If we face the
realities of history, we are forced to acknowledge that the world has always
been run according to some kind of humanism. Earthly decisions have always been
made by human minds. No god ever sat in assembly or parliament, no angel ever
whispered into the ear of king or legislator, and no scripture has ever been
more than an inspiration when taken too far out of the context of its original
time and place. When we've had periods of peace and prosperity, it’s because
smart people sat down to face our problems with honesty and pragmatism. When
we've had eras of upheaval and decline, it’s because we've refused to face
reality, or weren't smart enough, or weren't able to cooperate well enough to
implement a solution.
For most modern
Americans, this is simply a matter of observation. The wicked too often
prosper, the righteous too often go hungry, and suffering is altogether too
random, to allow a belief that any deity intervenes miraculously in earthly
affairs.
Even those who
believe in one or another god must acknowledge this truth, although some will
not. There are those who believe not only in a god and a soul, but also in
divine intervention, in blessings and curses and miracles, in deities that take
sides in our elections and wars. They believe that rules and maxims established
by nomadic goat-herders or in agricultural kingdoms are sufficient guides for
life in the age of the internet and global economy. But such people really are
a minority. Pushing the numbers as far as demographics will allow, maybe a
third of us could believe in divine miracles. That leaves at least two thirds,
a super-majority, who do not.
Why, then, is it
so hard for the people of these United States to live in the 21st century
instead of the 19th, or even the 16th?
We've achieved
so much in the last 250 years. The Enlightenment philosophy of the 18th century
initiated profound social changes. We consciously developed new systems of
government designed to enable individual agency by limiting the worst abuses of
power and wealth. The struggle took centuries, but we did away with the
institution of slavery, recognized the unfairness of racism, stopped treating
adult women like dependent minors, and accepted the simple fact that not
everybody is heterosexual. Along the way we built a growing economy, a vigorous
middle class, a world-class system of higher education, and an information
super-highway. We the people, rather than chance or deity, deserve the credit
for the positive outcomes and the blame for the negatives.
Was it just too
much too fast? In the early 21st century we seem to want not just to pause and
reassess, but even to step backwards.
Once the driver
of our economic growth, today’s middle class is experiencing an objectively
measurable reduction in upward mobility and standard of living. Economic growth
now largely improves the lot only of the wealthiest few. We know that education
is critical to technological development, economic growth, and higher
individual incomes, but invest less in it, both privately and publically, year
after year. The U.S. lags in
the accessibility of health care and the certainty of social welfare. Our
prisons are filled to overflowing, mostly with individuals who present
relatively little risk to civil society, while corporate gangsters, economy
wreckers, and grand-scale embezzlers are mostly free to go about their
predations. This seems to be one of those periods of decay in which we’re
unwilling to face our problems with honesty and intelligence. We've gotten stupid about public policy.
Firmly embedded
in this backwards march, and in many ways causing it, is a nauseating thread of
counter-intellectualism, a hypocritical, disingenuous, public religiosity,
worse now than at any time in the last 300 years. On May 5th (2014), the U.S.Supreme Court ignored the official secularism enshrined in our constitution,ruling that prayers said at the opening of city council meetings are not really religious, and so must be endured by all, regardless of differences in religion
or lack of religion. Legislators in Louisiana
and other states are trying to pass laws requiring a hospital to keep a dead ordying woman on life support against her express wishes, and over the objections
of her next of kin, if the woman happens to be pregnant. The accessibility of
abortion is fast disappearing, even though we still don’t have free and
universal access to birth control, and most states refuse to require medically
complete and accurate sexual education in public schools.
We’re on a fast
track to granting a right of religious conscience and exercise to for-profit
corporations. School boards (and in Louisiana ,
the Senate Education Committee) bend and twist to find ways to get Creationism
and the Bible into the classroom. Legislatures around the country are using
their funding powers to coerce public universities to drop curricular materials
that run counter to “traditional family values.” Office holders pontificate
about family values and the sanctity of marriage, and even though they are
repeatedly revealed to be philandering frauds, this hypocrisy never stops. Simpering public piety has somehow set itself
in direct opposition to intelligence, knowledge, education, and practicality.
If we’re going
to be fair, we have to acknowledge that religion has always been important in America .
But it was never what made us great. Our historical achievements came at times
when we were willing to use our heads, sometimes co-existing with religion,
sometimes bitterly opposing religious teachings, but never subordinated to
religion. Our greatness is best exemplified by Thomas Jefferson, not Cotton
Mather, by the separation of church and state, not the Salem witch trials.
What will America
be like in 50 to 100 years? Is our early
21st-century backwards step a temporary pause, or is it the beginning of a new
kind of feudalism?
