Politics, Tribalism, Religion – the Usual Light Relief
Not that I mean to make things even more pompous and portentous around here than they already are, but I just read an article about Evangelical Christians in America causing family schisms by switching their vote to the Democrats and found myself bubbling away with inane chatter once more. Sorry.
Articles like this show up human rationalism and thought for the sham that it is, if you ask me. We humans are so proud of our brains, of the power of thought, analysis and all this other shit, but ultimately even on subjects as important as political decision-making we are basically tribal.
I have never entirely understood how Evangelical Christians can almost invariably end up as Republicans, apart from the unavoidable conclusion that for a great many of them terms like ‘the love of Jesus Christ’ seems to rather oddly translate as ‘vicious, petty, small-minded bigotry’. I have my doubts as to whether that was quite what a bearded Jewish hippy would have had in mind, to be honest.
That Biblical teaching translates so directly into the policies of Conservatism, the right wing and free market fundamentalism strikes me as far from obvious. I have always tended to assume, despite my rather venomous antipathy towards devout belief, that most devoutly religious people actually do think that the teachings of their religion centre around love and kindness, compassion and generosity. Don’t they? I mean seriously? Otherwise, why not just fucking throw the whole fucking lot in the bin right now?
When you look at it that way, love and kindness, compassion and generosity are palpably absent from most of the political teachings of the politicians most such people tend to choose as their leaders. Quite how the parents in that particular article came to ask their children ‘how can you vote for abortion?’, without ever asking themselves how they can vote for a party whose attitude to its own poor seems to be to cut them entirely adrift and fuck ‘em if they can’t survive, indicates a childlike, bovine credulity that I find baffling. How exactly does ‘protecting the family’ involve attacking other people’s families? Do you honestly think that Jesus really would persecute, terrify and ridicule homosexuals? Do you really take it as a given that Jesus would hate basic socialised medicine, well-funded state schools and some form of protection for the unemployed and unemployable? I am not saying a religious person should automatically take a left-wing line these things either, but I am not convinced that trying to support the weak and the poor is exactly an anti-Christian sentiment.
This shows up on the other side as well. Most left-leaning types slaughter the Bush administration for its cheerful disregard for the US Constitution and in particular the checks and balances imposed on government therein. Those same lefties also tend also to lionise Bill Clinton, particularly after the utter debacle of the Bush years, but Clinton was just as aggressive in undermining government oversight as Bush is. He was, at heart, an authoritarian. He may have been an authoritarian whose policies we preferred and whose bungling was generally restricted to his administering of the Presidential Saucisson d’Amour, but that doesn’t excuse it in the slightest. Or at least it shouldn’t.
My mother became positively tearful with agitation when I said that I could never, ever bring myself to vote for Tony Blair, I guess because her politics are still quite firmly rooted in the partisan wars between Labour and Tory that she grew up with. I had to point out to her that voting for Blair would involve voting for so many things she didn’t believe in that it would be crazy to do so, but I doubt I entirely persuaded her.
Basically, all the article above exposes is that we vote tribally. What we believe depends almost entirely on who is telling us, irrespective of what they are actually saying, and we will not listen to arguments from ‘the other side’ even if they make sense. We all do it and it can lead to egregious mistakes.
Not one of us, I would imagine, examines our political decisions on their own merits, and free from the knee-jerk instinct to support our sort. We all tend to see only the evidence that supports our own theories and this only gets worse as we get older and increasingly surround ourselves with people with whom we agree on most matters. What does that mean? Well it means that we aren’t using our brains, doesn’t it. It’s a more gut reaction than that – it’s basically the same instinct that leads to street gangs. Human beings, in other words, are fucking idiots, despite what our species’ colossal vanity might tell us.
We really should make an effort to try and have these inner dialogues more directly between our own consciences and the actual facts at hand, rather than seeing it through the lens of these sorts of silly, falsely dichotomised tribal shouting matches.
Billy Bragg – Ideology
it’s interesting (to me any way) that liberalism and christianity were synonimous a hundred-odd years ago. now it’s seemingly the reverse.
have you ever considered the possibility that it’s not idiocy or laziness or vanity that causes this thinking. but maybe necessity. that maybe for all our big brains and rationality and advanced intelligence maybe deep down we still think in the same primal basic way that all species do? that maybe the vanity is not thinking we’re better but assuming that we can be better?
on a bad/good? day i find the idea of progress, in the main, amusing.
oh yeah. and something about music.
presidential saucisson d’amour. class.
GOP craves $$$, and so do churches.
No Marx, you’re right, it’s basic pack instincts, no more and no less. It reminds me of environmentalism and obesity too, in a sense. We are, generally, incapable of thinking in a long term sense. We know we are going to destroy the planet (or, more relevantly, its capacity to support human life) but we cannot help ourselves from raping and pillaging natural resources. However clever we think we are, it seems we still make every decision from a pathetically narrow viewpoint. We are actually, in the main, incapable of acting for the good of the species in any case where it conflicts with our own self-interest.
I think that may be where right-wing conservatism and religious dogma find so much common ground: one claims divine favour and the other unfettered self-interest, and both rely on the concept that human beings are somehow incredibly special and occupy some privileged place in the universe, which is not really much supported by facts.
Human fucking vanity. Pathetic species, we are.
that last paragraph in your last comment–where right wingers meet religious dogma–very insightful. you are right on the money when you say they both rely on the concept that humans are somehow above and more important than the rest of the planet. amen! that’s amen to the ridiculousness of the concept, i’m not agreeing with it!
Which all makes me wonder where Creationism will fit into this ‘new’ political shift; two dametrically opposed cultural leanings & viewpoints, no?
Creationsim, its movement & practioners, above anything else, in terms of the ultra-right spectrum of blood-letting ‘religions’, scares me fucking shitless. The fact that in America &, amazingly, some parts of the UK, this strain of the deluded with their selected/purposefully interpretive ‘reading’ of whatever part of whatever version of the Bible it is they get so frothed up about, have set up a schooling curriculum/lesson plans/equal representation & is teaching its deliberately antagonistic anti-evolutionary message/’truth’ is fucking astonishing.
But, back to my point, how will such fundamentalism sit with a Democrat (& a black skinned Muslim one at that!)?
DC
Are you implying that Obama is a Muslim? I would like to know if I mis-understood before I get in my ScornMobile
Yes, he is. At least he was born a Muslim. His father was a Muslim, his mother became a Muslim convert (still, I believe, is) – Obama was brought up in the Muslim tradition, but never really fully ‘formed’ as his father was ‘absent’ i.e. he planted the seed & took a hike.
The war-mongers in the US senate etc. are positively shitting themselves at the prospect of him becoming President as they fear he will have ‘leanings’ pretty much in the opposite direction to theirs. This, genuinely, could be a very interesting time in US politics for the first time in bloody years.
Good one Matthew. As a sort of religious person, I wouldn’t always go right along with you, but I read this:
“I have always tended to assume, despite my rather venomous antipathy towards devout belief, that most devoutly religious people actually do think that the teachings of their religion centre around love and kindness, compassion and generosity. Don’t they? I mean seriously? Otherwise, why not just fucking throw the whole fucking lot in the bin right now?”
And I couldn’t agree more. Like you I’m not sure where the swerve to the right happened. Evangelicalism in this country actually has a pretty good record historically and has been behind a load of social reforms (the Clapham Sect, abolition of slavery etc) but somehow this unholy marriage has happened over there, and the ripples have made their way over here too unfortunately.
It’s interesting that Bush is often portrayed as a religious nutter in charge of a superpower, when it seems to me that the real evil powers behind the throne have little or no religion (Runsfeld, Perle etc). It’s convenient for people to blame religon for the Neo-Conservatives’ misdemeanours, when the truth may be actually more sinister…
Anyway, that’ll do fo now…
Come on! You think you could run for president in the United States without this coming up in respected press? Not one hand wringing article in Gaurdain or Independent about why it should or shouldn’t matter. And what does ‘in the Muslim tradition’ mean? I spent three years in a British grammar school in which my teacher told me I was Christian (despite my and parents denying it) because I was raised “with Christian values”. Neither I nor Toad are Christians.
Funnily Obama said it best when he said it’s insulting to Islam that people think this is an weapon. This is a ridiculous story and it’s sad it has got as far as it has. You read this blog so you have more or less proved you can read. Please research this.
To correct slightly the above poster: I don’t think you can call someone a Muslim simply because their (absent) father presumably held those beliefs (at least that’s what I get from your thoughtful article, Matthew). For the past 20+ years B. Obama has been a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. His pastor, the recently excoriated Rev. Wright, has ties with the Nation of Islam, but those guys are about as Muslim as a ham roll.
More apropos to topic: my folks both voted Republican: I was raised to it, but my beliefs changed once I left home and now I’m a libertarian (party of the crazy idealists!). People always say I’m “wasting my vote” by not voting for a major party candidate, but my conscience usually rebels against voting for the left or the right. I don’t agree with either of ‘em and I don’t like ‘em either. The closest anyone came was Ron Paul, but he’s not very mainstream, for some reason
Haha! Obama is not even a little bit Muslim, that’s just silly.
You might as well call me a Christian. I went to Cub Scouts where we recited prayers at times and declared our loyalty to god in some pledge thing, in my Primary School years we said prayers at assembly and grace before lunch. I have attended church for my Grandmother’s funeral, and to hear my cousins sing in some choir thing or other, and took part in some sort of vaguely religious service at my brothers’ wedding. My Grandparents on one side are Dutch Reformed and on the other C of E. I have better credentials as a Christian than Obama does as a Muslim.
Religion is not something you catch off your parents, nor is it something you can in any meaningful way ‘decide upon’ before the age of ten. It is something you fundamentally believe because you cannot avoid it and it informs how you live your life. Obama attended a state school in Indonesia for a couple of years when he was seven years old for fuck’s sake.
And saying he was brought up in ‘the Muslim tradition’ is just silly. We were brought up in ‘the Christian tradition’, with our independent women, our celebrating Christmas and our not stoning adulterers to death and that doesn’t make us even slightly Christian. His parents may have been married in ‘the Muslim tradition’, but how many atheists do you know who still want to get married in church because it is picturesque and seems to have more gravitas – they are no more religious than I am a bloody astronaut.
Try looking at it the other way around: Obama has Christian parents who don’t practice and one denies he is Christian, he goes to a public school in a very Christian country (let’s say Austria) when he is a small child, before being transferred to a private Muslim school, he attends a controversial Mosque for twenty years, decides to run for president and suddenly declares himself Christian. Would it even be considered for a second that he actually was a Christian?
This crazy argument is virulent and disgusting for two reasons: firstly, it forces him and his supporters into denying something that is clearly spurious, which in turn reinforces the belief that it is somehow a bad thing that has to be strenuously denied, as opposed to the truth, which is that it is simply factually incorrect, and this is deliberately designed to inflame xenophobia in the minds of American bigots. As Obama says, it is indeed insulting to Islam that people think they can use this as a weapon. It’s the same tiny-minded, third-world, knuckle-dragging, illiterate bigotry that makes it impossible for an openly-declared atheist to run for president of the US.
The other really unedifying part of this is the assumption that a small percentage of Islam in your blood makes you a sand nigger. Remember when Halle Berry was slated for being described as ‘the first black woman to win an Oscar’ because her mother was white? Well can you imagine the reaction if she’d claimed to be white?
This sort of nonsense is basically a classic tactic for disruption because it forces intelligent people and Obama himself into denying something obviously silly and in turn makes it almost unavoidable that their comments come across as racist and embarrassed. And they should be embarrassed, because in denying it it is virtually impossible not to make it sound like you feel you have to because a little bit of Islam is a terrible thing, thus making it seem like you’ve proved the point that you never even had to begin with.
People accuse me of wasting my vote a lot too because I have a habit of backing parties with no hope of winning anything. Thing is that it does sort of work. If you have a considerable number of people back a party with no chance, they become a constituent. The ‘Nader vote’ in Florida was relentlessly pursued in the mid terms this year. A strong showing by the Lib Dems in England always leads to a shift back to the left from Labour. Small parties are simply a collection of people with a view, and and that gives you certain leverage. Look at Romney and McCain scrambling for Libetertians in New Hampshire (or Libeterian Mecca). They had a bigger say in who was front runner than most ‘groups’ this election.
That’s why the Church is so scary in the political arena. The Bible (and Tora and Koram) are damn complicated and self-contradictory books. They take a lot of reading to get your head about them. So people who speak with them with authority get listened to. It is horrifying that this authority is then transposed into the political realm, given that there is no requirement for a Priest to know anything about how to run a society or economy. But they are a unified vote.
I have thought about this a bit actually, and I would rather waste my vote on some marginal party with no hope of winning than either not vote (and have the pricks say ‘well, you can’t complain’ even though this is rotten reasoning) or to use my vote as some sort of makeweight in the partisan squabbling that is the modern political arena.
[...] as a salute to DC’s frankly silly assertion that Barack Obama is in fact a Muslim, I have a couple of other songs that seemed, erm, well about as appropriate as anything on this [...]
Sorry to be a stubborn fucker, guys, but it’s you who’re wrong & not me. He is/was/whatever a Muslim – you may not like that, you may not agree based on personal politics or whatever motives, you may think this is being brought in for some left/right field agenda of my own (it’s not, I’m reporting fact based on personal ), or you may think I’m just some naive non-resident schlub spouting 10th-hand unsubstantiated rumour/myth (I’m not, I’m repeating what I’ve been personally told by close working colleagues & friends who are political concerns directly linked with the Democrat campaign in Washington).
I apologise if my ‘explanation’ in my previous comment for the phrase “Muslim tradition” is a little loose on substance & seemingly devoid of any substantiated background, but it was just a quick way of saying he was a practicing Muslim for a long period of time from very early on in his youth to an unspecified . Surprisingly, on the basis of the household, his father, from Indonesia, was a non-practising Muslim, but his Mother, a convert, was a practising Muslim. Despite going to a Catholic School Obama & Mama still practiced & followed the Muslim faith for many years. He is, to all intent & purpose, currently a lapse Muslim.
It has been reported in the US press, quite widely in fact, in print + TV + Internet, but he has since played it down, i.e. refused to talk on the subject, because of an alleged family conversion to Christianity (which itself has recently blown up in his face) a few years back.
I’m surprised this has got so many people’s backs up BUT I think it’s a little more than people reacting to a supposed/remotely-imposed naivite on my part; I suspect the very mention of the word Muslim has freaked people’s liberal spine donor sensibilities out &, incorrecly fearing some cultural or race-related motive, entirely settled into a collective gasp of PC disapproval.
Whatever it is, whatever the point of anything anymore, this Presdiential campaign will be very interesting indeed especially if this tiny incident has sparked this kind of follow through.
That’s just silly. That’s like insisting that my mother is a lapsed Christian because she was raised in a nominally Christian household and went to church until she got to the end of high school or university age, at which point she decided she thought the whole thing was silly.
Now, I would query the religious convictions of any presidential candidate simply because it is impossible to be elected president of the United States without being a Christian, but that applies to pretty much all of them (maybe except Huckabee and Romney, who are just bats). So I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that either he or any of the rest of them practises Christianity out of political expediancy, but calling him a Muslim because of his childhood is daft.
The thing about it that irritates me about the whole business is that it is fucking irrelevant. So what if the guy actually is a practising Muslim – Romney is a fucking Mormon for Christ’s sake, and they really are bonkers – and all this heckling is about is trying to get him to duck and dive and hence appear either suspicious by not denying it strongly enough, or a closet bigot by denying it too vociferously. It’s a game of political banana-skinning and is irrelevant to the truth which is, in itself, also irrelevant.
[...] received this email in response to my post about herd reactions to political arguments and, at times, facts themselves. It was thoughtful and well-written so I thought it deserved [...]
You are spot on about the tribalism of partisan politics. Having worked and lived in that milieu, I can attest that “tribal” really is the only word for it. For the hard-core, their fellow partisans become like an extended family who provide a sense of belonging that competes even with one’s sense of nationality. After a time, without realizing it, you start conforming your views to the party’s, even if they lead you to a place contrary to your original reasons for joining.
Ultimately, this is the continuation of a great long tradition. The foundations of Western-style partisan politics – including its structures like constituency associations and fundraising committees – is rooted in the ancient Roman Blue and Green factions. Chariot racing fan clubs! Yet over time people started attaching political ideological significance to them. Just another great example of the human skill for re-writing the script as we go along.
Another example I like to cite is the origins of those great old party nicknames, Tories and Whigs. Turns out both phrases are variations on “cattle thief”, probably one of the worst things you could call a person in Stuart England. No ideological significance at all, just a good ol’ fashioned political insult match. I expect that if the names were modernized to the Ass-lickers and the Cunt-heads, people would see the silliness for what it is.
I always try to take a collegial view of partisanship. I’m loyal to my party but I have close friends in other parties. I respect where they’re coming from; no one can understand a partisan better then another partisan, of any sort. Ideologies, really, are such bullshit. You can’t put people’s ideas in neat little boxes like that. I have socialist friends who are to the right of Attilla the Hun on some issues and right-wing friends who are total bleeding hearts on other issues.
To keep things straight in my own head, I like to think of political parties as though they were fraternal organizations, like the Masons, the Lions, Elks or Oddfellows. They all try to appeal to a broad demographic but each tends to be more attractive to certain demographics. They’re all just trying to be helpful and have a good time, but they all have their little quirks, funny traditions and favourite causes. I think if we had an election to try to decide if the Lions or the Oddfellows were going to run the country for four years, people wouldn’t get so bent out of shape about things.
Finally, please don’t call us humans pathetic. Silly, yes, but not pathetic. Hell, we’ve been to the moon. Have the dolphins been to the moon? No, they haven’t, stupid fucking dolphins
I always thought dolphins were fucking stupid. That’s why I eat so much canned tuna.
so we went to the moon and drove that stupid little car around and left litter all over the gaff, pathetic. dolphins rock.
Jesus up a fucking pole.
Thing is, & this has been lost by the throng’s gritting of teeth & entirely misunderstanding where I am coming from, I don’t give a monkey’s torn arsepipe whether he is Muslim or not — my point was that the religious right (i.e. populated, usually, by the likes of the evangelical element originally cited in the original post topic) are going to have a fucking field day (i.e. get all chest beating & vocal on self-funded cable TV shows & CNN/Fox News, etc.) if he gets to Presidential candidate stage. What with a certain war or 2 going on right now there’s going to be a huge split (albeit internally for the most part) in the likes of backseat Govt. & the Senate & so on, & then eventually be played out in the media.
As soon as the nominee stages are over with & it’s a straight fight between Republican Vs. Democrat (because, let’s face it, no camp wants to get bogged down with politically suicidal naming & shaming exercises until they actually know who’s going to be running against who; & the Democrats aren’t going to even raise the issue themselves because that would go against everything they publically say they stand for – & we know what happened when someone was ‘daring’ enough to bring class/cultural status into the argument i.e. Obama receiving a more cotton wool-based ride because of his skin colour etc.*), & let’s say for arguments sake Obama is the Democrat runner, that’s when the published press will start, via the usual conduit of party ‘spin’ & allegiance, using anything they can to dislodge the tragectory of either candidate.
For all intents & purpose, regardless of evidence for or against lapse/practising/read a book once/inhaled outside a mosque while in college status, Obama IS a Muslim in the eyes of his opponents & political obstacles. Americans, & I apologise for the broad sweep of the tar brush, tend to take this kind of thing (whether substantiated or supposed for political/whatever gain) far more seriously & to heart than us Brits will ever do**. The ‘right’ factions operating in the States (whether industrial, political, religious, or media-based) WILL, regardless of what we think the cultural pigeonhole Obama neatly or messily slots into, hammer home Obama’s religious orientation & take the line (as they do with anything concerning the governing of their towns/cities/states/country) once a enter any accepted counter-culture tag/stereotype always a repeat said accepted counter-culture tag/stereotype.
There’s a lot at stake for these factions – like it or not, the war brings a ton of wedge to the US & the people who currently have a financially motivated grip on US politics (in terms of policy creation & overseas commericial ‘interests’) are shitting themselves at the prospect at Obama getting in — they see a Muslim (whether you like it or not) running a country at war with Muslims (not a fact as we know it, but a misguided evaluation of current affairs by said factors).
Privately, & to some extent publically, it is widely known Obama wants to pull the troops out (for many honourable & rational & upright reasons, & not least because the public swing of opinion is decidely, almost resoundingly at this stage, against the war) as soon as convenient i.e. with as little feet dragging & backlash as possible.
The Clinton camp are more inclined to consider a timetable of withdrawal over, say, a couple of years, rather than surgically extracting the grunts & leaving the private US security bodies to fend for themselves. Blackwater, for example, has some 3,000 personnel (probably more, but figures aren’t publically available) ‘officially’ in place right now &, despite a healthy independent working operation – on both financial & weapon/in-theatre based training/insitu levels – would be left with their dicks in the wind if the so-called legitimate*** back up of the US Army evaporates. Therefore, even though the Clinton withdrawal policy would be attacked should she become the Democrat candidate, her/their stance on this isn’t, at this stage, as bothersome as the perceived threat of an Obama Presidency.
This is why I think/say this will be the most interesting political period for the USA for years – there’s a lot at stake right across the board & it genuinely has massive implications the world over.
Word from the inside, i.e. security intel from both political camps, has it that there is a genuine fear that Obama will be a walking barrel of fish should he become President & will be lined up in the crosshairs within months of election purely on the basis of his religious past (real or otherwise). The perceived damage his perceived sympathy & actioning thereof, within his term might bring to the money machine (indebted to the war/military effort), once he starts implementing the withdrawal of troops, is that great to some of the more, shall we say, fervent war-mongers in the industrial strangle hold gripping US politics, that there is already across the board security plans blueprinted for attempted assasination scenarios****.
Okay, off on a tangent a little, perhaps, re: Muslim or Not Muslim, but whether we as observers think our personal perception/experience is on far sturdier ground than the very real (misguided or otherwise) presumption that once a Muslim, always a Muslim, the real test (as per my original point) is whether the factions to the far, money-indebted right (& let’s face it, the religious aspect is fucking drenched in bunse) will react as they nomally do (i.e. like deranged fucking nutbags) or step back & embrace their ‘new’ political allegiances (which, as Toad rightly pointed out, is partly based on vanity & partly based on survival amongst the sharks) with alacrity & genuine maturity.
Frankly, that’s all I’m going to spout on this matter. But, Muslim or not, I’m very interested in this year’s election because I believe it is going to get very dirty indeed should Obama rise to the occasion.
*by ‘daring’ I mean that’s how it was democratically (ha! ironic) perceived & reported in some of the non-Democrat press; it’s meant tongue in cheek, not as a direct opinion
**remember the Christian/who goes to church/what’s your denomination kafuffle in British politics a few years back? Who really gave a shit? The public didn’t. Even now Blair has ‘come out’ & is calling for a (thinly veiled call to arms to re-establish a fast disappearing CofE presence in the UK) return to the embracing of ‘faith’, no one is really listening because in the UK.
***I use the word ‘legitimate’ purely to express the views of the private ‘security’ concerns, & is not an expressio of my personal opinion of the presence of US/UK troops deployed in Iraq.
****yes, I know they generally exist as a rule of thumb for any new/incombent President, but the variety of reasons that exist for someone wanting to ‘off’ Obama is so extensive they have produced one of the highest levels of domestic security briefings/activity/planning for many, many years.
If anyone remains sceptical as to how I might know any of the above, apart from legitimate connections within all the States’ anti-terrorist/Homeland Security branches, I have a close friend who is a ranked security detail to the current incumbent. So there.
Reading thru this once again just for fun, I agree with this statement by DC vis-a-vis the right & Obama: “The ‘right’ factions operating in the States (whether industrial, political, religious, or media-based) WILL, regardless of what we think the cultural pigeonhole Obama neatly or messily slots into, hammer home Obama’s religious orientation & take the line (as they do with anything concerning the governing of their towns/cities/states/country) once a enter any accepted counter-culture tag/stereotype always a repeat said accepted counter-culture tag/stereotype.”
This is happening in discussion with my own (veddy veddy right) relatives. Once a Muslim, always a Muslim, to them. I won’t say they think Obama will collude with Al-Qaeda to bomb us again but the idea of having a “Muslim” in power really gets some peoples’ goats. But then there’s McCain … who said that Wash., DC was the “City of Satan” … so pick your poison.
Relatedly, I feel honor bound to mention that I take exception to Matthew’s comment above which lumps everyone in my professed faith (including, I suppose, myself) as bonkers. It’s mild exception, since it’s no worse than what everyone else says,. but there you are. And now off to read everything else.