Dear Kevin,
I thought that this morning’s New York Times had several good pieces. The below sums it up best, however. I think we are facing in America a real rejection of the principles of the Enlightenment – precisely because so many Americans fear the more complicated “God” that Reason requires. Until that issue is addressed in some comforting way, I think we can expect more of the same — wanton war, environmental destruction, hatred of the “other,” and an easily manipulated audience. I fear that the arguments of reason fall quietly to the ground in the silent forest of ignorance.
Love, Mark
Subject: Re: NY Times
Thanks. Yes, my angle on it is that we are now caught in the worst kind of negative feedback loop—this spasm of militarism and religion that’s laying waste to the conception of the worth of human beings. The unreason begets more unreason. Things get worse and this religion has the answer: a parallel reality that mirrors the grimness of the actual inversely. It also seems to me that corporate capitalism and fundamentalism dovetail very well in this disregard for externalities—the former because the costs of rapacity are still kept from affecting the bottom line (just the lives of people, whose role is still serviceable enough not to be a concern—even to the extent of taxing them to pay for a war in which they are being killed), and the latter because the afterlife in the ideal world to come provides both the excuse and the gloss over what perishes before our eyes—environment, lives in warfare, liberties.
So I guess I see religion as the “front man” in this much more sinister attack on the worth of human life that is the result of unfettered corporate capitalism. That’s my take on it. Its potential for making irrelevant the actual machinations of corporate rule have been seized. A face has been put on it, George W. Bush–himself a hapless dupe whose vanity just needs to be stroked enough to enact the agenda. The Nixon problem has been understood and answered. Placate and distract the people continually and relentlessly from being able to conceptualize what is of real long-term benefit to them, let alone an idea of the “Good.”
If there’s any hope, in my opinion, it’s in perceiving that this isn’t just a lapse from the Enlightenment—it is what engendered the Enlightenment itself after 1500 years of “Darkness” during which feudal societies used religion in the very same way. Democracy itself is the aberration. Let’s just hope we can accelerate the reawakening this time.
So to me it means taking the measure of human nature all over again. What is the real appeal to our livelihoods and our happiness? Is it really very complicated? Is there not something persuasive in our ideals to be seized on that properly calls shame down on this warring, this mis-measure of the good of other people (whom we kill to liberate). I don’t know how to formulate it and am hardly empowered to send such shockwaves through the populace, but along with countless others I’ll be thinking about these things and what I can do.
Love Kev
Cc: Sugi
Subject: RE: NY Times
well said. how do you feel about “fettered” capitalism?
m
To: Mark Burget
Cc: Sugi
Subject: Re: NY Times
I’m all for it. Long live the marketplace, but I believe corporations shouldn’t enjoy the same rights and “freedoms” as human beings if they aren’t made to observe the concomitant duties. Leveraging their status as de facto “persons” corporations have subverted the market and ultimately plowed people under. I know the lures of greed and influence have surely made the task of policing corporations difficult, but impossible? Inimical to capitalism itself? To “growth”? That this argument now has traction is a dire indicator, in my opinion. On the one hand regulation is seen to hamper progress, and on the other, rights stand in the way. “All these people and their ‘entitlements’” I heard one scornful radio caller rage recently. He went on to extol the virtues of the “ownership society”. Presumably in an “ownership society” the nuisance of entitlements is superseded. First, liberal was made a dirty word. Entitlements on deck, rights in the hole.
From: Mark Burget
Reply-To:
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:11:16 -0700
Cc: Sugi
Subject: RE: NY Times
yes – agreed. so what are we going to do, you and me. do we start something anew? why aren’t our stories resonating? with whom can we pull together to make something of our frustration, our anger, our sadness?
m
K:
Don’t know. Stay tuned! Did you already go and come back from Indonesia?