Very interesting piece by Chris Hedges, Pulitzer prize winning journalist and former Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times:
“The engine that drives the radical Christian Right in the United
States, the most dangerous mass movement in American history, is not religiosity, but despair. It is a movement built on the growing
personal and economic despair of tens of millions of Americans, who
watched helplessly as their communities were plunged into poverty by
the flight of manufacturing jobs, their families and neighborhoods torn
apart by neglect and indifference, and who eventually lost hope that
America was a place where they had a future. This
despair crosses economic boundaries, of course, enveloping many in the
middle class who live trapped in huge, soulless exurbs where, lacking
any form of community rituals or centers, they also feel deeply
isolated, vulnerable and lonely. Those in despair are the most easily
manipulated by demagogues, who promise a fantastic utopia, whether it
is a worker’s paradise, fraternite-egalite-liberte, or the second
coming of Jesus Christ. Those in despair search desperately for a
solution, the warm embrace of a community to replace the one they lost,
a sense of purpose and meaning in life, the assurance they are
protected, loved and worthwhile.”
Read the whole thing here.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Alas. Chris Hedges’s “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” is a hugely important work of passion and integrity. Everyone should read it as part of coming to grips with their responsibility for what is happening to friend and foe alike in the Middle East.
But I fear this attack on the mores and aesthetics of suburbanism is sheer elitism. Because of who we are and what we do to our sense of ourselves, much of our life is rendered utterly pointless, whether lived in the suburbs or the mean streets or the gilded palaces.
It’s the inner life, stupid! As many throughout the ages have asserted.