The battle under way in America is not a battle between religion and science. It is a battle between religious and secular fundamentalists. It is a battle between two groups intoxicated with the utopian and magical belief that humankind can perfect itself and master its destiny.
We live in an age of faith. We are assured we are advancing as a species toward a world that will be made perfect by reason, technology, science or the second coming of Jesus Christ. Evil can be eradicated. War has been declared on nebulous forces or cultures that stand as impediments to progress. Religion, if you are secular, is blamed for genocide, injustice, persecution, backwardness and intellectual and sexual repression. Secular humanism, if you are born again, is branded as a tool of Satan.
The folly of humankind, however, is pervasive. It infects all human endeavors. It has not exempted itself from institutional religion or the cult of science and reason. The greatest danger that besets us does not come from believers or atheists. It comes from those who, under the guise of religion, science or reason, imagine that we can free ourselves from the limitations of human nature and perfect the human species.
Those who insist we are morally advancing as a species are deluding themselves. There is nothing in science or human history or human nature to support this idea. Human individuals can make moral advances, as can human societies, but they also make moral reverses. Our personal and collective histories are not linear. We alternate between periods of light and periods of darkness. We can move forward materially, but we do not move forward morally. The belief in collective moral advancement ignores the endemic flaws in human nature as well as the tragic reality of human history. This belief in inevitable moral progress, whether it comes in secular or religious form, is magical thinking. The secular version of this myth peddles fables no less fantastic, and no less delusional, than those preached from many church pulpits.
The word utopia was coined by Thomas More in 1516 from the Greek words for no and place. To be a utopian, to live for the creation of a fantastic and unreal world, was to live in no place, to remove oneself from reality. It is only by building an ethic based on reality, one that takes into account the dangers and limits of human nature and human power, that we can begin to adjust our behavior to cope with social and political problems. All utopian schemes of impossible advances and glorious conclusions end in moral squalor, criminality and fanaticism.
The current “war on terror” by the United States is a utopian vision. It is being fought so that evil can be violently uprooted. Its proponents promise a world that will become “reasonable,” a “civil” world ruled by the “rational” forces of global capitalism. Those who support the “war on terror” speak as if victory in any tangible sense is possible. This noble vision of a world in harmony is used to turn us into criminals, beasts who carry out needless murder and torture in Iraq and our offshore penal colonies in the name of human progress.
The desire for emancipation, universal happiness and prosperity has a seductive pull on the human imagination. It preoccupied the early church, which was infused with exclusivist, utopian sects. We are comforted by the thought that we progress morally as a species. We want things to get better. We want to believe we are moving forward. This hope is more reassuring than reality. But all the signs in our present world point to a coming anarchy, a massive dislocation of populations that will result from ecological devastation and climate change, multiple pollutions, the weight of overpopulation and wars fought over dwindling natural resources. Science, which should be used to address these looming disasters, has largely become a tool of corporations that seek not to protect us but make a profit and stimulate the economy. New technologies that are potentially threatening, such as genetically modified organisms and nanotechnologies, are being unleashed with no understanding of the impact on the biosphere. The global population is expected to jump from about 2 billion in 1930 to 8 or 9 billion in the mid-21st century, and this means that if growth is left unchecked we will no longer be able to sustain ourselves, especially as nations such as China seek the consumption levels of the industrialized nations in Europe and North America. Nearly two-thirds of the life-support services provided to us by nature are already in precipitous decline worldwide. The old wars of conquest, expansion and exploitation will be replaced by wars fought for the basic necessities of air, food, sustainable living conditions and water. And as we race toward this catastrophe scientists continue to make discoveries, set these discoveries upon us and walk away from the impact.
The belief that science and reason will save us makes it possible to ignore or minimize these looming catastrophes. We drift toward disaster with the comforting thought that the god of science will intervene on our behalf. It is dispiriting to live in a world where things are not moving forward and will most probably get worse. We prefer to believe that we are the culmination of a process, the end result of centuries of human advancement, rather than creatures trapped in the irrevocable limitations and blunders of human nature. The idea of inevitable progress gives us comfort in times of turmoil. It allows us to place ourselves at the center of creation, to exalt ourselves above others. It translates our narrow self-interest into a universal good. But it is morally irresponsible. It permits us to avert our eyes from reality and place our hopes in an absurdist faith.
The belief that rational and quantifiable disciplines such as science can be used to perfect human society is no less absurd than a belief in magic, angels and divine intervention. Scientific methods, part of the process of changing the material world, are nearly useless in the nebulous world of politics, ideas, values and ethics. But the belief in the possibility of collective moral progress, in our ability to advance as a species spiritually and ethically, is seductive. It is what has doomed populations in the past that have chased after impossible dreams, and it threatens to doom us again. It is, at its core, the enticement that we can be more than human, that we can become gods.
We have nothing to fear from those who do or do not believe in God. We have much to fear from those who do not believe in sin. The concept of sin is a stark acknowledgement that we can never be omnipotent, that we are bound and limited by human flaws and self-interest. The concept of sin is a check on the utopian dreams of a perfect world. It prevents us from believing in our own perfectibility or the illusion that the human species makes moral advances along with the material advances in science and technology. To turn away from God is harmless. Saints have been trying to do it for centuries. To turn away from sin is catastrophic. Religious fundamentalists, who believe they know and can carry out the will of God, disregard their severe human limitations. They act as if they are free from sin. The secular utopians from Richard Dawkins to Sam Harris to Daniel Dennett to Christopher Hitchens have also forgotten they are human. Both they and religious fundamentalists peddle absolutes. Those who do not see as they see, speak as they speak and act as they act are worthy only of conversion or eradication.
The belief that human nature can be improved and perfected, that we are moving throughout history toward a glorious culmination, is malformed theology. It permits wild, eschatological visions to be built under religious or secular banners. It is this belief that is dangerous. And it colors the thought of the new crop of atheist writers. They will tell us what is right and wrong, not in the eyes of God, but according to the purity of the rational mind. They too seek to destroy those who do not conform to their vision. They too wrap their intolerance in Enlightenment virtues.
“Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them,” Sam Harris writes. “This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and to innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas.”
Any form of knowledge that claims to be absolute ceases to be knowledge. It is a form of faith. Harris and the other atheist authors mistake a tiny subset of criminals and terrorists for 1 billion Muslims. They justify the unjustifiable in the name of civilization. The passions of these atheists, hidden under the jargon of reason and science, are as bankrupt as the passions of Christian and Islamic fundamentalists who sanctify mass slaughter in the name of their utopia. Religious fundamentalists pervert and distort religion to serve their own fears and self-aggrandizement. Atheists do the same with science and reason. These two groups peddle the myth that we can conquer human nature, overcome our imperfections and build the perfect society.
These atheists and Christian radicals have built squalid little belief systems that are in the service of themselves and their own power. They urge us forward into a nonreality-based world, one where force and violence, where self-exaltation and blind nationalism, are an unquestioned good. They seek to make us afraid of what we do not know or understand. They use this fear to justify cruelty and war. They ask us to kneel before little idols that look and act like them, telling us that one day, if we trust enough in God or reason, we will have everything we desire.
We must accept the severe limitations of being human. We must face reality, a reality which in the coming decades is going to be bleak and difficult. Those who are blinded by utopian visions inevitably turn to force to make their impossible dreams and their noble ideals real. They believe that the ends, no matter how barbaric, justify the means. Utopian ideologues, armed with the technology and mechanisms of industrial slaughter, have killed tens of millions of people over the last century. They ask us to inflict suffering and death in the name of virtue and truth. The atheists, in the end, offer us a new version of an old and dangerous faith. It is one we have seen before. It is one we must fight.
This essay is adapted from the book I Don’t Believe in Atheists, which was inspired in part by Hedges’ debate with Sam Harris.
Chris Hedges, who graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, is the author of “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.“
©2008 TruthDig.com
Much as I respect Chris Hedges’ opinion, I think he’s dead wrong on a couple of points.
1) I think the evidence suggests that societies have evolved and become more moral; even the US, though it’s not always apparent. A fascinating book on the topic is Robert Wright’s book, “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.”
2)Unless there is such a thing as being “too rational”, the notion of “secular fundamentalism” is a non-starter. Is it possible to be too rational? Too objective? Too unswayed by superstition and emotion?
WmC, I’m with you on this one. Well said.
Also, what good is life without hope? (Full disclosure: I fall on the religious side of this axis, raised as a Christian fundamentalist) If you can’t desire a better world because of the state of the current one, why get up in the morning? One could also quote Einstein here: “A problem can never be solved on the same level of thinking that identified it.”
Mr. Hedges, either I’m completely misunderstanding your point in this article, or you might as well give up and start mixing the Kool-Aid.
Chris Hedges is basically saying that the conflict is between two, utopian groups, one religious and one secular. He maintains that the “secular fundamentalists,” with their utopian aspirations for the capacity of science and reason to refine and perfect human nature, are really no more objective or “rational” than those who assert such goals based upon religious assumptions.
What’s logical about destiny?
And societies can go backward both technologically (Western Europe after the fall of the Roman empire) and morally (the USA’s reintroduction of the death penalty).
WmC wrote: “Is it possible to be too rational? Too objective? Too unswayed by superstition and emotion?”
Yes, it is. Daniel Dennett’s claim that we are not actually conscious is a good example. His ideological commitment to “scientific materialism”, the notion that the materialistic/mechanistic theories of science can explain everything in the world, at least in principle, forces him (and many others) to deny the fundamental existence of anything that lies outside the scope of such theories. Seeing that consciousness lies outside the scope of the materialist worldview, rather than questioning the metaphysical assumption of scientific materialism, they deny the existence of consciousness. Strictly speaking, it’s not rational thought that’s at fault here, but rather the clinging to a certain metaphysical assumption. Rationality provides us with means to draw valid conclusions; a rational argument based on an invalid premise can lead to an invalid conclusion.
Regarding emotion, I think it’s clearly possible to be too unaffected by emotion. For example, people who are unaffected by compassion, empathy, and love, are largely responsible for the ills of our world. But that’s not a very scientific statement, is it?
somewhere along the line mr. hedges lost his ability to critically think about what his article is about. too bad about hedges, he could have been a reasonable person but he is lost. his really stupid statement, “…I don’t believe in atheists.” just shows how lost he is. will he advocate torture next as a way to get people to believe correctly!
[quote]It is a battle between two groups intoxicated with the utopian and magical belief that humankind can perfect itself and master its destiny.[/quote]
What an utterly idiotic statement. Where did he get this from?
What did he read to make such nonsensical statements?
Nothing I have read from the usual suspects - hitchens, myers, dawkins, shermer, blackmore, harris et al. would lead one to such a statement.
To name us proper: atheists just do not believe that a skyfairy will solve our problems, we certainly do not believe that utopia is near or even desirable, we just want to be shown and find evidenve before we act.
And for sure - we have to master our own destiny - who is there to do it for us?
Another idiocy is his statement that we mistake a subset of muslims for the majority - no, we don’t, the majority by their inability to condemn the actions of the few - remember paleastinians dancing in the street to news of 9/11, or the reactions by quite a few to the publication of the cartoons -
shows that they tacitely support the violence perpetratred in the name of their religion.
And make no mistake - I have tried to read the quaran. This books makes it mandatory for any “true believer” to engage in violence, cheating, harassment of any apostate and non believer.
There is no “reformed” muslim religion. If you do not adhere to the quaran in full - you are a target and an apostat.
Anybody can be religious as much as he/she wants.
As long as it does not interfere with my rights of expression, my right to live my live within the legal sevcular bounds of society, and as long as religious doctrin is not made the basis of education, and religious teachings are not mistaken for science.
But, as there are attempts to make things such - that is why we as atheists have to stand up and defend our rights - to propre science education in schools, to laws that are acceptable to all.
anwong, thank you. That helps.
But my point remains. And furthermore, was Ghandi “rational”? MLK Jr.? Jesus? Buddha? Susan B. Anthony? Carrie Nation? (Admittedly, I’m kind of picking names at random here) What about Cindy Sheehan or Dennis Kucinich? People who accomplish things are not ignoring reality, they see beyond it.
Classic Straw Man argument.
You are welcome, jcarleski. Reason is a tool of the mind and of the spirit. It offers us the structure and necessary discipline to make our thoughts and actions coherent and effective.
However, reason is our tool, not our master. It can be used for nobel or evil ends depending upon the assumptions we make. Those assumptions are informed by values that we derive from a variety of sources.
Hahaha
Hedges struck a nerve.
Great article.
“It comes from those who, under the guise of religion, science or reason, imagine that we can free ourselves from the limitations of human nature and perfect the human species.”
**this is so true.
Its Star Trek fantasy.
The religion of progress is the religion of Evolution in action. Instead of regarding life as cyclical, or admitting that we dont know the meaning of life, some humans believe that things are moving towards something “special” and grand. This is an incredibly dangerous belief because it does tend to make people ignore the here and now and not take responsibility for their actions.
According to academic philosophy, secularism IS a religious system along with theism and mysticism, and secularists do try awfully hard to ignore this fact. Theists believe there is a God behind everything, Secularists believe there is a finite or knowable universe behind everything, mystics say that the absolute/ultimate cannot be known. Of the three, mystics are the most logical. They acknowledge you cant know everything and tend to be free of the fundamentalism you see by secularists and theists.
“The belief that science and reason will save us makes it possible to ignore or minimize these looming catastrophes. We drift toward disaster with the comforting thought that the god of science will intervene on our behalf.”
**Again–true.
Secularists believe science will solve every problem created by science. They also hold to the truly disgusting and diseased view of human supremacy which many theists share.
If you criticize secularism you are called a luddite or irrational.
Look how the religion of science forces children to dissect animals in school(at least saying the Lord’s prayer doesnt involve killing a member of another species).
Secularists also tend to rely on science and studies to provide enlightenment and ignore the power of common sense.
i.e. we dont need research to tell us that gene splicing is stupid.
Common sense tells us that humans cannot know everything and be smarter than Nature. That’s fact. Its common sense right in your face.
Dumping chemicals into a river. Not smart.
You dont need to deliberately pollute a river and then test the fish to tell us this.
If they discover life on another planet humans will not suddenly embrace a Star Trek utopian ethic. Instead, humans will fight to get to the planet to exploit it.
Meanwhile, the sun will not shine any differently, birds will not sing differently. Salvation through technology aint gonna happen. Common sense shows this.
It isnt defeatist–its simply looking at human history and daily events.
If we want to “manage” human behaviour and be humble about it, we need to recognize the dangers of fundamentalism in secularism and theism.
The biggest oversight that someone like Dawkins makes is that he says religion is a product of the human mind and that humans would be better without it–BUT if humans invented it, then it means it is part of human nature and that is the real problem. Human nature.
Another way of looking at it–no matter how much knowledge a human gains, at the end of the day they are going to rot in the ground like a common squirrel or ignorant african tribesman.
You dont need a test tube to tell you that. Humans both secular and theist need a big does of humility.
Reading the comments to Chris Hedges is pretty neat, because observers can see the laughable, hysterical fanaticism of certain secular atheists. Lots of secular atheists seem to enjoy attacking religion, and they throw out the most base clichés to make their argument for them. Whenever a true thinker who’s examined the issues dares to critique them, they become moderately hysterical. They can take all of Chris Hedge’s criticism of the fanatical Christian right, but no no, don’t even touch secular fundamentalism, because we’re freethinkers.
No. If you can’t take some criticism, you’re not a freethinker, you’re a dogmatist. If you think you have a monopoly on world view’s, I don’t want you making decisions for me or anyone else. Who on Earth could say Chris Hedge’s will be advocating torture next? You know nothing of him. He criticized Sam Harris, a famed atheist, because Sam Harris believes torture is acceptable. People on both sides of the spectrum, religious and political, can be wrong. As long as any doctrine is more important than tolerance for other’s and their right to live in peace, then we will have violence and fanaticism. People who want to wipe religion off the Earth are just as bad as people who want to indoctrinate everyone into their own creed. We need ethical advances along with scientific ones, and if you think unending progress is the answer I’m astonished. A world gripped with nuclear weapons, with the capacity to destroy itself so many times over, a world that is destroying it’s own environment needs to ask why progress has taken them to a place we never meant to be. Anyone who wants to control minds is not a progressive or a liberal. Give it a rest, dudes.
Chris:
What the hell is this? “Those who insist we are morally advancing as a species are deluding themselves. There is nothing in science or human history or human nature to support this idea.” Why should or would science support that humans are morally advancing? I am surprised to see such an intellect as yours suggest it.
Re: post above. What the hell is a “tool of the spirit”?
And Christopher what is it with “I don’t believe in atheists”? What does “belief” have to do with atheism? Christopher misunderstands science if he concludes its goals are to perfect human society.
C’mon Christopher. This is pure hockey puck: “The atheists, in the end, offer us a new version of an old and dangerous faith. It is one we have seen before. It is one we must fight.” But, if you insist on fighting, “Bring it on”.
Ms. Ann and Kelmer -
Since I see you have a better grasp of this of concept than the rest of us here (no sarcasm intended), I’ll ask you in place of the author. What then shall we do? What is the response?
Or perhaps the lack of response is in fact the resposne.. a sort of nihilism..? To quote the movie ‘Bewitched’:
“No, we’re at the Coffee Bean and there IS no solution.”
Mr Hedges just lost me as a fan. I’d be curious to know if someone got to him, to make him start thinking so silly.
Religious fundamentalists believe all answers are to be found in a single book. Seculars believe most, maybe all, answers can be found by using the tools of science. Maybe not. I fail to see how these two positions are similar. They strike me as the opposite, even in the case where you have “strong” believers in science.
Hedges is just playing with words.
It seems to me that what Hedges is talking about is the confusing/confounding of different “language games” as per J.F. Lyotard.
One can speak in the game of business, i.e., the language of efficiency. Is a practice efficient or not? In the realm of business efficient is seen as better than inefficient for what are obvious reasons. Inefficient businesses tend to go out of business.
Then there is the language of science which is a yes/no or true/false world. Something is or isn’t. Science advances by discerning more and more “truths” or “ises” (pardon the ises) and disgarding falsehoods. Science then differs from religion in discovering the truth through rational/empirical thought versus through divine revelation–which by definition is true without a need for rational justification.
Finally, there is the language game of justice. Is a statement or a state of being just or not just? Once again one can look at justice through a lens of science or religion with both coming up short because they are based in a different “game”.
Confusion results when we attempt to use one set of dichotomies in another’s realm. For example: Nazi Germany was quite efficient and “rational” (from their point of view) in exterminating “undesirables”, however it in no way could be considered just.
Many of our politicians these days seem to work in the efficiency game while shorting the justice aspect.
OYE
jcarleski, I suspect that we all have to start by reflecting upon our own values, about those things in our lives that we feel are most important.
Regardless of how astute our reasoning is, the outcome of our actions will largely be guided by these values and assumptions. If we notice that our actions bring more conflict, hatred, and suffering into the world, it often is not just sufficient to evaluate the clarity of our reasoning, but it may also be imperative to mindfully assess the moral character of our fundamental assumptions.
You mentioned the Buddha. As the story goes, the young Siddhartha was profoundly effected by his encounter with human suffering, and his subsequent spiritual journey to becoming a Buddha was guided by this awareness and the moral imperative of discovering if a path to the cessation of suffering was possible. Along the way, the future Buddha was rational and balanced in thought, but this was not what gave his journey to enlightenment its spiritual power. That power was derived from his compassion, his values that were derived from his awareness of the depth and extent of human suffering.
So, it seems to me that we need to start by getting back to the basics and being honest with ourselves about what our most fundamental values are that form our assumptions. A good place to start is to make a clear account of the consequences our presence has in the world around us.
Chris lost me at “I believe in sin.”
alright anwong, I would agree with that. But once you have assessed your core values (assuming you can do that objectively and according to the criteria you have described), you would then proceed with the changes in the hope that they would ‘make the world a better place’ (to use the cliche), even in but a small way.
But the author says this: “The belief that human nature can be improved and perfected, that we are moving throughout history toward a glorious culmination, is malformed theology. It permits wild, eschatological visions to be built under religious or secular banners. It is this belief that is dangerous. ” Who cares if I’ve made any particular change in my beliefs and assumptions - the world will not get any better anyway!
If Mr. Hedges were saying that we need to be aware of our mistakes at all points in human evolution; that you must be advanced enough to make certain errors (for instance, Medieval Rome couldn’t have threatened the environment with greenhouse gases even if it wanted to); that constant vigilance is required.. that I could follow. But this seems a step beyond that to hopelessness and despair. That is why I find it so odd to have such an article on such a proactive website.
jcarleski, I do not believe that Mr. Hedges is disagreeing with you when you say that we need to be mindful of all our mistakes and errors at every moment in our lives and in our evolution.
I sense that his pessimism is derived from his observations of a world of religious and secular dogmatists who lack any reflection and who, consequently, are mindlessly driving the world into some very dark times. I do not sense despair as much as I sense frustration and perhaps some anger on his part.
anwong -
that’s certainly a fair analysis. And we seem to be the last words on this thread, at least for now. Thank you for the fine discussion.
Ann nailed it above. In fact, one can go further. Sam Harris doesn’t just justify torture-he also justifies genocide in the name of atheistic rationality.
I’m not attacking atheism here, though I am a Christian. I am agreeing with Chris Hedges–the common enemy of all of us are the fanatics, the people so sure of their own moral and intellectual superiority that they think they can use unlimited force against people they regard as dangerous.
You find fanatics of every ideological variety–capitalist, socialist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and yes, secular atheist. And it is funny to see some of the secular atheists in this thread going hysterical when Hedges points this out.
Good point, Donald. Fanatacism, whether in religious or in secular guise is the real issue. As Elie Wiesel wrote in his article “How Can We Understand Their Hatred?” -
“The fanatic feels important, for he presumes being capable of altering—and dominating—the course of history. Using the obscure power of hatred, he feels he can—and must—take charge of man’s fate. Working in the dark, forever involved in plots and counterplots, he thinks his mission is to abolish the present state of affairs and replace it with his own system. No wonder that he, the human failure, now feels proud and superior.
“To stem fanaticism, we must first fight indifference to evil … We fight indifference through education; we diminish it through compassion.”
I’ve found Chris Hedges to be a source of real insight in the past. This article deserves a re-reading.
But my first impression is that he has observed a kind of equivalancy between religious concept of “sin” and the secular idea of “imperfection”. Religions offer remedies for sin, and scientific rationalism offers remedies for imperfection.
History shows that both can lead to destructive and inhumane excess: The Church’s Inquisitions and Pol Pot’s “collectivizations”.
So, If Hedges is telling both sides to accept humankind’s imperfection, that’s fine with me.
The authors of the U.S. Constitution did not aspire to create “a perfect union”. They sought only “a MORE perfect union”.
They understood that a totally perfect society is an abstract ideal, not a real possibility.
To think otherwise leads to Jihad and “Regime Change”
I think Chris Hedges has pointed out an important facet of human behavior here, and also described its affect on both religious and “secular” human beings. He’s telling us that no matter what we believe, we can’t escape being human. It’s a good point.
However, to me there is a BIG difference between “human limitations” and “sin.”
It is good to be mindful of human limitations — we are not omniscient, we are not omnipotent, and we have a tendency to look for the easiest way out of our problems. When we act together, we can be very powerful, but we can also make very big mistakes.
Sin, however, is a theological concept and posits a worldview — I would argue, in Chris Hedges’ context, a specifically Christian worldview — that creates a diametric opposition between the “perfect” deity and the “fatally flawed” human being. It is possible to reject this juxtaposition, this duality, and retain belief in what is good about being human — you just have to give up a belief that anything is perfect, or that the goal of existence is perfection.
His point in discussing sin is to claim that it keeps us humble — but belief in the essentially flawed, imperfect nature of humanity has also motivated some of the worst abuses of humanity.
Why don’t we start off believing that humans are complete as they are, instead of imagining an impossible state of perfection which we can never attain? Why don’t we accept the ever-changing nature of reality, the cycles of creation and destruction, instead of trying to force reality to stop? Because that’s what perfection really is — nothingness, a state without change, a “no-place.”
For me, the single most influential moral occurrence of our time is the invention of world-destroying nuclear weapons. This is the most extreme application of force, the embodiment of the belief that might makes right, and that it is acceptable for force to control the world. But there is another way, and humans have amply demonstrated this way throughout our history of violence and mistakes — the way of compassion and cooperation.
I don’t think that we have to believe that humans will evolve morally or be ultimately perfected as moral beings in order to believe that cooperation is better than force, that peace is better than war. I think that this assertion can be supported by empirical observation, and is a central tenet of many religious organizations. In fact, I think that in the face of the terrifying potential of the nuclear destruction, the moral choice is to believe that compassion and cooperation is better than violence and force.
I would succumb to despair if I thought that human beings would only, ever be bound by our limitations, and that through compassion and cooperation we cannot invent new ways of being that result in good for all for a time, if not forever. Forever is too long for us time-bound beings to comprehend, in any case. The miracle of humanity is that beside our fanaticism and exclusion, our terror and violence, are hearts that are big enough to imagine new realities and open to include all beings.
Chris Hedges is getting into trouble with the above posters because he is over-reaching in his claims and unnecessarily so. He is lumping together Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens among others (I know enough about them to know that they are being mischaracterized). He then ascribes the idiocies of the US government to a general trend towards “secular fundamentalism”.
“Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them,” This quote, far from being extraordinary, is in fact easily defensible. It doesn’t require recourse to “absolute” knowledge. Shouting “fire” in a theatre is a no-no. The “freedom of speech” we treasure has to be counterbalanced with our right not to be trampled by panicked theatregoers. Another example: We should all be free to worship, so long as our religious practices do not include actions that destroy the secular framework that permits the worship in the first place (ie an elected government declaring that further elections are cancelled, as they are contrary to its religion). Killing people is ethical, in the face of such an anti-democratic/anti-enlightenment force. What is “ethical”? Don’t get me started.
I agree that the Bush regime is guilty of “utopian visions”, but it is a stretch to go from here, to impugning “atheists”. Hedges should have limited himself to Sam Harris and left the rest of them out. Bush/Cheney have goals, perhaps visions, but they are too squalid, short-term and self-serving to be conflated with any reductionist fallacies of prominent atheists.
Of course, we should all keep trying, but we also must be mindful that excesses all have the same source: a lack of careful reflection and consideration whether you are a rationalist or a religious person.
For the scientific rationalist, this reflection comes from an awareness of the limits of reason, of the refutability of hypotheses, the incessant modification of theory, and the inherent incompleteness of scientific knowledge that always demands further questions and investigations.
For the religious, this reflection comes from an awarenss of sinfulness and the need for repentence, redemption, and a reformation of self.
Both processes, if sincere and sensible, require a basic humility that prevents the excesses of fanatacism and dogmaticism.
lauram, i’m with you. Sin is a religious phenomenon. It is described differently in each of the holy books of the world, and many are incompatible.
While I do not agree with Harris’s statement about being ethically ok with torture in VERY limited circumstances, Hedges needs to be careful with how he lumps a weird ideology into Harris’s mouth. If you have read his books, or listen to his debates you will know what Harris’s solution is: Its to continue the dialog in the marketplace of ideas. Its to beat religion not by the sword, but by the same way we as a society have beaten astrology. We don’t have huge debates about astrology… we don’t have astrologists running the country or making important decisions in the world because we have marginalized their ideas through debate and reason! This is Harris’s point. He’s not out to shank people who believe in God, he wants societies to realize that the reasons to believe in a specific god are just as absurd,a nd backed with as little evidence as astrology.
I love Hedges, but he’s reaching on this one.
great argument for the status quo.
Pick and choose. The following quotes are +/- reasonable:
“”We are bound and limited by human flaws and self-interest.
We have nothing to fear from those who do or do not believe in God. We have much to fear from those who do not believe in sin [as in violation of moral principle]
To turn away from God is harmless. To turn away from sin is catastrophic.”"
Difficult subject. Ponder on…
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” ~Albert Einstein
As an atheist I find this a very disturbing – and offensive! - article. I would like to write a refutation, but it would take me a month. Unfortunately, I am deep into the writing of a paper on Omar Khayyam. Now there is a man – living in a Muslim society – who with any one little quatrain of four lines laughs to scorn everything Hedges says. Sin???!!! If there is a god, says Omar, he owes US an apology for sin.
If there is an all-powerful all-knowing god, will he “enmesh me round in predestination and impute my fall to sin?”
I’m very happy that others have already submitted critiques: Kraut, KaneJeeves, bhima, lauram, and especially TextGuru. Keep it up. Hedges’ bizarre position requires steady and serious critique.
This is a tired old trick to try and make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. A below par article and not worth discussing
The mark of a great mind is humility, which, collectively, is mostly lacking in great nations. Hedges, refreshingly, is quite on to the thing, but C. Darwin, was earlier in his concern for the limitations of human belief, produced rationally, or otherwise, e.g.,
“But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.”
Letter to W. Graham July 3, 1881
The idea at the center of this… issue, is that of a personal god. Unfortunately, the Big Three have made it seem as if there are no other options for the acknowledgment of Divinity.
Therefore, if Darwin is correct, then “God is dead.” Linear, dualistic thinking. Bah.
The fundamentalists on one side do sound very similar to those on the other: I know and you don’t. I’m right and you’re wrong. Isn’t the one a reaction to the other?
I don’t quite agree with Hedges here because it seems he’s coming from a personal god perspective. However, I do agree that both sides of the personal god issue can seem remarkably similar to each other.
http://www.geocities.com/tcartz/buddhismimpersonal.htm
Between this and the article against 9/11 Truth, I wonder if CommonDreams declared a Stupid Day and forgot to announce it. I used to respect Hedges-with used being the most important word in the sentence.
Hedges said: “We drift toward disaster with the comforting thought that the god of science will intervene on our behalf. It is dispiriting to live in a world where things are not moving forward and will most probably get worse.” I agree wholeheartedly with a previous poster who said that this is an argument for the status quo-because that’s precisely what it is. To accept that people are not just currently not moving forward morally, but then to claim that they are incapable of moving forward morally concedes one of the most vital precepts imaginable to conservatives of any stripe, whether religious or secular.
Science definitely isn’t perfect. But I think that it’s at least trying to solve our problems. In comparison, I can remain fairly confident that, mired in the idea that people can’t improve, a large portion of the people that will go out of their way to make things worse for everyone, will do so out of their religious beliefs-as they often have before. The wages of Chris Hedges’ notion of sin are our perennial failures-both as dejected liberals who have told themselves that we have to accept the “downs” (as made and constructed by who-a question of power that conveniently disappears), and as people.
You believe in sin. Conservatives believe in profitting, both materially and ideologically, from sin. Guess who ends up winning?
Hedges does not appear to have a firm basis from which to argue that there can be no moral progress, at least in part because he does not appear to understand what moral progress is.
A moral system is a set of rules applicable to a group, and as the group changes, the applicability of the moral system changes. For one example, consider that in the 19th Century it was deemed perfectly moral by caucasian US citizens to murder Native American Indians because they were not part of the group, but now that they are considered part of the group, it is not only deemed immoral to commit such acts, but it is considered immoral that such was done in centuries past.
What is considered the group, by US citizens and people around the world, is rapidly expanding. Now many of us consider it immoral to just refuse to help others, even those on other continents, who desperately require help that we could easily provide. And that group is expanding because of improvements in communications and transportation technology, which allow us to interact with and connect with people around the world.
However, there remain small groups, particularly small groups of elites, whose members have no interest in becoming connected to the entire human race or in promoting the welfare of that group. And as such individuals recognize that others, the “little people,” are becoming connected, these elites become more busy than ever trying to sow discord and division to prevent that large group from developing sufficient connectedness to achieve power.
All I’m intrigued by, is what exactly makes an african tribesman “ignorant”. Kelmer?
Hedges complains about faith in the cult of science and reason, yet he places an extraordinary amount of faith in a science that is not even really a science but more like a science-mimicking trend of ideas, namely sociobi—er, excuse me, evolutionary psychology. Humans, like other animals, have a “nature,” a set of instincts programmed into the human psyche by natural selection, and these instincts are, in short, bad, evil, destructive, etc. Otherwise, how do you explain history? Here we have a doctrine that stops all historical, psychological, and sociological analysis in it tracks. Forget about all the complicated contributing factors that one might have thought account for Nazi Germany, e.g., and its particularly efficient moral horrors. If these approach any kind of adequacy, our evil-instincts theory will be redundant and useless. The Evo Psych explanation MUST be true; therefore such complicated explanations are a priori inadequate. Nonsense. The horrors of history are explained by contingent historical factors. The idea that there has been no moral progress in history is either ignorant or willfully blinkered. Some societies today are far more morally advanced, than, say, America.. There have been societies that are virtually free of crime and even, on occasion, of gender oppression (see Fruit of the Motherland by Maria Lepowski). The Danes are far less “greedy” or wealth-worshiping than Americans. The theory of universal immutable human nature cannot account for any of these differences, which constitute a serious problem for it. I could go on and on with a lengthy critique, showing the folly of prominent examples in the sociobiological literature. I will just make this one point: As Floyd Matson and other have amply shown, any science of the human that takes its model from the natural sciences (in this case zoology) is bound to (a) be refuted as some point by subsequent inquiry; and (b) feed into conservative ideology. For example, the idea that selfishness and greed are our permanent lot implies that the best we can do is exploit this drive and give free rein to capitalism. Maybe this is why Hedges seems to think that disastrous climate change and nightmarish resource wars are unavoidable. It is beyond me why anyone should think that firm belief in our future wrack and ruin is so much less dangerous than belief in the possibility of progress.
Many progressives correctly deride the anti-science attitudes of our leaders from the Right, but the more I read and the more progressives I meet, the more I’m convinced the Left is also rife with a disquieting level of fear and misunderstanding of science. To be sure, it’s less malicious and self-serving and more well-intentioned coming from those Lefties who are angry at pollution, nuclear proliferation, Big Pharma, etc. but it’s no less dangerous. It might even be more so - if we are to correct the mistakes of the past we NEED a true understanding of science and its processes.
I’m an atheist and a scientist and I refuse to believe that we cannot, with a good mix of rational thought and humanitarian compassion, make things better - whatever that vague word might mean - than they are now. To use an extreme and humorous example, isn’t it often quoted that any civilization in the universe either eventually becomes extinct or spacebound? Maybe Jesus will come back and build us some spaceships when the sun is about to burn out, but I don’t remember reading about that in the Bible. Seems like science might be the sounder bet. (Oh right, and maybe on cures for disease and energy options, too.)
That said, I don’t know if Hedges has ever met any scientists, but I don’t know any who are trying to achieve moral utopia or even believe that would be possible. Having read Hitchens and Dawkins, I don’t get that from them either… The main difference between religion and science, as far as refuting this very strange and nihilistic article, is that science actually has a *chance* to get us somewhere. The problem is that people need to embrace it, understand it, and use it correctly, which is why anti-science sentiment across the political spectrum is worrisome.
I would never deny that human nature can be our enemy, whether we’re talking about science or religion; I would also never say that I have “faith in humanity.” But I do have hope for us, and it doesn’t come from utopian vision but from my own observation that science works. (Some of the above comments have been very heartening, too.)
This area is worthy of a book length discourse.
J CARLESKI: I totally agree with you as per hope and getting up in the morning.
KIVALS: Good point about the evolution of inclusion and how groups embrace membership via empathy/justice and expanded social relations.
KELMER: I totally agree with your point about the mystic having the most logical position!
BHIMA: You think astrology has been debated? It was marginalized (on threat of death!) by the old church, and with the threat of heresy a veritable death sentence, went out of practice but for persons like myself who have realized the power, beauty, truth and efficacy of this ancient system of correspondenses. Only those who STUDY the subject are worthy of commenting on its viability; and please, do not insult me with any magazine style sun sign version of “astrology” that you may have been exposed to.
CLEMSY: Good point & quotes.
DATHEARN: Excellent analysis.
When we make broad stroke comments about human nature it reminds me of the anthropologist who sits all day watching animals as if his scent and presence don’t influence their behavior “under watch.” What we notice about each other often is a projection. And what we know of recorded history is a fragment of mankind’s chain of evolution. History is mostly just that, HIS-STORY. Although women from time to time have achieved levels of political power or literary recognition, women have been programmed by patriarchal culture. I often describe this as mankind playing with “half a pack,” or being forced to focus on logic, reason and the left portion of the brain: the equivalent of our shared vessel being maneuvered with ONE not BOTH oars in the water. Take this as a metaphor of the use of our brains and collective sentience. Just as my father was forced to have his LEFT hand tied behind his back so he’d use his right hand, human beings have been in various ways conditioned, sometimes brutally, to go along with established protocols and professed norms.
Take the child who hears voices and is told it’s all his imagination. In Joseph Chilton Pierce’s book, “Magical Child” he relates a society in Africa where babies, so connected to their mothers from natural birth, evolve much more quickly than is thought possible by Western academe. At age 2 the tribal custom is such that the mother absolutely abandons her child. This causes an emotional trauma that impedes the child’s continued growth on psychological levels. This mechanism is how the tribe maintains its members. I believe all tribes use rituals that basically limit their members. What is more painful than being an outcast? How does conformity work in any civilization? Voices that can go beyond the pre-determined norms are marginalized, and today’s visionaries and radicals and new thinkers and inventors face the same thing. The status quo is the inertia that works against progress. The status quo, which I term “homage to the old gods” wants people to not outgrow the past, and punishes those who see outside its dimensions.
We cannot speak of human nature, only WOUNDED human nature, that which has come about as a result of centuries of war, sexism, racism, and economic injustice. What is possible for the mortal soul has not yet been put into practice; or as Gandhi answered with respect to “What do you think of Western Civilizatio?… I think it would be a very good idea.” We, as a humanity, have replayed many old themes but these are not the full measure of what or who we are. They are the result of broken belief systems taken for religious norms, or inevitability.
I am intrigued by a perspective of those indigenous peoples who, unlike Cartesian westerners, belive that beneath our clothes we are not beasts but human of divine core; that animals are also human. One culture - many natures. This engenders a profound responsibility, love and humility not only in acting in the world, but sustaining a thread of living joy and beauty, the experience of which is our barometer of allignment in life.
Utopia rather than a timeline race to the unachievable,is an expression of the thread of the ‘no place’ of IDEAtion informing the journey of life IN BALANCE that informs not a goal but ineffable process. One of our greatest falacies is the assertion that man was made to work and dominate.
There is an ancient Persian maxim, “If you seek human nature, seek higher”
Chris Hedges does a great job here and for folks who are floundering here, perhaps reading something else of Hedges might help you out. Read “War is a Force that Gives us Meaning.” You can also read his “American Fascists” but really, I suspect that this essay is just too brief in explaining Hedges’ theoretical underpinnings.
This is not sound bite thinking and should not be mistaken for such and believe me Hedges fully knows he is delivering some unpalatable truths.
Take the last line of paragraph seven: “And as we race toward this catastrophe scientists continue to make discoveries, set these discoveries upon us and walk away from the impact.”
This is a core problem no one wants to take on. All of us, in the mode of cheerleaders, lobby for science dollars spent on our favorite dilemma: AIDS, alzheimers, breast cancer, autism. But the absolute conundrum is that while we wail about the imperfections of our life in many countries children die of malnutrition, fouled water, and EASILY treated maladies. While a bundle of bucks are shelled out to save one twenty-two week gestation baby in an American NICU, that same bundle could provide basic prenatal care to perhaps even whole countries. But we are so engaged in OUR problems and our wants and needs that we never question whether the resources are being righteously distributed.
Perhaps Hedges most incisive comments come when he is talking about sin: “We have much to fear from those who do not believe in sin. The concept of sin is a stark acknowledgement that we can never be omnipotent, that we are bound and limited by human flaws and self-interest.” Go ahead. Take the second sentence of this quote and turn it into a first person statement: “The concept of sin is a stark acknowledgement that I CAN NEVER BE OMNIPOTENT, that I AM BOUND and LIMITED by human flaws and self-interest.”
These are big ideas. Print this essay out and mull it over. What Hedges is saying is that for all of us when we are at our most absolutist we are at our most dangerous.
And for those of you who wonder if this calls for the abdication of hope–I think not. I think it calls for our necessary acknowledgement of our interdependence, even on those folks we discount as we make our list of wants.
And yes, Mr. Hedges, I’ll be getting your new book.
Methinks Hedges touched a lot of sore nerves out there. I think he is right, in fact understated in his comments and conclusions.
We are all basically animals. Those that have learned to act in lockstep for the common good of humanity and athe ultimate truth have the additional distinction of ‘human being’.
On Secular Fundamentalism
Mr. Hedges has a slight confusion; a confusion quite common and prevalent in humankind. Sin’s existence parallels that of humankind; they both are inextricable, indissoluble. You can’t have one without the other and that’s the totality of it.
Regardless of religious and secular come-ons the shows will continue ad nauseam and the news is that we, humans, will never be able to get it straight.
Old Goat, you are addressing the personal god issue. Traditional cultures tend to go the impersonal god route. As a result, they consider humans as equivalent, not ’special’, relative to the rest of creation.
Not a bad idea at this point, heh?
Siouxrose, I admire your voice here.
MollyJ, you raise an interesting point. “We have much to fear from those who do not believe in sin.” That’s true, but only relative to those who believe in nothing but their own arrogance. However, Jesus, please protect me from your most militant followers, who do believe in sin and are busy trying to bring about the end of the world.
To accept sin is to accept the Fall of Man, which I don’t. You don’t have to in order to live in harmony with the world. I’m not a Buddhist, but they are on to something.
The only virtue that can save us is compassion.
This is amazing. I am surprised at the level of discourse (or lack thereof). While An Wong, J. Carleski et. al. are attempting a dialogue based on genuine concerns, they do not challenge Chris Hedges’s flawed framework as a few others such as Clemsy, and dathearn have done.
MollyJ, a fundamental flaw in Chris Hedges’s framework and indeed of the many monotheistic religions - the concept of a “controller” deity.
Robbfam and lizard succinctly allude to this article’s shortcomings. Well done.
robbfam: “Classic Straw Man argument.”
lizard: “This is a tired old trick to try and make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. A below par article and not worth discussing.”
Gerald36 wrote:
Regardless of religious and secular come-ons the shows will continue ad nauseam and the news is that we, humans, will never be able to get it straight.
Every nightmarishly horrible leader that has ever existed thanks you for that comment-because it’s the first step in acceptance of what they’ve done as inevitable.
MollyJ, you raise an interesting point. “We have much to fear from those who do not believe in sin.” That’s true, but only relative to those who believe in nothing but their own arrogance.
The quote is from the Hedges essay.
Though sin is may be a largely Christian concept, it is also that in our lives which separates us from what we should not be separated–some would say God, some say each other, some might say consciousness or self-acceptance. And I think that Hedges indeed speaks of a certain discrete conceptualization of sin. A lot of us don’t like to think about sin because then we have to think about guilt but embracing our inherent sinfulness–imperfection–may be also akin to loving ourselves just as we are. I too think there is much in Buddhism that applies to all but can not say I’ve read extensively but I mostly love reading Pema Chodron’s books. If you can embrace your own imperfection, you can have more tolerance for the imperfection of the world, too.
I have no special knowledge to offer. It’s pretty transparent that I am but a traveler on this road. Again, I would encourage people who struggle with what Hedges has written to read it in the larger context of his book or a previous book.
MollyJ: “Though sin is may be a largely Christian concept, it is also that in our lives which separates us from what we should not be separated–some would say God, some say each other, some might say consciousness or self-acceptance. And I think that Hedges indeed speaks of a certain discrete conceptualization of sin. A lot of us don’t like to think about sin because then we have to think about guilt but embracing our inherent sinfulness–imperfection.”
Sadly Molly, you offer a “Christian” justification for a problem arising from a “Christian” worldview.
The problem is not that complex. The problems that Hedges most worries about arise from our civilization’s pervasive use of a “hierarchy of beings” instead of using a “hierarchy of actions and values.”
I have to say that some of the criticism of Hedges’ article are accurate, but many most definitely are not. The accusation that Hedges is lumping together all atheists is most definitely valid. I agree that it is wrong to put together all atheists and attach a right-wing agenda to them. That is unfair. To play devil’s advocate, though, I’ve experienced years of atheists lumping all Christians or believers into one category. Richard Dawkins does this in his book. While he struck me as obviously a brilliant man, I don’t like anyone dismissing mysticism and higher forms of religion as irrelevant, and then attacking only the most superstitious of believers. So, I concede that Hedges is guilty of the same thing here.
But, to miss Hedges other points which are valid is to cling to one problem and forget that perhaps some things he says are true. Rarely is anyone entirely correct, and as I said earlier, some of the writers of these hysterical responses would do well to remember this. First, who “got” to Hedges? Don’t be silly! People of depth and intelligence are allowed to have different views than you, don’t be narrow-minded. He attended Harvard Divinity School, and Hedges beliefs have developed throughout his life. I’d wonder who “got” to you that you’ve given up rational thought and have resorted to attacks to make your point.
Next, to say that he lost you when he said he believes in sin is a telling comment. What’s wrong with believing in sin? In a way, it’s to say that progress is always possible, and we would do well to remember that. Perhaps we should think of progress as not something externally. Faster and better cannot solve our problems, but good decent thinking can. Consuming less makes us internally richer, and those who shout about more new things! more better things! shinier louder things! are not really encouraging progress. They take away our lakes and rivers, our clean air and our right to healthy lives. Building more factories and new cars won’t solve things, but living more simply might. And in new simplicity, in finding that we have so much to strive for, that we could be such better people, we will find richer lives. Did Gandhi or Martin Luther King lead poor lives because they sought God, they sought humility? Truth be told, many of our greatest leaders have been religious ones, people who strove for truth and humbled themselves before others. If a sense of sin means a realization of our own imperfection (I do not mean sin as a tool of repression, and very few of the theologians from the present to ancient times do, despite it’s misuse by certain sects), than how much richer and better life truly could be.
And for those who equate Christianity with fanatic ignorant men like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, I feel sorry for you. You are missing out on the magnetic (and socialist) brilliance of Paul Tillich, the passion of French resistance worker Simone Weil, the poetic goodness of Jacques Lusseyran, the young blind boy who organized against the nazis in Paris, the humanitarian greatness of the Liberation Theologians. It’s not about a “controller deity”, and if you had the slightest familiarity with Christian thinkers, you wouldn’t have made such a silly comment. They would never have said that, so don’t put words in their mouths. Many of us find that religion drives us to work to end poverty and suffering and violence. I can’t imagine the world would be a better place without those people, just as I don’t think the world would be a better place without those who tell us how it works (and Hedges has never argued against science, just against science as an idol). Gosh, read a book.
Siouxrose,
Fascinating post. Thanks. I think most of us on the progressive side could go on for thousands and thousands of words on this topic. I put in about two cents worth and I hope that I am not too much of a nuisance if I put in two more.
Of course societal development and the evolution of social rules are of unbounded complexity, allowing for innumerable perspectives and opinions on the matter. One perspective would be to look at the conflicts which are labeled as “social problems” as arising out of the difficulty of a species which evolved in small groups adapting to life in large groups.
In prehistory, there must have been pressure for small groups to join larger groups to achieve protection from other groups, though the downside would have been the bullying by the elites in the larger group (the elites evolving into royal hierarchies over time). In any event, whatever predispositions favoring particular kinds of social behavior with associated emotions that had evolved for many millennia in small groups would not have been ideal for operating within the large social group. And the predispositions toward small groups would have led the elites to prefer small groups and to operate exclusively within them to the extent possible, while the commoners would have struggled to adjust to the larger group, while also forming their own small groups when they could.
And moral codes evolved, under the direction of the elites, to regulate the behavior of the struggling commoners in this unnatural environment, to some extent for the benefit of the elites but also to some extent for utilitarian purposes to strengthen the society. And many commoners would have chafed against these restrictions, with some rebelling against the rules that benefited the elites and others rebelling against the utilitarian rules, for both sets of rules could be unpleasant to the individual, though the latter were for the common good.
With the end of rule by kings, and the development of modern nation states, the commoners could begin to sort through the rules to determine those created for the interests of the royal elites and those created for the common good, but over time great wealth accumulated and economic elites arose to influence the development of moral rules in accord with the interests of these new elites. And though the rules in nation states would cover very large groups, the national elites would work to ensure that the commoners did not consider the group as encompassing the entire human race, as such elites could influence national policy to coincide with their own interests and they could convince the commoners to act pursuant to that national policy.
Now, with modern developments in technology, it is much easier for commoners to identify and bond with the entire human race by connecting with representatives of diverse groups from around the world. As the commoners begin to consider the human race as their group, they will apply their moral rules to the entire human race, and be more resistant to manipulation by national elites. However, there will be some significant discomfort for some commoners, particularly of the US and other predator nations, when acknowledging that they and their ancestors had taken part in the subjugation of the other members of the expanded group and their ancestors. And the new super elites, in this technologically advanced world, still living in their preferred world of small groups, will do all they can to prevent this new consciousness from challenging their plans for world domination.
Thought Shaman, telling me I’m guilty of thinking like a Christian is a lot like telling me I talk like an American or a middlewesterner. I am what I am.
Now on to your statement, “The problems that Hedges most worries about arise from our civilization’s pervasive use of a ‘hierarchy of beings’ instead of using a ‘hierarchy of actions and values.’”
I find the idea of a hierarchy of actions and values not all that anti-thetical but most of us live that reality out locally–maybe in our family, our community. How do you get people to think about it globally (given that the discussion of beliefs and values can get very tedious and murky, having been once subjected to one such semester long discussion)? Whose values? Ah-whoops–we’re back to a hierarchy of beings! (I’m being faceticous here but ultimately we start out thinking that OUR values are better and others should adapt them.) Read some of Hedges’ works. His role as an international journalist has taken him to the heart of many different cultures.
As I have said previously, I claim no great expertise in spiritual matters but when I have looks across what my husband calls the great wisdom traditions, I am often struck by similarities more than differences. As Huston Smith once said, we benefit from missionaries who travel between the different cultures and traditions.
It seems to me as if Hedges use of the word “sin” was a big trigger for a lot of people but all wisdom traditions acknowledge inherit weaknesses, behaviors, patterss that prevent us from achieving (for want of a better phrase) maximum spiritual health. Hedges definition of sin FOR ME speaks to the battle we all do with our own egos.
Thank you for the dialogue.
MollyJ, I loved how you summed up your points by saying that the “definiton of sin FOR ME speaks to the battle we all do with our own egos”. That was a very beautiful way to put it. I think it reminds us that words have different definitions to each of us, and we shouldn’t condemn an entire concept when we don’t know it’s linguistic significance to different individuals. Also, I loved how you put it as battle we do with our egos. Most people do that (I hope). Maybe, if an atheist doesn’t like the word sin (though we do need some common words somewhere if we are to communicate effectively) they can think of it as our attempts to be moral and good persons. I think we’ve all encountered wonderful human beings, and turned and seen how we may or may not to live up to them. By having ideals in our head we can strive to be better and work on our own flaws. By not acknowledging our weaknesses, we can do a great deal of harm, to ourselves and others. By realizing things are wrong, like say, hitting one’s children or saying nasty things about people, we can improve ourselves and the lives of people around us. In that way, a sense of sin benefits people. An awareness of our limitations, of the fact that we are human, can help us be better people, not merely guilty ones. Anyway, I loved it. Spot on.
Sin, as I understand the root of the word, means to “miss” the mark. The mystic sees the human being as an ongoing evolution. Although its derivation is not totally understood, the Tarot points to a map of human evolution. These cards (usually 78) depict just about any condition that human flesh is heir to. Furthermore, the meanings of the uppermost cards (major Arcanum) show the struggle between the human being’s selfish (animal, it’s said) nature, and his/her Divine nature.
I remember watching “The Ten Commandments” twenty-five years ago when I was teaching Tarot at community colleges, and realized that Moses’ life depicted EVERY rung of the symbolic ladder depicted by the upper arcanum’s 22 cards, cards such as the Hangman that shows that time in each life when one seems to come to a pause, or dead end, when the old ways no longer work or bring personal progress. One could say the entire nation of America has come to the hangman, or perhaps the DEVIL card which depicts the tendency to “profit the world and lose one’s soul.”
These themes, both ancient and contemporary, portray what every individual must master in himself/herself, and by extension, what every society wrestles with. On this polarity planet that manifests day and night, male and female, and the illusions of good and evil, we see in societies those that cleave to war and selfish aggressive measures that always cost more in the long run than taking the opposing path: that of sharing, cooperation, and working towards greater ideals that hold fastest and strongest when the vast majority benefit. The age of elites, my dear friend Kivals, is about to end… mankind spent 2200 years under the Mars-applied age of Aries, and the past 2200 years in the conundrum of Pisces’ twin fish and marked duality felt as irreconcilable divisions among nations and religions… it came to me this week that mankind required all these centuries to reach the beginning stages of Aquarius: a phase of genuine brotherhood & sisterhood, where we learn to become friends, no longer using religion or politics to force ONE way on everyone. Rather we learn to celebrate diversity… scarcity of supplies and our beloved animal companiones may incite the beginnings of this spiritual revelation which will reverberate across the planet. It only takes the next 2200 years to fully mature!
Ms. Ann wrote: “You are missing out on the magnetic (and socialist) brilliance of Paul Tillich, the passion of Simone Weil, the humanitarian greatness of the Liberation Theologians. It’s not about a “controller deity”, and if you had the slightest familiarity with Christian thinkers, you wouldn’t have made such a silly comment. would never have said that, so don’t put words in their mouths. Gosh, read a book.”
*Chuckle* Ann, equating the totality of a religion with the views of a few thinkers ignores religious practice of the rest of its adherents. Tillich’s “ground of being” is a monistic view (monistic is distinct from monotheistic), similar to the monistic Advaita Vedanta. C.S. Lewis’s “God would like us to be co-creators with him” also indicates a monistic bent in “Mere Christianity.”
The concept of a controller deity as indicated by the often quoted “God has a plan,” “God has a purpose for you,” and “God is in control” formulations, is common among many monotheistic Christians. I am unaware of any Christian thinker who disavows this concept, or for that matter explicitly recognizes the same as a fundamental aspect of the worldview of many Christians, let alone pointing out that the concept is flawed.
KIVALS/CLEMSY: Thank you for your generous acknowledgements.
*Lol* MollyJ, Ms. Ann, guilt as a spiritual driver is a uniquely Christian formulation. Sin, as Chris Hedges puts it “…a stark acknowledgement that we can never be omnipotent, that we are bound and limited by human flaws and self-interest…,” or as Paul opines “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God [Romans 3:23],” is *also* a uniquely Christian formulation.
MollyJ, I did not accuse you of being a Christian for you to use the word “guilty” in your response.
Primarily, I am pointing out that the way we represent problems depends on the worldview that we hold. Further, a particular representation of a problem itself can skew its analysis and the resulting solution. Sometimes, the awareness of a different representation, or a different framework itself answers a question, or makes the question meaningless or irrelevant.
MollyJ, the “us vs. them” dichotomy is the obvious trap. As long as we represent values and actions as abstractions unto themselves rather than projections of our egos, we avoid this trap.
Rather than aspiring to a standard a person must meet, and therefore fall short (a la Sin), a different way to represent the problem is to evaluate the current state, identify areas of growth, and the practice of relevant actions. In this introspective model one does not “Sin” by falling short, they progress from “truth” to “truth” - no guilt involved nor any deity required. This only requires the acknowledgement of any pain/harm caused, and the realization of ignorance to overcome.
SouixRose, thanks for the “The age of elites” formulation, a different focus on the “hierarchy of beings” concept.
What a great discussion! I’ve been a fan of Chris Hedges ever since I read WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING. I had to read this article several times, mostly due to his use of the word sin and the statement, “The belief that human nature can be improved and perfected…”.
Molly, thanks for your comments. They helped me to understand (I think!) how Chris is using the word sin. I’d like to also point out that “origonal sin” can be thought of as the moment that humankind moved from being children of (mother/female) nature into the world of (father/male) thought, and we’ve been stuck there ever since.
Ms Ann, to me it does not seem that Hedges is grouping all atheists together, but great posts.
Why, thank you, Thought Shaman. You seem to have reached such heights of conceptual understanding, I’m so grateful to you for having explained books I’ve read and studied for years. I could never have understood what the authors were saying if you hadn’t deigned to let me know what they were talking about. I apologize for sounding snarky, but seriously, that was a pretty pompous way to put that.
As for “equating the totality of a religion with the views of a few thinkers ignores religious practice of the rest of its adherents”… have you met every last religious person on Earth? Why exactly do you feel entitled to make sweeping pronouncements based on your own limited experience? You seem to disagree with religion as an idea, but then you switch and focus on the practice of the adherents instead of the ideas. If the ideas are good, does it matter if people get it wrong (because religion is supposed to remind us that we do get it wrong, us lowly practitioners, and that we need to keep trying)? Is the value of something to be deemed by the lowest common denominator, or the highest? Are you basing your opinions on religion because of Torquemada and the Inquisition and the modern religious right movement? Because I would say that those are exceptional, and do not in anyway represent all religions, let alone all religious practitioners. If you were to do so, you would need to take into account the religious practices of many other adherents.
What about people who never write books or become professors, but simple ordinary people who become social workers and community activists? Do they not count? You don’t want religion to be judged by a few thinkers, but by the practice of the rest of its adherents. Well, though there are adherents who profess ideas and do things many of us disagree with, there are also those who, because of their faith, actively work to make a better world. The total sum of a religion is much more than a few thinkers; I did not say or imply that, you did. There are atheists/agnostics who don’t trouble much about morality who do terrible things, and there are atheists and agnostics who have a splendid motivation to try and do some good. It’s very important not to make careless sweeping pronouncements upon any belief system without really trying to understand as much as possible. And coming into something with a bias and determination to see evil is an immediate misstep.
Finally, I would like to address your comment about sayings like “God has a plan”, people who use God as an excuse, as a crutch and a controller (and I’ll acknowledge that many of us do that from time to time, but often in the face of great pain. Sometimes people need that comfort and it would be terrible to hurt them. And then, we are built with the need to hear such things at moments, and perhaps that is worthy of consideration as well. But I digress). A huge part of the Abrahamic religions is dealing with idol worship. In early Judaism, there was this revolutionary idea that God is above our names and images. God is this sort of space and we must not try to put things in there. Now, this is violated constantly for many reasons (forgive me for telling you what doubtless you already know), but it’s important for us to try. By reminding ourselves that it is human nature to form idols, to accept absolutes and become limited, we can keep pushing ourselves to see other ideas, to accept that we may never know, to be humble before knowledge. I think that’s pretty important.
I think what Chris means is that when 2 groups are polarized, and one portrays it as a battle of Good vs Evil, or Truth vs Lies, the truth is generally in the middle of the 2 groups reality. I agree.
There is a war being fought today, which is a continuation of a battle that has been fought for well over 1000 years, where those who worship Lucifer, the son of light, who is the God of Knowledge, Science and Reason battle the faith based religions who sought to suppress them as being evil. Imagine, the world being round and not flat, or revolving around the sun, etc. Burn them at the stake.
Over the last 150 years or so, maybe longer, there has been a power shift from faith based religion to reason based religion. One of the first signs from a religious viewpoint was the Human Manifesto I published in 1930, and then we had a World War which gave us a Holocaust and destroyed many Jews, many of them whom were devout Torah following Jews, some of whom might be considered fundamentalists. The Human Manifesto II was issued the same time as the Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973. The current Manifesto of 2000 calls for globalization and talks of citizens rights, and responsibilities, and power of the UN of over nations, and a tax on the people, so you can see where this is going. This is secular fundamentalism.
Years ago, so they say, Eve chose knowledge despite being told not do do so, as knowledge would allow man to see Good and Evil. So man was punished by Adonai, the God of the main religions of today. Judaism, Christianity and Islam worship a spiritual god, based on faith and not reason. The non-fundamentalist forms of the religion tend to be good things, but the fundamentalist forms, the extremist forms, promote wars and hate against those who do not believe as they do, and whose leaders seek to control society use God as a tool to do evil. Thats the bad.
Secular humanists believe in Science, Knowledge and Reason, and are also good, so long as they are willing to live with those who have chosen a different path. Live and let live. If you want to believe in Creationism, your choice, just let me have my Evolution. Unfortunately, that never seems to work out, one group always wants to dominate the other. That probably because we are all products of the evolutionary process, but it is still bad.
Leading us today, are a group of secular humanists who have great power and lots of money, and they are behind the Globalization movement. They work within secret societies, at the highest levels, groups like the Pilgrim Society, Scottish Rite Masons, Trilateral Commission, Club of Rome, CFR and their counterparts in the UK and Israel, and some who names we just do not know since they are the real secret society. While none of them admit being secular humanists of the Luciferian tradition, Albert Pikes, founder of the Scotish Rite Masons, wrote a book called Morals and Dogma that seem to prove otherwise. All of these groups seem to whistle the same tune on other matters as well.
In recent years conflicts between fundamentalist religous groups like the Christian Zionists and Islamic Extremists have served to discredit faith based religion, and those who argue for Creationism over Evolution cause anyone with an ounce of reason listening to their arguments to wonder in horror how this could be, conditions that presumably make people receptive to a new religion based on reason. The clear winners are those who want to destroy faith based religion and replace it with a secular humanist reason based religion. It is likely this has been done by design. Who created Islamism, we did, in Iran and Afghanistan. Zionism was a British creation and served to create a wedge between Muslims and Jews, and divided Christians and Jews. Christian Zionism served to unite Christian and Jews against Muslims. It is a divide and rule strategy by the secular humanists against faith based religion. We see it with the Christian Right (Protestant Patriotic Moral Conservatives) and Christian Left (African-Americans who say Goddam America and Liberal Catholics led by Pedophile Priests) being divided.
It is possible, if not likely,that the next holocaust will be among fundamentalist Muslims and Christians, especially Catholics and other devout Christians. Those left behind will be secular Christians and Muslims and Jews, and will be brought into the church of Lucifer, and the religion of secular humanism.
In the perfect world, the faith based religion of God (thesis) and the reason based religion of secular humanism (antithesis) would synthesize naturally over time, and take the best of characteristics of the 2, leaving behind the bad.
Unfortunately, those in charge of today are in a hurry, and will just give us a new kind of bad, where science, knowledge and reason will allow an elite few to dominate the masses and become Gods on Earth, just as our Popes and Kings have used religion to do so in the past. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. So it has been, so it will always be.
It may very well be that their haste is dictated by population growth and resource issues, and weapons of mass destruction, so the end justifies the means. In order to do evil, good men need to believe they are doing evil as a means to a good end. Personally, I think that is just an excuse they have manufactured to do evil at personal gain, at least for those at the top. Their followers must believe they are doing what must be done, since most people are generally good, yet easily deceived.
Hedges offers a one-sided account of utopian thought. He only tells half of the story, the dark, distorted underside of utopian thought: “To be a utopian, to live for the creation of a fantastic and unreal world, was to live in no place, to remove oneself from reality.”
Surely he knows that the word can mean both no and good place, the prefix ‘u’ being legible as both. If utopian desire can be perverted, it can also be liberatory. Utopian thought hasn’t simply concocted inhuman plans for coercing people into a perpetually peaceable republic whether they like it or not. It’s been a fulcrum against oppression, a means of envisioning an emancipated future, and a means to criticize actual existing conditions of everyday life.
Utopian thinkers were instrumental in liberating the West from clerical tutelage and feudal oppression, advancing scientific inquiry, while being central to the ongoing resistance to the inhuman domination of people by capitalism, religious fundamentalism, or communism. It is tendentious to lump this vital strain of utopianism in with fundamentalists’s dystopian ideologies.
Hedges may deride as utopian the idea that people can make moral advances collectively, but I do not have his god’s eye view myself. Whether or not whatever Hedges takes to be the human totality in question can advance morally, the only thing an individual can do is to work compassionately for economic, social, environmental justice and I personally don’t need a medieval concept of sin to guide me.
Interesting discussion. We have been beset by sins of every nature since the beginning of time and always will be. There will also continue to be believers and non-believers of all religions, scientific reasoning, and yes, astrology.
I believe Cris Hedges was just pointing out that no one philosophy is the answer to civilisation`s problems, but that we need to listen to each other, instead of trying to cram our own ideas down the others throats.
Our lack of leadership in our country has started the world on the wrong path, which is take care of ourselves and to H____ with everyone else. That attitude will mean the end of what most people thought was a world making some progress toward facing our problems together and bring chaos and death.
Ms. Ann, let me start with where we agree and move on from there.
The human mind grasps symbols to manipulate when attempting to understand the world. Creating Idols is one instance of this phenomenon. Rejecting absolutes and adopting a process of continuous improvement is a worthwhile endeavor as you point out. In this context, the injunction to avoid idols has also resulted in some religious folks replacing the idols with less substantial but equally gripping objects. For instance, the cross and the bible have become objects of veneration (ah! but they are not idols, as in they are not graven images - go figure).
Some use formulations like “God has a plan,” in times of emotional distress. However, I encounter this formulation routinely from evangelists as part of their pitch. The God as controller concept is not limited to people who use deity as a crutch, it is also present among those who are devotional, so much so that the movie Dogma includes the phrase as part of the character Bethany’s dialogue (obviously, this assumes that scriptwriters use phrases that resonate with a viewing audience).
No apologies are in order for repeating a few things that a person may already know to make a point clear in a dialogue. Redundancy can be good.
Funny, I only pointed out that your implication that the thoughts of people like Paul Tillich ought to be representative of a religion excludes the views of many other adherents of the religion. In this context, the intent is to provide evidence for the concept of the controller deity being a fundamental concept in the practice of monotheistic religions. The monistic vs. monotheistic contrast simply serves to clarify that Tillich’s view qualifies as monistic rather than monotheistic.
[[As for “equating the totality of a religion with the views of a few thinkers ignores religious practice of the rest of its adherents”… have you met every last religious person on Earth? Why exactly do you feel entitled to make sweeping pronouncements based on your own limited experience?]]
How did you generate these questions from the quoted statement? In the original context, you pointed out that we ought to disregard the views of Pat Robertson or Jerry Fallwell in favor of the likes of Paul Tillich. I objected to this implication only, nothing more.
I am not against religion as an idea at all. Religion has inspired people to do good things as well as the bad (a study of the anti-slavery movement provides ample evidence for both perspectives). I only object to the “hierarchy of beings” many monotheistic religions promote. Paul Tillich’s repackaging of the monistic Advaita concept of the “ground of being” helps people move away from the aforementioned flawed hierarchy.
Hmmm, it is possible to be familiar and knowledgeable in a field and yet not see certain connections within the body of knowledge. This is the genesis for much of original academic research :-).
Ann, when I talk about moving away from a hierarchy of beings it is more than a cute catch phrase. I place no creative, moral being above another, abilities and talents notwithstanding. Let me go out on a limb and say that in the realm of creating software and abstract models, I likely mop the floor with you. On the other hand, in the realm of readings in Christian thinkers, you likely sweep over me. Neither ability nor knowledge makes one of us better than the other. We may have different expertise and talents, but there is no difference in relative worth of each being. Each being has a duty to all other beings, and as a civilization, it is better to adopt a model based on a hierarchy of actions and values.
Good article, but the whole belief in SIN aspect really throws it into confusion. Chris, why not just let it rest as self interest and hurt and pain being played out and passed on. You really step off a cliff with the sin thing. The concept of Sin in itself presupposes some ideal perfect potential, some original state, it buys into the very BS you are slamming on, and rightly so. Of course we are limited, of course we choose self interest! We are also social and cooperative.
If Mr. Hedges is to be given resposiblity for one thing, I think he would be proud if it is this excellent discussion!
Truly a shining moment for an otherwise sadly declining CommonDreams!
I’ll admit that most of the details of the above philosophical ideas went either right through me or over my head, for I am at base a practical person.
But I know what I know, and I think I can feel some pride that much of it was learned in the old-fashioned, self-directed way.
Namely through the use of specific plants and fungi, conscious or lucid dreaming and lots and lots of thought.
None of my knowledge would stand up to the kind of intellectual rigor that the above poster’s could bring to bear, I’ll bet, so I won’t bother to throw it into the mix.
Except for this:
Storm is coming. Prepare.
All of my messengers agree on this. Those from the Earth, those from the Heavens, those from the Heart, those from the Mind, and those from the “in-between places” to which the Mind and Heart can sometimes travel.
Of course this preperation is not merely the Survivalist’s hoarding of resources or knowledge in advance of the arrival of Storm.
No, to the contrary, Preparation must neccessarily involve the flowering of understanding and Co-operation amongst the People.
For none of us can live truly on our own, our Physical Mortality precludes this.
And even if this lonesome survival was possible, what kind of Life is that for a Human Being?
So, to our astounding abundance of Resident Philosophers (I’m floored, I had no Idea you were here) to our wonderful Thinkers, I give you the respect and space to conduct your craft, just as I would expect you to give me for mine (just what that maybe I’ll leave tantalizingly unsaid, giving the impression that it is much more interesting than in Truth it is).
But I will offer one word of advice:
Be Humble.
As has been said, it is a Truth that one day, not very long from now in terms of the Earth, all of us here will be gone, and whatever fate is in store for our Souls (if we have them
) our bodies will return to the substance of the Earth from which they came.
What will remain, thanks to the brilliant Genius of writing and the inborn nature of memory, will be our Words.
Let them be Humble words, as so to better reflect an Honest Understanding of our Humble Nature.
Also remember that even when the Words be humble, the Voice can betray this -and it is a fallacy to think that Voice cannot be “heard” in writings.
As unlofty, as uneducated as this advice may be, I think it could be to the benefit of some here.
-matti.
Biko, you mirror my thoughts precisely. Perhaps it’s my Catholic indoctrination, but the concept of sin is loaded… mainly with guilt and punishment.
People can behave morally without the threat of supernatural punishment. If we’re playing with the definition of the word to mean “going against one’s principles” then we’re not really disagreeing… but I don’t think you can define sin in this manner.
I agree that this is one of the better discussions going on here. Thank Chris and CD for that.
Didn’t read the comments, nor have I read any Sam Harris.
The paragraph, from the article above, beginning “Some propositions are so dangerous…” seems to be explaining a phenomenon rather than defending one.
And the rest of the article sounds like a tantrum or a retaliatory rant. I agree that we are as much a product of our nature as well as our nurture. Mr. Hedges should have given credit to Steven Pinker as Pinker reveals in “The Blank Slate” the complexity of the issues Hedges addresses here.
I’m not going to send a barrage of derogotory names in his direction, but I believe Hedges is basically wrong. What we call nature, is in itself the result of millions of years of evolution, of changing circumstances and adaptations. And it is our nature to cooperate as well as compete. Mr. Hedges seems to conclude, on balance, mostly despair and failure from human history. That is the very heart of conservative thought.
WmC asked “Is it possible to be too rational? Too objective? Too unswayed by superstition and emotion?”
Maybe, maybe not, but it *is* possible to be too dogmatic. It’s not the people who believe they have access to the truth that are a problem, it’s the ones who *know* they have access to The One And Only Truth. Dogma leads unavoidably to intolerance, and intolerance is the source of all evil, in my opinion.
Pattern-chaser
“Who cares, wins”
“It’s not the people who believe they have access to the truth that are a problem, it’s the ones who *know* they have access to The One And Only Truth. Dogma leads unavoidably to intolerance, and intolerance is the source of all evil,