What has been happening in Northern Ireland, in Bosnia, in Israel/Palestine, and in many other places has been more than enough to convince a fair-minded person that we simply cannot afford any longer our old tribalisms, our old ethnonationalisms, and our old religions. They are all of them hatred machines. They unite only by dividing, binding people together in fellowship only be directing their aggression externally against the demonized Other. The heretic, the apostate, the heathen, the infidel, the enemy of God, the dirty foreigner -- all this is a vocabulary we can no longer afford.
~ Don Cupitt in After God: The Future Of Religion ~
Despite the fact that Cupitt wrote these words at least one dozen years ago, it sounds like an apt description of what is going on in this nation today. The far right -- having been trounced in recent elections -- is working feverishly to unite its base by attempting to tear the nation apart. The Other they have chosen to demonize is our nation's first black president and every move he makes is painted with the wide brush of socialism.
As I've made abundantly clear in this blog, I am no Obama fan myself. However, while I take great issue with many of the moves and policies undertaken by his administration, I've never once labeled him the devil incarnate. Heck, I absolutely loathed the Bush administration, but I never suggested that Bush, Cheney and company were the epitome of evil.
Fueling this current march of abject negativity is the most fundamentalist and conservative brand of Christianity. In the eyes of the Glenn Becks of the world, their task is one undertaken in the name of their god and those of us who do not bow down and prostrate themselves before his almighty throne are the infidels within our midst.
This same dynamic is afoot in other nations as well. Much of the negativity and anger that is seething over in the Middle East and other locales is fueled by conservative religious zealots who posit that anyone -- whether foreign or domestic -- who does not proscribe to their myopic views of the "will" of their creator should be cast into the fire.
How do we combat this wave of hatred? The knee-jerk reaction is to meet such hatred with our own brand of demonization. They're a bunch of crackpots! we say. Pay no attention to these idiots!
But this type of tact only plays into their hands. They want us to react this way to provide them with their own twisted justification to become even more vitriolic. If we choose to fight fire with fire, then, in their minds, we're declaring war and, in war, no strategy or act is out of bounds.
No, this is a time when we need fully to understand the Taoist perspective on contradiction. This is not the time to meet their religion-infused aggression with a stiff resolve. The only way to defeat hatred is with love and compassion.
If you merely hate that which hates you, you become fuel for a never-ending cycle. Hate runs in an ever-shrinking circle and each act or word of hatred only causes a more severe response in the next instance. In essence, it becomes a tight cyclone that will destroy everything in its path.
As Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. showed decades ago, meeting hatred head-on with love and justice is no easy thing. In fact, it takes great courage and patience. We need to look to people like them for an example of how we should address the current climate of unbridled hate.
Several of you have commented about my incessant criticisms of [conservative] Christianity. I make no apologies for it. I stand against ANY belief system that seeks to bind "people together in fellowship only be directing their aggression externally against the demonized Other." In this country, that belief system is fundamentalist Christianity. If I lived somewhere else, my critique might be aimed squarely at Judaism, Hinduism or Islam.
As I've made abundantly clear in this blog, I am no Obama fan myself. However, while I take great issue with many of the moves and policies undertaken by his administration, I've never once labeled him the devil incarnate. Heck, I absolutely loathed the Bush administration, but I never suggested that Bush, Cheney and company were the epitome of evil.
Fueling this current march of abject negativity is the most fundamentalist and conservative brand of Christianity. In the eyes of the Glenn Becks of the world, their task is one undertaken in the name of their god and those of us who do not bow down and prostrate themselves before his almighty throne are the infidels within our midst.
This same dynamic is afoot in other nations as well. Much of the negativity and anger that is seething over in the Middle East and other locales is fueled by conservative religious zealots who posit that anyone -- whether foreign or domestic -- who does not proscribe to their myopic views of the "will" of their creator should be cast into the fire.
How do we combat this wave of hatred? The knee-jerk reaction is to meet such hatred with our own brand of demonization. They're a bunch of crackpots! we say. Pay no attention to these idiots!
But this type of tact only plays into their hands. They want us to react this way to provide them with their own twisted justification to become even more vitriolic. If we choose to fight fire with fire, then, in their minds, we're declaring war and, in war, no strategy or act is out of bounds.
No, this is a time when we need fully to understand the Taoist perspective on contradiction. This is not the time to meet their religion-infused aggression with a stiff resolve. The only way to defeat hatred is with love and compassion.
If you merely hate that which hates you, you become fuel for a never-ending cycle. Hate runs in an ever-shrinking circle and each act or word of hatred only causes a more severe response in the next instance. In essence, it becomes a tight cyclone that will destroy everything in its path.
As Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. showed decades ago, meeting hatred head-on with love and justice is no easy thing. In fact, it takes great courage and patience. We need to look to people like them for an example of how we should address the current climate of unbridled hate.
Several of you have commented about my incessant criticisms of [conservative] Christianity. I make no apologies for it. I stand against ANY belief system that seeks to bind "people together in fellowship only be directing their aggression externally against the demonized Other." In this country, that belief system is fundamentalist Christianity. If I lived somewhere else, my critique might be aimed squarely at Judaism, Hinduism or Islam.
Obama's not black. He's half black and half white.
ReplyDeleteAlso, maybe not you but I think quite a few people did demonise Cheney and Bush (in that order) as the epitome of evil.
Finally, I think that Don Cupitt is being quite simplistic in that quote, although I've not read the book. To take one example, those Israelis whose faith in their G-d, their nation and their history drives them to claim a homeland and defend it against invaders do not "hate" anyone. They are simply defending something they love more than their own lives: the eternal idea of Israel. What Don Cupitt is calling "hatred" is really the idea of having anything worth living and dying for, which seems typical of the modern mindset.
In our racist society, if a person is "part" black, then they are black.
ReplyDeleteI sharply criticized the Bush administration from Day 1. However, I attacked their policies and words, not any of them as human beings.
As to your last paragraph, I would beg to differ. While not all Israelis and/or Jews "hate" Palestinians, a good number of them do! And this hate is based on a collection of fables and myths created (then written) thousands of years ago.
but I never suggested that Bush, Cheney and company were the epitome of evil.
ReplyDeleteThey were, however. Legalizing torture and giving tax breaks to the 1% richest Americans IS evil.
I realise that in our society most people consider Obama to be black without consulting him. I would hope you would clarify that this is what you meant in your post, though, since it appears that you are joining in considering him black without consulting him.
ReplyDeleteMaybe some Israelis hate Palestinians. However, not all nationalist Israelis hate Palestinians. In fact, Rabbi Kahane did not hate Palestinians. He simply loved Israel so much that he was willing to defend her against them, which appeared to the politically uncommitted as "hatred".
Lorena--I'm not a Bush supporter, but I find the word "evil" extremely unhelpful and used mostly to draw an emotional response. On what grounds do you consider Mr Bush evil?
Thought that stagnates, rots!
ReplyDeleteOn what grounds do you consider Mr Bush evil?
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! If you have to ask, I'd be wasting my time answering.
So I take it that instead of trying to convince anyone, you were simply speaking to people who already share your opinion and your conception of what "evil" is.
ReplyDeleteFair enough.
It's refreshing reading someone who will state "I make no apologies for it" the way you did in the final paragraph. You have validated my own stance.
ReplyDeleteIt will take a lot for me to come to love the far right. I'm no Gandhi! But I will work on reducing the hatred.