Almsgiving and helping the poor are
also great ways to keep the devil at bay. Anything done from the
heart, especially when it's sacrificial, confounds him. Why? Because
he doesn't have a heart, and he can't understand it. He has an immense
intellect, and can win a battle of wits with us every time, but he
always loses the battle whenever we do something for the less fortunate,
from the heart.
- Catholic Bible 101
So why is it that in horror movies involving demon possession you never see the possessed or tormented going to a homeless shelter or food cupboard and volunteering? It is, of course, the increasingly reactionary ideology of Hollywood. However, there are redeeming qualities in films like the Exorcist and the Paranormal Activity series. They depict privileged people who don't really deserve their privilege who get their comeuppance from the demons. In fact, in the Paranormal Activity films, the riches/privileges themselves come from a pact with Satan and his demons.
I am, of course, a total materialist, but even in the most despicable of religions there are lessons to be learned. Undeserved privilege, whether it be race culture, gender, orientation, ability or body type based must be formally renounced, in the way someone tortured by demons must renounce Satan. It must also be recognized that despite such renunciation, those of us who have privilege may still benefit from it. Thus, we must become traitors to our identites, like John Brown, and actively oppose these systems of privilege.
As a great liberation theologian once said:
In terms of Bill Maher, I think he's a flip-flopping Zionist liberal who gives atheism a bad name. However, the general thrust of his argument against Islam is correct, albeit problematic. Essentially, Bill Maher is saying that if you read the holy books of just about any religion and interpret them through a fundamentalist/literalist lens, they're all pretty despicable. Of course they are! They were written a long time ago when the world was a very different place culturally, socially, politically and economically. He also blames religion for wars. Well of course religions have been responsible for wars. They often preach about spiritual warfare as a proof of a zealot's devotion.
What makes Bill Maher's conceptualization of religion problematic, is that he seems to think it's just a religion thing, when it's really just hegemonic ideology that is the problem. Religion is one form that hegemonic ideology takes, but there are other forms as well. Fascism, for example, was not a religion (although some fascists like Franco and to a lesser extent even Hitler espoused religiosity) but it was an insidious ideology that resulted in some of the most horrific atrocities of the last century.
Neoliberal capitalism is another more current example. As a matter of fact, I would call a progressive liberation theologian like the Catholic Workers or the late-Malcolm X's Muslim Mosque, Inc. a comrade before I would a free-market libertarian neo-atheist.
Religion is only different because it is ideology at its rawest, purest form. It demands faith, not facts or even revisionist history to sustain its legitimacy. However, it should be seen as simply an ideology. It should not be sheltered from criticism nor should it be unjustly criticized and disproportionately blamed for atrocities. Even we communists have some past crimes done in our name that we have to own.
Often I am disappointed by those who call them socialists who would disavow Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung etc. by saying they weren't really communists, or their governments didn't try real, authentic socialism. Bullshit! They were communists of some form or another, even though maybe not whichever particular version may be popular at the moment. They made mistakes, their thinking was off in some ways, they tried things that failed and they even committed atrocities at times. However, to insist that they weren't authentic communists is to parrot the libertarian-capitalist argument that "true capitalism was never tried." Additionally, we must not reject wholesale these leaders' contributions to the body of socialist thought. The benefit of studying history is that we can see, in hindsight, what aspects of which theories worked and did not.
If socialism was never tried than socialism can never be tried and the socialist project is doomed to failure from its outset. The ray of hope here, however, is that a successful revolution redeems all failed ones. Let us not dismiss uncomfortable aspects of our tradition's history as non-authentic. Let us learn from them and improve going forward.
- Catholic Bible 101
So why is it that in horror movies involving demon possession you never see the possessed or tormented going to a homeless shelter or food cupboard and volunteering? It is, of course, the increasingly reactionary ideology of Hollywood. However, there are redeeming qualities in films like the Exorcist and the Paranormal Activity series. They depict privileged people who don't really deserve their privilege who get their comeuppance from the demons. In fact, in the Paranormal Activity films, the riches/privileges themselves come from a pact with Satan and his demons.
I am, of course, a total materialist, but even in the most despicable of religions there are lessons to be learned. Undeserved privilege, whether it be race culture, gender, orientation, ability or body type based must be formally renounced, in the way someone tortured by demons must renounce Satan. It must also be recognized that despite such renunciation, those of us who have privilege may still benefit from it. Thus, we must become traitors to our identites, like John Brown, and actively oppose these systems of privilege.
As a great liberation theologian once said:
In terms of Bill Maher, I think he's a flip-flopping Zionist liberal who gives atheism a bad name. However, the general thrust of his argument against Islam is correct, albeit problematic. Essentially, Bill Maher is saying that if you read the holy books of just about any religion and interpret them through a fundamentalist/literalist lens, they're all pretty despicable. Of course they are! They were written a long time ago when the world was a very different place culturally, socially, politically and economically. He also blames religion for wars. Well of course religions have been responsible for wars. They often preach about spiritual warfare as a proof of a zealot's devotion.
What makes Bill Maher's conceptualization of religion problematic, is that he seems to think it's just a religion thing, when it's really just hegemonic ideology that is the problem. Religion is one form that hegemonic ideology takes, but there are other forms as well. Fascism, for example, was not a religion (although some fascists like Franco and to a lesser extent even Hitler espoused religiosity) but it was an insidious ideology that resulted in some of the most horrific atrocities of the last century.
Neoliberal capitalism is another more current example. As a matter of fact, I would call a progressive liberation theologian like the Catholic Workers or the late-Malcolm X's Muslim Mosque, Inc. a comrade before I would a free-market libertarian neo-atheist.
Religion is only different because it is ideology at its rawest, purest form. It demands faith, not facts or even revisionist history to sustain its legitimacy. However, it should be seen as simply an ideology. It should not be sheltered from criticism nor should it be unjustly criticized and disproportionately blamed for atrocities. Even we communists have some past crimes done in our name that we have to own.
Often I am disappointed by those who call them socialists who would disavow Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung etc. by saying they weren't really communists, or their governments didn't try real, authentic socialism. Bullshit! They were communists of some form or another, even though maybe not whichever particular version may be popular at the moment. They made mistakes, their thinking was off in some ways, they tried things that failed and they even committed atrocities at times. However, to insist that they weren't authentic communists is to parrot the libertarian-capitalist argument that "true capitalism was never tried." Additionally, we must not reject wholesale these leaders' contributions to the body of socialist thought. The benefit of studying history is that we can see, in hindsight, what aspects of which theories worked and did not.
If socialism was never tried than socialism can never be tried and the socialist project is doomed to failure from its outset. The ray of hope here, however, is that a successful revolution redeems all failed ones. Let us not dismiss uncomfortable aspects of our tradition's history as non-authentic. Let us learn from them and improve going forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment