Hello Ierrellus:
— “The philosophy that rationalizes power politics and justifies war and military training is always (whatever the official religion of the politicians and war makers) some wildly surrealistic doctrine of national, racial or ideoligical idolatry, having, as its inevitable corollaries, the notions of ‘Herrenvolk’ and ‘the lesser breeds without the Law’.”–Aldous Huxley in “The Perennial Philosophy”.
O- I have enjoyed both Aldous and Julian’s works, but here is my point: That “philosophy” is found everywhere, in everyone and in other times. War, conflict, is not reserved to americans alone, nor the “West”, it is, you might say, part of our human inheritance though not, and this is important to remember, our only inheritance. America trains for war, America conducts wars and identifies enemies against which it aims it’s military strategy and yet that does not mean that America has a “wildly surrealistic doctrine of national, racial or ideoligical idolatry, having, as its inevitable corollaries, the notions of ‘Herrenvolk’ and ‘the lesser breeds without the Law’”. We have gone into war not just with lesser breeds but our own breed, and as far as idolatry this goes back into the nature of the human species. Our very sociality, civility, creates as a corollary, what some might consider doctrines, of Nation, Race or some other glue that defines the periphery.
— There is much to consider here, omar, in a book that should be in the home libraries of theists and atheists alike. As the quote suggests, idolatry is consideration of any other human as less valuable than oneself.
O- War is not, however, solely the result of regarding another group as inferior to your own, but in fact that they are the same and equal to you. American history does reveal how americans created pseudo-religious political strategies, but what I am saying is that behind “Manifest Destiny” and the institution of slavery, lies the human penchant of organizing humanity in groups of “Us” and “Them”. This is not solely the virtue of “power” politics, or a “wildly surrealistic doctrine”, but a very common and mundane tendency among social beings such as ourselves.
“…justifies war and military training…” this applies to every human civilization, in my opinion.
— Consider war. The U.S. has never known a single 20 yr. span that did not include war, aftermath of war or preparations for war. We are a violent country, ready for attack.
O- Of all those wars, how many were considered as immoral or unjustified wars? How many were entirely unprovoked? The idea is that if you’re going to fight someone then you better have a good reason for doing so. If the US has been involved in constant war then this is because it has believed that it had good reason to engage in this or that war. This does not make us “a violent country”. I am a peace-loving guy but I am ready to attack whomever threatens my life or the life of those I care about or my property even. Am I a violent guy just because I punched a guy trying to car-jack me? If I take classes of martial arts it does not mean that I am violent but that we live in a violent world.
— There can be no war sanctioned by a god if “God” is on both sides (Mark Twain), is impartial, is ethical.
O- I loved that poem. The simple answer of the theocrat is that God is not on both sides but only on one side though the other side, erroneously, thinks that God is on their side; instead it is their fantasy that is on their side, says the theocrat.
— Capitalism, with its Horatio Alger lie that anyone can rise in repect and wealth by “his own bootstraps”, continues to see those who, because of hanidicaps, cannot so rise, as drains on the economy, as the burden of the successful.
O- Aldous Huxley was not to far from defending just this position in his Brave New World revisited, where he alluded to, like his brother, to population controls of some sort. Only a socialist system could burden the successful. The capitalist sees the unsuccessful or not as successful as he, not as burdens but as opportunities, maybe even commodities, if you believe Marx.
— I realize that, living in the U.S., I can have expectations of decent living conditions. Is it remiss for me to recall that my opportunity came at the expense of genocide, slavery and the abuse of women and children in the mills?
O- Not at all, but the opportunity you now have is not unavailable to the decendants of the same slaves as Wright seems to imply.
— Is it unAmerican for me to recall these things in the hope and faith that this country can outgrow the sins of commission and omission perpetrated in and by its adolescence?
O- It is not “unamerican”, but neither is it the standard of America, or “american”, whereupon lack of such candid admission one must cease to define themselves as properly american. accentuating the past won’t bring the future to fruition. This is part of Barracks message. The black community is so caught up in the wrongs of the past that they may miss the promises open in a future. We live in a world where a black man may just finally be judge by the content of his character, but the black community can only insist to defend it’s wants and vices on the judgment on their skins; a past they did not suffer bars their path to their future. “I am the decendant of slaves”…So? Are you a slave? I would ask. Constantly reminding white folks who your parents were will not add to YOUR merit of success. Tomorrow G W Bush may step into the White House Lawn and he might issue forth an apology. Will this change the fact that there are problems in the black community? Will this prevent fathers from abandoning their children, or the selling of drugs, or the use of drugs, or the objectification of women etc, etc? Not at all. The black community cannot saddle white america with it’s calamities forever, not when more and more black men and woman set the example. The problems do continue not because of what white folks do but because black america still considers these black exemplars as exceptions and criminals the rule. When they rise above their victim worldview their exemplars might multiply and prisions may begin to lose their black population.
— "It was the “God damn America” phrase that got Rev. Wright in trouble with mainline idolators.
O- I don’t consider myself an idolator, Irrellus. The standard you both use condemns not just America but condemns the world and it’s Creator. It also partial and not objective in it’s assesment, for as many things can be found wrong with america to-day, there are certainly others that can be found right with america to-day, otherwise I fail to see why you or anyone else chooses to live in these United States.
— It was ideas about AIDS and about Farakan.
O- Do you think that HIV was purposely spread by the govt through the black community?
— The latter were his personal opinions based on reading
O- Which led to his damnation of the great liar.
— and on on noting the good Farakan had done for black youths.
O- The ends do not justify the means. I don’t care if Hitler created a lot of jobs for needy germans or the good a Madrasah has in teaching poor youths how to read if along with teaching them that it also prepares them to become suicide bombers.
— The former is ultimately Biblical and ethical because the damnation is against those who would see any other human as fodder for wars, as drones who work mainly to fill the pockets of persons who consider themselves superior, as burdens or as obstacles for those whose appetites are insatiable, even to the extent of putting all life on the globe at risk.
O- Israel is denounced by their prophets but not condemn by them. You don’t ask God to damn America but ask Him to have mercy upon americans, as a Christian. You ask for God to act upon them and that He turns their hearts, not that God damns them. This is Biblical and in Jesus view, ethical. It is he that asks the believer to pray not just for his friends but also for his enemies. Reverend Wright has not heard the Gospel in my opinion.
— Do I love America? Yes. Do I feel America needs chastisement? Yes.
O- I also love America and I don’t mind a gadfly. But I don’t need a Rev Wright. I don’t need condemnation, simply for being an american. If America needs chastisement then England, France, Russia, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Mexico, Japan, China, Italy, Germany, the list could go on, needs chastisement as well. The Gospel says that no one is righteous and that all are in need of His mercy, not that only America is unrighteous and that only america, white or black, is in need of mercy. We need to realize then that we are in this together and that we need to take out the plank in our eye before helping others remove the splinter inside their eye. I say then “God bless America”, not because God ought to, but in spite of what we, as sinful humans which is revealed by our nations past, merit. God, Wright is right, does not bless everything. He does not approve of everything. However that which He approves we cannot do, so says the Bible, without His help, without His Grace. God damn America? Reverend it is not just America that is damned but the entire seed from Adam that is already damned. It was not our enslavement of negroes or the treatment of japanese, or the treatment of Native Americans that damned America and humanity in general, but the Original Sin. Likewise it is not the better treatment of any race or country or people that will cause God to “bless” our country, or else Jesus died for nothing, and the jews were right in the salvation through the observance of the Law. Certainly Wright’s lack of mercy condemns him rather than America in the eyes of God according to the Bible.
