Let's try to get to the bottom of the Reverend Wright controversy which is probably close to impossible because there are numerous different ways I could take this essay but regardless, let's at least open up some of these different avenues and see where they take us...
First, by way of an introduction, let me say this: We are all philosophers and we are all preachers -- stated more specifically, we all 'philosophize' about what we think is 'true' (epistemology) and 'right' (ethics); and we all 'preach' our epistemological and ethical philosophy relative to what we believe is 'true' and 'right'. Obviously some people are more righteous than other people (or stated differrently, some more tolerant and accepting than others), and also, some people are more openly straightforward with their righteousness, whereas others hide it more...
Relative to righteousness, we all have our private and/or public 'soapboxes' -- some more public than others -- upon which we preach our unique, individual philosophy. Some of these individual philosophies are healthier than others; some are more pathological than others. There is an intimate tie between philosophical and psychological health; indeed, 'mental-emotional' health can just as easily and rightly be referred to as 'philosophical-psychological' health.
President Bush has his soapbox. Reverand Wright has -- or had -- his soapbox. Senator Obama, both the Clintons, and McCain all have their own separate, individual 'soapboxes' on which they preach their own individual -- and/or party -- politics and/or religion.
I have my soapbox. This essay is my soapbox. 'Hegel's Hotel' is my soapbox. With whatever credibility and respect that I have here as a private philosopher and writer, I am here to say what I think is right and wrong about different elements of both Canadian and American poltics as well as in some cases such as this one -- religion, preachers, and the Church. There are those who believe that politics and relgion should not be mixed -- such as many of America's foundational philosopher-politicans, most notably, I believe, Thomas Jefferson -- but increasingly these days it is obvious that there are more and more people who believe that politics and religion can and should be mixed.
From a religious standpoint, the Reverand Wright is obviously one of them.
There is a time to be righteous and there is a time to be tolerant and the best philosopher-preachers have the best sense of timing about when to be which.
I preach a mixture of righteousnes and tolerance and try to get the timing right on both.
Let me begin by giving you this as a backdrop: We are all a mixture of 'epistemologically right' and 'epistemologically wrong' perceptions and beliefs, of 'ethically good' and 'ethically bad' values... We can talk about President Bush the 'right' and President Bush the 'wrong', of President Bush the 'good' and President Bush the 'bad'...and each and everyone of us will have a combination of similar and/or different judgments in this regard...Bush started out strong with America's trust and respect; it is obvious now that he lost most of this trust and respect to most Americans somewhere along the way in his length of time as President. Too many false assertions and assumptions...too many bad value judgments in the minds of most Americans today -- I would say.
We could go throught this same editorial process with Reverend Wright, Obama, both Bill and Hillary Clinton, McCain, myself, you, America, Canada...and so on..
We are all a mixture of right and wrong epistemology, of good and bad ethics, of good and bad tricks...There are no perfect idols or ideals amongst us -- some of us may make better leaders than others -- but we are all walking imperfections of right and wrong, good and bad. There are no Gods amongst us...nor should anyone -- in politics or in religion -- have the audacity and the arrogance to try to quote God... This is blatant man-made projection...man manipulating the use of God to serve his or her own political, religious, economic, philosophical and/or any other form of narcissistic purpose.
I am not a big religious person -- my religious, spritual, and/or anti-religous perspectives are far from fully developed at this point in time. They are still evolving...but at the same time, my religious-spiritual blogsite-section now contains over ten essays I believe...
Regardless, I found myself reaching for a recital of 'The Ten Commandments' on the internet this morning. (Isn't the internet wonderful in this respect as I didn't need to go digging around my townhouse for a bible or inside The Bible to find what I was looking for...just by googling 'The Ten Commandments', I could quickly find what I wanted. Some might equate this with 'fast food' -- lacking in full nutritional value -- but for a writer/philosopher like myself who wants to find something quickly and then get back to my essay, it truly is amazing what an 'enormous liberary resource' I have at my immediate fingertips. I often shake my head at the 'technological and resource advantages' I have today over someone like say Kant, Hegel, and/or Marx who must have ploughed through thousands of pages of books to get the information they needed.)
Here is my favorite commandment incidently (I believe it is the fourth commandment):
...................................................................................
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
.....................................................................................
This to me is a very 'humanistic-existential' commandment -- trust and respect your own resources, your own perceptions and beliefs, your own value judgments, your own integrtiy, and your own actions. Let no man, woman -- or God -- stand above you on a pedestal.
Unfortunately, there is a problem here -- a big problem. The Ten Commandments are not consistent -- or at least if they are consistent when taken as a whole -- are not 'humanistic-existential'; indeed, taken as a whole they lean much closer to 'authoritarianism', 'dominance-submission', and 'sado-masochism'. Look at the first four commandments when taken together:
.....................................................................................
1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
2. Do not have any other gods before me.
3. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
4. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
5. But showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
..................................................................................
Taken alone, Commandment 3 seems 'humanistic-existential'. However, in the context of the first five commandments, it seems that God is saying in effect: 'Don't trust, respect, love, idolize, or idealize any other God -- but me -- for I am a jealous God. You can submit to me all you want because that is the way I like it.'
Gee, that sounds more like man talking rather than any God that I am willing to respect, love, idealize, and/or worship. A God that is into 'egotism, narcissism, authoritarianism, jealousy, dominance, and the type of sadism that can be seen in the 'God, Abraham, and Isaac' parable. In effect, the anti-thesis of 'Jesus Christ'. How do you explain that one? Look at the Ten Commandments, and the God, Abraham, and Isaac parable -- and it certainly does not seem that Jesus Christ was created in God's image. Rather, it seems much more plausable that God was created in man's image. Furthermore, it seems much more plausable that 'God' and 'Jesus Christ' can be viewed as 'projective-identifications' of one of the deepest polarities and conflict-issues in man's psyche, psychology, and philosophy: the polarity between narcissism, selfishness, jealousy, possessiveness and conditional love on the one hand vs. altruism, empathy, social sensitivity, generosity and love on the other hand. Projected: the jealousy, narcissism, dominance, and conditional love of God vs. the generosity and unconditional love of Jesus Christ. One might even say a projection of the 'masculine vs. feminine' side of man or in Eastern tradition the 'yin' vs. 'yang' in man -- and the need for harmonious unity and balance between the two.
I realize that I may be offending some of you who may hold a much more traditional viewpoint towards God and Jesus Christ but I cannot be anyone other than who I am. And right now -- as of this minute, arrived at by argumentative deduction during the course of this essay -- that is exactly how I view God and Jesus Christ. It is totally consistent with all of my other viewpoints in Hegel's Hotel. It is a post-Hegelian-Freudian-Jungian-Gestalt analysis: that God and Jesus Christ reflect opposing projective identifications and arhetypes in man's personality. When man is worshipinng God and Jesus Christ, he is in effect worshipping the 'twin polariities of masculinism and feminism, or 'yin and yang' in man's psyche.
................................................................................
I said that at the beginning that this essay had the potential of taking me in many different directions some of which I might not expect, and, believe me, I am as shocked as you probably are at the direction it just took me...Now let us move on and get back to the Reverend Wright...
.................................................................................
I respect that the Reverend Wright is a fiery speaker, that he says what he believes, and I don't even mind that he mixed 'politics' with 'religion' in his sermons. To hear someone say that 'governments fail' is a refreshing change for me compared to the usual sermon of individual people 'failing through their sins of being human'. Preaching politics in a religious forum in my mind is better than preaching religion in a political forum -- especially when 'God' is being used in a political forum to justify appropriate or inappropriate political actions.
However, it is rather obvious in my mind that the Reverend Wright committed some rather glaring professional and 'humanistic' errors. In this regard, I was thinking of some of the 'ethical transgressions' that the Reverend Wright committed and here was the first one I came up with again as I looked at the Ten Commandments:
....................................................................................
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.
...................................................................................
Well, for a week or two I was oblivious to what had transpired in this 'Reverend Wright scandal' and then one morning I finally heard a 'fuller version' (courtesy of CNN) of the original much smaller soundbite that had created the substance of this political-religous controversy.
...................................................................................
'God damn America.' -- Reverend Wright
....................................................................................
This was the smallest soundbite-essence of what Reverend Wright said within the fuller context of his more complete sermon. The fuller context of the sermon talked about 'political failings' all through history -- and directly or indirectly about political oppression and killings resulting from political failings.
Well, the fuller context of the sermon does give the American people a better perspective on where the Reverend was coming from in his sermon -- but his first ethical-religous-political violation can be found right in The Ten Commandments...a part of the second commandment if the interpretation I am reading off the internet can be assumed to be an accurate interpretation...
.....................................................................................
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.
.....................................................................................
I think I have heard it stated in other ways such as; 'Thou shalt not speak the Lord's name in vain.' But either version will do...
Now most of us have heard the Lord's name used in profanity or in a thousand and one different ways but for a preacher to use God's name in profanity and/or as a manipulative tool to further his own political-religous agenda -- is basically inexcusable. Reverend Wright was essentially projecting his own condemnation of America -- inexcusably -- onto God. That was ethical transgression number 1.
...................................................................................
Secondly,
This is my own epistemological and ethical commandment:
'Beware of loose associations and tight, stereotypical distinctions. They are epistemologically prone to error -- and worse -- tend to be ethically divisive, destructive, and self-destructive.'
...................................................................................
This was Reverend Wright's second epistemological error and ethical transgression -- and it was arguably worse than the first.
Which America was the Reverend talking about? Good America or Bad America. Was he referring to White America? And worse, was he loosely associating White America with Bad America?
..................................................................................
Again, there was no excuse for Reverend Wright's 'loose associations' and 'tight, stereotypical distinctions' relative to the history of politics in general -- and particularly, American politics and oppression.
How racial, how anti-white, how anti-America were Reverend Wrights sermons? Was there significant humanism underlying his speeches -- or were they all about anger, rage, and hate...in stereotypical, racial fashion? Loose associations and tight stereotypical distinctions can take you to angy, violent places where it is not humanistically good for you to go.
..................................................................................
America seems to be interested in two things but more so the second than the first:
1. Just how radical, racial, and/or anti-American were Reverend Wright's sermons?; and
2. To what extent are Obama's real personal philosophical views closely or not at all closely associated with what the Reverend Wright was preaching?
I saw Obama interviewed by Larry King a couple of weeks after this controversy broke loose and I thought that Obama handled himself -- and the Wright issue -- quite well. He's getting a reputation as the 'Tefelon Man' -- as he uses his gliding rhetoric to 'smooth' over problems. But once again, the American people are sick and tired of smooth rhetoric -- without substance, character, and integrity giving a strong, solid foundation to this smooth rhetoric. The American people want both an elegant speaker and a man of character, integrity, and substnace that has the willpower, the intellect, and the power to change the way politics is conducted in Washington.
Two issues in particular have left some seeds of doubt in the minds of people listenting to Obama: 1. his Michigan free trade speech in contrast to the contradicting contents of the leaked political letter by someone associated with his campaign; and 2. the Reverennd Wright controversy.
Should these controversies be viewed as possible precursors of more of the same to come?
Or should they be viewed as issues and controversies blown out of context by a Clinton campaign and/or a news media starving to rub something bad onto Obama's character and campaign?
We wait to see.
dgb, March 30th, 2008, revised and updated April 1-2, 2008.
No comments:
Post a Comment