> If we, the American people, are going to win back our country from the
> Religious Right, we are going to have to reshape the Democratic Party
> and the Greens, or create some other party, to come to grips with the
> depth of alienation from liberal politics among the many people who
> continue to vote, unenthusiastically, for the Democrats as the only way
> to stop the Right.
> A reshaped Democratic Party, or a new party, must minimally:
>
> a.. Understand, acknowledge, and respond to the spiritual crisis in
> American society--and provide a progressive spiritual vision that is
> more attractive than the one currently offered by the Right.
> b.. Recognize that people hunger for a world that has meaning and love;
> for a sense of aliveness, energy, and authenticity; for a life embedded
> in a community in which they are valued
I think that alienation is a huge American problem that the megachurches address very well. I was joking with a friend last night that we anarchists ought to organize our own version of the megachurches and he said that he had been thinking about the same thing.
The American Left does not offer a culture of connectedness that alienated Americans can plug into. There is lots of stupid hostility to any form of "counterculture" and in anarchist circles "lifestylism." This is incredibly myopic and a recipe for political marginalization. All great resurgences of the American Left in the past century were accompanied by cultural movements. And more recently, the anti-globalization movement attracted many people and one reason was that the movement provided something to belong to.
Even those pathetic anti-war mobilizations in Washington offer something in terms of a short-lived community and the empowerment of being with lots of people who think like you do.
But Lerner's argument that the Left needs more spirituality is bollocks. The last thing this religion-saturated country needs is more religious and spiritual mumbo jumbo. It would be more productive and effective to build a secular version of Lerner's vision.
Chuck