed over public good.
what is it that makes Canadians and northern Europeans willingly choose socialized reforms and safety nets that benefit the majority?
As Digby has pointed out on more than one occasion, it's the fact that people in these countries are mostly the same color . . .
The biology is a bit more complicated. I studied primate biology just a little in college. There are group patterns, collections of group behaviors. They are common to various species of primates. In most species, the pattern is pretty well fixed. Baboons are hard-coded for the kind of pattern the article describes. Anyway, in observing human groups, you see patterns similar to those seen in other primates - the big difference being that human groups follow a variety of patterns. But human groups follow patterns, so when you find a characteristic behavior, you can predict other behaviors from the group.
(cont.)
(cont.)
Probably the simplest pair of patterns is centric and acentric. The most observable characteristic is that when there is a threat to a centric group, they mov