I've been laboring the past week or so to consolidate my thoughts, and give a spiritual explanation for the very concrete political issues that we are facing. I've written much that I've decided to put aside for now, but that I'll probably try to incorporate into future posts. But it's all rather unwieldy and disjointed, which means that I'll need more time to reflect on these things before really being able to articulate where I'm coming from. But if I were to try to encapsulate what I'm thinking, I would use the words of that ancient sage of the Old Testament Qoheleth:
I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chase after wind. (Ecclesiastes 1:14)
A reading of the entire book will give you an insight into my thinking on this, but at least take a look at the first chapter.
Elsewhere in that chapter we are told that generations pass, but the rivers continue to run to the sea as always, indifferent to our existence. We are just the latest inhabitants in a long line that have come and gone since creation. Anything we think is new was done already by generations long past. It's just that we have no memory of these things, and the sad truth is that future generations will have no remembrance of us. I believe that this communal amnesia can be true in any society, but is especially acute in one like our own which has willfully abandoned tradition and rejected the transcendent.
In this we are actually faced then with a double dilemma: We are disconnected from a sense of history or tradition on the earthly level, but we are also cut off from a sense of the eternal. We are slaves of the present moment with nothing to guide us but the capricious dictatorship of our own emotions. All is a visceral chasing after the wants and desires of the moment. The present obsession with gender identity, for instance, is the result of a culture which has no reference point beyond five minutes ago, trapped in a self contained universe the size and consistency of a walnut shell. We are our own measuring stick of reality since there is no history, no tradition, no eternal outside our shells to consult. We are each the universal Magisterium of a personalized orthodoxy, and woe betide the person guilty of heresy against our personal dogma.
We know somewhere inside that this isn't right. We have a feeling somewhere in the deep recesses of our consciousness that we are being played; that we are being kept anesthetized by a chasing after technological gadgets. With head phones or ear buds firmly embedded, eyes pasted to the screen or vacantly staring into the mid-distance, these gadgets keep us cut off from active participation in the society by audio-visual narcotics - both soft and hard. The constant input from various media platforms feed us what we should think and how we should feel. This is simple stimuli though, fueled by raw emotion, not real substantial content. These entertainments keep us amused for a moment, but there isn't anything that forces the mind to think or question. Like a junkie we know that these electronic drugs are killing us, yet we're convinced that we'll die without them.
The crisis we face right now is that our political culture, like the rest of it, is also disconnected from temporal history and transcendent values. Religion, for its part, has been reduced to politics and politics has been made a religion. I'd say ideology has replaced religion, but I'm not sure we're that sophisticated these days. There is nothing wrong with politics, in its proper place. And it's not that it is necessarily subordinate to religion as an institutional reality (that's a different debate, I think), but it is subordinate to God and the values that flow from His eternal wisdom. Since our politics are disconnected from a sense of national tradition and eternal truth we are, again, left to the whims of the moment.
The discontent that has contributed to the rise of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is rooted in that almost subliminal sense that the powers that be have been taking advantage of the present spiritual and historical disconnect to keep the masses chasing after the high tech wind, diverted by dead end self examinations, thus rendering us easier to control. Both men are appealing to some desire to recapture the vision of what being an American means, and Mr. Trump, at least, appeals to the idea that this is or was a Christian nation. Mr. Trump has no ideology accept raw nationalism, and Mr. Sanders' rage against the system is clothed in socialist principles, but his is still an emotional call to arms. Both men are charismatic in their own way, yet otherwise lack the standard resume of someone seeking the presidency, and that's the reason why they are making such an impact, and Mr. Trump as secured his party's nomination.
Because so many have flocked to Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders doesn't mean that they are right to do so, or that these two people represent the best antidote to the current crisis. But Ted Cruse, along with any number of other contenders on his side, and Mrs. Clinton are the established order as far as many people are concerned. They are one's who have controlled the levers of power and are perceived as having led us down this path to begin with. They are being rejected because of this "insider" status, not in spite of it.
Some commentators are critical of the respective party faithful for having abandoned the reasoned, conventional approach. It is argued that they are reacting out of anger (which is at least partially true), or they are nostalgic for a white dominated America of the past (more than implying racism), or they are sexist against Hillary Clinton (which I find unpersuasive). There are many different other reasons I've heard as well, most rather conventional, much rather condescending: all a chasing after the wind. Because the people are turning over the system doesn't mean that they are wrong to be angry and fed up, or that they shouldn't demand something other than what the respective party apparatus is putting forward. But with no intellectual or spiritual roots grounding their anger, the electorate is grasping for the first charismatic leader they hear who's been able to tap into their discontent: Messieurs Trump and Sanders keep it simple, they keep it visceral. Their rejection of the establishment isn't just lip service, even if they're really not equipped to back it up once in office. But the desperate voter isn't thinking that far ahead, and so the chase for wind continues.
End of Part One
In this we are actually faced then with a double dilemma: We are disconnected from a sense of history or tradition on the earthly level, but we are also cut off from a sense of the eternal. We are slaves of the present moment with nothing to guide us but the capricious dictatorship of our own emotions. All is a visceral chasing after the wants and desires of the moment. The present obsession with gender identity, for instance, is the result of a culture which has no reference point beyond five minutes ago, trapped in a self contained universe the size and consistency of a walnut shell. We are our own measuring stick of reality since there is no history, no tradition, no eternal outside our shells to consult. We are each the universal Magisterium of a personalized orthodoxy, and woe betide the person guilty of heresy against our personal dogma.
We know somewhere inside that this isn't right. We have a feeling somewhere in the deep recesses of our consciousness that we are being played; that we are being kept anesthetized by a chasing after technological gadgets. With head phones or ear buds firmly embedded, eyes pasted to the screen or vacantly staring into the mid-distance, these gadgets keep us cut off from active participation in the society by audio-visual narcotics - both soft and hard. The constant input from various media platforms feed us what we should think and how we should feel. This is simple stimuli though, fueled by raw emotion, not real substantial content. These entertainments keep us amused for a moment, but there isn't anything that forces the mind to think or question. Like a junkie we know that these electronic drugs are killing us, yet we're convinced that we'll die without them.
The crisis we face right now is that our political culture, like the rest of it, is also disconnected from temporal history and transcendent values. Religion, for its part, has been reduced to politics and politics has been made a religion. I'd say ideology has replaced religion, but I'm not sure we're that sophisticated these days. There is nothing wrong with politics, in its proper place. And it's not that it is necessarily subordinate to religion as an institutional reality (that's a different debate, I think), but it is subordinate to God and the values that flow from His eternal wisdom. Since our politics are disconnected from a sense of national tradition and eternal truth we are, again, left to the whims of the moment.
The discontent that has contributed to the rise of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is rooted in that almost subliminal sense that the powers that be have been taking advantage of the present spiritual and historical disconnect to keep the masses chasing after the high tech wind, diverted by dead end self examinations, thus rendering us easier to control. Both men are appealing to some desire to recapture the vision of what being an American means, and Mr. Trump, at least, appeals to the idea that this is or was a Christian nation. Mr. Trump has no ideology accept raw nationalism, and Mr. Sanders' rage against the system is clothed in socialist principles, but his is still an emotional call to arms. Both men are charismatic in their own way, yet otherwise lack the standard resume of someone seeking the presidency, and that's the reason why they are making such an impact, and Mr. Trump as secured his party's nomination.
Because so many have flocked to Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders doesn't mean that they are right to do so, or that these two people represent the best antidote to the current crisis. But Ted Cruse, along with any number of other contenders on his side, and Mrs. Clinton are the established order as far as many people are concerned. They are one's who have controlled the levers of power and are perceived as having led us down this path to begin with. They are being rejected because of this "insider" status, not in spite of it.
Some commentators are critical of the respective party faithful for having abandoned the reasoned, conventional approach. It is argued that they are reacting out of anger (which is at least partially true), or they are nostalgic for a white dominated America of the past (more than implying racism), or they are sexist against Hillary Clinton (which I find unpersuasive). There are many different other reasons I've heard as well, most rather conventional, much rather condescending: all a chasing after the wind. Because the people are turning over the system doesn't mean that they are wrong to be angry and fed up, or that they shouldn't demand something other than what the respective party apparatus is putting forward. But with no intellectual or spiritual roots grounding their anger, the electorate is grasping for the first charismatic leader they hear who's been able to tap into their discontent: Messieurs Trump and Sanders keep it simple, they keep it visceral. Their rejection of the establishment isn't just lip service, even if they're really not equipped to back it up once in office. But the desperate voter isn't thinking that far ahead, and so the chase for wind continues.
End of Part One
No comments:
Post a Comment