Monday, December 18, 2006
(8:38 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Meanwhile...
As I wallow in misery, Jodi Dean and Sinthome are talking about the religious right. Anthony and I are both involved in their respective comment threads; though I haven't been following it in detail, this is a long-standing debate between Anthony and Sinthome.I'll let Anthony speak for himself. The main point I'm trying to make is that the jump from a denunciation of the religious right or the various "fundamentalisms" to a denunciation of religion tout court is illogical. Secular critics of the religious right claim that it's not their job to define who has the "true" Christianity, and it certainly isn't -- but they almost always implicitly approve of the fundamentalist claim to represent the "true" form of a given religion and view other forms of that religion as irrelevant equivocation. This is a case of a broadly anti-religious bias leading one to shoot oneself in the foot. There are plenty of Christians who, precisely as Christians, are outraged at the religious right.
Another point is that we really need to analyze religion more on the superstructural level, especially in the modern world. In most cases, religion is mobilized for propaganda purposes, but it does not stand at the origin of the plan being proposed. A great example would be the Iraq War. There was nothing distinctively Christian about this war, unless we want to lean back on stupid slurs about how it was "faith based" or "based in theology." Fundamentalist Christians formed a significant, though hardly unique, base of support for this war, and it was because they were fleeced -- if the fundamentalists had really been in charge, invading Iraq would not have been on their agenda.
In fact, the religious right is "influential" only insofar as they are susceptible to the "bait and switch" of the Republican Party. They may determine a good chunk of the rhetoric, but they're not actually setting the policy. Similarly with Hitler: he played lip service to Christianity, and Christian anti-Semitism predisposed people to go along with shipping the Jews off, but no one can seriously argue that he based his agenda on Christian principles. Analyzing this use of religion for propaganda purposes is a very good and important thing to do, but "religion" does not stand at the root of the problem in the majority of cases -- even in the US. Money, not religion, controls things. Was this ever really in question?
Getting all bent out of shape about how Pat Robertson "wants theocracy" makes just as much sense as living in constant fear because bin Laden "wants theocracy." The relevant question isn't what they want, but what they're capable of. Pat Robertson is no more likely to become a major advisor to the president than bin Laden is. Sure, someone like Dobson may get brought in, but it's all for show. If you'll recall, he once went to the White House and came out as a strong partisan for the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court -- surely an obvious case of being manipulated into supporting something the president had already decided to do for other reasons. And incidentally, the bin Laden example shows how the Right is adept at using both religion and fear of religion to advance their agenda; the Left, such as it is, generally limits itself to the latter, with the impressive results we can all see.
Anyway, I suppose I'm implicitly an apologist for the religious right now. Sorry.
