AMERICAN SPIRITUAL PRIDE AND ITS LOVE OF DIVISIVENESS

[Morpheal]

AMERICAN SPIRITUAL PRIDE AND ITS LOVE OF DIVISIVENESS

This article delves into the question of what characterizes American spirituality, in its most fundamental and uniquely American form, as government supported and promoted ideology. The article also looks at why the spirituality of Americanism, a unique religious ideology unto itself, seeks the continued division of Christianity into irreconcilable Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran major divisions.

A sense of moral and spiritual superiority has always accompanied superior military power. The tendency, in human history, has always been for the nation that has more military might to claim that it also has the most right and most true religion. The idea that might is right has been a pervasive theme in both justice and the asserting of religious truth, for as long as civilization has existed. It is evident in the archeological record before written history began.

Partly this tendency comes from the ancient idea that justice is a matter of the winner of a contest of strength and skill, beating the opponent. Various forms of trial by contest in battle, and trial by ordeal where survival indicates the outcome, formed much of the basis of justice in earlier epochs. At some point the use of champions was introduced, who would battle on behalf of the honor and rightness of the disputants without the disputants themselves having to enter into conflict. The reasoning behind this method of deciding disputes and rightness or truth, was the same as the method for deciding which tribe or nation was to be considered more right or true in its assertions and actions. The winner in such contests of power and skill in battle being considered favored by a divinity. No such contest was simply a matter of man versus man, but instead they were believed ultimately decided by a god. So the god of one was understood as being called to support that one individual, tribe or nation, against an other, individual, tribe or nation. The divinity was the judge who ultimately decided victory, and thus right and truth. Whether it was the same god, or two different deities pitched against each other, made little real difference. It was still a matter of the gods, or of god, deciding the matter. We need not delve any deeper into this, as there is ample, reliable, literature on the subject, and we only need to remember the basic principle that was involved.

Clearly this principle remains active in the modern world. It remains a matter of one religion against another, and of one group and its ideas seeking justification as to its greater ownership of truth and right, compared to others. That is as true between very different systems and also as true within the divisions of ideas within the same system. While that idea of power, might, prowess in war, is not as universally prevalent and not as totally decisive as it once tended to be it remains a very potent factor.

We see this in Americanism today. We see a nation poised as the most militarily powerful, claiming a special privileged relationship to God, truth and right. We see that nation justifying itself on the basis of invoking its God as its ultimate justification for pressing its own beliefs, including its own peculiar form of government supported religion, signified by the phrase “in God we trust” and other political symbols and government rituals pertaining to its religiosity, quite distinct from any rationality, scientific fact, or pure reason. We see a recourse to religious faith, but it is a faith significantly at variance with the major divisions of organized Christianity.
While those have their followings, inclusive of Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran, America is none of those. They are tolerated but they are not seen as the standard bearers of any ultimate spiritual truth or right. It is a different religion that Americanism puts forth as its own particular brand of truth and right. It backs that assertion with its military power.

Today’s Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans can no longer claim to control any armies, and cannot really assert military power as justification. They have less access to and less control of any military power than ever before in human history. They do not command armies, even though they have been known to participate in the politics of conflict, militating their own followers to one cause or another, according to their own self interest as to their own systemic survival, and also their concerns with questions of ethics.

European theologians have typically viewed the tendency to claim right as a form of spiritual pride, which is itself seen as a failing not a virtue. It does not matter whether that claim is being justified by military power, or not. The ethical problem of a religious system of ideas being considered as justified by its control over and connection with military power is a separate and different issue. It is noteworthy that European theology, and its long history of philosophical depth, is not so well regarded in Americanism. It is a purely academic consideration, but has little real import into American society and ideology. It is largely ignored. It is particularly ignored by the fundamentalist right wing in America. Of course that is what we would expect. European theology is a challenge to Americanism, not a supporter of its views. So Americanism tends to prefer to promote theological emptiness. This increases the role of military power as the main criterion of right and truth. Where deep and critical theology is lacking, military might tends to have pre-eminence over theological and philosophical intellect.

We see this in Americanism, but we also have seen that same tendency reflected in Stalinist communism, prevalent in the 20th century. Stalinist communism took a might is right, and military power is truth, attitude. It tended to banish its intellectuals. It disliked philosophy and theology, almost equally. That was for the same reasons as Americanism dislikes critical intellect and prefers a very superficial form of religiosity tied to its mechanisms of power and governance.
The difference as to godless communism versus god oriented Americanism, being one of the major justifications for the military conflict between the two. There is no reconciliation of that divide and ultimately only trial by ordeal and trial by combat is able to resolve right and truth, in the ancient and retrogressive of might is right based justice. “In god we trust” to defeat our enemies being essentially the same as proclaiming faith in overwhelming military might as being the prime and sometimes sole determinant of what is to be understood as truth and right.

Not much progress there.

So why have we gone to this length to explore this particular subject area ? There is another deeper reason. We see the continued proclamation of Americanism’s assertions as to its own special spiritual chosenness, its special monopoly on right, and its claiming of its own ideas of truth as being universalizable to all of humanity, as being an obstacle not only to real progress in the world, but also to cooperation and many forms of conflict resolution. The very method of imposing special rightness and privilege as to truth, mixing military might with a unique spirituality, a religious system at the core of the nation’s government and its ideology, leads to that very same fact. That type of retrogressive claim as to might is right, merging militarism with spirituality, and concepts of spiritual warfare with concepts of military warfare, does nothing for real conflict resolution. It simply seeks to impose one view, forcefully, against another, selecting its victims according to which side is nearer to sharing the same ideological beliefs, inclusive of religion. Of course a willingness to adopt the same brand of religion or to modify existing brands to a more Americanist faith, merging religiosity with economics, politics, and social and psychological structuring and functions is more likely to gain some military support. No surprises there. What then does this lead to ?

Americanism needs divisiveness. It needs Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans, in particular to remain at odds with each other, and essentially in irreconcilable conflicts. That is what sustains Americanism as a spiritual power, and nurtures its own claims to pre-eminence as to rightness and truth. If the major Christian religious divisions were to reconcile their differences, Americanism would be a lesser minority than it has become. It would lose a large part of its own spiritual primacy. It is only that divisiveness that serves to support Americanism’s claims as to its own rightness and the wrongness of the divided schismatic groups within the preceding generations of the Christian ideology. Americanism claims its place, according to traditional concepts of military might makes right, at the top of the religious, spiritual, pyramid of mankind. Those other faiths, such as Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran, are pushed ideologically down, further kept in division against one another and their reconciliation largely opposed by Americanism.

Of course one of the ways Americanism has chosen to promote its own ideology above all others, and to increase divisiveness at the same time, is to threaten those who do not accept Americanism as their own faith, with the loss of freedoms, inclusive of private ownership of their things, and property, including homes. That arm twisting mentality is always blamed on communism, Catholicism, Anglicanism, Orthodox, and other non Americanist faiths and ideologies. It is never Americanism, the actual arm twister, threatening incomes, freedom of association, freedom of sexual (including marital) relations, and almost anything else that people tend to value in their personal lives, with loss, if Americanism isn’t chosen and placed above all else in the spiritual hierarchy. Of course spiritual blackmail, spiritual extortion, even when taken to extremes and used as justifications for all manner of other wrongs, inclusive of some forms of criminality where material loss is claimed to be replaced with spiritual gain, is also consistent with a system built on the basis of military power, where might is largely what determines right. That subject needs further exploration by others. Even the extreme dialectic of eastern anti intellectualism, and stance on private property ownership appears significantly manipulated to that dialectic of loss to give Americanism a clearer and more unambiguous contrast to exert its power against. Certainly questions of truth could not be answered within that context of the conflict of claims as to absolutist Americanist spiritual right versus the claims as to the other side’s spiritual wrong..

The politics of that rise of Americanism, claiming special truth and spiritual right, based on military might, would, clearly, be more ably opposed by a reconcilation and reunification of the major divisions of Christianity, on the basis of their common anti-Americanist grounds. In man ways the reconcilation would far more effectively stand as more meaningful opposition to the Americanist agenda of spiritual warfare and spiritual conquest of the world, inclusive of political co-optation and subversion of its competing ideologies, inclusive of those within what can loosely be deemed “Christianity”. Whether Americanism is genuinely Christian, and what is right and true within Americanism, remains a question for the theologians. It becomes a question for the theologians because Americanism has proclaimed itself as a government and military power based on a core foundation of spirituality and religious faith that it believes justifies all of its other claims, in all other areas of life and commerce, as to Americanism’s specially privileged right and truth..

Robert Morpheal

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