Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Bad Faith and Dead Kennedys

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

When Galileo was compelled to recant, it is said that he muttered inaudibly under his breath: "...but it does move". Earth, of course. The Catholic Church had maintained its doctrine of an unmoving Earth in unmoving space, from a noumenal 'God's eye view'. I may recant if someone holds a gun on me, but I will always be in danger of muttering too loudly and blowing my cover. Galileo was threatened with death.

If I should be compelled to recant my liberal, progressive views of both politics and metaphysics, it will be because the American right wing will have created and enforced a dictatorship of both the very stupid and those who choose to be ignorant, a 'faith based dictatorship' , a 'faith based tyranny'.

Those who know better but rationalize their accommodation with such a dictatorship epitomize what Existentialists call 'bad faith'. Any school curriculum, any dictatorship derived from either deliberate ignorance or 'bad faith' must be opposed, nipped in the bud, eventually overthrown, crushed and replaced upon true democratic and egalitarian principles subject to reality checks, pragmatic expectations, good sense, good faith.
Belief in God is one of many forms of "bad faith" (mauvais foi). Bad faith, according to Sartre, is the human attempt to escape from freedom and responsibility — and from the anguish, forlornness, and despair that are the existential consequences of freedom and responsibility in a world without God. This escape [or] evasion may take place through the vain attempt of theistic religion to synthesize the in-itself with the for-itself in the concept of God
--Notes on Sartre
My views are entirely consistent with religion based upon 'good faith'. Is there such a religion? I am at odds with 'bad faith'. Faith, itself, does not require proof or even meaningful sentences. Faith is just that: faith. Logically, 'certitude' --which is certainly the best word to describe the more militant fundamentalist churches --is inconsistent with faith, though fundamentalists claim to have it. They don't. They have certitude which is inconsistent with faith,

One cannot have faith if one is certain and if one is certain faith is not required. Many modern fundamentalists profess a 'faith' called Christianity but insist that the tenets of that 'faith' are 'factual' and must, therefore be taught in public schools at public expense. If that were true, why do evangelists preach 'faith' under tents and/or super churches? Which 'way' do they prefer their fundamentalist Christianity? Forced upon a populace or freely chosen by free people?

'Militant Christians like Sarah Palin cannot have it both ways. Either their beliefs are a matter of faith and therefore inappropriate in a science curriculum. Or they are a matter of truth or falsity: if proven true, they are taught! If proven false, they are banned from public schools for that reason alone. For that reason alone the teaching of a religious dogma in any guise is inappropriate in a science classroom.

By definition, religion must not be militant. When it is, it ceases to be religion. Even the fundamentalist baptist church I grew up in 'preached' that the acceptance of Christ must be chosen freely! It follows, then, that if coerced or induced through brainwashing or social pressure, the choice is not free. Like a bad vaccination, it doesn't 'take'. Religious views of any sort may be taught dispassionately in Anthropology curricula. It is completely inappropriate, however, to teach in public tax supported school systems any religion as anything other than a sociological or anthropological phenomenon.

That brings up the matter of William Jennings Bryan who was, in many respects, a very admirable and honest person. But at Dayton, TN he supported efforts of the state to impose upon a curriculum a religious agenda. As I have pointed out: by definition, 'faith' cannot be imposed. Any oath imposed by law or coerced at the point of a gun or threat of excommunication is invalid. The very notion is self-contradictory.

A more recent example is Sarah Palin who has a record of trying to put 'creationists' on School Boards so that local school districts may be forced to teach 'creationism', a pseudo science which has no business in a public school system. This is not a matter of faith; said 'creationists' believe their theory to be fact not merely the religious faith that their acts seem designed to conceal. They have made this a political issue! It is now fair game for debate, fair game for richly deserved ridicule, fair game for uncompromising opposition, fair game for unapologetic scientific refutation.

As John McCain sought the Presidency, Cafferty said of Sarah Palin "this woman is one 72 year old's heartbeat away from the White House and if that doesn't scare you it should." It is no less frightening than the inquisition, no less frightening than the Pope who forced Galileo to recant, no less frightening than a bad ruling in Dayton, TN where Clarence Darrow had defended the rights of a young teacher to present to his classes the Darwinian point of view.

As 'science', the 'creationist' ideology is easily disproved. David Dawkins was challenged recently to prove creationism false! I do not recall Dawkins' response but my own was but one sentence: if we can look up at the sky at night and see Andromeda, 'creationists' are wrong! Andromeda has been proven to be some 2 million light years distant. This result can be duplicated easily enough by scientists but even amateur astronomers can achieve the same confirmation. With a bit of Trig and parallax, the distance to Andromeda can be determined even by amateur astronomers. We see Andromeda as it was some 2 million years ago; therefore, the creationist belief that the universe is very young and the earth itself just six thousand years old is very, very wrong. To make the point: if we can see Andromeda at all, 'creationism' is not only wrong, it is not science ---but faith. At last, every galaxy and every nebula, every object seen in the Hubble Deep Space photo to the right utterly disproves Sarah Palin and her followers and it does so decisively. There are many more objects much more distant than Andromeda and they are easily discerned by the Hubble telescope. That we can see them, Palin is disproved.

The 'creationist' position with regard to the teaching of 'creationism' in public schools is a straw man. Every curriculum I have ever seen teaches all science as method, theory and verification. If it does not do this, it is not science. But creationism is not science, not even scientific theory, subject not to verification but religion, accepted upon 'faith' and requiring no confirmation as a result of observation and scientific method.

Because of the genius of our founders, people are free to act upon their religious convictions and may worship in the church of their choice –or not! Nevertheless, a 'religious conviction' must never be confused with a verifiable fact. A religious conviction must never be taught or compelled of anyone at tax payer expense.

There are many things in which I have faith. But, I would hope never to make the mistake of trying to prosecute those do not share my faith. In the meantime, both of us are free to argue until the last dying, red sunset.

While the Left has historically challenged us to think for ourselves in matters of science and reason, the right wing aligns with superstition, certitude and the authoritarian imposition of both. That is the very definition of 'right wing'. One is what what does and 'right wingers' in almost every instance oppose experiment, pragmatism, science and the corollaries --free speech and inquiry. Right wingers oppose, therefore, the very tenets upon which Western Civilization rests.

I respect those who profess a faith in 'good faith'. Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertolt Brecht addressed what it means to have integrity far more persuasively than any 'bible thumping' fundamentalist preacher that I had been forced, as a child, to endure. Both Sartre and Brecht addressed the issue of bad faith, essentially, the 'condition' in which an individual appropriates a false notion of self and as an inevitable result, the world. Bertolt Brecht summed it up bluntly: "A man who does not know the truth is just an idiot but a man who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a crook". The fashion photographer Richard Avedon was more succinct: "You cannot expect another man to carry your shit!"


The GOP --as a whole --is premised upon 'bad faith' derived either from 'religion' espoused in 'bad faith' or GOP exploitation of religion to get votes. The names Reagan and Bush come to mind. To that extent much or all organized religion in America --especially the 'super churches' -- is but a mass manifestation of 'bad faith'. I believe it to be dangerous and subversive.

People do not seek religion because they wish to be moral. People seek religion because they are fearful –fearful of truth, fearful of responsibility, fearful of dying! I doubt there is any statistical correlation between the espousal of religion and morality except the incidental one that in order to pretend to be moral, you cannot afford to be caught being immoral. Many a tel-evangelist has been caught with his pants down or fly undone having earlier told his 'flock' to keep their own zipped up!

I am in good company when criticized for raising doubts among the faithful. Upon his conviction on similar charges, Socrates was forced to drink hemlock. He might have saved himself had he recanted --a tactic favored by the establishment. The tactic is a Faustian bargain in which one trades his soul for his life. Because he believed that "a man's soul is his self" –an existentialist point of view --St. Thomas More turned down the offer. In Robert Bolt's great play A Man for All Seasons, More tells his daughter, Meg:
"...when a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water and if he opens his fingers - he needn't hope to find himself again".
A description of 'bad faith'.

Later, when More is sold out by the ambitious Richard Rich: "Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... But for Wales ----?"

Another great existentialist play from the period is Jean Anouilh's Becket; ou l'honneur de Dieu. As the title suggests, Becket, having first served his King with distinction, found his 'honor' in the service of "God". To act contrary to that would have been, for Becket, the supreme act of 'bad faith'. Forced to make the existential choice, Becket chose the honor of God above his duty to his King. Simplistically, he lost his life --murdered in the Cathedral --but saved his soul. By contrast, poor Galileo saved only his life.

I saw both 'Beckett' and 'A Man for All Seasons' in the same year in which I heard Stokely Carmichael address an audience at Cullen Auditorium on the University of Houston campus. It was historic --Stokely Carmichael's promise to keep alive the revolution that the assassinations of RFK and Martin Luther King Jr seemingly ended. With them, the 'dream' died.

JFK could have, might have made the Faustian bargain with the Bush crime family that even then, via the Sr Bush, directed the CIA effort against Cuba. Instead, JFK refused to provide air cover for the abortive 'Bay of Pigs', a CIA operation. He also promised to 'smash the CIA into a thousand pieces'. Whomever benefited from the murder of JFK is guilty of it. With some effort and the utter rejection of the obvious cover stories, JFKs killers would most certainly have been brought to justice. The guilty are always most motivated to lie about a crime and the most pernicious lie about the JFK assassination is the magic bullet theory.

RFK threatened the same people. Just recently, a BBC documentary established that RFKs 'killers' were most certainly CIA. Martin Luther King, of course, represented the 'black' revolution that would have rocked the establishment. He too was a threat to the CIA. Many years later, a little known self-professed 'liberal', Steve Kangas, would publish to his website, 'Liberal Resurgent', an article exposing a sordid history of of CIA crimes and interventions from Guatamala to Cuba, from Iran-Contra to Watergate. The article is entitled: The Origin of the Overclass. Kangas would be found dead in a men's room in the Pittsburgh office building owned and occupied by Richard Mellon Scaife, the spider behind the effort to impeach Bill Clinton. Kangas, it is said, committed suicide by shooting himself twice in the mouth! It is a story that one must accept upon bad faith.

All of this 'odd' history is explained easily enough: coincidence. It is only coincidence that the dead Kennedys had also been a threat to the CIA. It is only coincidence that Kangas had zeroed in on conservative crimes and BS just as Scaife was bankrolling a jihad against Clinton. It was just coincidence that Bush Sr was hanging around the front entrance to the Texas School Book depository just minutes prior to the murder of JFK. It was just coincidence that tramps looking like E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis et al were arrested for just hanging around the rail road tracks that run north and south just behind the grassy knoll. It was just coincidence that Martin Luther King Jr seemed to have prophesied his own death with his 'I Have a Dream' speech.

If a man's soul is his 'self', then one may never find it in 'organized religion', a standardized tour through preconceived dogma. By definition, every individual must take this journey and experience it for him/herself. Because it differs with each individual, it cannot become scripture. However, the 'form' seems always the same: the 'individual, in crisis, is given a choice: his life or his soul. It is no coincidence that this 'form' is likewise the structure of almost every work of literature worth reading or watching. It was Jean-Paul Sartre who summed it all up in one sentence: 'A man is nothing else but what he makes of himself!'



Darwin, Darwin and Dayton


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well stated in every respect. I would argue that while one may come to faith through fear this is not essential, and staying in faith can and often does result in a more mature reasoning that releases any concept of fear. Beyond that, I concur most seriously with your conclusions. Fighting against the tyranny of fundamentalism is a never ending duty of all of us that think!

Unknown said...

afeatheradrift sez...

I would argue that while one may come to faith through fear this is not essential,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments, feather. Your comment (excepted) with respect to coming 'to faith through fear' is troublesome for me, having grown up in a fundamentalist environment. I am reminded of crooked cops who beat confessions out of the 'usual suspects'. Certainly, this is a confession derived only because of the fear instilled. But --is such a confession reliable or true? CAN such a confession BE true? If I were a judge and such a confession is all that is offered by the prosecution, I would throw the evidence out and dismiss the charges.

Otherwise, I agree fully that 'fighting against the tyranny is a never ending duty'.

thanks, Len

SadButTrue said...

Goethe got it right, "There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity."

Bertrand Russell was more nuanced on the point. While he was adamantly of the opinion that one must hold all things in a certain amount of doubt (which he called "the essence of liberalism") he nonetheless authored this quote, "The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts."

Still, it goes without saying that stupidity is at its most aggressive when defending opinions that have little or no basis in fact. The corollary: intelligent people are often reluctant to defend their opinions, perhaps due to the experience that the stupid will never acknowledge a better argument based on provable facts. Pearls before swine and all that.

Mauigirl said...

Very interesting post. I've always been interested in existentialism and the concept of bad faith. You've provided excellent examples of bad faith in action.

SadButTrue, the Russell quote is so true - that's why when the GOP is in power they are able to do so much harm, in their certainty that they are right, and why the Dems are so tentative and find it much harder to lead and get things accomplished.

Unknown said...

Sadbuttrue sez...

Still, it goes without saying that stupidity is at its most aggressive when defending opinions that have little or no basis in fact.

How eloquently you hit the nail squarely on its head. Kudos and hurrah! Great comment.

SadButTrue said...

Here's the Russell quote on the folly of excess certainty:
"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment."
and again from Russell:
"I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine."

He was certainly not alone in this opinion, nor its originator.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-- Descartes

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
-- Voltaire

"Believe those who seek the truth. Doubt those who find it."
-- André Gide

"To be positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's voice."
-- Ambrose Bierce

"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge."
-- Elbert Hubbard
~~~~
And the best quote fitting my 'pearls before swine' reference:
"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, is like administering medicine to the dead."
-- Thomas Paine

Anonymous said...

Dead Kennedys, dead Malcom, dead leaders of the Panther Party, dead reporters,dead students, this is the subtext I always recall when trying to talk to anyone about those far away days of turmoil and anger.
So many political murders, all of them sending a clear message that one might act for political change, however, if a threat to the status quo becomes too strong, that threat will be murdered.
The myths are kept in place, the "lone nut" assassin or completely ignoring the facts of what is actually occuring, while the true message seeps into the public mind- rock the boat and you will pay a very high price.
Maybe you will be blacklisted from your job, maybe you will shoot yourself in the head a couple of times, either way, help is not on the way.
To look to the courts for justice today is like pissing into a high wind.
I have given a great deal of thought as to how one might tear down the mythology of the status quo.
Like most things, it falls to the individual to liberate thoughts and ideas from the teevee mind set which now controls this corporate warfare state.
Your site, Mr. Hart, is as much a refuge from madness as it is a source of energy.
Thanks again for your efforts and thoughts.
Don Smith

Anonymous said...

Having had an education in the outmost Dutch Calvinistic fashion, it was only a matter of time before I was confronted with my existential soal, or my intellectual self so to speak.

This excellent article reminds me of my ambiguous feelings and the long lasting struggle it took to free myself from that mindnumbing Calvinist grasp with its fearmongering zeal to biblescript-conformity and its hate for self-conscious life and living.

In the end it just became to goddamn boring to beleave its outragious creationist claims anymore, it affronted my intellect and my joy for life as such that I felt ill both physical and spiritual.

The good thing however, was that this (my Calvinist upbringing, wich I now refer to as the weakest link) proved to be, for me, the very jump-board into an infinite ocean of knowledge, literature, art and self-creativity, once I got rid of the fait-based shackles that frustrated my progress as a human being.

I was lucky to say the least, compared to those who 'sofar' cannot, or dont want to see the fearmongering and mindnumbing religious bigotry, wich, according to Karen Armstrong in her excellent book; "The Battle For God" (Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam) feeds the ignorance and the pathological fears wich come with ignorance in al three monotheistic religions alike. Monotheistic religions, wich are, but most dont know or dont bother to know, meagre and for the most very simplified abstractions of the Indian Maha-Bharata, Egyptian Religions and Cults, the Celtic cultures, Lao-Tsé and even Confucius!

And now, 2010, the three fear and ignorance spreading monotheïst religions at each-others throats, very much encouraged by the political and corporate sociopaths with special agenda's and special interrests, de-humanizing whole societies and cultures into labor-camps and/or consuming-addicts.

I'm reading the Bhagavat-Gita now, for good measure and balance, next to Bertold Brecht, Jean Paul Satre, Peter Sloterdijk, Carl Gustav Jung, and thank you Len, for that heartwarming video-clip with that heartwarming human-being Stokeley Carmichael!

Jacob.

Unknown said...

Mauigirl. indeed, everything the GOP does is premised upon pure bullshit. If they really believed, one might cut them some slack. But I don't believe that even they believe BS like 'supply side economics'. Clearly --possessing a shallow, self-centered, self-absorbed intelligence, the typical GOPPER knew it was all bullshit but also knew that it would benefit him/her at tax time and screw everyone else. Sartre accurately described 'bad faith' but it will be left to a careful, statistically accurate study to correlate these attitudes with those who benefit most from the GOP tax cuts.

Sad, thanks for the Russell quotes. Since posting this article, I have found many Sartre quotes that I might have used but had, honestly, forgotten.

Thanks for the kind words, Don and for your observations:

I have given a great deal of thought as to how one might tear down the mythology of the status quo. Like most things, it falls to the individual to liberate thoughts and ideas from the teevee mind set whic

The first step: TAKE BACK THE MEDIA and we can only do that by restoring the 'Fairness Doctrine' and the best features of the Communications Act of 1934. Secondly, we must not except the cable companies simply because 'cable egress' cannot be considered 'air waves' which were clearly declared public.

Unknown said...

Jacob sez ...

In the end it just became to goddamn boring to beleave its outragious creationist claims anymore, it affronted my intellect and my joy for life as such that I felt ill both physical and spiritual.

Thanks for you comments, Jacob. I am reminded that: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"

Tragically --Americans have been fed a CONSTANT diet of the most outrageous goddamned absurdities since our founding about which a seemingly ENDLESS series of absurdities are PUKED UP by the fuckin right wing! I believe in free speech --but I do not believe in the organized campaigns of propaganda, lies, bullshit and deliberate hoaxes that have brought this nation to the very edge of ruin.

Stephen Kriz said...

Len:

We can refute creationism not only at the "macro" level (i.e. astronomically) but also at the "micro" level. We know the half-lives of various naturally occurring radioactive substances (e.g. uranium) and can measure it with a high degree of precision. If we measure the half-life of uranium-238 and find the had decayed by half, we know that it is around 2.2 billion years old. If the earth were only 6,000 years old, as creationists assert, they must believe that God created the universe to obey certain physical laws but then played tricks on us by making these physical laws not apply in situations that don't support their medieval view of the universe.

The creationists should also look into the authorship of the book of Genesis. It was not written by one person (Moses, as tradition holds), but was compiled from various "strands" over time, including the J, E, D and P strands. The P strand is where the creation story of Adam and Eve and the "six days" came from and was likely written by post-exilic priests (ergo, "P") and reflect the stories of how the world was created that the early Jews learned while they were captives in Babylonia.

Unknown said...

Stephen Kriz sez...

If we measure the half-life of uranium-238 and find the had decayed by half, we know that it is around 2.2 billion years old. If the earth were only 6,000 years old, as creationists assert, they must believe that God created the universe to obey certain physical laws but then played tricks on us by making these physical laws not apply in situations that don't support their medieval view of the universe.

That is absolutely correct, and, in retrospect I should have included it though 'fundies' eyes glaze upon any talk of 'half lives'. I agree that this 'proof' should be equally accessible and would be if science were taught as rigorously as I believe it should be. There are probably as many who have difficulty with the concept of 'light year' as have difficulty with 'half-life'. That's because science is clearly neglected.