A Nail in the Hand is Two in the Coffin: A Response to Cornel West
In this essay, R.C. Roberts responds to an interview given by Cornel West, suggesting that the Left "needs Jesus". Roberts says: Not so fast.
God is dead. Or so the joke goes.
And as with all prophecies, people never listen to it from beginning to end. We listen for what we want to hear. And when people think of the death of God, they think of secularization. When people think of secularization, they conjure two phenomenon; decadence and a loss of faith.
On one hand, they see society as decadent, where everything once deep is now shallow. All houses, all schools of thought, are now built on empty foundations. One must point out, of course, that if you want a basement, the foundation will need to be vacant.
On the other hand, people assume people lack the ability to have faith. The idea one can no longer trust without evidence, that people no longer believe in something beyond themselves. Not only is our world shallow, but it is grey; the smoke of magicians playing tricks on us.
The problem I have with this is both general and particular. On a general view, one need only look outside to see that religion is not under any sort of threat. Often, this 'looking outward' is far too much work for our digital cyberpunks, be they morons or educated. Let me turn you, then, to the English philosopher John Gray, who has on more than one occasion debunked the notion of 'secularization'.
In his talk at the London School of Economics, which is on YouTube and titled Religion and the Market: Are they in Conflict?, he notes that the social sciences are 'dominated' by a 'model of secularization', a theory that has 'long since been falsified'. Noting that most social sciences:
"...go back to the 19th century thinkers like Marx, Mill, and Comte, and of course Weber and Durkheim later on, all of whom, in one way or another, and with different degrees of qualification, did hold to a thesis of secularization…" (Religion and the Market, 4:54-5:46)
Gray even points out that none of the thinkers mentioned thought religion would 'go away', but merely become private matters or mere associations. The disparity of the root and the ending put to one side, Gray points out that not only did that not happen, but that secularization failed.
Gray, interestingly enough, points out that America itself stands as evidence to the contrary of secularization, of the 'profound moral and spiritual decay' that West evokes about the U.S. Gray refers to Tocqueville's observation that America was very religious, even more so than when it was founded. He hammers his point home, by pointing out that the positivists, following Comte, denied God but accepted that people needed religion. They even advocated a 'religion of humanity'. Religion is not on the outs, and it is not without power. The house of faith is merely more crowded now, and its members more rowdy in their delusions. There are more shepherds, and so the 'flock' has gotten bigger; God is dead, but reports of religion's death were grossly exaggerated.
Furthermore, Gray makes the point that 'signs of aggressive secularism'--i.e. the New Atheists--were not signs of the strength of secularization but a reaction to its failures. One need only consider, for example, that a great deal of the world is not secular. Most of it has stayed religious, and its number of faithful has either remained unchanged or grown. Gray also notes that most of the secular ideologies of the 20th Century, like Communism, have failed and regressed. Where modernity, as a project, was meant to marginalize religion and replace it with some sort of ideological narrative, we are seeing that not only has this not been accomplished, it has lost the faith of people on subjects like the validity of science. (9:48-12:36)
Finally, John Gray notes that while the 'American model of religion' is not dominant 'anywhere but in America', the American model is not hostile to, but friendly with, Capitalism. (15:57-18:16) In our culture, religion has always been willing to maintain the market in the name of maintaining the class system and its various pathologies, ever since the English sent over their 'deplorables' over here. This is not to say that secularism, in and of itself, is always hostile to Capitalism, but its brief stint in the 20th century was less friendly than religious thought.
And thus, my general issue with secularization, used by people as some kind of spectre of decadence or spiritual failing, is that the premise is empirically false. We are not seeing a loss of religious faith, but the maintenance of its superiority. The re-invention of religion has come not against, but with, this peculiar theory of secularization. No one has benefited more from Nietzsche's declaration of God's death than the faithful. In the face of this false boogeyman, they can ring the alarm, they can shout in the streets. The atheists are coming! they cry. And they are coming for your children! they chant.
Thus, our current Kulturkampf is ethereal because it is the shadow of this event; it is a fight over an absence. The only reason our culture war seems so chaotic is that we are assaulted by innumerable cults, instead of monolithic faiths. We see the rise of people like Jordan Peterson or Douglas Murray, who call for religion because the secular world is without faith or hope. And we see them politically opposed by people like Terry Eagleton or Cornel West, who claim the need for religion, but for Leftist purposes. One needs only look at Cornel West's interview with The Atlantic, on August 13th, to see that this tradition is alive and well. Even in that interview, the spectre of secularization exists; West begins by decrying our present, saying, "We live now in a moment of profound spiritual and moral decay."
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Cornel West's interview, in fact, is an example of my more specific issue with this assertion that we 'need' religion. In the face of a religious America and a Left that is terminal--if not already dead--Cornel West's ingenious response? His revolutionary panacea for America?
Jesus. Christ. Son of God. To exaggerate, he is appealing to Tennessee Ernie Ford and his song; gimme that old time religion.
Which gets us going on the first question; which Jesus? The false messiah of Jewish tradition? The all-suffering son of God? The second fiddle to Mohammed in the Koran? How about the anti-communist, blue-eyed, dark haired man of the Cold War era? Among the un sac mixte, what Jesus do you mean? The staying power of Jesus is that he is infinitely splintering.
But, say, we take one. The closest to the Left--which is to say, the one who represents a shrouded notion of a primitive communitarianism--we could find. The next thing to ask, of course, is this; how is this different? Not only does one have to consider that religious people, like their ideal, have splintered infinitely, but that the political act of Jesus has been played out. He unites and divides; he helps the poor and loves fetuses as though they were children. He was killed by the government, but to quote from his book, "...Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's…"
Go ahead. Pick one.
This does not even begin us down a road I refuse to tread, where I could rightfully point out how unrevolutionary an appeal to Jesus is. It neither challenges the politicos who use him, the churches who profit from him, or the followers who truly believe in him. And it puts us asebeia to sleep. Unless you are a New Atheist--you know, the ones' whose tempers are getting old--who can be spooked with a Bible quotation on Instagram.
So what drives this? From Cornel West to Jordan Peterson to Douglas Murray, we find ourselves among zombies; they return to us with a dead God, moving his arms like a child's puppet, hoping we do not notice the stench. And so far, we haven't. Even atheists like John Gray are aware that we are getting used to the stench, and accepting the arm waving.
I cannot speak to all groups, as most have their different pathologies. But as for the Left, we are told to turn to Jesus, shoulders slumped towards Bethlehem, because we are driven by dependence. Leftists without a Left, feeling the death of our own political reality, we look for a Messiah. One who has come back from the dead appeals even more, as the Left is dead. In a cyberspace that has turned many of us into followers or influencers, Leftist movements that rely on organization and solidarity lose out. And lethargic as this generation is, we want to believe that scraping the barrel nearest us, taking from the immediate world, will give us a miracle. And only the desperate believe in miracles.
But there is another reason West's unrevolutionary return to religion appeals; the Left has a fear of power. And who appeals more to this fear than a man who was persecuted by power? Some might say that the point of the Left is to protect those without power, which would be fair except that the best protection for the powerless is to give them power. Nietzsche noted two forms of equality; that which makes us all equal by pulling all of us down, or that which makes us equal by pulling everyone up. At the moment, the Left practices--if you can say they practice much--the former. We protect the poor, but leave them where they are. On Labor Day, I saw any number of pictures of 'the working class', showing images of them in dirty overalls and crusted faces. We have fetishized the downtrodden on the Left; we love the image of the poor, and let reality remain unchanged.
But discuss the notion of power with anyone, be it taking it from the political structures as they are or by revolutionary upheaval, and you are faced with the chatter of a thousand tendentious toddlers. From the very loud shrug to the very sententious prigs, you are faced with a varied but unified opinion; do not handle power.
We see this in the people who responded to the situation with Nathan Robinson by discussing how he looks, or those who rant about Kamala Harris and find variations of the same memes funny, or those who preach rage against the order of things while evoking a sense of helplessness by saying that any sort of association with any sort of politician, power structure, or realistic approach is 'selling out' and a form of 'supporting the current system'. The reptile brains of a rather primitive collective, who knee-jerk so much that it can be mistaken for a goose step. They single out politicians and podcasters to point their ever engaged rage at, falling for people like Aimee Terese or Jimmy Dore. And what do these people do? They erect boogeyman after boogeyman, and tell you that so much as think a kindness towards AOC is to be corrupt. To have an affinity for power is to be evil.
And yet, we also see it in the people who eke out a whimper, asking us to be patient for the billionth time. They spend their time telling us that if we give the power structure what it wants, it will be kind to us. They don't ask us to organize, to make demands, to even attempt to establish our own interests. The rage and helplessness of Dore-ites and the entirely virtual 'post-Left' is set against the gutmensch who pray like sheep at the altar of eagles, asking to be delivered; and delivered they are, right into the stomach of predators. And as they go down the gullet, they keep their eyes closed, praying it is all a dream. Hoping for a miracle.
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We find ourselves in a Shavian sea of idols made of wood and flesh. The timid socialists want to hand out wooden idols, so that when we are thwarted in our efforts, they have something they can abuse in private. The Dore-ites and their post-Left bastards want idols of flesh and blood, so that, in their anger, they will have someone's head to cut off. And those of West's flock...well, they want to bring back this 'King of Kings', giving people an idol who can be disemboweled, lending itself to wooden idols that can be beaten in private. At the bottom of this impulse is not a love for religion, or a respect for its metaphysical claims, which might be genuine or not. It is a desire to calm those who feel helpless and feed this neurosis with a reticence towards power.
This circus of idols is surrounded by the crumbling of secularism; a project that believed it would marginalize religion has been marginalized. It's retreat has emboldened the God-fearing, because to be splintered is better than being in retreat; but the hoi polloi don't know this. Focused on their wooden idols and chasing ones of the flesh, those on the Left believe West's proclamation that the world is in spiritual and moral decay. In lieu of faith in one's rights, they fall back onto the ideas that brought forth this spiritual and moral decay. Abortion is contested, science is denied, sexuality is demonized; a carnevale marks some with a brand of sinner and saint, and we are told to anticipate a savior rather than the truth.
Sartre noted, in an interview, that after his death, humanity could pick fascism and that would be the new 'human truth', and so much the worse for us. We did not pick a fascist truth, nor a socialist one, nor a liberal one. We picked a religious truth, the kind of contradiction that feeds our very American, very Protestant capitalism. And so much the worse for us, huh? In this truth, spread over this country, I see only weakness; I see those who cower at the mention of power, crawling away, leaving power to the ferae naturae of fundamentalists of all stripes. We left atheism to New Atheist--I call them 'godless Christians'--, we left politics to conspiratorial fundamentalists like QAnon, and we left religion to the blue eyed, dark haired, anti-Communist evangelists. West tells us to turn to Jesus as a response, but if we even want a notion of religious freedom, a plurality of belief, we must turn away from Jesus and turn towards power.
If we follow Jesus, and fall for a savior, we will do so as a eulogy to any future for the Left. In worshipping Jesus, we will put one nail through the hand, at the price of two into our coffin.