Religious fundamentalism

In his book When Time Shall Be No More, historian Paul Boyer states that, "surveys show that from one third to one half of [all Americans] believe that the future can be interpreted from biblical prophecies." I find this absolutely stunning.

I haven't seen that particular number, but I've seen plenty of things like it. I saw a cross-cultural study a couple of years ago -- I think it was published in England -- that compared a whole range of societies in terms of beliefs of that kind. The US stood out -- it was unique in the industrial world. In fact, the measures for the US were similar to pre-industrial societies.

Why is that?

That's an interesting question. This is a very fundamentalist society. It's like Iran in its degree of fanatic religious commitment. For example, I think about 75% of the US population has a literal belief in the devil.

There was a poll several years ago on evolution. People were asked their opinion on various theories of how the world of living creatures came to be what it is. The number of people who believed in Darwinian evolution was less than 10%. About half the population believed in a church doctrine of divine-guided evolution. Most of the rest presumably believed that the world was created a couple of thousand years ago.

These are very unusual results. Why the US should be off the spectrum on these issues has been discussed and debated for some time.

I remember reading something maybe ten or fifteen years ago by a political scientist who writes about these things, Walter Dean Burnham. He suggested that this may be a reflection of depoliticization -- that is, the inability to participate in a meaningful fashion in the political arena may have a rather important psychic effect.

That's not impossible. People will find some ways of identifying themselves, becoming associated with others, taking part in something. They're going to do it some way or other. If they don't have the option to participate in labor unions, or in political organizations that actually function, they'll find other ways. Religious fundamentalism is a classic example.

We see that happening in other parts of the world right now. The rise of what's called Islamic fundamentalism is, to a significant extent, a result of the collapse of secular nationalist alternatives that were either discredited internally or destroyed.

In the nineteenth century, you even had some conscious efforts on the part of business leaders to promote fire-and-brimstone preachers who led people to look at society in a more passive way. The same thing happened in the early part of the industrial revolution in England. E.P. Thompson writes about it in his classic, The Making of the English Working Class.

In a State of the Union speech, Clinton said, "We can't renew our country unless more of us -- I mean, all of us -- are willing to join churches." What do you make of this?

I don't know exactly what was in his mind, but the ideology is very straightforward. If people devote themselves to activities that are out of the public arena, then we folks in power will be able to run things the way we want.

Don't tread on me

I'm not quite clear about how to formulate this question. It has to do with the nature of US society as exemplified in comments like do your own thing, go it alone, don't tread on me, the pioneer spirit -- all that deeply individualistic stuff. What does that tell you about American society and culture?

It tells you that the propaganda system is working full-time, because there is no such ideology in the US. Business certainly doesn't believe it. All the way back to the origins of American society, business has insisted on a powerful, interventionist state to support its interests, and it still does.

There's nothing individualistic about corporations. They're big conglomerate institutions, essentially totalitarian in character. Within them, you're a cog in a big machine. There are few institutions in human society that have such strict hierarchy and top-down control as a business organization. It's hardly don't tread on me -- you're being tread on all the time.

The point of the ideology is to prevent people who are outside the sectors of coordinated power from associating with each other and entering into decision-making in the political arena. The point is to leave the powerful sectors highly integrated and organized, while atomizing everyone else.

That aside, there is another factor. There's a streak of independence and individuality in American culture that I think is a very good thing. This don't tread on me feeling is in many respects a healthy one -- up to the point where it keeps you from working together with other people.

So it's got a healthy side and a negative side. Naturally it's the negative side that's emphasized in the propaganda and indoctrination.

The world

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 655