James Brown ~ Say it Loud!
CLICK ME, YOU HEGEMONIC HONKY! I'm on the mailing list for a left-wing liberation theology newspaper. Anyway, they have an occasional series by someone who goes by the handle "Eduard-the-Agitator" on MLK Jr. In the greater scheme of things, he's not very important, and his influence is very thin. He probably generates more hate-mail than any other standard contributor, in part on account of his unabashed hatred of whites and Catholics. Still, his rantings are instructive of some of the political attitudes which seem to be moving towards the mainstream.
From the latest installment:
Eduard-the-Agitator is only too clear on what Dr. King's "mistake was." Dr. King believed in America. That was, as he says at one point "an illusion." America is racism, sexism, and blood-stained militarism. And who is at fault for all the sins of America? White men, obviously. Now one could agree with the Agitator that the vote is not a panacea for all social problems; one would be a fool to believe that.
But he still believes that the state SHOULD provide the solutions to social problems, primarily through the redistribution of wealth and the punishment of "racists" and those who "oppress" the "poor." And since the American government has not only failed to do this but has become more oppressive (in part, it would seem, on account of the greed and "whiteness" of the Founding Fathers), revolutionary action and massive disobedience is the only solution. To quote the Agitator person, we need the "unifying power" of those who "are ready to ACT for justice."
Hmmm.
What sort of political system do you have in mind, Mr. Agitator?
Hannah Arendt noted long ago that "self-centered bitterness" was one of the attitudes which had gripped intellectual in the West, and in Europe particularly, at the beginning of the twentieth century. With this kind of narcissistic undirected anger came a variety of ritualistic self-loathing, characterized by a complete abandonment of the notion of self-interest. This, in turn, went hand in hand with a loss of the instinct for self-preservation.
Here we are not talking about "self-lessness" in the sense of altruism or charity, but rather self-negation which, taken to its logical extent made the preservation of one's own life -- not to mention that of others -- pointless. This attitude, once it had entered into the collective consciousness had disastrous effects. And the fashionable nihilism and "revolutionary" posturing of the intellectuals and cultural elites had "prepared certain politically conscious and over conscious sections of the Western educated world for the emergence of demagogues, for gullibility, superstition, and brutality ... [to] the radical loss of self-interest, the cynical or bored indifference in the face of death or other personal catastrophes, the passionate inclination toward the most abstract notions as guides for life, and the general contempt for even the most obvious rules of common sense."[Origins of Totalitarianism, pp. 315-316.]
Eduard the Agitator must be adjudged guilty on all counts. Self-interest -- whether that of the electorate or of individuals -- appears only as a negative value in his scheme. Self-interest is and can only be "selfishness" or "greed." There is no war that is good; conversely, there is no poor person who can be bad. Throughout his essays, it is clear that only white people can be racists; only rich white people can be greedy; only white men can be sexists.
And the virtue of Blacks, the poor, and the oppressed is that they exists not as individuals, but as part of a vaguely defined collective. That collective is virtuous by the purported lack of self-interest of its members. Indeed, Blacks, the poor, and the oppressed do not exist as individuals. The ones who do -- in this case Dr. King and current politicians in Atlanta, are singled out for criticism for looking out for themselves. For example, Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta is described has having been "transmogrified" from "civil rights advocate to pawn of the capitalist system, a tool in the toolbox to make Atlanta an elitist city of upper-class Blacks and whites together."
One wonders what is worse in the Agitator's mind -- that some Blacks have indeed risen into the ranks of the upper class (thereby losing at some level their "blackness") or that they are "together" with racist whites? Regardless, it becomes clear that the individual is only valued for his or her contribution to the collective. And the collective is by definition exclusionary. It is a "faithful remnant."
What is required to be a member then? Race? Perhaps not -- Andrew Young, current Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin, and the Black members of the Atlanta city council don't count, despite being on the record for saying that anyone who votes for a Republican wants to bring back "dogs and fire hoses" and deny Blacks the right to vote. Class? He says "no" but the "poor" are a constant trope.
But then again, not all "poor" count.
No, those who count are those who are willing to ACT against the government.
So it is action and rejection of the whole of the American political system that is required. And the kinds of actions he advocates are nothing less than forms of mob violence. Moreover, in his comments about capital punishment -- a particular obsession of this publication -- he seems to assume that those who are imprisoned are not "criminals" but the oppressed poor. The police are "crackers" and executioners of poor Black people.
The paper as a whole tends to champion the cause of condemned criminals, to such an extent that one reader wrote a letter saying "I don't understand how Atlanta has 'betrayed' murderers, thieves and rapists ... how can you compare these people to Jesus?" But compare the Agitator and his companions do. The poor are inherently virtuous and "criminality" is merely resistance to oppression. I can think of no attitude that more conforms to Arendt's "general contempt for ... the most obvious rules of common sense."
Of course the poor need leaders. And Eduard the Agitator is certain that he is among them. He calls upon the poor to "turn their heads toward progressives, activists, artists, singer-songwriters [Ted Nugent? Would he count?] , poets, social gospelers and the marginalized." These will create "a nation of equality and justice for all in the human heart and amidst human history."
One has to wonder about a regime of beatniks and how they will change the heart of the nation AGAINST the tide of history. One must also wonder what place the rich white male type folks would have in the Agitator' new state or how they would fare in his revolutionary struggle. Would they be on the receiving end of the Agitator's "culture of love and human value"? I wouldn't bank on it. It is difficult for a committed Christian to read Eduard's rhetoric and not be moved. But that rhetoric -- even if he believes it -- is being turned towards a troubling end.
He elevates action over thought and glorifies the movement. Terms, groups, labels, all these things -- ordinarily static in the world of politics -- are fluid and without precise meaning. Black is not always black; poor is not always poor; equal is not always equal. All is in flux -- in particular the goals. He implies the need for a new form of government -- something that will solve the social problems that the "vote" has not repaired: that his indeed his primary point.
Yet aside from group action, he has little to say about what such a government is supposed to look like. We are to organize, protest, march, scream, carry signs, block traffic, keep ordinary folks from seeing a ballgame, but to no clearly defined end other than to further the "struggle for justice." Again, I am moved to quote Ms. Arendt: "Neither National Socialism nor Bolshevism has ever proclaimed a new form of government or asserted that its goals were reached with the seizure of power and the control of the state machinery. Their idea of domination was something that no state and no mere apparatus of violence can ever achieve, but only a movement that is constantly kept in motion: namely the permanent domination of each single individual in each and every sphere of life. ... The practical goal of the movement is to organize as many people as possible within its framework and to set and keep them in motion; a political goal that would constitute the end of the movement simply does not exist."[Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 326.]
There, in a nutshell, is the program of Eduard-the-Agitator. Of course he would probably be proud to be called a Bolshevik, all the while denying that the Russian Revolution, in its massacre of some 70 million people, represented the "true" goals of Marxism. He would blanch (or grey, depending on his race) at the comparison to the fascists because, as a committed man of the Left, he couldn't possibly be a fascist.
But his denials would be in vain -- his word indict him. What animates his agitation is the same spirit that guided the black shirts, the brown shirts, the reds, and any number of the mass movements which stood behind the Totalitarian tyrannies of the modern era. Negation of the individual; glorification of the group; celebration of action; denial of reason and common sense: these are his values.
What is more galling is that he covers his totalitarian urges with the Gospel. Jesus calls upon us to rise in revolt. And this same Jesus demands that the aims of this revolt be entirely earthly. I don't remember "take money from the rich and distribute among yourselves" as one of His commandments. Indeed, at the root of Eduard's Agitation lies the violation of several commandments, in particular those concerning covetousness, theft, and bearing false witness. Licentiousness, not freedom; satisfaction of material desires, not celebration of the gifts of the spirit, are what he preaches.
One cannot help but recall the demands of the Zealots and Jesus' rejection of their demands to lead an earthly revolution. In the end, however, one must give Eduard the Agitator credit for calling on people to vote nonetheless. And while he does believe we need a new political party to lead us to the Earthly Paradise, the land of designer sneakers and sandwiches for all, in the meantime we should stand behind one party: "It helps the poor to have Democrats in office." He concludes by asking who Dr. King would have us vote for. Since Gus Hall is dead, I guess that only leaves one guy on the current ticket.
~ LUCIUS SEPTIMIUS
From the latest installment:
"Though Black and abused, Martin Luther King Jr. believed in America. The stated aim and purpose of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference was 'to redeem the soul of America.' Why else would he weep in Marks, Mississippi? And make plans with Marian Wright Edelman to shut down DC with a million poor people, all colors, all ages, with the unifying power of poor people who are ready to ACT for justice?Ok..... So what to make of this?
Yes, he learned from Malcolm X and Mayor Richard Daley that the American Dream dripped with the blood of Black and poor people. He woke up, and looking out the winder from in his Vine City neighborhood, he saw the nightmare. He was unable to go back to sleep. We killed him.
"'Everybody makes mistakes," Big Birds and Cookie Monsters have taught us on 'Sesame Street.' That is all that remains of the wisdom of the ages regarding the 'tragic dimension' of our shared human condition. 'I don't do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do.' (Romans 7:19)
"Martin made a mistake, a big mistake. It is the same mistake that the suffragists made. It is the same mistake that his hero Thomas Jefferson made. They trusted the vote to be the primary source of equality and justice for all. "
[SNIP]"Thomas Jefferson, benighted in his white maleness and slave ownership, not to mention dipping in the sugar bowls down in the slave cabins (rape, rape, rape) believed that an informed electorate plus a little revolution every 20 years would keep the American Experiment on the road toward fulfillment that 'all men [and women] are created equal' as we build a 'more perfection [sic] union' from the vast diversity of the American nation. ...
"We have now moved in this country from democracy to plutocracy, from levels of caring and organizing for justice to greed and apathy. It is very easy to judge our leaders of the optimistic past, Blacks, women and whites of the past, who have placed too much emphasis on the vote. The vote is not strong enough to carry the weight of the demand for more justice. Electoral politics is not able to provide the depth of love that is required for the peace and compassion that underlie the pursuit of equality and justice for all. White racism is too racist, sexism and pornography are too explicit, war is too profitable, greed is too convenient and titillating fo the vote to contest."
[SNIP]
"Dr. King made a big mistake. We all do. We must vote. ... But voting is not enough. 'The opiate of the middle class,' Dorothy Day liked to call it. We must go to the streets; we must stop the war by disrupting the military bases and recruitment centers; we must stop the death penalty by stopping the traffic on the night of a Braves game. We must disobey our government."
Eduard-the-Agitator is only too clear on what Dr. King's "mistake was." Dr. King believed in America. That was, as he says at one point "an illusion." America is racism, sexism, and blood-stained militarism. And who is at fault for all the sins of America? White men, obviously. Now one could agree with the Agitator that the vote is not a panacea for all social problems; one would be a fool to believe that.
But he still believes that the state SHOULD provide the solutions to social problems, primarily through the redistribution of wealth and the punishment of "racists" and those who "oppress" the "poor." And since the American government has not only failed to do this but has become more oppressive (in part, it would seem, on account of the greed and "whiteness" of the Founding Fathers), revolutionary action and massive disobedience is the only solution. To quote the Agitator person, we need the "unifying power" of those who "are ready to ACT for justice."
Hmmm.
What sort of political system do you have in mind, Mr. Agitator?Hannah Arendt noted long ago that "self-centered bitterness" was one of the attitudes which had gripped intellectual in the West, and in Europe particularly, at the beginning of the twentieth century. With this kind of narcissistic undirected anger came a variety of ritualistic self-loathing, characterized by a complete abandonment of the notion of self-interest. This, in turn, went hand in hand with a loss of the instinct for self-preservation.
Here we are not talking about "self-lessness" in the sense of altruism or charity, but rather self-negation which, taken to its logical extent made the preservation of one's own life -- not to mention that of others -- pointless. This attitude, once it had entered into the collective consciousness had disastrous effects. And the fashionable nihilism and "revolutionary" posturing of the intellectuals and cultural elites had "prepared certain politically conscious and over conscious sections of the Western educated world for the emergence of demagogues, for gullibility, superstition, and brutality ... [to] the radical loss of self-interest, the cynical or bored indifference in the face of death or other personal catastrophes, the passionate inclination toward the most abstract notions as guides for life, and the general contempt for even the most obvious rules of common sense."[Origins of Totalitarianism, pp. 315-316.]
Eduard the Agitator must be adjudged guilty on all counts. Self-interest -- whether that of the electorate or of individuals -- appears only as a negative value in his scheme. Self-interest is and can only be "selfishness" or "greed." There is no war that is good; conversely, there is no poor person who can be bad. Throughout his essays, it is clear that only white people can be racists; only rich white people can be greedy; only white men can be sexists.
And the virtue of Blacks, the poor, and the oppressed is that they exists not as individuals, but as part of a vaguely defined collective. That collective is virtuous by the purported lack of self-interest of its members. Indeed, Blacks, the poor, and the oppressed do not exist as individuals. The ones who do -- in this case Dr. King and current politicians in Atlanta, are singled out for criticism for looking out for themselves. For example, Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta is described has having been "transmogrified" from "civil rights advocate to pawn of the capitalist system, a tool in the toolbox to make Atlanta an elitist city of upper-class Blacks and whites together."
One wonders what is worse in the Agitator's mind -- that some Blacks have indeed risen into the ranks of the upper class (thereby losing at some level their "blackness") or that they are "together" with racist whites? Regardless, it becomes clear that the individual is only valued for his or her contribution to the collective. And the collective is by definition exclusionary. It is a "faithful remnant."
What is required to be a member then? Race? Perhaps not -- Andrew Young, current Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin, and the Black members of the Atlanta city council don't count, despite being on the record for saying that anyone who votes for a Republican wants to bring back "dogs and fire hoses" and deny Blacks the right to vote. Class? He says "no" but the "poor" are a constant trope.
But then again, not all "poor" count.
No, those who count are those who are willing to ACT against the government.
So it is action and rejection of the whole of the American political system that is required. And the kinds of actions he advocates are nothing less than forms of mob violence. Moreover, in his comments about capital punishment -- a particular obsession of this publication -- he seems to assume that those who are imprisoned are not "criminals" but the oppressed poor. The police are "crackers" and executioners of poor Black people.
The paper as a whole tends to champion the cause of condemned criminals, to such an extent that one reader wrote a letter saying "I don't understand how Atlanta has 'betrayed' murderers, thieves and rapists ... how can you compare these people to Jesus?" But compare the Agitator and his companions do. The poor are inherently virtuous and "criminality" is merely resistance to oppression. I can think of no attitude that more conforms to Arendt's "general contempt for ... the most obvious rules of common sense."
Of course the poor need leaders. And Eduard the Agitator is certain that he is among them. He calls upon the poor to "turn their heads toward progressives, activists, artists, singer-songwriters [Ted Nugent? Would he count?] , poets, social gospelers and the marginalized." These will create "a nation of equality and justice for all in the human heart and amidst human history."One has to wonder about a regime of beatniks and how they will change the heart of the nation AGAINST the tide of history. One must also wonder what place the rich white male type folks would have in the Agitator' new state or how they would fare in his revolutionary struggle. Would they be on the receiving end of the Agitator's "culture of love and human value"? I wouldn't bank on it. It is difficult for a committed Christian to read Eduard's rhetoric and not be moved. But that rhetoric -- even if he believes it -- is being turned towards a troubling end.
He elevates action over thought and glorifies the movement. Terms, groups, labels, all these things -- ordinarily static in the world of politics -- are fluid and without precise meaning. Black is not always black; poor is not always poor; equal is not always equal. All is in flux -- in particular the goals. He implies the need for a new form of government -- something that will solve the social problems that the "vote" has not repaired: that his indeed his primary point.
Yet aside from group action, he has little to say about what such a government is supposed to look like. We are to organize, protest, march, scream, carry signs, block traffic, keep ordinary folks from seeing a ballgame, but to no clearly defined end other than to further the "struggle for justice." Again, I am moved to quote Ms. Arendt: "Neither National Socialism nor Bolshevism has ever proclaimed a new form of government or asserted that its goals were reached with the seizure of power and the control of the state machinery. Their idea of domination was something that no state and no mere apparatus of violence can ever achieve, but only a movement that is constantly kept in motion: namely the permanent domination of each single individual in each and every sphere of life. ... The practical goal of the movement is to organize as many people as possible within its framework and to set and keep them in motion; a political goal that would constitute the end of the movement simply does not exist."[Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 326.]
There, in a nutshell, is the program of Eduard-the-Agitator. Of course he would probably be proud to be called a Bolshevik, all the while denying that the Russian Revolution, in its massacre of some 70 million people, represented the "true" goals of Marxism. He would blanch (or grey, depending on his race) at the comparison to the fascists because, as a committed man of the Left, he couldn't possibly be a fascist.
But his denials would be in vain -- his word indict him. What animates his agitation is the same spirit that guided the black shirts, the brown shirts, the reds, and any number of the mass movements which stood behind the Totalitarian tyrannies of the modern era. Negation of the individual; glorification of the group; celebration of action; denial of reason and common sense: these are his values.
What is more galling is that he covers his totalitarian urges with the Gospel. Jesus calls upon us to rise in revolt. And this same Jesus demands that the aims of this revolt be entirely earthly. I don't remember "take money from the rich and distribute among yourselves" as one of His commandments. Indeed, at the root of Eduard's Agitation lies the violation of several commandments, in particular those concerning covetousness, theft, and bearing false witness. Licentiousness, not freedom; satisfaction of material desires, not celebration of the gifts of the spirit, are what he preaches.
One cannot help but recall the demands of the Zealots and Jesus' rejection of their demands to lead an earthly revolution. In the end, however, one must give Eduard the Agitator credit for calling on people to vote nonetheless. And while he does believe we need a new political party to lead us to the Earthly Paradise, the land of designer sneakers and sandwiches for all, in the meantime we should stand behind one party: "It helps the poor to have Democrats in office." He concludes by asking who Dr. King would have us vote for. Since Gus Hall is dead, I guess that only leaves one guy on the current ticket.~ LUCIUS SEPTIMIUS
Procol Harum ~ Whiter Shade of Pale
No comments:
Post a Comment