Sunday, July 1, 2018

Spirituality and Politics (once more)

In our search to understand what has been happening in America in the Trumpian dark age and how to combat it personally and collectively, our book club decided to read Bob Kuttner's Book, Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism. I went to hear him discuss his book a few days ago. Of all I've read and heard, his is the clearest explanation of how we got here and the challenge we have to mend the torn social fabric that Trumpism represents and rouses but has not caused. 

Here are some of my takeaways which I reported to my book club:

1) The answer to the question of Kuttner's book is “no.” The economy must be subject to the rules of democracy. No to the globalization of capitalism. Yes, to world community and trade treaties of nation states. But trade treaties that support democratic goals of equality. 

2) The social contract created after WW2 (New Deal, Bretton Woods) gradually broken starting in the 70s can be restored in the 20s.  Kuttner is generally optimistic that the circumstances are becoming right for a new taking of power by people to restore the rules that puts democratic governance over economic development. 

3) Trump and far-right parties are using the results of the breakdown of social contract (freedom of banks and corporations) to foster in workers, who are losing in an economy rigged for capital controllers, resentment against immigrants, welfare, the poor, and themselves. 

4) Labor is reorganizing and key to making change. Obviously we need a new progressive president (Bernie, Warren, Sherrod) with a strongly progressive party which means new progressives must take over the Democratic Party locally and he sees this happening. 

5) Civil society organizing (e.g. community organizing) is limited because although they talk power, they don’t aggregate power.  He thinks CO’s fragment because they go after the same funders and institutions and have to prove that they are better than each other. 

6) Kuttner believes that we have our priorities wrong when lifting up cultural identity issues (e.g. abortion, homosexuality, race, religion) before economic bread and butter issues. "If people feel they are getting a fair shake and have some hope in the rules of the economic system, they will cut you some slack on the cultural issues."

7) Kuttner articulates the problem and solution primarily in terms of political power. Those left out needf Through solidarity and organizing. I totally agree.  The how (strategy) depends on time, place, circumstances, the accidents of history

Democratic governance (e.g. liberty and justice for all) should direct the economy and culture. The public realm over the private realm, as Arendt said. Distinct yet entangled--because you can't have one without the other. The public good is the greater good. Politics is both an extension and a higher realm than ethics

I am also considering another level of analysis—e.g. spiritual, i.e. soul, shared humanity in process, recognition of human dignity in all. Shared suffering, as Rorty and John of the Cross say, is the basis of solidarity. Especially among the working poor and disrespected (whether by economic class or cultural status). Empathy/compassion with others, feeling their pain, is at the same time a recognition of union and incites the ability to speak and act together.  Whatever you call it: soul, humanity, spark of divine, dignity. 

I do believe we are entering a dark night of the American soul and perhaps of the soul of humanity. The economic path we now take is leading to ecological ruin, the inundation of many populated lands and the destruction of millions of people. It is restricting the greatest capacity of humanity for self-government, collaborative survival, and social justice. Most of us know better but are blinded by the fear of others and appeals to self-aggrandizement.

We humans, once we attained the ability to think, have been between the demons and the angels within us. And we have experienced both the fall and the rise of human progress. But now in the Trumpian Age we are slipping into the dark age where might is right, wealth rules, and the many have become irrelevant--used by the mighty and the wealthy for their purposes. 

The dark night for John of the Cross is an opportunity to pass to a new level of insight and action. It humbles and humanizes by casting us to the ground, the humus, where we realize that we cannot thrive, much less survive, alone. Like Alcoholics Anonymous counsels the addicted who have reached the bottom, we are directed to reach up to a higher power. As a humanist and community organizer, I call this higher power the public, we the people, those who gather to speak and act to generate a space of freedom.  In religious language that space of freedom is the “people of God,” people who gather and act in hope for the future of all humankind.

The spiritual dimension of politics is the hope that transcends us from the fear and hatred of neighbors and strangers. It radicalizes our politics by uprooting the structures, values, and habits of American global capitalism that put us in darkness. As my radical friends always sign off: “keep the faith” and “keep up the struggle.”

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