Rantle

by Bob Anschuetz

While I join with those who believe that aspects of the President’s war on terrorism are both misdirected and dangerous, I believe they reflect not so much the special foibles of the Bush administration as a disposition of the American mindset that is deeply rooted in our culture.

When even Vietnam War protester John Kerry said in the 2004 campaign that he, as President, would hunt down the terrorists and kill every last one of them, he gave voice to a distinctly American outlook: namely, that there are “Others” out there who are intrinsically evil (who “hate everything we stand for”) and against whom we have no recourse but to get them before they get us. In the view of many Americans, however, such an outlook not only fails to make us safer, since it inevitably invites increased resentment and retaliation; it also stimulates fear as a ruling emotion and reduces our capacity to be fully human. It is, moreover, profoundly un-Christian. Even in the modified terms that must apply to a nation’s foreign policy, it spurns Christ’s calls to avoid judgment and to turn the other cheek.

A few days ago, on C-Span’s Book TV, I was inspired by a persuasive articulation of this view. It was presented in the form of a lecture by the ecumenical Rabbi Michael Lerner, who discussed his new book “The Left Hand of God.” In it, Lerner contends that the Religious Right has caught the imagination of half the American public, because its values reflect the drumbeat of conflict people actually experience in their daily lives, on the job and in their family relationships. Those same values, says Lerner, are expressed by the federal government in its manipulation of fear and its drive to control any forces that oppose its will or threaten its power. The only solution, he contends, is a morally – or “spiritually” — based countermovement on the part of the progressive Left that pushes the values of hope and compassion as the underpinnings of human conduct at every level. These values are what Lerner calls “the left hand of God.” He’s convinced that even people now operating from “the right hand of God” would buy into them, as they too subconsciously crave the humaneness and relief of tensions such values would bring to human relationships.

I agree with Lerner. If we Americans were driven by hope and compassion, rather than fear and the need to control other people, I think that, among other things, we would see that even the terrorists do what they do not out of intrinsic evil, but for reasons that, from their point of view, are entirely rational. These bad guys, too, have grievances that to them are very real, but, as they see it, they have no chance to resolve them either through political or conventional military means. From their point of view, change can only be achieved through the intimidation they hope to inflict by brutal attacks against civilians. This strategy is reinforced in the case of Al Qaeda by special religious and cultural influences (Bin Laden: “You love life; we love death.”), as well as by the natural tendency of any men to seize opportunities for personal power. The terrorists may be hostile and perpetrate loathsome acts, but they are also human beings, not an alien species outside the pale of reason. Finding some political means to deal with them is surely better than waging an endless war that compels us to outdo their own destructiveness 10-fold through shock and awe, and its dark offspring, torture.

Besides the containment of terrorism, the world needs to be made whole in many ways. This includes the lifting from poverty of fully five-sixths of its population. Luckily, any sacrifices required from the “haves” of the world in helping to achieve that end are likely to be their own reward. Michael Lerner has learned through his practice as a clinical psychologist that people generally find far greater satisfaction in the experience of human harmony than from any material success or power gained at its expense. He’s convinced, moreover, that, in spite of the nay-sayers, such harmony is achievable, and he now heads a movement to begin working toward it in practical ways. I for one wish him well. Surely, as Christianity itself suggests, a world in which hope, compassion, and reason reign would bear fruits far more satisfying than any levels of personal or national privilege fostered through conflict, fear and control.

by Bob Anschuetz

CRYING FIRE

Editorial comment on the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the mainstream media has come down heavily on the side of freedom of expression and against the alleged “small-mindedness” of Muslim indignation. This position, however, seems to me to point up a widespread misunderstanding of the role of religion in the life of society. If religion were in fact, as perhaps it should be, primarily a vehicle for personal salvation or self-transcendence, it might well be fair game for lampooning. In such a case, the focus would be on inner transformation, and the external rites by which it is achieved would be merely incidental. These could therefore be satirized without touching the integrity of the personal spiritual mission.

But, alas, only saints relate to religion in this way. For the rest of us, religion is not primarily a spiritual matter, but a cultural and social framework in which we find, to varying degrees, the values that shape our sense of identity. For the American Christian Right, for example, which is alienated from the mainstream secular culture and society, such values contribute greatly to the sense of identity. This may also be the case for many Americans of Jewish faith, who, though not alienated from the secular mainstream, are nevertheless a minority within it and so stand on their religion as a bedrock of identity. In contrast, for the majority of Christians, in America and elsewhere, who find themselves swimming easily in the secular mainstream, religion may offer the comfort of platitudes but plays a very small role in shaping a sense of identity.

For me, these distinctions are important, as I believe both personal experience and history itself suggest that the single strongest driver of all human behavior is the need for a sense of identity. This explains the black experience in America and the Jewish experience in Israel. It surely explains the outrage felt by Muslims throughout the world over what is for them the defamation of a fundamental religious symbol.

It’s easy for nominal Christians in the secular mainstream to exult in their open-mindedness regarding the possible parody of their own religious symbols. Such an attitude isn’t difficult when one’s sense of identity is firmly entrenched in the power of one’s society and culture, the prerogatives of the Bill of Rights, personal upward mobility, and the real religion of Super Bowl Sunday. But what about the Palestinians, who, like American blacks, were deprived by history of every prop of secular identity? What about other Arabs, who’ve been exploited for decades by Western imperialism and suppressed by their own strong-men leaders? What identity do they have except in the rites of their religion and its codified rules — which include most importantly a prohibition against representing the Prophet in any form, let alone a form that’s insulting?

What level of insensitivity have we reached when we can invoke the right of free expression to defend acts of religious insult that will predictably humiliate and outrage many millions of people who have nothing but their religion to live for? To do so is surely to cry fire in a crowded auditorium. We can only hope a real conflagration can be avoided.