Review of a Review: Religion Without God

Religion Without God by Ronald Dworkin, of happy memory, was reviewed in the WP by Harvard political philosopher Michael Rosen. I haven't yet read Dworkin's latest book (though I certainly liked his Justice for Hedgehogs); but my understanding of it through Rosen's review makes me wonder what the fuss is all about.

Dworkin and Rosen, like me, are "post-enlightenment" philosophers wanting to avoid basing our ethics and politics on some religious revelation or entity, but nevertheless avoid the relativism that does not allow for standards, values, and human rights that are consistent and universal and therefore useful for the development of local, national, and international law. So far so good. A worthy pursuit that in my simple mind is easily done and has been done.

But methinks that they overcomplicate the effort. Take God out of the picture as the entity that creates, causes, or reveals those values and rights and there is a problem, they say. Yes, indeed I agree, for pre-enlightenment thinkers. But not for us. Also remove the spirit or soul along with its immortality as separate and distinct as well as eternal rewards and punishments and you remove incentives for morality and law. Yes, I agree, for pre-enlightened actors, but not for us. And so they argue for a religion without God in a secular materialistic culture that produces those values. That's okay I suppose, but unnecessary.

1. Firstly, because there are and have been many religions without God and all of these founded moralities and still do.
2. Secondly, because religion is a dimension of or identity with all cultures (including materialism).
3. Thirdly, because standards, values, rights can be based in human nature and existence which can be known and experienced.

Students of world religions have discovered many religions that do not worship or even talk about God. Religion is that part or dimension or description of culture through which humans personally and collectively find/make meaning. It involves a narrative that gives us a purpose, a place in the cosmos, a center or home, a way to deal with the messiness, chaos, and pain of day to day existence. It expresses a feeling of holiness or wholeness and a sense of transcendence that accompanies all human activity.

The God narrative is a powerful narrative, perhaps beginning in ancient Egypt, that led to the three great monotheisms which are sub- or alter- narratives of the original. That narrative rationalizes and emotionalizes authoritarian rule, empire through conquest, good guys and bad guys, and dominance of the blessed (the rich). Cultural historians can link the God narrative to extended tribalism, holy wars, the divine right of kings and popes, and the making of enemies.

But there are other cultures with other non-God narratives which rationalize and emotionalize personal and collective behavior including "transcendent" values that ground morality and a human way of life.  Many of these are often interpreted by those imbued with the powerful God narrative whereby Great Spirit, First Cause, Mother Earth or Gaia, Father Sky, Void, Nirvana, Brahmin, Reason, Nature, Universal Spirit of Life and Love, even the Singularity are substitute names for God rather than alternative narratives. But indeed they are.

More significant to human history (according to Henri Bergson and Karen Armstrong) than the developing story of God was the "great transformation" during the Axial Age when, throughout most cultures, a mighty flood uncovered the great human capacity for empathy or compassion, which was recognized and extended beyond tribal boundaries. Strangers were recognized as brothers and sisters. Neighbors, (as in who is my neighbor?), were seen beyond my normal boundaries and even extended to "enemies." And every great religion began to fashion its narratives and teach in accordance with the recognition of the identity with and dignity of all humans, even to all living beings.

The God narrative retold by prophets (as opposed to priests) who caught the insights of the great transformation now rationalizes and emotionalizes resistance, rebellion, and revolution against dominating rulers and rich patrons. Ironically the new insights and revised narratives by the prophets who are considered founders of the big three God religions were subtlety rejected by their successors who led their following to a reenactment of the original tribal narrative of authority, purity of race and doctrine, exclusion, and conquest. Revolution betrayed.

Quoting a journalist in today's paper, "just as patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, (Samual Johnson), so religion becomes the last refuge of bigots." He is referring to an Arizona law that allows lunch counters and businesses to refuse to serve gay persons for "religious" reasons--a law endorsed by the US Council of Catholic Bishops. Indeed, "what would Jesus do?" (Clearly the great transformation is yet to be complete when one considers the values that guide the "facts" and policies being argued in regards comprehensive immigration and other social justice issues with all the xenophobia, homophobia, ethnophobia, and pauperphobia that exists in today's US.)

Religion as a part, dimension, or product of culture is everywhere. Taking God or immortal souls out of religion doesn't eliminate culture/religion, it just changes it. So is changing the understanding of what is meant by "God." When Jefferson wrote "endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights," he wasn't talking about the prevalent Christian concept of God as a parental entity up there in heaven. He was more in tune with Spinoza's God which is Nature and all its laws. Pretty much as we speak today of Evolution as a quasi divinity unfolding life in the cosmos.

For Dworkin, religion is the "assent to a reality that cannot be achieved by positive science." Since Karl Popper's philosophy of science, that means a reality that cannot be falsified or verified by evidence. Dworkin wants to preserve religion (without God) because he wants to affirm the "full independent reality of value." He thus "rejects the view that nothing is real except what is revealed by natural science or psychology." Well, so do I. But that doesn't mean that we need to assent to religious truth to save value, as says Rosen. Nor I think do we need to fear that our values are just the "penumbra rays from revealed religion" (Nietzsche) which once extinguished will throw us into a valueless and lawless existence.

That to me is just a misunderstanding of culture and its three main products of religion, science, and art (which also have by-products too numerous to mention here). Culture is the formal symbolic expression of human existence in both the private and public realms. [I contrast culture with, and relate it to, economy which is the realm of private biological survival or life (family, household, tribe) and with politics which is the realm of the social, interdependent, or public (nation, state, country, international order.] Religion is the narrative with rites and symbols that stimulates and responds to reverence in and gratitude for human life and action. Art is the narrative with symbols, pictures, sounds, movement that provides and responds to wonder in personal and collective life and action. Science is the narrative that stimulates and responds to curiosity.  Religion, in responding to reverence, searches for meaning. Art, in responding to wonder, finds beauty. Science in responding to curiosity provides understanding. They can be seen as three different ways of knowing or three modes of encountering the world or contacting reality.

And I would argue that values and their foundation in human existence can be discerned in religion, art, and science. Is religion the source of morality and law as Dworkin apparently argues? Yes, but so is art and science. And ultimately the foundation of morality and law is the inherited and created structure of human nature and existence itself accessible through religion, art, and science. All three are human symbolic ways of dealing in the world and encountering reality including the reality of human existence in reality. One is more expressive of reverence and gratitude, another more expressive of wonder and astonishment, and the other more expressive of curiosity and understanding in our world wandering. Some narratives include gods, forms, and laws, some do not. Some narratives are more ritual and some more discursive. All use images or symbols, all have emotional and rational sides, all feed into the others, and all have a quality of transcendence--a drive to go beyond the here and now while situated in the here and now.

What the book, the review, and perhaps my reflection do point up is our ever present need and desire to create new, more inclusive, more constructive, and more humane narratives (with or without God) that will enhance the values that we can experience, intuit, and understand in our own personal and collective human being.

Revolutionary Scale

I just returned from the New Partners for Smart Growth conference in Denver organized by the Local Government Commission. This is a very productive annual conference in which government, business, and community organizational partners tell each other their accomplishments, failures, and learnings through projects in green infrastructure, compact development, linking urban/rural food systems, preserving land and water, reducing carbon emissions, clean energy use, linking homes and jobs through transportation oriented developments, creating new economy jobs, and ensuring equity in everything. All this can be summarized as creating healthy communities with vibrant economies.

Some important considerations emerging from the movement and its actions are:

• Everybody at the planning table: government, business, labor, health institutions, creative developers, youth, non-profit mission driven agencies, and local communities. Each having its own mission, but relating that to an overriding vision and collective mission.
• Engage local communities (i.e., publics), organized through powerful community organizations, driving the process and pushing for results based on community interests, values, and affiliations. Community based power is essential to the process.
• Align resources through partnerships, e.g. the federal agency partnership aligning innovating funding, local government partnerships aligning towards local and regional outcomes, national and community foundations aligning private and public investment and supporting the communities in building power in the partnership.
• Create, explore, and use the tools: community organization, fiscal impact, environmental impact, health outcome, GIS mapping, comprehensive interests and values survey, data collection, and collective design tools. 
• Cut across boundaries: see how rural and urban affect each other, watch language so as not to be pigeonholed as liberal or conservative, translate technical terms into common sense terms, let data speak for itself through pictures, pursue diversity in race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, income.

But I think what needs much further discussion are:

1. Using the good community organizing that is already being done to position both rural communities and urban neighborhoods into powerful positions.
2. Bringing the movement and its many successful experiments to scale by transforming the present political economy which is actually increasing poverty, undermining equity, blocking health, fouling our habitats, and destroying the planet. 

1.  We are missing a tremendous resource by not engaging the organizations that have been building power in communities and the networks which have been helping them get funding, training, and quality organizers. For example, the prevalent model for SC2 (Strong Cities, Strong Communities) of the White House Council and even the Sustainable Cities Initiative is getting high level technical consultants connected to local mayors and other government officials who bring in "the community" later to test their hypotheses or worse to sell them on their solutions.

Since they seem to want to fund "consultants," I suggest that besides "private professional consultants," we fund "professional community consultants" which are the organizations and their networks that are already in place or have the wherewithal to build powerful local vehicles for ordinary people to experience and assert their power. I will keep trying to work with the Federal Partnership with which I was a part in California and now in DC to do that.

However, part of the problem I discern is with the organizations and their networks themselves Because they do not see the bigger picture or avail themselves of the opportunities. They get caught in their single-issue campaigns, are too cautious about working with government agencies, and do not know how to or are too arrogant to collaborate with one another. I think there will have to be some one-on-ones with open-minded, non-threatened leadership where they can articulate their concerns and help design the process.  That might be a big order.

The feds need some quick, concrete results. The professional technical consultants don't recognize the need or know how to build community people into the process from the beginning and with power. And professional community organizers are often stuck in their old ways and don't see the opportunities for broader change.

2.  What also was missing for me was the radical analysis that identifies the political economic structures and processes that are both creating the poverty, inequity, and environmental devastation that we were trying to deal with, as well as preventing the bringing of successful experiments in community development and new economy to scale.  This analysis includes the clash of classes and the institutions that represented them. I am of course thinking of many large corporations and financial institutions which are speculating in land and gambling for short term winners. As Doug, one of the participants said, all those who invest in "fast money" that simply enriches the Wall Street casino owners, rather than the "slow money" that takes time to multiply in community benefits.

Because of the lack of such analysis, these wonderful experiments are not becoming power centers for transformation at the state and national level. As Doug said (and I loved his metaphor) we are working in the eddies and missing the roaring river that is washing all of us away. Instead we have a sort of "thousand points of light" strategy without the combination into the light that would enlighten and vivify the whole world.

Now I would not expect government agencies to raise this analysis nor the private consultants that rely on government and corporations for support. I mean the analysis of shareholder corporations, freely speculating financial institutions (now creating new bubbles), continued investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, rule of government by the rich through their lobbyists and payments to government officials, and support of fast over slow money activities.  But hopefully the "community consultants" could raise this analysis and the policy implications of this analysis: stakeholder corporations with worker councils, community over national banks, investment in clean energy infrastructure, prohibition of political payoffs, reduction of trade imbalance and global debt, and climate justice through economic democracy.

Let me illustrate with a story:

When I was learning community organizing in the 1960s and 70s, I worked with Jack MacNamera and Fr. Jack Egan with the Contract Buyers of Lawndale (CBL) that expanded to be the Contract Buyers League in Chicago. It was an incredible experience in which the central dynamic of racial housing segregation and its relation to inequities in jobs, education, services, and income was exposed. We learned that racism did not consist in the enmity that some white people and black people felt towards each other, but in the patterns of real estate development and the financial practices supported by government that used and reenforced that racial antagonism. The organizing stopped much of the redlining in Chicago and the HUD/FHA underwriting of that redlining. It was a great and successful experiment on the march to racial and social justice.

At the same time other community organizations were developing in communities that were being torn by blockbusting, racial fear mongering, and financial institution redlining. Austin was one right to the west of us being organized by Tom Gaudette and Shel Trapp who were advising us in Lawndale.

I received further training and went with the Industrial Areas Foundation, first in Chicago, then Toronto, and then San Jose, which was now being run by Ed Chambers after Saul Alinsky retired and died. Ed began to promulgate a practice called "Greenlining" with which some communities, by threatening to remove deposits, were using successfully to get banks to provide lending to lower income families. (Big parenthesis here: I left the IAF after Chambers was pushing for a Greenlining strategy in San Jose which might have been a good idea, but really didn't fit the local community nor come up through a community process.)

But it was Shel Trapp to whom I give most credit, along with Gale Cincotta, for taking the redlining practice and pushing it to national policy level after organizing many communities being threatened by the practice into National Peoples' Action. NPA took on HUD and got them to change regulations and Congress and got them to pass the Community Reinvestment Act to change a major structural practice that exploited poor people and caused racism. Both political parties ultimately adopted this policy and enshrined it in legislation. For awhile at least.

I tell this story to suggest a sort of revolutionary progression in community action. Of course the big banks and their practices with Wall Street remain. Taking advantage of deregulation and new financial investment tools, they were largely responsible for the recent housing bubble and the exploitation of much of the middle and lower class. So the revolution is hardly won though the Occupy Wall Street Movement has started shining a larger light on these institutions and our fast money economy again.

The progression in revolutionary movement goes from a) successful local organizing and experiments to b) deeper structural analysis and broader national organizing with local constituencies and power to c) state and national policy change to d) transformation of the political economy. This requires local community power organizing, radical class and institutional analysis, broad based organizing for policy change that will lead to the transformation of political and economic institutions.

So the challenge is local: community organizing for power. But the challenge is also intellectual/spiritual: engaging people at all levels in an analysis that goes to the roots of the practice and the very values that support that practice. And it is national and transnational: pushing to a new political economic order that emerges through the community power and understanding process that can capture or create a political party for transformative change.

Framework for Thinking

Here is a framework I am using to think about organizing, politics, and the next revolution:

Using and modifying Hannah Arendt's political thinking, I consider three dimensions of human being: The basic being that of life itself, the realm of necessity and self-interest, the private realm of household affairs or economy; the second being that of meaning and value expressed in ideas; the third being that of power, the ability to act in concert, where speech and action create the public realm of freedom.  All lead to dignity and respect, which is the highest of self-interests, meanings, and powers. Each has its own institutions, e.g. the family, the business, the school, the church, the government, the community organization.  While there are distinctions, e.g. public and private, self and other, there are also relationships and interactions among them, e.g. personal and civil religion, voluntary and necessary organizations, non-governmental and governmental agencies. 

I don’t mean to imply by this framework a hierarchy of needs (Mazlow) but more a hierarchy of human existence and behavior. These dimensions are not stages one goes through; and all are important to being human and are marks of being human whether in prehistoric or postmodern times, in Eastern, Western, Northern, and Southern lands, in rural or urban societies. I don’t mean to imply that one is more important than the other in some absolute way.

I do mean to imply a hierarchy on an ethical scale so that while politics (the polis or freely organized society) should assure what is necessary to life for all (economy), freedom/power (politics) is worth dying for and is not to be subjected to household affairs or economy--as it is largely the case in the US today. I think that politics should guarantee cultural liberalism but not economic liberalism. 

I also think that not making these distinctions promotes confusion in our way of speaking and acting. One example of this confusion is the liberal/progressive vs. conservative/libertarian argument that dominates political thinking in the US. Another is the use of capitalism vs socialism as if there are simply two alternatives to economic justice. The right to life vs freedom of choice discussion gets confused as if these are two contrary options (and shows why Pope Francis has his priorities correct). So many divisions among ordinary Americans are the result of the wrong framework often spurred by those whose interests are to keep American's divided on cultural and political matters without seeing how the economy is structured to create and sustain losers and how the culture and politics are being controlled by those with the most economic wealth.

This framework also shows an interrelation, limitation, and hierarchy of rights and responsibilities. For example, the right to speak and act and organize (politics) is most important but should never be used to deny the right to enjoy one’s own values, as long as those values do not undermine the right to speak, act, and decide together the shape of the community including its governance structure. It helps explain the difference between household, denominational, and civil religion and how I can be a religious atheist or have an understanding of God different from most of the denominations or how we can embrace the separation of church and state and still respect religious values in influencing state policies.

All these dimensions are important but in different ways. We can’t have political freedom or culture without life. But life (and making a living) without values is pretty meaningless—“an unexamined life is not worth living”.  And life without politics denies us the highest values of freedom and power, which are worth ending life or abandoning one's culture for. 

Also this framework helps me separate and promote politics apart from government and shows that the public sphere is not at all confined to government agencies. So you can have a public school and agency that is not under or paid for by or through government. Leninism’s big mistake was indentifying socialism with state control and of the state with the Party. Just as the church (synogogue, mosque) is one important institution of the cultural/religious sphere, and the corporation (including businesses, unions, coops) an important institution of the economic sphere, so is government (including parties and state agencies) one important institution of the public sphere.

The reason this is a helpful framework to think about organizing the next American revolution is its multi-dimensional understand of humanity—all of which have to be attended to in the organizing process: self-interest for a thriving life, values coming from and rooted in many cultures/religions, and affiliation, brother and sisterhood, comradeship, that crosses racial, cultural, and jurisdictional boundaries. I know all these can be-considered self-interest as when Alinsky says that when you push self-interest far enough if means love of neighbor; and all can be considered values; and all can be considered rights and responsibilities or matters of social justice. 

But I remember Chairman Charlie Baker’s talk with the Contract Buyers League in Chicago when he said: “I’m now glad that I bought my house on contract (i.e. was cheated and robbed) because it brought us all together.” He was making a huge transition from economic self-interest to political affiliation. That’s when I started really probing for values and relationships in my listening processes and my analyses. 

Indeed, contrary to Alinsky, some pastors do care about values and relationships as much as the Sunday collections. Faith and transcendence also belong to political action and the coming of the next revolution.

Pete Seeger again

I have been grieving the loss of Pete Seeger and celebrating his life and ours--all of those he sung to.

John Nichols wrote a wonderful piece in the Nation. But it was one of the comments to that piece that really said it for me.

GemmaSeymour 

• 2 days ago

• −

The older I get, the more I get Pete Seeger. Never did better walk this Earth, and if you don't understand why, then I suggest that you have become trapped by your own arguments, unable to see beyond the boundaries your rhetoric has defined.

I believe in the equal dignity of all the living, a principle which demands equal respect for, and equal protection under the law of, the natural, common, inherent, and unalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and an equal share in the gifts of Nature, which were never created by the hand of any individual. That is the only kind of patriotism worth having.

Our culture has devolved into abject neoliberal productivist selfishness, elevating self-interest, market worthiness, and acquisitiveness above all. Self-interest is only the lowest form of morality, a foundation, not a goal, upon which we build higher morality. As we form legitimate government powers based upon the sacrifice of certain rights of the people in order to protect others, so do we form higher morality based on the sacrifice of personal self-interest for the greater good of the group, the family, the community, the nation, and all of humanity.

We can choose to pretend that the United States of America is a shining beacon to the world, or we can choose to fulfill the grand dreams of our forebears. My committment to my country can best be described in the words of one of the greatest Americans in history, the Republican Senator from Missouri, Carl Schurz, who in his address on the floor of Senate in 1872 spoke these powerful words, much mangled by those seeking self-serving, jingoistic pablum: "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right, and if wrong, to be made right."


Also I've been listening to some of Pete Seeger's songs. Here is one I was not familiar with. Such a great epitaph to a great artist, man, and patriot.

My Rainbow Race

One blue sky above us, one ocean lapping all our shore

One earth so green and round, who could ask for more?

And because I love you I'll give it one more try

To show my rainbow race, it's too soon to die

Some folks want to be like an ostrich

Bury their heads in the sand

Some hope that plastic dreams

Can unclench all those greedy hands

Some hope to take the easy way

Poisons, bombs, they think we need 'em

Don't you know you can't kill all the unbelievers?

There's no shortcut to freedom

Go tell, go tell all the little children

Tell all the mothers and fathers too

Now's our last chance to learn to share

What's been given to me and you

One blue sky above us, one ocean lapping all our shore

One earth so green and round, who could ask for more?

And because I love you I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race, it's too soon to die

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Art and Revolution

Pete Seeger just died. He was a true hero of mine and a revolutionary and, as my son Aaron just reminded me, a true revolutionary because a compassionate revolutionary.

The event prompts me to add one more chapter to my little book The Next Revolution. I dealt with Religion and Revolution, Science, Ethics, Economics, Violence and Revolution. What about Art?

Art is the expression of a culture back to the culture. Like science, philosophy, religion, myth, and language itself, it is the search for and impression of meaning--the meaning of the universe, the meaning of humanity, the meaning of us. It takes life to a higher stage. By re-presenting and examining life, it make life worth living. It creates value.

The human capacity, the one that defines us most of all, is the capacity to imagine, to make images and use them to make sense of our surroundings and of us. It is a capacity that cannot be achieved, exercised, or developed alone. It requires our association with others, our ability to get under each other's skin, to agitate one another, to make us not passive spectators or followers but actors and leaders.

Diego Rivera did that with his painting, Albert Camus with his novels, Eugene O'Neill with his drama, Amiri Baraka with his poetry, Amy Goodman with her journalism, Judith Helfand with her environmental filmmaking, Martin Luther King with his sermons, Riana Eisler with her theology, and Pete Seeger with his songs. But of course, the counter-revolutionaries, absolutists and reactionaries, also express on radio, TV, newspaper, books, music, and drama. and often express well usually supported by well-healed patrons who have every interest in keeping things as they are or even turning back the clock a bit.

The role of art in revolution should not be underestimated. That is why oppressive regimes try to counter or control it through censorship, banishment, or worse. Art destabilizes, it causes people to think, it agitates. Yet at the same time art, like science and religion, seeks to find and create patterns in the chaos of life.

The "Beautiful" was classically defined as "what, when seen, pleases the observer." But that definition begged the question of why it pleases. Evolutionary psychology and neuroscience attempts to answer this by pointing out the brain's ability to name, to use symbols and models or images, to find and create patterns in the chaos of the universe. That is why one of the marks of a good scientific theory is its "elegance." It is also why artists are so fascinated with form.

The true revolutionary is both shaking up the present forms and presenting new ones often by rearranging the old. Good organizers know that organizing starts with disorganizing. Societies, nations, the world are already organized; but they are now organized to benefit some by exploiting others. That's what the organizer has to help the people to see. And art is her invaluable tool. Art with compassion. Art that brings people to sing along. Pete Seeger's kind of art.

Labor organizing

The new American revolutionary realizes that the working poor need to be organized not just at their working site, but at their living place. The progressive labor organizations recognize that unions should be engaged with broad based community organizations fighting for social, economic, and environmental justice through local publics.

At a book club meeting at the AFL-CIO yesterday, I heard from two of the contributors (Scott Paul and Harold Meyerson) of the new book Remaking of America, published by the Alliance for American Manufacturing which is pushing for a focus on manufacturing in the US and setting forth national policies that might accomplish more manufacturing jobs. They discussed the 11% decline in wages despite the increase in worker productivity, the off-shoring of jobs, the trade deficit, the misguided immigration policy, and the corporate use of profits and surplus cash to buy back stock rather than invest in R&D or workers. And they indicated how this is leading to general economic decline for the country as well as the greater disparity among rich and poor. They compared this shareholder capitalism to the stakeholder capitalism of Germany which includes worker input through councils and participation in boards.

But my ears especially perked up when Meyerson discussed the new demographics where the cities and where most of US residents live have elected progressive, usually Democratic mayors, which have become the locus of a shift of power from a national government that has been stymied by polarization. Recognizing this suggests a new organizing strategy for labor organizations by focusing energy and resources on local organizing in urban areas which will then influence state and national policies. A good example of this is the fight for raising the minimal wage to a living wage. But the same could be applied to training and incentives to immigrants, coordination instead of competition for locating companies, training and housing for workers, smart growth planning linking jobs, housing, and transportation, energy practices that keep down costs and maintain independence, and pressure on corporations to contribute more to their communities and their residents.

Most labor leaders would preach the same, but whether their practice will meet their rhetoric needs to be tested. The AFL-CIO has unions with locals, many participating in local Labor Councils, and has developed a worker center strategy that seems to be compatible with such a practice, but does not seem to be well implemented.

Since a number of us associated with organizing networks in various urban regions are discussing with the White House Council on Strong Cities and Strong Communities (SC2) the establishing of Local Resource Networks through "quarterbacking" community-based organizations, it seems to me that perhaps labor should be brought into the strategy. One payoff for labor would be the development of their worker centers. I will be contacting the Secretary/Treasurer of the AFL-CIO here in DC to see if they might be amendable and partners in our strategy.

Hope in Revolution

The character of the revolutionary is hope. Hope is an orientation to the future. Hope is the vision of new possibility in the here and now.

Liberation theologians teach that the God of revolutionaries is Future--that the divine nature is to be future. It is a Future which beckons us to leave the land of oppression and co-create a new place where victims become victors and the objects of history become the subjects of history. Like prophets they say: leave the land of oppression whether it is the rule of pharaohs and dictators, the necessity to scavenge to live, or the compulsion to stay stuck in victimhood.

Since creation is the divine activity in the world, those who co-create the future as a place of possibilities and a space of freedom are indeed embodying the divine act and so make Future present in the world, here and now. Such an act is not an onerous work but a joyful labour.

But here is where some roads might diverge. Some revolutionaries of an absolute mind fabricate the future in their own image. They have an ideology. They possess a blueprint of the future. They claim a special revelation of the will of God. In other words, they close possibilities by their ideas. And since the future is closed, set, already there, it is no longer open, emerging, teeming with possibilities, a matter of experimentation. It is no longer future at all. Already known as the right plan, it is executed by might, even violence--an armageddon, a dictatorship of the proletariat, a purge.

But the hope that liberation theologians are teaching is very different. It is connected to faith, which is an assertion into, not a dissolution of, tradition. It is an acceptance of the past to let it go. It is a seeing into the possibilities of the forms and institutions and teachings of the past rather than getting mired there and needing to destroy them. To be hopeful is to be faithful. It is to accept the past, the world as it is, the human condition and nature, in order to challenge it to achieve their possibilities. That is why liberation is not an act of hate, but of love. It is an engagement with what has become; it is a connection to all who are here and an affirmation that we all have a future together.

Faith, hope, and love--temporal dimensions of the same creative activity of building places of freedom where people can actualize their potential, search for infinity, desire to know everything, and achieve personal and public happiness.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," said Samuel Johnson. And we know what he meant. How some of those who claim to be patriots who wear flag lapels and condemn flag burning, who say "love America or leave it" to protesters, who jail and kill prophets, who attack anyone who questions the military budget or does not support a war are some of the greatest scoundrels especially when they are personally gaining votes or revenue by their stance. The patriot scoundrel refuses to acknowledge and learn from his nation's sins.

Conversely many who would criticize some of the oppressive acts of their nation, who might even go to prison because of their opposition, are some of the greatest patriots. True patriots, persons who love their country, have great hopes, but are not blind to its past transgressions. They confess them with contrition. They ask forgiveness and accept the penance of consequences for these transgressions. They commit themselves to sin no more and work hard to make their country more just to their own citizens and to others around the world.

The progressive republican is attempting to reconstruct the Republic by renewing traditional values; not by restoring some nostalgic utopia image of the past, but by exploring the possibilities for freedom and justice in the present institutions, no matter how they got here.

The traditional values of the United States of America are articulated in two formulas: the Declaration of Independence "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and the pledge of allegiance "one nation under God" and "with liberty and justice for all." These express the heritage that guides republicans into the future.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness enunciate the most fundamental of rights for all citizens. Each refers to a distinct dimension of human existence: economic, cultural, and political.

Life refers to the right to live and to have all the necessities for biological survival including nutrition, shelter, health, safety, and education. We as a nation pledge economic sufficiency. We pledge that no one will be denied these rights though we may differ as to how they will be provided to all.

Liberty refers to the right to enjoy the style of life and personal values that one chooses--as long as they do not infringe on others styles of living and personal values or deny others the necessities of life. We as a nation pledge cultural tolerance. We pledge to allow people to think, to read, to believe, to worship, to love, to entertain, to protect their household, to have private property, and to behave in private anyway that they want without interference from government.

The pursuit of happiness refers to the achievement of recognition, dignity, and respect. We as a nation pledge political power.  We pledge that all citizens have full and equal access to public space, have the right to associate, to speak in public, to organize for action, to influence policy, and to create political institutions. We pledge to continually reconstruct our society so that it is "just and free for all"--the words of the pledge of allegiance.

But consider "one nation under God." The "one nation" does not deny that we are a country with many tribes, clans, classes, cultures, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, languages, religions, belief systems, lifestyles, political parties, economic institutions, even many nations when we take into account native peoples. But it projects a hope that "e pluribus unum"--one from many, that people can listen and find common ground, that despite their differences they will engage with one another to ensure the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is the dream of a Republic that a nation is larger than the sum of its parts, that it has a character and therefore a "soul" or "spirit" that can transcend all differences. One nation was also a response to the civil war and expressed a hope that the nation could heal its divisions.

"Under God" Though a recent add on to the pledge of allegiance, we note that the founders used God language but, as men of the enlightenment, often meant Nature and the sum of the laws of Nature (Spinoza) or the Principle that got nature started and lets it work its way out (Deism). The people of the great evangelical awakenings and revival movements spoke of God as a supernatural spiritual entity above nature who acted like a parent with his children. In our postmodern age, "God," if used at all, is the process through which all consciousness and intelligence is converging or is the infinite point of ultimate convergence--a sort of Omega Point in Evolution. God is the be-coming one.

Even though "God" means something different in every religion and even within religions, it is certainly in the lexicon of the American Civil religion as demonstrated by how all presidents and candidates end their speeches with "God bless America." The positive in the use is the avoidance of deifying the nation which is under, but not divine. The negative is making the nation so exceptional that it is always right.

In any case, the Future is the unifying principle for the progressive republican, but a future that remembers its past and finds possibilities in the present.

New Year and Revolution

The New Year is the time to celebrate revolutions.

I finished my first draft of The Next Revolution (see previous blog) and sent it to some colleagues for review. My hope is to see it used to assist in the co-creation of more progressive revolutionaries.

In the meantime I am reading Ari Shavit's My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. What a magnificent, moving narrative for all the concepts that I was trying to explain! I can see using this book as a text and my draft simply as a guide in a seminar on building a Progressive Republic.

All the stages from resistance to revolution are present. The progressive as well as the absolutist forms, the humorous, onerous, and ironic aspects, the demonic as well as the liberating consequences of revolution are so vividly and feelingly presented. And the continuation of history as a story of the oppressed liberating themselves by becoming oppressors. And the search for transcendence, for peace through justice, that motivates the violence and injustice of war.

From the top of the Mount, the gods or God or anyone who reflects must laugh at us mortals. And reading this book and seeing its parallels with the founding and continuation and triumph of my own country, has me laughing and weeping at the same time.

The rugged pioneers, resisting oppression in Europe, who inhabited the land under the protection of the British Empire. They took land or bought it from existing residents who did not want it and made it flower by working it with great intelligence and industry. They created small communes where everyone pitched in as they were able and everyone enjoyed the fruits of all.

These communities grew and more land was acquired. At times they had to protect their communities from hostile indigenous residents; but in general many of the indigenous residents prospered by the early settlers' industry as well. The communities came together and created a democratic nation, independent of Great Britain, with a constitution that guaranteed human and civil rights. They welcomed immigrants and became a place of refuge for those who had been persecuted or victims of war in Europe and elsewhere.

They had to further defend themselves from attacks of hostile nations and by indigenous residents to protect their borders and expand them as under the call of Divine Destiny. They developed new industries, powerful weapons, large new cities, great universities and cultural centers, and a strong economy. They developed a nuclear option and spread their influence beyond their borders often giving military aid to factions in other countries who would support them or topple governments who were hostile to them. They developed a civil religion based on their sacred scriptures and the interpretation of their tradition with various ways in which to participate in that religion. A significant faction developed a fundamentalist, evangelical, and absolutist interpretation that made them emissaries of divine will.

There was "blow back" by people who considered themselves oppressed by these actions in the form of massive demonstrations and then terrorist actions in vital centers. Concentration camps were built and torture permitted for the sake of security and self-defense.

Has the revolution, which brought about inclusive, public space where people would shed their victim status and fear to act positively for the good of all, been betrayed? Yes. Can it be redeemed? Only through a miracle. But not from outside. Not from some superpower. Not from a separate, distinct, supernatural God. The miracle will only come through new beginnings starting with the newly and recently born who can break the seemingly inevitable habits of their elders. The superpower within them acting together with new assumptions, new interpretations, and above all forgiveness and hope. The Next Revolution.

A Primer for Revolutionaries

Forward:

Nicolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince five hundred years ago. It is still relevant. Consistent with human nature, it is a valuable manual for those who would be princes. But those of us, who, like Machiavelli, recognize our political nature but see greater possibilities for humanity, need a different sort of handbook.

What I present here is for those who would oppose princes and their principalities in order to build republics. There are many politicians who say they are republicans, but in fact they take the patronage and do the bidding of princes who provide the resources for their elections and the directions for their policies. They adopt the princes’ perspectives, their explanations, and the courses of action they propose.

Let me acknowledge that I too am biased and my bias affects the way I observe what is occurring, the analysis of problems that I present, and the remedies that I recommend. My heart is not with the princes who take advantage of the present situation to enrich themselves. Because I identify with those who are poor, those who are culturally despised, and those who have been effectively excluded from power, I describe myself as culturally libertarian, economically social democratic (or socialist if you will), and politically conservative republican.  But this is not a fixed ideology. I know that there are limitations and ambiguities in each of these positions and between them.

By "conservative republican" I mean I am committed to conserve families, neighborhoods, religion, ethnic diversity, history, and the earth. And I hold that political power belongs to publics--not to the church, not to the state, not to the elite, not to the ethnically advantaged, not to unengaged masses, not even to elected representatives. Publics are where people come together as equals to discuss and act on behalf of their common interests, values, and associations. I think that conservative republicanism argues for an effort to build publics and create a new federalism among them. This is the task of progressive revolutionaries.

This new federalism is a return to what Catholic Social Teaching calls the "principle of subsidiarity": human affairs should be handled by the lowest and least centralized level of authority possible. It ties to a central canon of community organizing: "don't do for others what they can do for themselves." It assumes the principles of solidarity and social democracy through which the well-being and dignity of all are assured.

In the following thoughts for progressive revolutionaries, I avoid footnotes and references. The appendix will show many of my influences and teachers though I like to think that most of what I present is due to the magnificent progressive revolutionaries with whom I have lived, worked, and acted throughout my life. It is to them that I dedicate these words and express my deepest gratitude.

Chapter 1: Revolutionary Atmosphere

Chapter 2: Unfinished Revolution 

Chapter 3: Resistance, Rebellion, Revolution, Renewal

Chapter 4: Revolution that Renews

Chapter 5: Motives for Revolution

Chapter 6: Progressive Revolutionary Mind

Chapter 7: Humor and Revolution

Chapter 8: Progressive Revolutionary Analysis

Chapter 9: Violence and Revolution

Chapter 10: Religion and Revolution

Chapter 11: Ethics of Revolution

Chapter 12: Rules for Revolutionaries

Chapter 13: The End of Revolution

Afterword

Appendix: A Study Guide