On Mar 24, 2007, at 5:44 PM, Lenin's Tomb wrote:
> I don't think this is Yoshie's point, but there is another way to go
> about it, which is to terminate this ressentiment toward religion, and
> try to engage with the religious rather than writing them off.
Anyone involved in left politics in the U.S. has not choice but to do that - it's not even a question. I don't think non-Americans fully appreciated how religion-saturated this society is. It made the news here when one - one! - member of Congress, Pete Stark, announced the other day that he's an atheist. Fewer Americans tell pollsters they'd vote for an atheist for president than a queer. Politicians are always going on about god. There's no escaping it - it's in the air and the water, though there are signs that its grip is easing some.
But what I don't get are these exhortations to imitate religion, or follow its example, or be intimidated by its pervasiveness, or whatever, it's not really clear. I don't see how religion is any kind of transferrable model - it operates in a different realm from politics. Eternal salvation vs. a higher minimum wage? Not much of a contest. Of course, the relgious can, and do, campaign for a higher minimum wage and no secular person doing so would ever scorn the alliance. But I don't get what left politics has to learn from religion, doctrinally or organizationally.
Doug