[RC] Why the West gets religion wrong?

[Avesland at aol.com]

Ernie , Chris..........
The beginning of my disillusionment with the 60s  "revolution" 
came in the late Spring after Kent State. Like Chris I, too  was
an activist. Then came that warm day at UMass with a large  number
of students gathered on a lawn to talk about moving the  Cause
forward in the forthcoming Summer.
 
One coed gave a sort of speech, informal but nonetheless  a
statement of principle. From what I could tell just about 
everyone there agreed with her. We should go home  and
convert our parents to liberation , was her view. "If  we
believe enough," she said, or words to this effect, " we  will
achieve what we are seeking and America will become  a
new country of peace," etc.
 
Nice sentiments, I guess, but how utterly naive. While it  may
be true enough that you cannot win a values war unless  you
believe, if the substance of your efforts consists in trying  to
convert others though conversation, you are kidding  yourself
and kidding everyone who has confidence in you. That is  not
how the world works. The world does not forget, for  even
one minute, political power, big money, the vested  interests
of the elite classes, the reputations of major institutions  like
political parties and universities, and all the  rest.
 
If the Marxists are wrong about most things, which is the truth 
of the matter, they nonetheless have one valid point : If  you
want serious and major change in society you need to  move
the levers of power. The task is to learn how to get to  those
levers and how to use them to best effect. 
 
Sure, there is good in personal witnessing for a worthy cause  or
for religious truth. But what is the goal ? Eventually changing  the
world one-on-one, a process that can literally take  centuries,
or something that can show results in your lifetime  ?
 
The polarization of the 60s was a huge disadvantage in  retrospect.
The result was a zero sum "game." And Nixon had the  votes;
the Left lost. In the process Leftist activists  -which I had  pretty
much ceased to be before 1973- took a wrong turn that  has
poisoned the movement from within even as now much  older
Leftists have assumed a lot of power in academia and the  media,
plus the Democratic Party.
 
No-one did a post battle analysis to honestly face the question  :
Why did we fail ? In what ways is our ideology faulty ? Are  there
opportunities to repair at least some damages with people  who
ought to be our allies, like organized labor and  "progressive"
churches ?
 
This was never done, at least not across the board, even if there 
surely were some localized exceptions. Instead a strategy  was
decided upon by consensus, gained over at least a decade,  that
the best course was the persist in the agenda of the Left,  not
admit one mistake, and proceed to take over parts of  the
establishment from within. Instead of seeking allies from 
labor, etc, homosexuals and feminists were appealed  to,
a development that guaranteed that the "movement"  would
go off the philosophical deep end . But so what ? With  capture
of the media and the schools everything else would  follow.
Because most people simply do not care about most  things,
indeed 99% of topics, outside of  a few specialized  areas
of interest, especially one's profession.
 
The field was clear for the "hard Left" if given enough  time.
That was then, ca. the early 1970s. This is the early  2000s.
The failed Left has mostly won the social war. And all  that
the right can think of to challenge the Left with is  religion.
 
This is an oversimplification, obviously. For instance,  people
care a great deal about politics even if politics if very far  from
being a professional concern. But the point is this : Unless  you
bring real expertise to a campaign, you will fail. Maybe  you
will even win some elections. The point is that the young  will
increasingly abandon your cause because your arguments  are
one dimensional and not scientific, thus not convincing  to
the "best and the brightest."
 
Overspecialization. This is the problem.  Overspecialization
at the expense of knowledge in at least some depth in  a
variety of fields. Americans have become, we might  say,
a nation of "idiot savants," people who can do one  thing
(or a very few things) extremely well, sometimes world  class,
but who are ignorant of just about everything else  except
at the lowest of all levels, mere opinion.
 
Billy
 
 
 
In a message dated 7/11/2005 5:36:18 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
drernie at radicalcentrism.org writes:

Hi  Chris,  
Because I was there in the middle of the ‘60s I  disagree with the IHT 
authors.
I'm not surprised -- the author's arguments did seem a little too pat for  
reality. At the very least, the article is either way too dogmatic or far too  
simplistic. Yet, as part of what often feels like the "cleanup" generation for  
the sixties, there does seem at least a grain of truth in this  criticism.


In particular, it seems like your generation clearly achieved what I  would 
call (admittedly in hindsight) strong *tactical* gains. However, I  have a 
harder time believing it really achieved lasting "transformation" of  the rules of 
the political game.  Unless politics before the sixties was  even *more* 
venal, shallow, and self-serving than it is today, which is a  depressing thought.


To be fair, one could make the cases that the sixties generation did help  
move the ball forward, and it was the seventies generation (or even mine) that  
dropped the ball by failing to similarly advance the debate.   Then  again, my 
generation was busy coping with the breakdown in family, authority,  
consensus morality, and health spawned by the sixties (even if for  understandable 
reasons), so I'm somewhat sympathetic to the author's  argument.  Which is 
perhaps better (if cheekily) summarized here:


_http://home.tiac.net/~cri/1996/generats.html_ 
(http://home.tiac.net/~cri/1996/generats.html) 


1940 generation         1965 generation      1990 generation
               _______________         _______________      _______________


International Defeat of  Hitler,      Opposed Vietnam  Changed  channel
Achievement    Communism              War      to MTV


Judicial       Legal system should     Legal system should Legal system  
should
idea           support society         change society       destroy society


Economic      Raise 60's generation  Develop              Support  60's
achievement               Sophisticated       generation 
     Tastes               retirement


Economic     Work hard - get ahead  Let your parents/   Prepare for  
employment
philosophy     government support  at K-Mart
       you


Blames         Them-->         <--Them-->         <--Them
                 (Loses 2-1)


:-)


-- Ernie P.




On Jul 11, 2005, at 4:39 PM, Chris Hahn wrote:



One section in the  article, in particular caught my attention…”liberalism 
had republican values  and communal aims. But in overcoming absolute 
sovereignty, liberalism  internalized it, reproducing not mutual citizens but 
self-sufficient  subjects. This process reached its zenith in the 1960s, when genuine  
political transformation was aborted in favor of the subjective desires of  
pleasure-seeking adults.” 
Because I was there  in the middle of the ‘60s I disagree with the IHT  
authors. 
    1.  There was a period of time  when there were”mutual citizens” working 
for common causes, specifically  feminism, racial equality, and anti-war 
causes.  Dramatic strides  were made in all of these areas.   
    2.  Once the protestors perceived  significant gains, and once they grew 
older and became parents they became  “self sufficient subjects”.  
    3.  “Genuine political  transformation” was not aborted; rather it was 
sidelined after the  significant gains had been made in the minds of the mutual 
 citizens. 
Radical war  protestors became radical soccer moms and some drifted to the 
polarized  arenas mentioned in the IHT article.  I don’t believe absolutely,  
however, that “privatizing religion initiated the abandoning of any  collective 
public realm that expressed common substantive ideals”.  But  this does 
resurrect the discussion we had a while ago about a common “ten  commandments” that 
spans different mainstream religious  boundaries. 






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