Nigerian elections of 20035
If Superpower signifies form-free power, sophisticated and "advanced," at the disposal of those who govern in the name of const.i.tutional democracy, it cannot mean, practically or theoretically, "government by the people." Not practically because the global "responsibilities" of Superpower are incompatible with partic.i.p.atory governance; not theoretically, because the powers that make Superpower formidable do not derive either from const.i.tutional authority or from "the people." Stated more strongly, the condition for the ascendance of Superpower is the weakening or irrelevance of democracy and const.i.tutionalism-except as mystifications enabling Superpower to fake a lineage that gives it legitimacy.
The crucial event exposing how deeply political deterioration had penetrated the system was the Florida recount in the presidential election of 2000. That event also provided a glimpse into the inverted totalitarian character of Superpower. Unlike the crude plebiscites of the n.a.z.is with their yes-or-no choice and atmosphere of latent violence, the recount, while it was accompanied by some intimidation of voters, relied mainly on tactics that made it difficult for the poor and African Americans to deal with the ballot or even to find their proper polling place. Once the polls closed, the slanted process began: actual counting and decisions about which ballots qualified were supervised by a loyal Republican official whose politico-mathematical correctness was later rewarded by elevation to a safe seat in the U.S. Congress. Then the high-powered legal talents and public relations experts took over, fought the case through the Florida Supreme Court, and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. There a pliant judiciary hurriedly produced a contorted justification for a manipulated result. What was striking was not so much the highly coordinated attack on the system of democratic elections by the Bush loyalists as the feebleness of opposition.6 A healthy democracy would have ignited the opposition party in Congress to denounce the coup and contest its legitimacy for as long as necessary. Throughout the nation there should have been ma.s.sive protests, even a general strike and acts of civil disobedience, at the cynical subversion of elections, the one nonnegotiable supposition of a democracy. Instead, an illegitimate president took office amidst scarcely a ripple of discontent.7 The masters of the ceremony and the media ensured that the inauguration was made to seem like all previous ones: authority was transferred, continuity preserved, as the former president, whom for all practical political purposes the Republicans had earlier destroyed, looked on: const.i.tutional democracy is dead; long live the president.
The Florida events reveal concisely how inverted totalitarianism operates and, without ceasing to be totalitarian, differs from cla.s.sic totalitarianism. The uniquely inverted character of the totalitarian coup was that, while tacit racism and cla.s.s discrimination informed the proceedings, at no point was there a latent threat of violence; nor did the media respond with a chorus of support for the result. Instead they made a circus of the events-one act after another-and once the Supreme Court had spoken, they dropped the series, leaving the public with an impression that a hiccup had occurred, and with the unintentionally sardonic rea.s.surance that "continuity" remained unbroken. In contrast to the postmortem on the Watergate scandal, a.s.surance that "the system had worked," such a verdict after Florida would be an expression of black (sic) humor.
In the saga of the Florida recount was a clear demonstration of managed democracy. Earlier I referred to Superpower as "formless." That requires amending: Florida demonstrated that Superpower indeed has a form, and, moreover, revealed its lineaments. Unlike all traditional conceptions of a const.i.tutional form, where the political character was primary and defining, Superpower represents a substantive transformation. A corporate or economic model of governance has been superimposed upon a political form whose const.i.tution consisted partly of republican, antipopulist elements and partly of democratic elements. The Florida recount was as much an example of a corporate takeover as of a coup d"etat. In the new model the presidency bears little resemblance to the original conception of a national leader and chief executive; it owes even less to the later ideal of the president as "the tribune of the people." Instead the office is modeled after the corporate CEO. The president is neither above politics nor is he a popular tribune, although if circ.u.mstance requires, he may momentarily a.s.sume those stances. Rather his role is, in part, to protect and advance the economic and ideological interests that form the dynamic of Superpower. (These will be discussed in chapter 7.) But the president is also what might be called a cinemythological figure, the embodiment of a popular myth constructed of Hollywood movies: the genial patriarch (Reagan) or the straight-shooting defender of order (George II).8 Underneath the myths the president, like the CEO, is the dominant power in the organization. In contrast, Congress, which was once thought to be the predominant branch of government because it supposedly stood "closer to the people," has been demoted to a position of power comparable to that of a corporate board. The latter tend to be creatures of the CEO rather than the independent supervisory power to which the CEO is theoretically responsible. Like a board, Congress may occasionally display independence, especially when it and the president represent opposing parties. But the main point is that Congress has lost its close connection with the citizenry. Poll after poll has shown that, of all national political inst.i.tutions, it ranks lowest in terms of public confidence. Finally, in the image of shareholders, who wield small power over their CEOs or boards and are stirred to protest only when dividends disappoint, so the citizenry has embraced a diminished role. Like shareholders they can vote out their own CEO, the president, or their board of directors, Congress, but mostly they want to be a.s.sured that the CEO-president is "heading the country in the right direction."
III.
The virtual unanimity of Congress and the initial broad public support for the second Gulf War are a measure of how recent is the decay of our representative inst.i.tutions and of the political consciousness of the citizenry. We have forgotten the great divisions over the first Gulf War (1991) when a conservative such as Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, long a supporter of the armed forces, opposed it. A poll of June 1991 found that 46 percent of Americans would approve of war if Iraq did not withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, while 47 percent thought that the United States should wait longer for sanctions and other forms of pressure to work.9 Even more striking was the contrast between, on the one hand, the pa.s.sivity of Congress and of the Democratic "opposition" party in the weeks preceding the buildup and directly following the invasion of Iraq (April 2003) and, on the other, the determined opposition during the 1960s and 1970s to the Vietnam War and the invasion of Cambodia. In that earlier crisis Congress made strenuous efforts to regain some of the ground it had lost by supinely condoning an undeclared war. It proceeded to condemn the invasion of Cambodia by cutting off funds for the bombing. Although Nixon"s subsequent veto of the bill was sustained, Congress continued to press the matter until the president agreed to end the bombing by a specific date and to consult with Congress should further action be necessary. Throughout 1973 members of Congress continued to pet.i.tion the courts in an effort to halt the bombing. Finally, late in 1973 Congress overrode a presidential veto and enacted the War Powers Resolution, which rea.s.serted the role of Congress in the decision to go to war.10 While Congress was pressing its case for regaining its lost const.i.tutional authority over war making, its efforts were supported by continuing demonstrations across the nation, especially on college campuses, and by a pa.s.sionate national debate over the war. Not only did democracy come to life in the decade of the sixties and early seventies, but the parallel resistance by Congress underscored the true meaning of "const.i.tutional democracy." Concurrent with popular debate all across the nation, much of it improvised, there was the formal inst.i.tutional opposition by Congress. The union of two powers, one populist and uninst.i.tutionalized, the other representative and inst.i.tutional: const.i.tutional democracy.
Small wonder that ever since those days conservatives and hawks have waged their own relentless "culture war" against the sixties. The effort to overcome "the Vietnam syndrome" involved more than a wish to exorcise the shame of a military defeat; it aimed to discredit the democratic and const.i.tutional impulses of that era as well, an aim consistent with totalitarianism, inverted or not.11 As the legatee of that campaign George II remarked, "Sometimes I listen to the American people and sometimes I don"t." A democracy evoked at the whim of its highest elected official cannot count for much.
That the Congress and administration ignored the ma.s.sive protests throughout the nation did not invalidate the fact that a rump democracy persisted, even flourished, "outside" the Washington system-in "the streets" and the more than one hundred city councils throughout the nation that pa.s.sed resolutions opposing the invasion of Iraq.
The Iraq war of 2003 is symptomatic rather than paradigmatic. The seriousness of the situation goes beyond the slowly growing opposition to the war. One cannot point to any national inst.i.tution(s) that can accurately be described as democratic: surely not in the highly managed, money-saturated elections, the lobby-infested Congress, the imperial presidency, the cla.s.s-biased judicial and penal system, or, least of all, the media.
IV.
To identify the antecedents of inverted totalitarianism, we must bear in mind that throughout much of the past century the American political system was repeatedly subjected to the strains and pressures of war. During the twentieth century war became normalized.
To reiterate, the century saw major conventional wars: the two world wars, Korea, and Vietnam. And other conflicts abounded: the small war against Filipinos fighting for their independence (1911); the war against Mexican revolutionaries (191314); the armed occupation of Siberia (191821), which tacitly was a war against the Bolshevik Revolution; invasions of the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama; the Gulf War of 1991; the war against terrorism declared in 2001; and the war against Iraq (2003). And, of course, the invention of a "cold war."
Wars, especially undeclared ones, invariably boost the powers and status of the president as commander-in-chief. Just as surely war presses Congress and the courts to "defer" to the wishes and judgments of the chief executive. A president, however f.e.c.kless or unimposing, is transformed, rendered larger than life. He becomes the supreme commander, the unchallengeable leader and the nation incarnate.
The Second World War marked a particularly notable moment in the evolution of expanding American power. The Roosevelt administration measured its wartime powers against the challenge posed by a totalitarian system that made no secret of its aim to control as much of the globe as possible.12 The defeat of totalitarianism demanded the creation of a "home front" and "total mobilization." It was necessary, so the justification ran, "to fight fire with fire." "Universal" (i.e., male) military conscription was inst.i.tuted; the economy was controlled by government "planning" directed toward prescribed production goals, prohibited from producing most consumer goods, and subjected to central allocation of vital materials. The labor force, for all practical purposes, was conscripted: its mobility was restricted, wages and prices were fixed, while collective bargaining was put on hold. Food and fuel were rationed, censorship was introduced, and the government undertook to wage a propaganda war, enlisting radio, newspapers, and the movie industry in the single purpose of winning the war. There was an all-enveloping atmosphere of apprehension: uniformed soldiers everywhere, warnings about spies, news censorship, propaganda films, heroic war movies, patriotic music, casualty figures. As a leading const.i.tutional scholar warned shortly after the end of World War II, "The effects of the impact of total war on the Const.i.tution will . . . become embedded in the peacetime Const.i.tution."13 Strikingly, in the post-1945 wars, whether hot or cold, warfare became normal, incorporated into ordinary life without transforming it. No attempt was made to reintroduce the kinds of controls and mobilization that had temporarily brought the system closer to a total system. Costly long wars as in Korea (195154), Vietnam (196173), the shorter first Gulf War (1991), and now Iraq have been prosecuted without imposing economic hardships, only some inconveniences, never U.S. civilian casualties.14 Korea and Vietnam were not even "declared wars" as the Const.i.tution required. After 1945 wars acquired a certain abstract quality. They were, in a popular phrase, "distant wars" that no longer needed to enlist a "home front." Hostilities lasting more than four decades and, though more than once edging toward nuclear catastrophe, were nonetheless characterized as a "Cold War."
The contrast with n.a.z.i Germany could not be sharper. Where the n.a.z.is kept the German population in an agitated state of continuous mobilization and made no secret of their preparation for war, U.S. leaders promoted a paradox in which the government was fighting a war while the citizenry remained demobilized: no conscription, no economic controls, no rationing. It might seem at first that the horrific events of 9/11 would revive the idea of a "home front," but instead of actively engaging the citizenry, the administration set about to manage it. Unlike the n.a.z.is, who may accurately be described as "control freaks" obsessed by the need to rule everything, American rulers prefer to manage the population as would a corporate CEO, manipulatively, alternately soothing and dismissive, relying on the powerful resources of ma.s.s communication and the techniques of the advertising and public opinion industries. In the process the arts of "coercion" are refined. Physical threat remains but the main technique of control is to encourage a collective sense of dependence. The citizenry is kept at a distance, disengaged spectators watching events in the formats determined by an increasingly "embedded" media whose function is to render warfare "virtual," sanitized, yet fascinating.15 To satisfy viewers with an urge for vicarious retaliation, for blood and gore, a parallel universe of action movies, computer war games, and television, saturated with images of violence and triumphalism, are but a click away.
The growth of Superpower and the corresponding decline of democracy can be measured by the concentration of media ownership and its accompanying discipline over content. The relationship between democratic decline and the media ownership is ill.u.s.trated in the contrast between the attention paid by Washington and the national media to the sixties" protest movements against the Vietnam War and, four decades later, the virtual blackout of the protests against the invasion of Iraq.16 In the sixties, thanks to the antiwar movements and the publicity given to them by national and local television and radio, the nation truly agonized over that preemptive war and tried to work through it. The true significance of the continuing conservative resentment against the sixties, the real "Vietnam syndrome," appears in the growing intolerance toward opposition and especially toward the disorderliness that has always been the hallmark of a vibrant democracy.
In the fall of 2003 Congress pa.s.sed an $87 billion appropriation for Iraqi reconstruction that also contained $9 million for the Miami police force to enable it to suppress the expected popular opposition to a meeting in Miami on trade relations with Latin America. The media dutifully reported the $87 billion and almost universally ignored the funding of the Miami police, just as they ignored the force"s brutal treatment of dissent. The current censorship of popular protest against Superpower and empire serves to isolate democratic resistance, to insulate society from hearing dissonant voices, and to hurry the process of depoliticization.
V.
Thus the Hobbesian fear factor is kept alive and well. Hobbesian fear, unlike n.a.z.i terror, afflicts a society in which the preeminence of safety and security ("law and order") has been drummed into the popular consciousness over the course of many political campaigns and television and movie seasons. Nowhere is the manipulation of fear better ill.u.s.trated than by the numerous invasions of privacy authorized under the Patriot Act and encroachments upon const.i.tutional guarantees, particularly those pertaining to right to counsel, confidentiality of communications between lawyers and their clients, and the resort to secret tribunals.17 Since the vast majority of the cases involve males of Middle Eastern origins, the broader public is rea.s.sured and simultaneously given an object lesson. Equally important is the reinforcement of the fear factor by the economic recession that began in 2001 and left more than a million workers unemployed while rendering many more insecure, a condition exacerbated by the more than one million jobs lost to the movement of American manufacturing abroad.
Doubtless the second Bush administration did not intentionally cause the economic downturn, but what was most striking was its response. The deep economic depression of the late 1920s had been a princ.i.p.al cause in attracting German voters to the n.a.z.i Party then in opposition.18 By mobilizing the German economy for war the n.a.z.is succeeded in easing unemployment. Unlike the n.a.z.is the administration has done little to allay the recession"s effects and much that exploits the accompanying insecurities. Far from calling for "equal sacrifice" from the citizenry, as would be the case in a genuinely democratic society involved in a war, it has openly practiced a politics of inequality that feeds on the fears of the most insecure members of society. For example, by pushing through an enormous tax rebate that blatantly favored the wealthy, it simultaneously a.s.sured that no funds would be available to subsidize programs-such as the democratization of health care, increased unemployment benefits, and protections for pension funds-that might have eased the impact of recession.19 Instead, at regular intervals, the administration raised the specter of an imminent bankruptcy of Social Security and vigorously campaigned for an alternative. It envisaged a nation of citizen-investors who would be encouraged to convert their accrued benefits into investment accounts. These would be available for speculation in the stock market and would, in effect, lock social security into the ups and downs of Wall Street-in effect an insecurity system and not likely to reduce the anxiety levels that had been the original target of the Social Security Act of 1935.
A similar strategy has been at work regarding health care. After first threatening to reduce Medicare benefits and increase the premiums for recipients, the administration succeeded in pa.s.sing a reform of Medicare that, while providing some modest benefits, did little to control the obscene prices of drugs. Meanwhile in a concerted strategy businesses and corporations began to insist that workers contribute a higher percentage to monthly premiums for private health plans, and, in some cases, to threaten the withdrawal of business contributions altogether. All of this while wages remained mostly stagnant. In making a political spectacle of rising health care costs with no resolution in sight, the administration would seem to have found it politically more advantageous to leave the issue in doubt and the public uncertain and demoralized.
VI.
What can one make of this strange situation? The president a.s.sumes an "above politics" pose of a "patriot king" grimly warning the nation that it is locked in a deathly struggle with terrorists. Meanwhile his administration is engrossed in an intensely partisan politics promoting corporate interests and polarizing cultural and religious issues that divert attention. When society is in a state of war, patriotism dictates that divisive economic and cultural issues should be laid aside. In wartime one might reasonably expect that the economy, especially large corporate operations, would be subject to regulation in the interests of sharing the burdens of war. In times of national danger, when the whole society is threatened, the common good appears as obvious and unambiguous. Everyone is expected to make sacrifices, and a kind of rough egalitarianism prevails. But if war is so distant as to seem disconnected from everyday life, if no conscription is introduced, no shortages perceived, if war and the economy appear to be on separate tracks, there is not only no need to rally the citizenry, but it is politically advantageous not to. The common good seems an abstraction, private interests the reality. Equally paradoxical, it is a truism that during wartime the natural expectation is that governmental powers will be expanded. Yet, save for the Patriot Act and the establishment of the hopelessly c.u.mbersome Homeland Security Department, the political rhetoric of the Republicans and of many Democrats continues to repeat the prewar refrain about the need to reduce the size of government, of taxes, and of public spending-in short, all of the themes intended to cater to the citizens" suspicions of their government, all of those themes subversive of a close bond between government and citizenry that one might expect to be encouraged during a "real" war.
Thus a schizoid condition: a war without mobilization, a war where the citizenry is a potential target but not a partic.i.p.ant. It is strangely reproduced in domestic political matters. While the war on terrorism induces feelings of helplessness and a natural tendency to look toward the government, to trust it, the domestic message of distrust of government produces alienation from government. The people are not transformed into a manipulable ma.s.s shouting "Sieg Heil." Instead they are discouraged, inclined to abdicate a political role, yet patriotically trusting of their "wartime" leaders. The domestic message says that the citizenry should distrust its own elected government, thereby denying themselves the very instrument that democracy is supposed to make available to them. A democracy that is persuaded to distrust itself, that applauds the rhetoric of "get government off your backs," "it"s your money being wasted," and "you should decide how to spend it," renounces the means of its own efficacy in favor of a laissez-faire politics, an antiegalitarian politics, where, as in the market, the stronger powers prevail. What is revealed or, rather, confirmed is that the consummated union of corporate power and governmental power heralds the American version of a total system.
What kind of political contests would be characteristic of such a situation and contribute to the regime of Superpower? At the present time most a.n.a.lysts are agreed that some of the major features of contemporary politics and the overall situation are indicative of "deadlock." The nation is said to be almost equally divided in its party loyalties. Accordingly electoral campaigns are primarily attentive to a relatively small number of "undecided voters." At the same time there is a large number of "safe seats" for each party, with the result that parties concentrate more upon primaries than upon the final election and successful candidates tend to become long-term inc.u.mbents.
The obvious question is this: what interests would thrive upon a politics of small margins? Clearly, powerful interests that can fund candidates and parties so that when the deadlocked legislatures convene, these interests are positioned to deploy a large contingent of lobbyists to persuade a few legislators from one party to vote with their opponents. This becomes all the more feasible and cost-effective when one party, the Republicans, is openly "pro-business," and a substantial number of Democrats elected to Congress are virtually indistinguishable from Republicans, especially on economic issues. Deadlocked legislatures, prevented from pa.s.sing legislation opposed by powerful corporate interests, are especially p.r.o.ne to attaching amendments or "earmarks" favoring a particular and usually powerful interest. Conversely, it is especially difficult to muster majorities in favor of broad social programs, such as health care, improved working conditions, and education, when organized corporate interests can easily block those efforts.
A closely divided electorate and a Congress with narrow majorities are also conducive to fanning cultural wars. The point about disputes on such topics as the value of s.e.xual abstinence, the role of religious charities in state-funded activities, the question of gay marriage, and the like, is that they are not framed to be resolved. Their political function is to divide the citizenry while obscuring cla.s.s differences and diverting the voters" attention from the social and economic concerns of the general populace. Cultural wars might seem an indication of strong political involvements. Actually they are a subst.i.tute. The notoriety they receive from the media and from politicians eager to take firm stands on nonsubstantive issues serves to distract attention and contribute to a cant politics of the inconsequential.
When George II declared "war on terrorism," he formalized the politics of the inconsequential. It is common knowledge that, before 9/11, his administration entered office with no serious program for the benefit of the general citizenry. Its "popular" agenda was simple and largely negative: to promote government deregulation, dismantle environmental safeguards, pa.s.s tax legislation in favor of the wealthier cla.s.ses, and reduce social programs. Its positive agenda took advantage of the politics of gridlock and the role of corporate power to promote the economic well-being of corporate sponsors in oil, energy, and pharmaceutical drugs.
Again the inversion is striking: the n.a.z.i Party had a strong antipathy toward big business and, early on, professed a "socialist" tendency that was later reflected in several programs aimed at eliminating unemployment and introducing social services. Indeed, a socialist or, better, a collectivist element figured as well in the Soviet Union and even in Mussolini"s Italy. Collectivism might be defined as a conception of society as a compact, solidaristic whole in which the Volk or "workers" are exalted-while being reshaped into a manageable ma.s.s that loves its solidarity and anonymity. Inverted totalitarianism, in contrast, appears as anticollectivist: it idealizes individualism and adulates celebrities. And yet both constructs of the "outstanding," of those who "stand out," serve to paper over the fact that instead of a sovereign citizen-body there is only a "lonely crowd." The challenge is to give the lonely crowd a sense of belonging, of selfless anonymity, of solidarity with a n.o.ble cause. The solution: a mix of patriotism and nationalism, and unthinking loyalty to the troops. That solution is the populist counterpart to the role played by elites in bridging the two const.i.tutions. While corporate power and its ethos are incorporated into the structure of the state,20 the patriotism, nationalism, and unblinking loyalty of the citizenry connect the const.i.tution for preservation to the const.i.tution for increase. That role becomes all the more important as it becomes clearer that globalizing, multinational capitalism has no political loyalties as such. It loves offsh.o.r.e bank accounts as much as it loves producing cars in China, where it can pay workers a monthly wage of sixty dollars.21 Through the convergence of these developments Americans are being successfully "kneaded" into a citizenry less suited to democratic demands and increasingly more accepting and supportive of the dominant forms of power, not out of n.a.z.i enthusiasm, but from fear and misguided patriotism.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
The Dynamics of the Archaic.
I.
Religiosity distinguishes America from most other
Western societies. Americans are also overwhelmingly
Christian, which distinguishes them from many non-Western
peoples. Their religiosity leads Americans to see the world
in terms of good and evil to a much greater extent than most other peoples.
-Samuel Huntington.
We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible.
G.o.d battles with people who oppose him, who fight
against him and his followers.
-Charles Stanley, pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist a.s.sociation.
Not long ago, as Americans were poised to welcome the third millennium, there was much speculation about future discoveries, inventions, and economic progress, and about the rewards due a society devoted to science, technology, and capitalism. The antic.i.p.ation reflected the kind of national ident.i.ty to which the society was seemingly dedicated: to forms of knowledge, their organization, their application, and supporting culture that were worldly, materialistic, ever-changing, and firmly fixed upon the here and now.
However, in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential campaign and of the memorializing of 9/11, Americans were confronted with a very different notion of who they are as a nation. The experience might be described as another Great Awakening. Some awoke, as it were, to be told that instead of being identified primarily by their attachment to science, invention, and the marketplace, they were distinguished as well by their dedication to spiritual values and to different and higher powers. For others it confirmed what they had suspected. The United States ranks highest among all industrialized nations in the number of citizens who declare that they "believe in G.o.d." Thirty-five percent of Americans identify themselves as "born-again Christians." And 75 percent of Americans who attend church regularly are Republicans. While 83 percent of Americans believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus, only 28 percent admit to a belief in evolution.3 These statistics take on added significance in light of the remarkable commingling of politics and religion that has occurred in recent years and gives every indication of increasing in the future. In that mixture it is not religion generally but primarily fundamentalist and evangelical religion whose energetic political activism is helping to shape the course of some public policies (e.g., antiabortion, school vouchers, and welfare programs) and playing a pivotal part in elections. Evangelical Protestants are in the vanguard of these developments, both as foot soldiers for the Republican Party and as influential players in Beltway politics.4 Contrary to a common a.s.sumption-that an "outdated" belief is similar to an old-model refrigerator or auto, that its antique status connotes inefficiency, feebleness, lack of power-the exact opposite is true of religious fundamentalists. Their faith in the Bible as the literal word of G.o.d converts zeal into real political energy.
At first glance, that fundamentalists and evangelicals have been embraced by the Republican political establishment seems incongruous with the imperial, corporate, and high-tech strut of Superpower. When contrasted with the outlook of those who looked forward to a new millennium defined by science, technology, and capitalism-and their accompanying conceptions of what counts for truth, how it is to be searched for and subsidized-the beliefs of the biblically inspired millennialists appear as prescientific relics from a distant past, their millennial hopes ant.i.thetical to the expectations of those who welcomed the third millennium for its this-worldly promise of high-tech marvels.
In their fundamentalist version, evangelicals believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and the unchanging nature of its truths, particularly those in the book of Revelation. They challenge the hegemony of the natural sciences, preferring the Bible"s version of Creation over the findings of biologists, geologists, and astronomers. Unlike the corporate dynamists who may be said to produce and invest in the means of power, the evangelicals invest power itself, sanctify it, and guide its use. "G.o.d," Rev. Jerry Falwell declared in 2004, "is pro-war."5 Yet they, like the dynamists, contribute a future-oriented element to the politics of Superpower. Their energies are fired by their belief in the imminence-how imminent is a matter of intramural dispute-of the Apocalypse or "rapture" of the Last Days when the Lord will unleash death and destruction, the world will go up in flames, the forces of evil will be vanquished and the thousand-year reign of Christ inaugurated.6 Strangely the apocalypse of the Last Days has a counterpart in the apocalypse of the secular dynamists. In a revelatory moment, while observing the first spectacular display of his handiwork, the father (read: patriarch) of the atomic bomb was moved to cite a religious text: "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."7 What is most striking about these particular forms of spirituality and piety is the extent to which they are represented in high politics. As Americans were continually reminded, President Bush was a "born-again" believer whose speeches were notable for their biblical allusions; who often struck prophetic poses and a.s.sumed the role of divine instrument for combating and overcoming evil. Frequent prayer meetings took place in the White House and the Congress. Even the military was affected; it was only in the wake of special intervention by high-ranking generals and a public protest by a former Jewish cadet that proselytizing activities encouraged at the Air Force Academy were halted.
Many of the main elements in the dynamic of Superpower-corporate capital, Christian evangelism, elitism, American nationalism and exceptionalism-share a triumphalist faith. The distinctive element contributed by religious fundamentalism is a dynamic of hope, nourished on an absolute promise of a climactic, triumphant moment that, despite delays, satanic mischief, and false prophets, will be realized.8 Strong traces of its influence are evident in the theological imagery adopted by politicians, from Reagan"s depiction of the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union to George II"s jeremiad: "We will never forget the servants of evil who plotted the attacks [of 9/11], and we will never forget those who rejoiced at our grief."9 Millennial hopes mix with other elements in the totalitarian dynamic to feed an impulse toward limitlessness. Culturally Americans are continuously exposed to exaggerated claims and encouraged by advertising, TV, movies, and popular music to entertain extravagant expectations about their future.
II.
And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?
-From Ben Franklin as reproduced in Vice President Cheney"s Christmas card.
Evangelicalism is one element in a broader ideological matrix, "archaism," that includes political and economic variants of fundamentalism. My aim is to show archaism"s unexpected affinities with the "dynamism" of science, technology, and corporate capitalism. The archaist, whether political or religious, has a fondness for singling out privileged moments in the past when a transcendent truth was revealed, typically through an inspired leader, a Jesus, a Moses, or a Founding Father. The odd couple of Superpower is an alliance that finds reactionary, backward-looking archaic forces (economic, religious, and political) allied with forward-looking forces of radical change (corporate leaders, technological innovators, scientists) whose efforts contribute to steadily distancing contemporary society from its past. It is as though the archaist believes that by going forward, by allying with dynamic powers, he enables an ever-receding past somehow to bring the revelation closer.
The American zest for change coexists with fervent political and religious convictions that bind the ident.i.ty of the believers to two "fundamentals," the texts of the Const.i.tution and the Bible and their status as unchanging and universal truths. Recently an Alabama judge tried to implement that belief by having a huge Ten Commandments monument placed within his courthouse. Although he failed, the significance of the incident went beyond the challenge to the alleged "wall" separating church and state, amounting to an a.s.sertion of the supremacy of the "laws of G.o.d."
When we say that some belief or object is archaic, we are distinguishing it from a "relic" or artifact from the past that may be preserved but is no longer in common use. An archaic belief is one that flourished in the past and carries identifiable marks of that past, but unlike a relic, it is operative, employed rather than simply preserved. Like a relic, an archaism requires care, preservation, if it is not to decay. Unlike scientific truths, which are c.u.mulative and frequently superseded, archaisms are fixed, impervious to evidence. What is the doctrine of "the framers" original intent" and "const.i.tutional originalism" but a variant of creationism and the denial of historical evolution?
Curiously, the intellectual G.o.dfather of many of the neocons, Leo Strauss, was a rigid archaist. His "bibles" were Plato, Aristotle, and (discreetly) Nietzsche. He was deeply hostile toward the social sciences and dismissed virtually all of the major figures in twentieth-century philosophy.11 As a system of belief archaism appears to the nonbeliever as anachronistic, as out of synch with the culture seemingly dominated by the dynamists. The latter display or embrace a forward, futurist thrust that celebrates change and trumpets "progress." It is not difficult to grasp the power that the dynamists create: we see the changes they have brought to society, how they have succeeded in converting nature into products, and how their ingenuity has given the military destructive, shock-and-awe capabilities-a revelation of technological prowess.
As we noted previously, the religious archaists, while they look to truths established in the past, have a distinctive forward thrust of their own. Although that dynamic draws its energies from expectations about the Last Days, it has also adapted some of the practices of contemporary business organizations, including their techniques of advertising. The worldly power of the religious archaists depends upon organizing (marketing) a more or less coherent system of beliefs (a religious form of capital), attracting adherents (customers), and making them into converts (consumers) who will behave in accordance with the precepts they have been taught.
As with the history of democracy evangelicalism began as a protest against the domination of congregations by educated elites and as a demand for evangelists who "came from the people."12 Instead a managerial elite has emerged within a religion once famous for its populism. Thus the evangelicals have followed a path strikingly similar to that of the democratic citizenry. The prominence of these techniques of organization suggests that the recent history of evangelicals-and in this respect they are not unique among religious groups-bears a strong resemblance to the relatively recent displacement of the democratic citizenry: pastoral elites as managers; political elites as pastors. The similarity or interchangeability of secular and evangelical elites was conspicuously confirmed in the so-called Abramoff scandal. It was revealed that one evangelical leader prominent in Republican politics, Ralph Reed, and one Republican politician, Tom DeLay, who boasted of "born-again" credentials, were deeply implicated in a scheme for bilking Indian tribes of several million dollars-and updating Wounded Knee.
The archaist is convinced that his core beliefs are superior to rival beliefs and are true because unchanging. The archaist is also a proselytizer who promises that if unbelievers will adopt the true faith, they, too, can be "born again," transformed. Archaic truths, then, are powerful because they are transforming truths. They save the true believer not only from error but from the consequences of errors that can corrupt existence and, ultimately, decide the fate of one"s soul. And, by extension, they can save a nation. Like corporate capital and the marketplace they have an element of ruthlessness, a hardening in the face of death and destruction.
Evangelicals want to change or, in their view, restore the national ident.i.ty. Along with other religious groups, they have actively pushed to dismantle the so-called wall separating church and state. They want prayer and other religious activities to be a part of public education-the latter arguably the heart of democracy; they want public funds for the charitable activities of religious groups and for the support of religious schools; they want the Bible"s account of "creation," or a covert version of it, taught in science courses; and they want public acknowledgment and recognition of the "fact" that, from its beginnings, America was understood by its Founding Patriarchs to be a "Christian nation."
What is being promoted, although not openly acknowledged, is the establishment of a "civil religion."13 The idea of a civil religion is an old one that predates Christianity. Originally it was based on political rather than religious considerations and fostered by ruling groups. It was a.s.sumed that a political society needed cohesion in order to overcome or reduce the centrifugal pulls of cla.s.s, clan, and the secret "mystery religions" that flourished in antiquity. One solution was to have its citizens embrace, or be indoctrinated into, a common set of beliefs, rituals, and values concerning such matters as the meaning of life and death, the sacred character of society and its governance, and the nature of the higher powers or deities who must be placated and worshiped if the society was to endure, flourish, and triumph over its enemies. One model, that of ancient Israel, was revered during the political and religious struggles of seventeenth-century England and transported to the colonies by the Pilgrim Fathers. It inspired enthusiasm for creating a "holy commonwealth" in the "New World" that G.o.d had reserved for the new Israelites. In the pre-Christian system of religion and politics, religion was integrated into the political order and subordinated to it; by contrast the religious archaist is intent on establishing religion as const.i.tutive of the nation"s political ident.i.ty and, potentially, as regulative principles for the whole society. It is a totalizing vision.
III.
Another version of archaism is political and equally fundamentalist. In the narrative of the political archaist the United States was blessed with a once-and-for-all-time, fixed ideal form, an original Const.i.tution of government created by the Founding Fathers in 1787. In that view, the original Const.i.tution is the political counterpart to the Bible, the fundamental text, inerrant, unchanging, to be applied-not "interpreted" by "activist judges." As the political fundamentalists see it, except for the Edenic era of Ronald Reagan, the form of government decreed by the Const.i.tution has been under siege by "the liberal media" and liberal administrations abetted by their minions in Congress and by judges who "legislate" instead of "following the letter" of const.i.tutional scripture. The nation is perceived as a wayward sinner who frequently wanders from the straight and narrow and needs to be sobered, returned to its sacred text, its Word. The vision of an idealized original const.i.tution rarely, if ever, includes the kind of partic.i.p.atory democracy that Tocqueville celebrated. Instead archaism tends to support republicanism rather than democracy, that is, a system in which the responsibility for saving the Many devolves upon a selfless elite, an elect although not necessarily elected.14 This fixation upon a timeless and ideal political form and the persistent resurfacing of that notion during controversies over the powers of the national government are all the more remarkable in a society that otherwise enthusiastically embraces change and adores novelty in virtually all of its guises, including ones that mock deeply held convictions, such as the sanct.i.ty of human life and traditional conceptions of marriage and s.e.xuality. Americans have a famously voracious appet.i.te for new technological advances, even knowing that they bring radical changes ranging from where we live, how we love, fornicate, procreate, and medicate to how we terminate. During his presidency Bill Clinton informed his countrymen and -women that they could expect to change jobs about eleven times in the course of their lives. Cities and states compete ferociously to attract new industries by offering subsidies and tax abatements despite the almost certain knowledge that success will inevitably destroy established patterns of life and bring new ones with no a.s.surance that the subsidized industry will not yank up stakes before long and accept a more attractive offer elsewhere. Similarly very few Americans live where they were born or raised. Thus a continuous internal migration, a change of place, of vocation, of partners, of cultures and economies that is intensified by immigration from abroad bringing different cultures and political traditions.
Perhaps change can also serve to confirm the appeal of the unchanging; perhaps a hunger for that which is steadfast and true may be a protest against a condition where "Whirl is King." The Question: is the archaic ultimately ant.i.thetical to a power-and-profit regime and its technology of continuous innovation; or is the archaists" dedication to the timeless implicitly exploiting the intolerableness of existence under the reigning mania for the new; and is its political support for Superpower a tactic, a way of hurrying society toward the apocalypse?15
IV.
Surprisingly, archaism resurfaces where we might least expect to see it, in the economic theory of the free market. The proponents of that theory have been prominent in the councils of Republican administrations ever since the Reagan presidency. They have contributed importantly to the general distrust of governmental "intervention" in the economy and hostility to governmental social programs. Their intellectual genealogy can be traced directly to a particular text, Adam Smith"s Wealth of Nations, which appeared in 1776 at the outbreak of the American Revolution-a sign not to be lightly dismissed as a mere coincidence. It was written to oppose "mercantilist theories" that a.s.signed to the state an active role in regulating and promoting economic activity. Smith offered a sharply opposed vision of the economy as radically decentralized, largely unregulated, consisting of small-scale producers-in short, virtually autonomous (laissez-faire). In place of an explanation (the economy was supervised by the state for the common good), Smith offered a miracle. The decisions of countless individual actors, each acting for his own self-interest, would nonetheless produce the well-being of the society, a state of affairs that the actors had not intended.
How to explain that remarkable result, an outcome unrelated to the actors" intentions? How is it possible to have a "natural harmony" of selfish interests? Smith"s answer: an "invisible hand" guided the individual selfish actor "to promote an end which was no part of his intention." "It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of society which [the individual] has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to society."16 In spite of its worldly concerns, Smith"s economy required a theological sleight of hand-whose but the sure hand of an all-seeing G.o.d?-an antic.i.p.ation of "intelligent design" for a domain that moderns typically consider to be irredeemably secular.
Needless to add, Smith did not antic.i.p.ate the modern globalizing corporation, although he was an opponent of monopolies. What matters today is that his version of an economy is actively promoted as an ideal at a time when the economy is dominated by economic organizations whose scale and power exceed anything Smith might have imagined. Today when his teaching is invoked to reduce state power and to free entrepreneurial energies, that teaching acquires a mythical quality, another nostalgic yearning, this time for a natural economic order in which intense compet.i.tion is mere surface to a harmonious order in the interests of all. Meanwhile the actual hand of government distributes corporate subsidies, tax breaks, and the like.
The ideological resources of Superpower represent a curious combination of, on the one hand, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, with its gospel of rationalism, science, written const.i.tutions, and a "free economy"-what we might call an ideal of the methodical pursuit of power controlled by rational self-interested decision making; and, on the other, the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century religious Reformation, with its emphasis upon scriptural truth (sola scriptura), enthusiastic belief (sola fide, faith alone), evangelizing energy, and millennial hopes about a final showdown between good and evil-what we might call a dynamic of transcendent expectancy.17 The reluctance to admit that profound changes have taken place in our economic and political inst.i.tutions points to the curious coexistence of forward-looking and regressive elements in the makeup of "the greatest power in history." The same society that enthuses over economic, technological, and scientific advances, and devours novelty in its popular culture and consumer goods, also includes an extraordinary number of citizens who, when it comes to politics and religion, pa.s.sionately reject the idea that experiment or novelty is welcome.
Why should that combination be explosive? or, to risk a bad pun, possess an elective affinity-at least among Republicans? Does the fact that Protestant evangelism has historically been well-disposed toward capitalism mean that we are witnessing another confirmation of Max Weber"s thesis that Protestantism was a powerful factor in the rise of capitalism? Or could it be the other way round, that instead of Calvinist asceticism"s furnishing the driving force behind capitalism"s dynamic, the reverse is true: capitalism"s dynamic of excess is fueling evangelical dreams of the millennium? According to Max Weber Protestant sects once preached frugality, only to find that this encouraged saving, savings became investments, and, lo and behold! Protestantism had launched capitalism-to vulgarize Weber"s thesis. Perhaps in the era of evangelical megachurches and televangelists skilled in eliciting contributions from the faithful, Weber should be revised: capitalism and the rise of religion. As Jerry Falwell, one of the leading fundamentalist preachers, counseled, "the church would be wise to look at business for a prediction of future innovation."18
V.
Dynamists and archaists share a certain drivenness, the one engaged in an unending quest for markets, new products, new discoveries; the other in quest of personal preparation for a final judgment that lies at the end of historical time. Although the idea of returning to the original Const.i.tution might seem at odds with these drives, its very pa.s.sivity renders it complicit, easily manipulated, allowing for preemptive wars, torture, and the legitimation of Superpower yet not standing in the way while organized lobbies, responsible only to their sponsors, corrupt the political processes.
The political price exacted when grandiose conceptions of power are in ascendancy is suggested by the remark of an administration official cited earlier. To believe that those in power can make their own reality at will is a sure recipe for losing touch with reality, for ignoring stubborn facts, such as the history and culture of Iraq or the sensibilities of Muslims. The list of misjudgments stretches from North Korea to Iraq, from Social Security and health care reform to Hurricane Katrina, from judicial nominations to the handling of intelligence estimates. These and others are not simply miscalculations but, in the literal sense, acts of willfulness, of overreaching, that are encouraged by a.s.sumptions not only about power"s potential but about reality"s nature. Those a.s.sumptions may be exaggerated by the absence of thoughtfulness among the administration"s major decision-makers, yet they are not a.s.sumptions peculiar to Texans and neocons. The role of fantasy becomes greater when those who had previously been considered responsible for puncturing illusions and discrediting false beliefs have lost their status as truth-tellers.
Roughly a quarter century ago, when fundamentalists of all stripes were relics rather than archaists, the large majority of those who gave much thought to questions of reality would have agreed that the princ.i.p.al methods for discovering, identifying, and predicting reality, whether of the natural or of the social variety, were those employed in the natural sciences and, with less agreement, in some of the social science disciplines. Superpower"s uncertain grasp of reality is related to what might be called the dethronement of science. It is not fortuitous that during the imperial administration there have been innumerable instances in which scientific findings have been ignored, or suppressed, or distorted, or denied because they did not support the administration"s policies and ambitions.
The Founders" Const.i.tution authorized Congress "to promote the Progress of Science and useful arts" by protecting the copyrights of inventors. Science in the forms we know it could not exist, much less attain its present status, without the resources and organizing skills of government and private enterprise. Conversely, governmental power, and especially military force, would not have reached the magnitudes implied by "superpower" or the "imperial reach" without the weaponry of destruction, intelligence-gathering capabilities, rapid transport, and instant communications that science and technology have made available.
The oddity of American Superpower is that while it readily exploits the power possibilities of science and technology, its ideology depends upon a crucial development, the puncturing of the cultural mystique formerly surrounding science as disinterested "inquiry," leaving in its place a predominantly instrumental, market-oriented understanding.19 Science is no longer the heroic adventure of loners who challenge orthodoxies but the consequence of a series of investment decisions. Paradoxically, this transformation of science is an essential precondition for the dynamic of the archaic to be a.s.serted.