[lbo-talk] M. Parenti joins the New Atheists?

[Carrol Cox]

Note: I did introduce my arguments (in an earlier post) as a
"dogmatic/mechanical" application of historical materialism. That was
partly facetious and partly serious: Clearly nuance is called for, but I
think the nuance should, as it were, be found 'inside' the historical
perspective I offered. Hence we shoudl in fact _Begin_ with the
assumption that fundamentalism had no effect on politics, then
complicate that assumption. Anfter all, the effect of fundamentalism 
for _some_ people is to move them in a left direction in their politics.
Early 196h-c working-class radicalsim was most apt, I believe, to be
found among workers attached to the less 'sophisticated' dissent  rather
than to the mainline Church of England.

In general, one _never_ finds any particular religious belief being
attached to only one and the same set of social attitudes. The same
religious belief leads to different social attitudes in different
persons. Cyanide does not lead to different physical effects in
different organisms. Hence on can claim truthfully, "Cyanide kills." But
one cannot say with the same simplicity, "*Fundamentalism creates
reactionary politics." It really is not clear at all _why_ under present
conditons there is so much overlap (overlap only, not identity) btween
fundamentalism and reaction, and we have to look for the sources of that
overlap in the actual material conditons of those attracted to
fundamentalism.

Now. Fundamentalism and rightist extremism (and their overlap) have been
with us for some time, but Teabaggers and physical assaults on Congress
members are new. Why now? (Remember in what follows the 'unifying'
effect of being in the same palce with others once a week.) What we are
looking for, to begin with, is not a or the cause but the _trigger_. I
think it is Obama's blackness.

NOw, I want to argue that, subjectively, it is possible for a person to
be both anti-racist AND strongly racist at the same time. I have no
doubt that many of the teabaggers are consciously anti-racist and that
they would (and do?) welcome Blacks into their fellowship. But I want to
suggest that they _also_ are mostly whites who still, at some level of
their being, are citizens in that nation the birth of which was
celehgrated in _Birth of a Nation__. That is the Nation which is
identified with the Flag that must not be burnt -- the over-reaction to
flag-burning is part of the national consciousness of this sector of
conservative thought. (I can't remember any of the details of Ollman's
analysis here, but I found it persuasive.) That worship of the flag,
that super-nationalism, is the opening wedge for the potential fascism
which Chip Berlet fears. (Potential, not actuality, as I understand his
analysis.) And the President interprets the meaning of that Flag, that
Nation -- and since it is (as in the Movie) a white nation, it must be
intgerpreted by a White President. The election of a Black President
simply sent many of them over the edge from passive opinion to activism.

Obama is NOT the cause; but he is the trigger. The causes are not
primarily racist, but the element of racism buried deep in them makes
Obama a trigger.

Carrol

SA wrote:
> 
> Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> >> In the present thread the error appears in the form of explaining the
> >> politics of fundamentalists in terms of their religius thought rather
> >> than explaining their religious thought in terms of their politics.
> >
> > You mean that fundamentalism as a pre-existing condition of American
> > life has no effect on the political evolution that people take? That
> > the religiosity of Americans compared to other first worlders isn't
> > something of interest to be explained, but just some sort of secondary
> > phenomenon?
> 
> I think Carrol has the better of this argument. Let's look at the effect
> of fundamentalism on Americans' politics:
> 
> http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/306623.html
> 
> > Table 4.1 Votes for Democrats in the 1992-2000 presidential elections
> > by race and denomination
> >
> > Bible is:
> > Word of God     96     92     34     40
> > Inspired word     94     89     37     47
> > Book of Fables     86     -a     54     61
> 
> The above table is too complicated to fully label in email, so here's
> what it is: The first two columns are blacks: members of Black
> Protestant denominations, then "other." The second two columns are white
> Protestants: members of conservative denominations, then mainline
> denominations.
> 
> As the essay at the link discusses (an excerpt from Michael Hout's
> recent book, which I haven't yet read), blacks are the most
> "fundamentalist" demographic group in the county, and the most pious,
> yet they also vote Democrat far more than any other. And blacks are
> almost certainly the demographic core of the ~20% of the US pop who Doug
> says form the potential base for a social democratic politics.
> 
> So what exactly is the political effect of believing in the inerrancy of
> the bible?
> 
> SA
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