Prisoners of Hope - Cornel West

A specter of despair haunts early 21st-Century America. The quality of our lives and the integrity of our souls are in jeopardy. Wealth inequality and class polarization are escalating – with ugly consequences for the most vulnerable among us. The lethal power of global corporate elites and national managerial bosses is at an all-time high. Spiritual malnutrition and existential emptiness are rampant. The precious systems of caring and nurturing are eroding. Market moralities and mentalities – fueled by economic imperatives to make a profit at nearly any cost – yield unprecedented levels of loneliness, isolation, and sadness. And our public life lies in shambles, shot through with icy cynicism and paralyzing pessimism.

This bleak portrait is accentuated in black America. The fragile black middle class fights a white backlash. The devastated black working class fears further underemployment or unemployment. And the besieged black poor struggle to survive. Over 30 years after the cowardly murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.—and 40 after that of Malcolm X—black America sits on the brink of collective disaster. Yet most of our fellow citizens deny this black despair, downplay this black rage and blind themselves to the omens in our midst. So now, as in the past, we prisoners of hope in desperate times must try to speak our fallible truths, expose the vicious lies and bear our imperfect witness.

In 1946, when the great Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh was produced, he said America was the greatest example of a country that exemplifies the Biblical question, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world but lose his own soul?" Artists like Harry Belafonte and John Coltrane and Toni Morrison and others have been asking the same question, as the young people say, "How do we keep it real?" When we look closely at jazz, or the blues, for example, we see a profound sense of the tragic linked to human agency. This music does not wallow in a cynicism or a paralyzing pessimism, but it also is realistic enough not to project excessive utopia. It responds in an improvisational, undogmatic, creative way to circumstances, helping people still survive and thrive. How can we be realistic about what this nation is about and still sustain hope, acknowledging that we're up against so much?

When I talk to young people these days, there's a sense in which they're in an anti-idealist mode and mood. They want to keep it real. And keeping it real means, in fact, understanding that the white supremacy you thought you could push back permeates every nook and cranny of this nation so deeply that you ought to wake up and recognize how deep it is.

That to me is a very serious challenge. If we were to go back to 1965, and, say, put a few black faces in high places, and think that somehow the problem was going to be solved, today's young women and men would say to us, "Don't you realize how naive that is?" They wouldn't say that in the form, "We are victims." They'd be saying, "We're going to get around that some way, but it's not going to be the way you think. We're going to get around it the way most American elites have, by hustling, by stepping outside the law, by shaping the law in our interest, and so forth."

People say, "Oh, but that's rather downbeat talk, isn't it? That's not very hopeful." And the young people say, "Well, the level of hope is based on the reality." Now, what do we say back to them? Part of my response has to do with a certain kind of appeal to their moral sense. Part of it has to do with their connection to a tradition, from grandmother to grandfather to father to mother, that has told them that it is often better to be right and moral as opposed to being simply successful in the cheapest sense.

And yet we all know that there must be some victories, some successes, if we're going to keep alive this tradition and the legacy of King, Belafonte, Paul Robeson and others. To convince them that what we're talking about is real, what do we say? This is what I struggle with every day. I think that rage is an understandable and appropriate response to an absurd situation, namely, black people facing white supremacist power and hegemony. The question becomes, "How do you channel the rage?" Because it's going to come out. It's going to be manifest in some way.

Too often rage is manifested in cowardly ways not guided by political consciousness, in self-destructive ways, like physical violence. Malcolm's great insight, among many, was that we need to have some moral channels through which this rage can flow. Malcolm X wasn't the only one who pointed this out; he learned it from Elijah Muhammad and Marcus Garvey and others. We also get it from other traditions, from King and A. Philip Randolph. This rage needs some targeting and direction. It has to reflect a broad moral vision, a sharp political analysis of wealth and power. Most important, it's got to be backed up with courage and follow-through.

When there's a paucity of courage and follow-through, you can have the broadest vision and the most sophisticated analysis in the world, and it's still sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. It's empty, if you don't have follow-through. Again this is where young people have so much to teach us. Because when they say, "Make it real," in part they're saying they want to see a sermon, not hear one. They want an example. They want to be able to perceive in palpable concrete form how these channels will allow them to vent their rage constructively and make sure that it will have an impact. What Malcolm, I think, was able to perceive is: Look, we're going to have to deal with black rage one way or another. Let's at least try to channel it.

The country is in deep trouble. We've forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. This is true at the personal level. But there's also a political version, which has to do with what you see when you get up in the morning and look in the mirror and ask yourself whether you are simply wasting your time on the planet or spending it in an enriching manner. We need a moral prophetic minority of all colors who muster the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, and the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, hoping to land on something. That's the history of black folks in the past and present, and of those of us who value history and struggle. Our courage rests on a deep democratic vision of a better world that lures us and a blood-drenched hope that sustains us.

This hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism adopts the role of the spectator who surveys the evidence in order to infer that things are going to get better. Yet we know that the evidence does not look good. The dominant tendencies of our day are unregulated global capitalism, racial balkanization, social breakdown, and individual depression. Hope enacts the stance of the participant who actively struggles against the evidence in order to change the deadly tides of wealth inequalities, group xenophobia, and personal despair. Only a new wave of vision, courage, and hope can keep us sane – and preserve the decency and dignity requisite to revitalize our organizational energy for the work to be done. To live is to wrestle with despair yet never to allow despair to have the last word.

Currently Professor of Religion and African-American studies at Princeton University, Cornel West (left) has never lost touch with his roots, but continues to draw, in his work, from such diverse traditions as the African American Baptist Church and Marxism. West is the author of several widely acclaimed books, including Race Matters (1993) and Democracy Matters, his most recent.

The New Nihilism

from WhatReallyHappened

The New Nihilism
by Mike Rivero

The twin events of World War I and the misnamed “Spanish Flu” (which actually appeared on a US military base in Kansas) shattered the ability of people to believe in tomorrow. The harsh lesson of both catastrophes was that it did not matter how hard you worked or what you did, your home could be destroyed in an instant, those you love die in your arms, and you yourself could be killed without a moment’s notice. Civilizations, once popularly viewed as enduring constructs, were proved fragile as entire nations were wiped from the face of the Earth, together with their cultural heritage. Society was now impermanent, and even the very young saw themselves as frail and mortal beings.

The result was a “live for the moment” mentality. Few wanted to work for tomorrow when tomorrow was so easily stolen. Money was to be spent at the moment, on the decorations of the “Gilded Age”, or for those who eschewed materialism, life was surviving for the moment and staying comfortable until whatever was going to happen, happened. It was the age of the Bohemian lifestyle, of frustrated artists in dusty attics in Paris, of what poet Gertrude Stein termed the “Lost Generation”.

Common to all these lives was Nihilism, which while popularly described as a “belief in nothing” is more accurately described as the absence of belief or faith. Whereas atheism was an absence of belief in gods, Nihilism was an absence of faith in anything, including society itself. The twin horrors of World War 1 and the Spanish Flu created a climate in which nothing seemed to be worthy of trust, either spiritually or governmentally. Those who had seen the horrors first hand could not bring themselves to plan or work for the future. “Future” was something that could not be relied upon.

A new nihilism is starting to appear in the United States. Like the Lost Generation, this malaise proceeds from multiple sources.

First and foremost is the specter of endless war, or worse, a new global war, started with the very weapons that ended the last global war. Having been raised with decades of dire warnings about how nuclear weapons can end the world amid cold-war exhortations to build personal fallout shelters, it should not come as a surprise that most people equate the current military buildup as a prelude to that much predicted end of the world. This is not metaphor; the kids with those brass keys in the silos can really do it. Who wants to work hard to build a future that might vanish in a flash of white light?

The concept of the end of the world carries with it religious overtones. Many religions have their own versions of the end times, and current world events have convinced many religious sects that those times are at hand. Parents are concerned that their children are starting to abandon their education in the belief that it will not be needed following the imminent rapture.

The economy is also playing a role in the new Nihilism. The stock market frauds of the last decade have wiped out entire lifetimes of work. The loss of high-paying jobs have forced people to accept employment far below their levels of education, causing them to wonder why they bothered. What can young people think about their own futures when they see adults with advanced degrees in menial positions?

Mainstream media has destroyed its own credibility over the last few years with overt government and corporate propaganda, leaving the general population unable to trust that they even know what is really going on in the world.
It is easy to count the costs of war and bad economic policy in terms of dollars, bodies, of flags won and flags lost. But the real cost of prolonged war and economic deprivation will be a new American “Lost Generation”, one so hopelessly devoid of trust in tomorrow that nothing can be done to save it.

We are headed in that direction now. Just look into the faces of our kids, and you can see it. When the sum of all the dead bodies, intentional impoverishment, lies and deceptions reaches a critical mass, people will stop supporting the nation, because they won’t trust it. They won’t support the economy, because they won’t trust that. Don’t look for a “rebound” because there won’t be one. Nobody will be willing to work towards a future they do not believe exists.

Of all the things Bush and the Neocons have stolen from us, the gravest loss is the loss of trust in a better tomorrow. Those who accepted in silence the war in Afghanistan did so in the trust that once Afghanistan was conquered, things would get better. Those who accepted in silence the war in Iraq did so in the trust that once Iraq was conquered, things would get better. With the obvious march towards war in Iran, the trust is gone. There will be wars from now on. None of us alive today will live to see a time of peace. That dawning awareness saps the national spirit and drives us towards a new nihilism, and a new “Lost Generation”.

Save Us From Your Followers v.2

The Evangelical Conscience Scandal Dissected
By Lee Salisbury

To the dismay of Christian propagandists, their morality proves no better than that of the non-religious.

In Christianity Today's Jan/Feb 05 Books and Culture, there is the following article "The Scandalous Evangelical Conscience" by Christian theologian Dr. Ronald Sider. He is one of the very few Christians who take seriously Jesus' advice to take the log out of your own eye.
Speaking of American evangelicals Sider states "Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most "Christians" regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but their actions demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.. The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. 'Gallup and Barna,' laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, "hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general."
"Divorce is more common among "born-again" Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their non-evangelical peers."
"To say there is a crisis of disobedience in the evangelical world today is to dangerously understate the problem. Born-again Christians justify and engage in sexual promiscuity (both premarital sex and adultery) at astonishing rates. Racism and perhaps physical abuse of wives seems to be worse in evangelical circles than elsewhere."
"One of the most common themes in the Scriptures is that God and his faithful people have a special concern for the poor. Why this blatant contradiction between belief and practice?"
Sider stated, "Unless we face these questions with ruthless honesty, we can never hope to correct the problem." For a moment, I was hopeful that at last we have a Christian with the intestinal fortitude required to deal with Christianity's immorality dilemma, i.e. "ruthless honesty".
But then Sider lapses into the guaranteed-to-fail, "God's gonna" regimen of Christianity's 1,900 year history, saying "no matter how bad the current mess, no matter how unfaithful the contemporary church, God stands ready to keep his promises. God is eager to do the same mighty deeds today that he has done in the past. All we must do is trust and obey. The Lord stands at the door and knocks. He longs to be truly invited in. We cannot invite only half of him. But if today we dare to embrace and surrender to the full biblical Christ, he will perform mighty deeds that transcend what we dare ask or imagine. He will turn our weeping into joy. He will end the scandal of blatant disobedience in the people who call on his name."
What happened to "ruthless honesty"? Instead, Sider reverts to religion's greatest appeal: we avoid our responsibility by putting the onus on God. Christianity creates the ultimate mental welfare program shifting our responsibility to someone else. No "ruthless honesty" demanding critical thinking and following the evidence or logical thought to its own conclusion is required. Instead, Christian theology starts from its predetermined conclusion and concocts a fabricated rationale for believing what one is supposed to believe. Whether it's Intelligent Design or posting the Ten commandments or the infallibility of scripture, the rationale is always made to fit the required conclusion.
This is the thought process of virtually every religion. In contrast, "ruthless honesty" demands an examination of both the motives and thought process. The evidence must be followed to its logical conclusion. No ground is given to immoral or unacceptable behavior.
Speaking as a former evangelical pastor, I see the problem of the evangelical conscience scandal as a paradox: the desire to know reality conflicted by the necessity to deny reality. Whether the topic is "Christian borrowing of pagan god stories", "the evidence for the historicity of Jesus", "interpreting prophesy", "evolution", "the rapture", or "biblical contradictions and errors", Christians are required to put round pegs into square holes. Pre-determined theological conclusions override contradictory considerations. On some level Christians should suspect there is a distortion, but are intimidated by fear and peer pressure resulting in denial and a skewed conscience. This thought pattern perpetuates and like a virus spreads in varying degrees to other areas of one's life oftentimes resulting in the "shocking" behaviors described.
Hence, to the dismay of Christian propagandists, their morality proves no better than that of the non-religious. Is there a way for all of us to prevent racism, injustice, divorce, and sexual immorality? The real good news is Yes! It is the hard work of applying critical thinking skills and "ruthless honesty" in every decision of life.