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Peter Michaelson: The Secular Soul of Democracy

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Wed, 10/10/2007 - 11:29am.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Peter Michaelson

I pop a ginseng capsule and take another slurp of coffee. The open page of my writing notebook displays no fiery prose. I've been invoking the spirit of Thomas Paine to little avail.

Here in the hot October sun at a café in the western Detroit suburbs, the temperature is 20 degrees above normal, another crisp warning of Earth in revolt. Why does the Earth revolt at its abuse and not the people? I ask this question of my muse, while reminding it, too, that our leaders want to start another war. But my muse remains immobilized, as indifferent at the moment to our crimes of destruction as a typical American citizen.

News of the latest deluge of sorrow from Iraq sits open on the table. It seems that the Mandeans, a small Iraqi minority and the only surviving Gnostics from antiquity, are being wiped out. These pacifists, whose ancestors produced the Gospel of Thomas, refuse to carry weapons for their own protection. In the whirlwind of the Iraqi civil war, they are being kidnapped, raped, beaten, extorted, murdered, and subjected to forced conversions by radical Islamists. In 2003, about 60,000 of them lived in peace. Now, fewer than 5,000 remain in place.

If my pen could evoke one small measure of this sacrilege, it would quickly summon a thousand words to inspire a million of us to rebel. But like our polyester hearts, this pen is just a piece of plastic. Yet even a made-in-China pen that won't spell democracy can do more to save us than those decommissioned Democrats in Congress who fight tyranny "heavily armed," as Bob Herbert puts it, "with thermometers, barometers, and windmills."

Many progressive writers have struggled valiantly to mobilize the people. I, for one, have accused Americans of fearfulness, apathy, cynicism, stupidity, narcissism, and passivity. These insults, warnings, and pleas have fallen like sprinkles of precipitation on the Texas panhandle. Who will notice the black rain that falls after we bomb Iran?

The most obvious reason for citizen inaction is our unwillingness to shoulder the burden of freedom. We hide from our own self in a denial of our true calling -- to evolve and each become a finer person less encumbered by fear, illusions, and egotism. People are defensive, anxious, and guilt-ridden when their hiding place is exposed by their refusal to answer an urgent call to action. So they block out what is real and become seekers of the unreal, pursuing an illusion of self-interest that is morally and spiritually self-defeating, while taking cold comfort in increasingly smaller measures of themselves.

Given this reality, how can progressives count on the general populace or the Democratic Party to support our vision of renewal and reform? Doesn't our best hope reside in us? Yet we may need to become more powerful, not necessarily in numbers but in the goodness of our humanity. To do that, I believe we must give more credence to the idea that our better nature -- call it the self -- has to be honed to a sharper edge.

Our freedom depends on "the identified soul" or "the isolated Self," Walt Whitman wrote in his essay, "Democratic Vistas." Then "the interior consciousness, like a hitherto unseen inscription, in magic ink, beams out its wondrous lines . . ."

Carl Jung wrote The Undiscovered Self in 1957, near the end of his life; in it, he pleaded with Western civilization to pay more attention to the psyche and to understand its role in human affairs. He predicted, correctly, that our lack of insight would prevent us from seeing and defeating evil in our midst. Underestimation of the psychological factor, he said, "is likely to take a bitter revenge." He said the self emerges when we step out of denial to take responsibility for what he called the shadow (the negative aspects) that lurks in our psyche.

I happen to believe that the self is the secular soul of democracy. Yet this idea of the self is controversial and even nonsensical for many progressives. We can get a sense of it, however, by approaching the idea through the back door, by considering the multitudes of people we see who have a false sense of self. This obvious falseness of theirs is due to egotism, erroneous beliefs, passivity, and conditioning, along with chronic guilt, shame, hatred, and self-rejection. The more distorted or chaotic an individual's sense of self, the more difficulty this person is likely to face with emotional and behavioral self-regulation.

In addition, the self of many people is quashed by what the Sufis call "the commanding self" and psychoanalysis calls the superego. This is an inner authority in the psyche that poses as our conscience, but is in fact negative and irrational. Individuals so inflicted make poor citizens because they can't feel their sovereignty.

The self that emerges from our interest in being impeccable is the foundation of wisdom and inner harmony. Unlike ego, the self is aligned with the common good that itself is the foundation of social harmony and progress. Lack of a robust self is the greatest insecurity. Development of self is the fulfillment of personal and national destiny.

The nice thing about the self is that it's free, it's ours. Nobody can patent it, license it, or regulate it. No one can take it from us, although the establishment, in cooperation with us, has significantly suppressed it in us. By evolving, we won't be disappointed again by the Democrats or any particular leader's inability or unwillingness to save us from tyranny. We save ourselves.

We can't access the self if we're passive, cynical, irrational, or hateful. These forms of emotional suffering cause us to be self-absorbed and ineffective as reformers. We start by believing in our goodness. And we must not be afraid of our power. We feel the richness of our emerging self and understand its role in national self-determination. This would be a wondrous revolution.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Peter Michaelson is author of Democracy's Little Self-Help Book. He is a practicing psychotherapist and offers telephone sessions and specializes in marriage and partnership conflict resolution. PDF files of his books are available at www.PeterMichaelson.com.


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The political teachings of Jesus - new book

Submitted by mistah charley phd on Thu, 10/11/2007 - 7:25am.

Tod Lindberg is an editor of the Policy Review published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford. An excerpt from his recent book The Political Teachings of Jesus was published in his journal, which I have responded to here.

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A reader's response to "What the Beatitudes Teach"

I read the article with interest and pleasure, and quoted from it and commented on it at the blog A Tiny Revolution. Here's some of what I posted there.

______________________________________________

"How, then, does Jesus envision that the gentle will come to inherit the earth? Because the once-mighty, under pressure of precisely this kind, will die out as a type. They will change their minds about defending their privileges at the expense of others. And the world will be their dying bequest to the gentle." Tod Lindberg, "What The Beatitudes Teach", Policy Review, Aug/Sep 2007

Hmmm. The "once-mighty", currently "defending their privileges at the expense of others", may need help in changing their minds - help provided by their brothers and sisters, acting with common purpose, if you know what I mean. As just one example, it would please me if the Bush Gang received fair jury trials, with all the protections of the human rights written into the U.S. Constitution, and then punishment as decreed by law.

In proposing a fair trial, I am advocating not revenge - for there could never be enough revenge for the suffering inflicted on the world by the Bush Gang and those who do their bidding - but justice. Kurt Vonnegut, in a Commencement Address at Agnes Scott College, said of revenge:

"What antidote can there be for an idea that popular and poisonous? Revenge provides revenge, which is sure to provide revenge, forming an endless chain of human misery.
Here's the antidote:
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Amen.

Some of you may know that I am a Humanist, not a Christian. But I say of Jesus, as all Humanists do, ''If what he said was good and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what can it matter if he was God or not?'' If Christ hadn't delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake."

Obviously Kurt Vonnegut, who is in Heaven now, had different ideas about what Jesus would recommend to our Decider, George W. Bush, than the head of Christians United for Israel.

I spent some time looking up available writings by Tod Lindberg. Regrettably, I find a number of things that I regard as less reasonable than the article quoted from. For example, he has stated that he agrees with Sen. John McCain that the only thing worse than war with Iran would be Iran with a nuclear weapon.

My view differs. In my view, "Iran with a nuclear weapon" is BETTER than "war with Iran" - because Iran, if it were to join the nuclear club, may follow the behavior of the other members of the nuclear club - which is, with one exception, all of those countries have NEVER used an atomic weapon in a war to kill a city full of people. (As an exercise for the reader, I will avoid naming the country which is the exception to this generalization.)

On the other hand, as I evaluate the situation, war with Iran will NECESSARILY result in mass murder, along with various other bad outcomes.

This is my reasoning. I ask that you consider my difference with Lindberg on the merits of the argument, trying to set as immaterial the fact that Lindberg is a prominent member of the Commentariat, while I am only someone hiding behind a screen name who asserts (without documentation) that I have a Ph.D.

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needleman's book 'the american soul'; my letter to congress

Submitted by mistah charley phd on Thu, 10/11/2007 - 7:07am.

1)Jacob Needleman's book The American Soul considers a number of the issues you raise here, with a detailed discussion of the lives and views of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass.

2)I can only speculate as to why our Congress fails to act effectively to end the Bush/Cheney regime. Possibly some of them might be jarred into action if they heard forcefully from their constituents - hence the letter I wrote below, which people are welcome to adopt or adapt as they please.
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OUT OF IRAQ – WHATEVER IT TAKES – 2009 IS TOO LATE

Does it take cutting off the funds?

As I understand the Constitution, only Congress can authorize expenditures. No money for the war, no war. Bush can veto appropriation bills by himself, but he cannot pass them. So cut off the funds.

Does it take removing Bush and Cheney?

Apparently some think that Congress’s power of the purse is not enough to end the war, as long as the Bush/Cheney regime controls the Executive Branch. If that’s the case, then Congress should use its Constitutionally-mandated power to end the Bush/Cheney regime. You swore an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It seems clear that the Bush/Cheney regime (aggressive war based on lies; blatant and repeated violation of laws; torture; political corruption of the administration of justice; etc. etc. etc.) is not just too incompetent to continue in office – they are by intent, not just in effect, enemies of our Constitution.

If Bush and Cheney continue in office, they will probably attack Iran

The Bush/Cheney regime and their collaborators in the so-called “main stream” media (for example, David Ignatius’s Washington Post column of Oct. 7) are obviously preparing the public relations ground for this right now. Can any rational person doubt that such a course would be even more calamitous than the present war?

Do your duty

Every day this useless occupation goes on it kills people, and permanently maims more – many Americans and many more Iraqis (citizens of a country, by the way, THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE 9/11 ATTACK). End the occupation NOW. Many human lives, and the future of our country, depend on it.

mistah charley, ph.d.
http://mistahcharley.blogspot.com

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more on the Mandeans

Submitted by Zee (not verified) on Wed, 10/10/2007 - 12:48pm.

recent article regarding the figures of the Mandean slaughter:

http://in.news.yahoo.com/071009/139/6lpuh.html

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burdens

Submitted by Zee (not verified) on Wed, 10/10/2007 - 12:24pm.

#1 This started out very powerful, but:

"The nice thing about the self is that it's free, it's ours....No one can take it from us, although the establishment, in cooperation with us, has significantly suppressed it in us. By evolving, we won't be disappointed again by the Democrats or any particular leader's inability or unwillingness to save us from tyranny. We save ourselves."

Um, and just how, exactly, does this save the Mandeans? Yeah, we have the power, we always had the power. And we didn't save ourselves, way back in 2000, although many of us made of the effort back when it would've mattered. And we shouldn't blame our reps, it's true, for what we ourselves are unwilling to do. I do think we will evolve...too late for the Mandeans, tho.

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