Marx, Intolerance and Dog Whistles

"Burn It Down"

By Karl Marx: 

Worlds I would destroy forever,

Since I can create no world;

Since my call they notice never …

Then I will be able to walk triumphantly,

Like a god, through the ruins of their kingdom.

Every word of mine is fire and action.

My breast is equal to that of the Creator.

I shall howl gigantic curses on mankind:

Ha! Eternity! She is an eternal grief …

Ourselves being clockwork, blindly mechanical,

Made to be the foul-calendars of Time and Space,

Having no purpose save to happen, to be ruined,

So that there shall be something to ruin …

If there is a something which devours,

I’ll leap within it, though I bring the world to ruins-

The world which bulks between me and the Abyss

I will smash to pieces with my enduring curses.

I’ll throw my arms around its harsh reality:

Embracing me, the world will dumbly pass away,

And then sink down to utter nothingness,

Perished, with no existence — that would be really living!

By one of the two Columbine high school shooters: 

 "I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts, but before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit..."  (Think Marx's "...that would be really living!") 

"I want to burn the world, I want to kill everyone except about 5 people...if we get busted any time, we start killing then and there...I ain't going out without a fight."

"You know what I hate? .....MANKIND!!!!...kill everything...kill everything..."

And in the eeriest echo of Marx's juvenile whine about how nobody ever notices his call: 

"I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things." 

Marx was no "economist," not even a coherent social philosopher. He never bothered to do field research among the "proletariat" he purportedly loved. From a cozy library he penned his demented manifestos against the existence that dared to exist without his permission, making the fantastical "proletariat" the pawns of his obsession of ultimate self-immolation. 

Marx was a template for a Columbine shooter and all others  possessed by a hatred of whatever dares to exist without submitting to their dictates. It's a spirit that today screams, "Burn it all down and start again!" Of course, what they mean is, "Make me king." They never mean "Burn down me."

PS: What really happens is, the head "Burn it all down!" cheerleaders who blackmail the desperate-to-be-stroked virtue-signallers for cash go on to buy themselves fancy houses (think "Cullors") that they'll never let anybody burn down. "All are equal but some are more equal than others."

"Dog Whistles"

There is an old joke from Soviet days--typical dark humor, naturally. A plumber was called to check the pipes in a family's house. After his inspection he said, "The whole system has to be changed." 

25 years in Siberia. 

Ha, ha. 

In the language of 21st-century American sociopolitical polemic the poor plumber would be accused (by the rabidly-religiously fanatic ideologues) of having used a "dog whistle." Sure, on the surface he was talking about the house's plumbing system, but "We all knooow what system he reaaaally meant." 

Especially in a system that thrives on snitching and the identification of "oppressors," "counter-revolutionaries" and other public enemies in its inquisitorial zeal to scramble to the heap of the Virtue Pile and all its perks. 

In a a spiritually and intellectually bankrupt environment like that, "Dog whistle!" is the free kick, the ace up the sleeve, the gratuitous club to wield over the head of anybody who doesn't sign up to your orthodoxy. 

It doesn't MATTER anymore what they really say or (hmph!) mean--you'll call it "a dog whistle" concealing every fiendish, malignant intention your fevered imagination can conjure up. Even before they say it. 'Cause you always knew your crusade demanded it. The verdict was in before the case opened. 

And why not. No skin off your nose. It gets you your cult's brownie points. And it's so easy. And fun. If, that is, you've successfully switched off your human soul.  Which is what Solzhenitsyn's work is all about: the appalling degree to which whole societies succeed in switching that off. 

"Intolerance"

No civilization can cohere or, finally, survive without exercising intolerance. 

We all know this, though perhaps we're unaccustomed to putting it that way.

We do not (or try not to) tolerate theft, murder, vandalism, extortion, embezzlement, human trafficking, sexual assault/abuse, etc.

So, yes, this is something we all know. 

The question is not therefore whether we must be intolerant. We know we must. 

The questions are "Of what?" and "To what degree?" 

Sometimes "degree" is a non-starter. It's absurd to speak of tolerating just a wee bit of human trafficking or murder. 

On more innocuous levels, perhaps we can tolerate a degree of jaywalking or under-the-table employment, like paying your neighbor kid $5 to mow your lawn (that's what the rate was last time I checked, in the 1970s). 

The social pact, coherence and survival are inextricable from intolerance. Arriving at that pact is, of course, the devilishly difficult thing.  But without the pact there is, first, no society, then no civilization. 

The Machine, Authenticity and the Kingdom

A pastor friend shared this with me: 

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From a book I’m reading:

“I’m not a believer in the idea that unhealthy pastors get themselves into leadership looking for opportunities like this; rather, I think that the leadership model we have in our evangelical world incentivizes grandiosity.”

— Land of My Sojourn: The Landscape of a Faith Lost and Found by Mike Cosper

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I wrote him back: 

Yes, very much so. One way or another each of us is part of a "machine," an ultimately impenetrable psycho-social complex of learned values, postures, signals, rituals, taboos and, most broadly speaking, "performances" that shape everything from the tones of our voices (far more culturally-imprinted than most people would care to imagine) to the overall public persona we may well believe is "the real me." 

The machine takes on an infinite number of forms, from the world's broadest national "cultures" to all their subcultures right down to every local community, workplace, religious and family construct

(Even a culture that prizes "authenticity" above all else is a machine prompting people to certain performances of "authenticity" that are nonetheless machine-prompted performances). 

Now, is all of that unqualifiedly bad, dooming us to existence as either mindless automatons or perpetual hypocrites? Of course not. I'd have long ago despaired of life if I believed that. 

Most of us sincerely try to do the best we can, given the psycho-social machine we've been "stuck" with, just as we do given the body and mind we've been "stuck" with, for better or worse. 

The healthiest thing we can do is admit there's a "machine" there and to approach the constellation of machines each of us is inevitably part of on the premise of choice. You might say, sovereignly deigning to choose which of the patterns we will go along with, and to what extent and to what purpose, and which simply do not interest us and, so, we will not be part of. 

That is perhaps the greatest taboo, one that is so implicit that most dare not allow themselves even to conceive of it, i.e., that we have any other option than to live in unreflective conformity to the "pattern" that engulfs us. But it's a taboo that is psycho-spiritually toxic; for real authenticity we must summon up the courage to break it, and break it where it counts first and foremost: in the sacred privacy of our own consciousness.

And I haven't even touched upon the sin question--perhaps, though, I have, just without using the word. 

The Kingdom of God is, ultimately, the realm of unbearably (at least, to us now) unfiltered, unadulterated divine-human authenticity. Where the "machine" is so essential, genuine and intrinsic to unimpeded, unimpinged Life that it is not a machine but the antithesis of everything "machine" means. There is no machine, only Love. 

Machines are complicated, but Love is infinitely, eternally complex. 

I recently heard an explanation of the difference between complicated and complex systems that was brilliant. A complicated system is predictable but a complex one isn't. A car engine is complicated, a computer is complicated, the Hubble telescope is complicated, and they're all produced to perform predictably. But the human mind is complex. Creation itself, down to the "quark" level, turns out to be complex beyond comprehension and terrifyingly unpredictable. God is Infinite Complexity, in the simplicity of Love. 

He is also terrifying. And holy. 

The ultimate divine-human complexity of authentic Love in the flesh was crucified by a world horrified at how He shattered our sacred taboos. He was too holy to be endured. His holiness insulted our Machine. His Sovereign Choice, lived out in moment-to-moment purpose and intention, violated the machine's requisite of unconscious conformity. "You're not allowed to think about these things, as if you're somebody special with some right to choose; no, you go along with the program because you have to. Who do you think you are, after all?" 

The world's crucifixion of Christ was its collective scream, "Who do you think you are?!" By rising, He said, "This is who I am." And He knew that all along. Never needed the machine's affirmation. 

His freedom and prerogative are the pattern, the spirit, of the kingdom, of authentic life and love. None of us will ever in the space of our earthly lives attain the perfection of that authenticity, but we can, in Christ, travel light-years, as it were, in its direction, on the wings of His Spirit. If we're willing to pay the price.

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Closing "tag":

Maybe one of a pastor's most daunting challenges is to live out, and pastorally (teachingly) live out the example of, genuine authenticity. Sorry if that last phrase seems tautological, but isn't there so much "authenticity" prized in our culture that is really quite pre-packaged, pre-digested, clichéd and formulaic? So I qualify "authenticity" with "genuine," attempting to get past the clichés. 

Of course, to attain such authenticity isn't only a pastor's calling. It's every Christian's. But a pastor takes on the immense duty to teach, and that's not just speaking from a pulpit on Sunday. No wonder Scripture says, "Let not many of you be teachers." 

Some Greek philosopher, wasn't it, said "The unexamined life isn't worth living." Seismically true. To which I must add the good Christian  news: "But we have the mind of Christ." So...examine away, in the freedom, hope and power of the Risen Lord.