Dread
"Before they seize power and establish a world according to their doctrines, totalitarian movements conjure up a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the needs of the human mind than reality itself."
- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
"But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence...illusion only is sacred, truth profane." - Guy Debord
Dread is the operative word in America's current political climate. The electorate is divided into those who've long ago surrendered to a life of pervasive and enduring dread, and those whose dread is focused on the particular outcome of the current presidential race.
For the first group the dread is deeper, with roots that go back perhaps as far as the taming of the wilderness. For these people the American flag will forever be superimposed over an image of falling towers, and the dread they feel is far more encompassing than a fear of terrorists. In their lifetimes they've watched everything they believe in threatened or defeated by the disruptive shocks of a constantly mutating social order. The changes are driven by the inexorable whirlwind of technological advance and fueled by the demands of ongoing warfare in an accelerating cycle of fear leading to war leading to disruption and innovation and back again to more fear. In the terror of being left behind in a constant pursuit of economic and military superiority over those who threaten, they are the first to pile upon the latest technology. Yet, these loyal participants in the endless march toward 'progress' through commerce are also first to resent the inevitable social dislocations that progress brings about. Not only fear, but the element of guilt plays a part, as guilt is the flip side of a judgment that forms the core of a faith that ultimately strives for divine justice. Guilt is born when an occasional glimpse of the profligate injustice of accumulation and hoarding of superfluous wealth in the face of a starving world leaks through the barricades. Of course the denial of guilt requires that the blame for injustice is thrust upon its victims. I will call this group the Believers. For the true Believers the list of enemies at the gate is growing ever larger.
For others the enemy manifests currently as right-wing Republicans, and dread arises out of sheer incredulity at the collective manifestations of an extreme and apparently willful ignorance. When 20,000 people gather in a stadium in Cincinnati in slavish adoration of an obviously shallow thinker like George Bush, the image of Third Reich rallies is what comes to mind. When the so-called leader of the 'free' world appears caught helplessly in the headlights whenever he is asked a straight question, yet so many people are unable to see that the emperor is naked, the dread is akin to being trapped in a strange precinct of hell. In this case dread has a deja vu quality, as if one were reliving the plots of those old war movies filled with Nazis and camp guards. All of the rhetoric of patriotism and the idealistic intentions of America are a sickly disguise for self-delusion so destructive that the only foreseeable outcome has been replicated in various versions with the fall of every delusional empire since the Romans. This group I refer to as the Sceptics.
The biggest difference between these two versions of dread can be seen in their respective sense of history. For the Believers history is largely the unfolding of a religious myth based upon faith in the concept of some 'city on the hill' in which America is the extraordinary model for all peoples. The close affinity between extreme right wing Christians and Jews is a logical result of their common conviction that at the core of all human endeavor is the special relationship of a patriarchal God with his chosen people. Of course the flip side of trusting in this myth of the Big Daddy in the Sky is the absolute terror of those who might contradict it. Sooner or later all infidels must be converted or crushed, or the story can't come to a satisfactory conclusion.
For the Sceptics history appears more as a continuity of repeating cycles in which human beings learn, evolve, and generally make progress in their ability to tolerate one another, with occasional frightening regressions into chaos and savagery. For these people the old patriarchal myth is kind of washed up and obsolete, along with its trappings and promises of divine racial destiny. Ultimately the responsibility for our future lies with us and our ability to learn from our errors. Perhaps regrettably, there is no heavenly 'mother ship' likely to descend and take the faithful to a better place. We are stuck here with ourselves and our own mistakes. The dread that threatens to all but overwhelm this group in this particular time is that the most powerful nation on earth may choose to replay the serious errors of a recent remembered past with even more dire collective results.
Another crucial difference is in the relationship between the elite of each group with its rank and file supporters. The Believers invest all of their faith in the moral judgment of their leaders. The world for them is like a vastly expanded version of the old television family sitcom, 'Father Knows Best', where dad holds all of the wisdom cards, looking upon his charges with compassion while making all of the important decisions. The Believers share a remarkable trust and tolerance for the unprecedented secrecy their leaders tend to foster at the levels of authority. Meanwhile they exert enormous efforts to block out all questioning or information that appears to contradict the myth of their caring and protective fathers. Cognitive scientist George Lakoff in his recent book, "Don't Think of An Elephant", calls this outlook the "Strict Father" model, in which the world appears as a treacherous Manichean battlefield between the forces of good and evil, and the role of both fathers and government is to protect their children and to punish them when they go astray. In light of this the heavy handed behavior of a devout Christian like John Ashcroft who so avidly supports the death penalty makes sense. The rhetoric of neo-conservatives, who urge us to trust them even when their assessment of reality flies in the face of apparent contradictions and lies, arises from an absolute faith that they are following a trail laid before them by God through divine revelation given to those who lead.
This is all very scary to anyone who isn't a true Believer, as it feels to Skeptics like being taken along on an involuntary ride to a foreign destination. What's more, the ride is taking them in a direction opposite to anything they can practically envision as a place of tolerance, peace and cooperation. The Skeptic's dread rises at the appalling inability and unwillingness for Believers to perceive the dark side of their own vision, even when it manifests in front of their eyes. For example, everything the Skeptics warned would happen with the invasion of Iraq has come to pass and yet there is still no willingness of either those in power or their followers to acknowledge the truth on the ground. What the Believers see in their leaders as steadfastness Skeptics see only as a propagation of dangerous delusion.
The Skeptics are voracious gatherers of facts, being a product of the age of science and reason. They are eternal doubters of authority, used to always testing the limits of any hypothesis. Their faith is not in an all protecting God but in our own ability as thinking and feeling beings to find a way through the darkness. They proceed by consensus between those of good will, and their only enemies are those who violate their trust with lies and hypocrisy, arrogance and cruelty. The relationship between leaders and those who follow is strictly conditional, and any claim of truth is tested. For these Skeptics the most prominent feature of the world is its complexity rather than its hostility. The battle is less between absolutes of right and wrong, and more between our frozen ideas and the revelations of an ever-shifting and ever-expanding universe.
Yes, it's a scary time, and with the upcoming election the dread has built to a crescendo. After the election, whichever way it goes the dread isn't likely to go away. Whatever side wins, the other side will see impending doom. If the Believers win, will we hear more talk of endless war and face the likelihood that our children being asked to fight them? If the Sceptics win will we let down our guard against an ever rising tide of enemies? In the shadow of this deep divide, each of us as an individual faces a choice between arrogance and reconciliation, pride and humility, dread and hope. Neither side in this struggle is likely to give up the fight, so they will both have to adjust to a changing world as reality intervenes between our situation and our dreams. Ultimately my dread is my own, to have and to hold, or to let go of.
This is more than a battle between religion and science. Personally I'm a skeptic with faith that something bigger than all of our beliefs is in play. I'm quite convinced that whatever evolves on this earth won't be entirely the product of either our wishes or our prophecies. Those on either side of the debate between Believers and Skeptics who presume to predict or control the future are the ones most likely to be surprised. The earth is an older and greater being than all of us, and even God must work within its limitations and laws. Rather than fearing the loss of our plans and the disappointment of our expectations we need to offer our best efforts on behalf of our fellows, placing victory in the hands of a greater power.
If those in power win this election, we will have to learn a deeper lesson about the dangers of ignorance and blind belief. If their opponents win we will still have to pay the price of the choices that have already been made. Either way, the "hard work" that the president repeatedly referred to, ad nauseum, in his debate performance will be long and dangerous and absolutely necessary if our nation is to recover its soul. We have allowed ourselves collectively to enter a dark age of fear, and I hope we can pass through it quickly to a new age of possibilities.
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Cost of War: http://costofwar.com
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"When it is necessary to modify or renew fundamental doctrine, the generations sacrificed to the era during which the transformation takes place remain essentially alienated from that transformation, and often become directly hostile to it."
-Auguste Comte, Un Appel aux conservateurs
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