Religion, Morality ... Polarization, Repolarization\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nReligion, Morality ... Polarization, Repolarization\r\nTwo Solid Cores in Fundamental Opposition\r\n<\/p>
by Bob Avakian<\/p>\r\n
Revolution #015, September 25, 2005, posted at revcom.us<\/p>\r\n
If you go back to what I was speaking to earlier, with the metaphor, or\r\nimage, of the pyramid as two ladders,1\r\nand you begin to see the ladders slide down and the center not holding them\r\ntogether at the top anymore, then you see more fully the relevance and\r\nimportance of the comment by Hertzberg in The New Yorker,<\/em>2\r\nwhich I cited earlier—in effect: “Uh oh, now not only does the radical right\r\nhave a lot more power, but this is an opening to the radical left”—because\r\nthere is the whole prospect of the center’s not holding in the way it has\r\nbeen.<\/p>\r\n Now, it is crucial to grasp that a positive repolarization is not going to\r\nhappen spontaneously: it depends to a tremendous degree on what we do, and how\r\nwe understand—and act on an understanding of—reality. But, in fundamental\r\nterms, it is true that things can increasingly be posed in terms of two solid\r\ncores in opposition to each other, at opposite poles. Yes, there are and will be\r\na number of other forces in the field. It’s like Lenin said: It is not a\r\nmatter of two armies lining up, and one says, “we’re for socialism” while\r\nthe other says, “we’re for imperialism.” There will be many gradations and\r\ncomplexities. But there will be, or can be, as this unfolds, two poles in\r\nfundamental opposition to each other: on the one hand, their<\/em> solid\r\ncore—the solid core of bourgeois rule now—with no elasticity; and, on the\r\nother hand, the solid core that is represented by communism and the communist\r\noutlook and method, as we must understand and apply it—a solid core with a\r\nlot<\/strong>of elasticity.<\/em> And then, if things do go that way,\r\nthere is going to be a fight—I’ll go back to Newt Gingrich and his\r\ncomparison between the situation today and that leading into the Civil War in\r\nthe U.S., in the middle of the 19th century3—there\r\nwill be a fight to the finish, between those two poles and the forces they are\r\nable to rally around them.<\/p>\r\n Yet, again, the challenge this poses for us—which we must very clearly\r\nrecognize and very seriously confront—is that everything will not just “fall\r\nin our lap” in a favorable way, Humpty Dumpty does not fall apart that way.\r\nWhat it emphasizes is the need for—and what we have to grapple with is the\r\nmeans for—a more favorable re<\/em>polarization, not tailing in the wake of\r\nthe present polarization, to say nothing of simply ignoring it in a Pollyannish\r\nkind of way—or dealing with it in a way that would amount to a pitiful and\r\npaltry excuse for communism, instead of actually grasping and applying the\r\ncommunist outlook and method in a living way, as I have been speaking to.<\/p>\r\nFORAYS INTO THE OTHER CAMP—PEELING FORCES AWAY FROM THE ENEMY\r\n One of the things that is important in the statement that was put out by our\r\nParty right after the 2004 election (“The Will of the People Was NOT Expressed\r\nin This Election”4)\r\nis that it does speak to the need for repolarization, very correctly, and it\r\nraises the specific point that we need some “intervention” with these people\r\nwho are under the sway of fanatical Christian fundamentalism, who (as that\r\nstatement very accurately describes them) are seriously addicted to Armageddon\r\nfantasies. You go into bookstores, even mainstream bookstores, and you see these\r\nreactionary fundamentalist “rapture” books by people like Tim LaHaye (whose\r\nwife, Beverly LaHaye, is the founder of Concerned Women for America, one of\r\nthese right-wing Christian Fascist groups—the “mothers in the fatherland”5\r\nNazi type of thing). You have millions of people\r\nin the U.S. buying these books about the rapture. These people are indeed\r\nseriously addicted to Armageddon fantasies—and they live to a very significant\r\ndegree in this self-contained, self-reinforcing world, which these books are\r\nalso a big part of fostering and reinforcing. And, as our election statement\r\nsays, there needs to be some serious intervention with these people. We need to\r\nactually organize some of this intervention—and be prepared for how tough\r\nit’s going to be, not only because of the nature of these forces and\r\neverything I’m saying about them, but also because the state is not on our\r\nside. The Christian Fascists may not actually have “god on their side” in\r\nreality, but they do have the state<\/em> on their side in very significant\r\nways.<\/p>\r\n We need youth in particular and people in general who are armed with a\r\ncommunist outlook going right up into these people’s strongholds—at their\r\nchurches, and so on—leafletting them and engaging them in debate. We need all\r\nkinds of creative ways to engage these people. Not simply to curse at\r\nthem—they need to be engaged and struggled with in an overall sense to\r\nconfront things they have never confronted. They have a self-contained world,\r\nand I’m not naive about the prospects in the short term, but this needs to be\r\ndone with strategic prospects and strategic considerations in mind. They need to\r\nbe confronted with the reality that they are sealed off from. Many of them, not\r\nall certainly but many of them, live in suburbia and are actually rather well to\r\ndo. It is wrong to think that these are all people who are poor and uneducated.\r\nMany of them are educated, in a certain way. You know, there is a book by Robert\r\nKaplan, The Ends of the Earth,<\/em> and one thing that really struck me and\r\nstayed with me from that book (although it is overall not a good book at all) is\r\nsomething that he cited having to do with Islamic fundamentalists: There is\r\nnothing more dangerous than education on a narrow foundation.<\/em>For example,\r\nMohammed Atta, who was apparently one of the main organizers of (and participant\r\nin) the September 11 attacks, was an engineering student. That is not to put\r\ndown all engineering students as narrow-minded and backward, but there is\r\nsomething there, having to do with the truth that education on a narrow and a\r\nmechanical basis, on a narrow foundation, can be very dangerous. This applies to\r\nmany of these Christian Fascists, who dwell in a largely self-contained world.\r\nAs the author Mark Crispin Miller once put it: If you get your news only from\r\nFox News and listen to Christian radio or whatever, you have about as much\r\nunderstanding of the world as people in the ninth century. Now that is\r\nhyperbole, but it speaks to something very real.<\/p>\r\nGOING AFTER THE FOUNDATIONS OF FUNDAMENTALISM\r\n In connection with all this, there is a point I have been emphatically\r\ncalling attention to for a decade or more: It is essential to go after the\r\nfoundation<\/em> of this reactionary religious fundamentalism and biblical\r\nliteralism, this Christian Fascism. I have noticed that a number of people have\r\ncommented in watching the DVD of my speech on revolution6:\r\n“Wow, I’m really surprised at the way he goes after religion, I didn’t\r\nknow you could do that.” Well, it is possible to do this—and it is crucial\r\nto do it. Now, we shouldn’t go after this in an unthinking dogmatic way, but\r\nthe point that I’ve been hammering at has to do with a key contradiction I\r\nhave spoken to a number of times—the contradiction that these Christian\r\nFascists are objectively caught up in—the contradiction between an insistence\r\non a literalist interpretation of the Bible, the insistence that the Bible is,\r\nin every word and detail, the true word of God that must be believed and\r\nfollowed to the letter, with all that the Bible actually calls for<\/em>\r\n—all that in contradiction to what most people in this society would consider\r\njust, decent, and even sane.<\/p>\r\n There is a very sharp contradiction in all that. In things like the book Preaching\r\nFrom a Pulpit of Bones<\/em> and the recent talks I gave on religion,7\r\nI have pointed to some examples of the horrors that are not simply described but\r\nare actually advocated,<\/em> indeed insisted upon,<\/em> by the “god”\r\nof the Bible and his representatives—things which are in fact praised and\r\ncelebrated<\/em> in the Bible: slavery<\/em>; the mass raping of women<\/em>\r\nand the murder and plunder<\/em> of people who practice other religions; putting\r\nto death homosexuals and women<\/em> who are accused of witchcraft; murdering\r\nwomen who cannot prove they are virgins<\/em> when they are married; executing\r\nchildren<\/em> who strike their parents or simply are rebellious against them;\r\nand bashing in the heads of babies<\/em> among those peoples who have angered\r\nthis “god.”<\/p>\r\n These things can be found throughout the Old Testament of the Bible in\r\nparticular, including in the first five, so-called “Mosaic,” books of the\r\nBible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—as well as in the\r\nbook of Joshua and so-called “Prophetic” books like Isaiah (for example, in\r\nChapters 9 through 14 in Isaiah).<\/p>\r\n And here is another example, which was cited in the book Freethinkers, A\r\nHistory of American Secularism,<\/em>by Susan Jacoby: In the second book of\r\nKings, it tells how one time the prophet Elisa was mocked by some children in a\r\nplace—and the “god” of the Bible, worshipped by Elisa, sent forth female\r\nbears to attack the children, ripping apart their flesh. Here is how the Bible\r\ndescribes it (in 2 Kings 2:23-24):<\/p>\r\n\r\n “He [Elisa] went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going on the\r\n way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, `Go away,\r\n baldhead! Go away, baldhead!’ When he turned around and saw them, he cursed\r\n them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and\r\n mauled forty-two of the boys.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n Now, of course, any decent person in today’s world would find this\r\nbarbaric. But it is very important to recognize that these Christian Fascists\r\nactually insist on believing and accepting everything that is said in the Bible;\r\nand the fact is that there is nothing<\/em> in the Bible, including<\/em>\r\nthe horrendous thing I just cited from “Second Kings” as well as the other\r\natrocities to which I have referred, which, as a matter of principle, these\r\nChristian Fascists would not do.<\/em> And we must understand, as well, that\r\nthey are deadly serious about imposing a literalist interpretation of the Bible\r\nand of “biblically based law,” on society, if they can get into position to\r\ndo so. The leaders and conscious political operatives among the Christian\r\nFascists will and do have tactics, and even some sophistication and subtlety at\r\ntimes, when they feel that is useful; but, again, speaking in fundamental\r\nterms, there is nothing in the Bible that, in principle, they don’t intend to\r\nimplement—including<\/strong><\/em> the kinds of horrendous\r\natrocities I have mentioned here.<\/em><\/p>\r\n In this connection—and in case anyone does harbor the illusion that\r\nchallenging people caught up in this and winning them away from it is going to\r\nbe easy—I can refer to the experience that people in the RCYB (Revolutionary\r\nCommunist Youth Brigade, the youth group led by the Party) had in taking out a\r\nParty statement around the movie The Passion of the Christ<\/em> in New York:\r\nWhen people swept up in this Christian literalist fundamentalism who were going\r\nto that movie were confronted with this contradiction—between the horrors the\r\nBible advocates and celebrates and what people today would be expected to regard\r\nas just and decent—a lot of those people said, “Well, if that’s what the\r\nBible says, I guess that’s what we’ve got to do.” So we can’t think that\r\njust presenting this contradiction to people in sharp terms is going to\r\ninstantly win them over or cause them to fundamentally call into question their\r\nreligious fundamentalism. We have to keep hammering at this, and we do need some\r\norganized “intervention” of revolutionary youth and others to go out and, in\r\nan organized and systematic way, confront these people and challenge them—not\r\nsimply or essentially in terms of why they voted for Bush, not in the framework\r\nof electoral politics and the splits within the ruling class as such, but in\r\nmore fundamental terms<\/em> about the very nature of society, and the kind of\r\nworld we should want to live in, and what different values and morals have to do\r\nwith that. And while there are ways in which we can and should unite with\r\nothers, including progressive, thinking religious people, to challenge this\r\nliteralist reactionary fundamentalism, there is also a great need for us to do\r\nthis directly under our own banner<\/em> because communists are the only ones\r\nwho can fully<\/em> take this on and fully present an alternative<\/em> to\r\nit that is actually in the fundamental interests of the great majority of\r\nhumanity.<\/p>\r\n There is a need to be taking this on, much more frontally and much more\r\nsystematically, in the realm of propaganda generally, but also, yes, even in the\r\nrealm of direct “intervention,” political intervention to challenge those\r\nwho are presently caught up in, or significantly influenced by, this Christian\r\nFascism. There is a need for taking on the question of morality and values—and\r\nexposing and countering the actual morality and values of this Christian\r\nfundamentalism in particular. There is a need to hit directly at the foundation\r\nof this, to hit at the faultline that lies within this Christian Fascist\r\nformation—the contradiction between a literal insistence on the Bible and what\r\nthat would mean, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, what most people can\r\nconsider decent and just in a modern society. There is still time to hit at that\r\ncontradiction, that faultline, before they close it up. But we’d better\r\nrecognize what’s at stake and what the urgency of this is.<\/p>\r\nTHE BATTLE OVER MORALITY, BRINGING FORWARD A POSITIVE MORALITY\r\n There is also another dimension to this whole question of hitting at this\r\nChristian Fascist morality and its values—that is, hitting politically at the actual\r\neffect<\/em> of implementing the morality and values these people are being\r\norganized around and are embracing, in opposition to the kind of morality and\r\nvalues that should be<\/em> the determining and influencing and\r\ncharacteristic morality and values in a society and world that people should\r\nreally want to live in. So there isn’t just the negative aspect of hitting at\r\nthis faultline, hitting at the very foundation of the religious fundamentalist\r\nbasis of their morality, but there is also bringing forward the positive<\/em>\r\nalternative—bringing forward positively the kind of morality people should<\/em>\r\nbe won to and should gravitate to and take up.<\/p>\r\n This also has basically two dimensions, or two levels. First is our full\r\ncommunist morality—and that is the principal aspect and main thing—because,\r\nas I said just a minute ago, only that communist morality can fully<\/em>\r\naddress and pose an alternative to this fascist fundamentalist morality and\r\nvalues. We need to go back to things like Preaching From a Pulpit of Bones<\/em>\r\nand draw out from there and popularize what communist morality<\/em> is and\r\nwhy it corresponds to the fundamental needs and interests of the masses of\r\npeople.<\/p>\r\n But there also is a need to unite people more broadly in bringing forward,\r\npopularizing, and struggling for a positive morality: Besides our full vision of\r\ncommunist morality, there is also a need for a kind of “united front\r\nprogressive morality,” if you want to put it that way. This, too, needs to be\r\npopularized, and we need to unite with other people to popularize it, even while\r\nwe are in no way holding back from, and in fact are vigorously bringing forward,\r\nour full communist view of morality. Our Party’s spokespeople, our “statespeople,”\r\nour comrades and friends who have some history and knowledge in this sphere have\r\nto be mobilized to take up this sphere and, as a key part of this, to work in a\r\ngood way with many progressive forces in waging this battle, both to oppose the\r\nChristian Fascists and to bring forward a positive alternative.<\/p>\r\n In a discussion with some progressive religious people, one of the things I\r\nsaid to them was: “You have to take the position, as a basic dividing line\r\nstand, that the Bible should not be taken literally—or else you cannot fight\r\nthese Christian Fascists. The fact is that if you take the Bible literally you\r\nwill support, you will back, and you will get drawn into, horrors. This has been\r\ntrue throughout history, and it’s true right now. The Bible is not the literal\r\nword of God, and it cannot be taken as such.”<\/p>\r\n Actually, many of these progressive religious people are very\r\nknowledgeable—not only about the Bible and religion but about other things as\r\nwell. But a problem is that they generally don’t know how to wield what they\r\nknow most effectively and powerfully. For example, I watched someone with this\r\nprogressive religious perspective on TV, on a panel with four Christian\r\nfundamentalists, and these fundamentalists kept bringing up the thing from the\r\nbook of John (in the New Testament of the Bible) about how only through Jesus\r\ncan you get to the father and get to heaven, and all that kind of stuff—and\r\nhow, if you don’t take Jesus as your savior, the Bible says you will be\r\ncondemned to eternal damnation. They kept insisting, “Don’t blame us,\r\nthat’s what God says, look, it’s right in the Bible.” And this one guy,\r\nwho was trying to oppose them from a progressive religious standpoint, was\r\ntrying to say, “Haven’t you ever heard of historical criticism, don’t you\r\nknow that this was inserted into the Bible after the time of Jesus?” No. They\r\ndon’t know—and\/or they don’t want<\/em> to know—about that. They just\r\nhave a viewpoint and agenda they want to push, and that’s it.<\/p>\r\n This progressive religious guy couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Well,\r\npeople like him have important things to say, if<\/em> the ability to say\r\nthis can be wrenched out of situations and confrontations like this, and if they\r\ncan be led to say it in effective and forceful ways.<\/p>\r\n A key aspect in all this is mobilizing—and, in the correct sense,\r\nleading—progressive religious people to join this battle much more fully and\r\nsystematically, and in much greater dimension and numbers, and to wage it more\r\nconsistently and thoroughly. These people objectively need leadership,\r\norientation and direction—even to fight in the best way on terms that are\r\nessentially in line with their own views. Our objective cannot realistically be\r\nto win them all over to communism—that’s not going to happen en masse.<\/em>\r\nFor most of them it’s going to happen, if at all, somewhere down the road. But\r\nit isn’t necessary for them to be won to communism to play a very positive and\r\nvery important role in this battle. But even to do that “on their own terms”\r\nthey need us to be putting forward our full communist view of this and to be\r\ncarrying out a healthy process of unity-struggle-unity with them, in relation to\r\nthis crucial battle against Christian Fascism and reactionary religious\r\nfundamentalism in general, and in relation to the largest questions about the\r\nway the world is, why it is the way it is, and how there could be a radically\r\ndifferent and far better world.<\/p>\r\n 1. See “The Center—Can It Hold?\r\n The Pyramid as Two Ladders” in Revolution<\/em> #4, May 29, 2005.<\/p>\r\n Return to article<\/p>\r\n 2. See “The Coming Civil War and\r\n Repolarization for Revolution in the Present Era,” Revolutionary Worker<\/em>\r\n #1274, April 10, 2005.<\/p>\r\n Return to article<\/p>\r\n 3. See “The Coming Civil War and\r\n Repolarization for Revolution in the Present Era,” Revolutionary Worker<\/em>\r\n #1274, April 10, 2005.<\/p>\r\n Return to article<\/p>\r\n 4. The statement appeared in Revolutionary\r\n Worker<\/em> #1258, Nov. 14, 2004.<\/p>\r\n Return to article<\/p>\r\n 5. This is a reference to the book Mothers\r\n in the Fatherland,<\/em> by Claudia Koonz. In this book Koonz examines how a\r\n number of women played prominent roles in organizing other women around the\r\n program of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s—in particular around\r\n the Nazi “ideal” of a woman as a breeder of her husband’s children and\r\n keeper of his home, and as an embodiment and bearer of religious tradition and\r\n training. This was captured in the Nazi slogan “Kinder, Kuche, Kirche”\r\n (Children, Kitchen, Church).<\/p>\r\n Return to article<\/p>\r\n 6. Revolution: Why It’s Necessary,\r\n Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About is available in VHS or DVD from Three\r\n Q Productions (threeqvideo.com).<\/p>\r\n Return to article<\/p>\r\n 7. Bob Avakian, Preaching From a\r\n Pulpit of Bones: We Need Morality But Not Traditional Morality<\/em> (New York:\r\n Banner Press, 1999); “God Doesn’t Exist—And We Need Liberation Without\r\n Gods” and a second talk, “Christianity and Society—the Old Testament and\r\n the New Testament, Resistance and Revolution,” are available online as audio\r\n downloads at bobavakian.net.<\/p>\r\n Return to article<\/p>\r\n
\r\n NOTES:
\r\n
\r\n This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolution Online
\r\n http:\/\/revcom.us
\r\n Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
\r\n Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497
\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/revcom.us","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of excerpts on various subjects\u2014drawn from conversations and discussions, as well as more formal talks, by Bob Avakian\u2014which we will be running in this newspaper over the next period of time. This has been edited for publication, and subheads and footnotes have been added","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2005\/09\/135744.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}