Hate Groups and Why They Matter

Well, the Elected Narcissist Who Shall Not Be Named made a bit of dubious history this last weekend. For the first time in modern history, a sitting president has appeared at a conference of a hate group. Specifically the “Values Voter Summit,” hosted by the Family Research Council. That Steve Bannon was also was a featured speaker is key to understanding what happened here.

I decided to write about this, not primarily because of its political implications - it would be a full time job to write about politics - but because of a more personal connection here.

Regular readers of my blog will have noted that I have mentioned my own break with our longtime church, and also that I do not consider myself an Evangelical any longer. Mind you, I am someone who has been active in church life and ministry for more than 30 years. My children were raised in Evangelicalism, as was I. So this is no minor rupture. Evangelicalism has lost one of its most devoted members - and another generation besides. Why? Although any decision like this is complicated, one reason stands about above the others, and is the reason I didn’t just leave a particular church, but the entire tradition.

Our former church, and (white) Evangelicalism as a whole embraces - or at least tolerates - hate groups.

In the case of our former church, leadership went behind our backs to promote a hate group in my kids’ Sunday School (specifically the American Family Association - which I very much intend to write more about in the future). This was despite our clear objection.

The problem is, it isn’t just the one church. American (white) Evangelicalism is wedded to the politics of hate. No, not every Evangelical, obviously. There are good people in Evangelicalism, just as there are in Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Islam, and Atheism. But the overall system and tribe is wedded to a version of politics that places Republicanity (loyalty to the GOP) above the teachings of Christ.

So we left. We removed our children from this toxic environment.  And I personally am never going back. 

But what I want to specifically talk about in this post is what a hate group is, and why it matters. Let’s start with a definition.

Hate Speech: (n) speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. (Dictionary.com)

In the laws of some countries (not the United States, which does not outlaw hate speech), such speech is defined as:

Speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which incites violence or prejudicial action against a protected group, or individual on the basis of their membership of the group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected group, or individual on the basis of their membership of the group.

Here is the FBI definition of “Hate Crime”:

[A] criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.

The reason I bring the definitions into this is that whenever you point out to a conservative (or particularly an Evangelical) that a particular group is a designated hate group, the defense is always something along the lines of “[group] is only considered a hate group because it believes gay sex is a sin.”

This is baloney.

Here in the US, the Southern Poverty Law Center is the best source for the list of hate groups, and it doesn’t consider mere differences in opinion about human sexuality to be sufficient to designate a group as a hate group. Rather, they use specific criteria.

The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as an organization that – based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities – has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.

Let me put this together into my own summary of the issue. As I see it, hate groups do the following:

1. Tell lies about certain groups of people.
2. Stir up fear and hatred against those groups.
3. Advocate the use of political or economic power, or even violence against members of that group.

Or, to sum it up even more simply:

1. Lies
2. Fear/hatred
3. Harm

It’s that simple.

Now, let’s look at the claim. If the claim was true, then nearly every Evangelical church in the United States would be labeled a hate group. One estimate I was able to find on the number of churches in America was that there are nearly 400,000 churches in the US. (That’s about 1 for every 1000 people, incidentally.) The Southern Baptist Convention (the largest Protestant denomination in the US) alone counts in excess of 47,000 churches. And yet, you won’t find them on the SBC hate list. (The SBC gets mentioned occasionally because it appoints people associated with hate groups to leadership positions, however. But despite its recent issues with sexual obsession and racism, it is NOT listed as a hate group.)

So, clearly, merely being a non-affirming church won’t get you labeled a hate group.

The key difference is what I noted above. Look for the three prongs: lies, hate, and harm.

Let me give you an example here. There was, not too long ago, a person I know very well, who believed homosexual acts were sinful. This person, however, knew that it was wrong to tell lies about LGBTQ people, or to try to get others to fear and hate them, and this person would never dream of trying to harm LGBTQ people by denying them employment, housing, health care - or by advocating for their prosecution, imprisonment, or (horrors!) execution. That person was me in my 20s. And there were - and are - many like that me in Evangelicalism. In fact, that was how I was raised!

However, that is not what these designated hate groups do. In fact, they clearly meet the three criteria:

1. They tell lies about LGBTQ people. Chief among them is the lie that LGBTQ people are a bunch of sexual predators, out to rape the children. Also, that there is a “gay agenda” to that effect. A few others would be the historically ludicrous one that the Nazis were a bunch of gays (actually, they murdered the gays along with the Jews and other ethnic minorities…), that being gay is bad for your health, and that being gay is contagious, like a virus. These lies have been disproved over and over. And that is even before one gets to the theological lies. Those are obviously beyond the scope of what the SPLC does - and the scope of this post. The lies are told for a particular reason:
2. These hate groups stir up fear of LGBTQ people. That is the whole point of the lies. Stir up fear, and then use that fear to raise money. This is the only reason organizations like the AFA exist. They prey on gullible and fearful parents (usually Baby Boomers) and then feed them a steady diet of conspiracy theories about all the nefarious liberals/atheists/gays/brown people out to destroy white America. And people send them money. And then they focus on:
3. Lobbying for laws to do harm to LGBTQ people. This can go all the way from using a fear of same-sex marriage to elect open white supremacists to the White House to pushing “religious freedom” laws making it legal to deny LGBTQ people the right to access to the basics of society - housing, employment, healthcare, government services, to calling for the criminalization of gay sex. And yes, some of the featured speakers at the “Values Voter Summit” have called for just that. (That includes the likely future senator from Alabama, Roy Moore, who has said that we should imprison or execute gays.) Heck, some of the speakers have openly called for the state-sponsored murder of gay people. (Hello, Kevin Swanson - no relation, thank God…)

I am not going to list all of the ways in which the various players in the Values Voter Summit qualify for hate group status. The SPLC website has information, or you can spend some quality time with Google. Probably the best site for primary sources is Right Wing Watch, which has painstakingly recorded and linked the actual audio, video, and text of the specific things these hate groups have said and written.

But I didn’t need to go look up audio for most of this. I lived it. During our time in the Bill Gothard cult, I heard ALL of this crap. And during my years as a homeschooler, this was in the background. Sure, my parents didn’t buy all - or even most - of it. But it was in the air we breathed. It has been pushed strongly for the last several decades.

And unfortunately, it has gone increasingly mainstream in American Evangelicalism.

Now, let’s talk a bit about an uncomfortable truth.

Hatred toward LGBTQ people goes hand in hand with racism and misogyny.

If you had told me this in my teens, I would have laughed.

After the last election, I was faced with the inescapable conclusion that the Left has been all too correct about this.

Hatred toward LGBTQ people does indeed come from the same dark place in the soul as racism and misogyny. And one tends to be associated with the other.

Here is where Steve Bannon comes in. Bannon has bragged about making Brietbart.com into a platform for the “alt right.” Which is a hip way of saying “white supremacy and misogyny.” He has praised the neo-Nazi novel The Camp of the Saints, which envisions the destruction of “white civilization” by immigrants and native brown and black people. I mean, this shouldn’t even be debatable. The guy is solidly and obviously a white supremacist with a political agenda that matches that of the KKK.

And here he is at a “moral values” conference. Apparently, one of those “values” is whiteness. (And don’t think those outside the Evangelical bubble haven’t noticed...this one - brought to my attention by an African American - and Christian - friend of mine -  is worth watching…)

For that matter, the AFA is deeply committed to a white supremacist worldview and political agenda. I hope to write about this in more detail in the future, but the AFA has always stood for hostility toward immigrants, denigration of African Americans, contempt for the poor, fear and hatred of Islam, religious supremacy, racial and cultural supremacy, opposition to feminism, and glorification of the middle class white culture of the past. Oh, and the AFA was a big supporter of Le Toupee. Big surprise! (Yes, that's Bryan Fischer, who was supposedly dismissed from the AFA for saying African Americans "rut like rabbits".. of COURSE he is still part of the organization.)  Again, I intend, when I have time, to write a fairly exhaustive post laying out (with links) all the appalling stuff the AFA and its personalities have said over the last couple of decades. They have thoroughly earned the designation as a hate group. (Let me be clear - I pointed this out to church leadership a few years ago - and apparently it was ignored.) 

 Ah, one of the gems from Bryan Fischer, STILL writing for the AFA...because one of the tenets of Christianity is CLEARLY to tell poor sick brown people to go someplace else and die, so that deserving rich white people don't have to pay for the undeserving poor...Christ would surely approve...

And here is another gem, a sentiment shared by Dominionists everywhere, including Roy Moore and (historical revisionist) David Barton. So nice to have lies like this taught to your children...see Thomas Jefferson...

Oh, and one more thing. About the time we left our church, several leaders were re-posting stuff from Milo Yiannopoulos. Yeah, the openly white supremacist and misogynist guy, who would end up excusing statutory rape (thus giving credence to the lie that gays are out to get the kiddies...yeah, good move there…) It has been rather like discovering the white robe and hood in people’s closets. Definitely enough for me to realize that someone like me would never be truly welcome in Evangelicalism - but the Steve Bannons of the world will be more than welcome - celebrated.

Again, to be clear, this isn’t everyone in Evangelicalism. There are so many great people there! But great people are in the Mormon church too - I know many of them - but that doesn’t mean that the system itself is okay. I have enough serious theological differences with the LDS faith that I would never consider converting. Likewise, I have enough moral and political differences (and yes, theological differences - I don’t believe Christ would be okay with either white supremacy or social darwinism) that I can not consider Evangelicalism to be a morally acceptable place to raise my kids. The good people are not enough to overcome the poisonous politics and unchristian theology.

This is why hate groups matter. They cannot be dismissed as a mere fringe, unfortunately. Lies, fear and hatred, and the intent to harm others have become endemic to our religious and political discussion here in the US. And they have become a key part of the indoctrination of our children within Evangelicalism, which is why I left.

Why do we even want to be associated with hate groups?

This is my question. I mean, I don’t see anything about even the most literalist and conservative approach to Christianity that should justify telling lies, stirring up hatred and fear against those outside the tribe, and trying to harm others. The whole idea just seems contrary to the spirit of Christianity and the teachings of Christ.

Furthermore, it seems rather risky to tie religious faith to a particular political party, or even a particular political point of view. Shouldn’t Christianity be bigger than politics? Shouldn’t the call to love our neighbor be paramount over party loyalty?

Do we really want to send the message that those who do not adhere to a particular political philosophy aren’t welcome?

Do we want to have the reputation as a bunch of racists, misogynists, and bigots?

Or, as much to the point, do we really think Christianity is for whites? Really?

A friend from law school sent me this article from Scot McKnight, which really resonates with me on why I cannot in good conscience call myself an “Evangelical” any longer, and why I cannot raise my kids in that tradition. The word “Evangelical” now means “Trump voter.” Or, more broadly: Evangelical = Republican = Trump supporter = White Nationalism = Affinity for hate groups. Sadly, this is pretty much diametrically opposed to the original meaning of Evangelicalism back in the early 1800s, which supported Feminism, opposed slavery, advocated for social justice, and generally went against the wealthy establishment. How things have changed…

Money quote from McKnight’s post:

“Then came Reagan and Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and James Kennedy and theology and sociology were usurped by politics. Evangelical meant Republican. What they didn’t recognize is that “evangelical” became “whiteness” and many Latin Americans and African Americans and Asian Americans were excluded. Then came 81% for Trump. Something’s very very wrong here.”

“Don’t call me ‘evangelical’ if you mean Republican!”

Theology has indeed been usurped by politics. And that is why Steve Bannon is a featured speaker at a “Values” conference, Milo Yiannopoulos and Ayn Rand are adored by church leaders, and the symbol of 1980s greed, sexual license, racism, and nativist demagoguery gets 81% of the white Evangelical vote.

And why a seemingly elementary moral question - should hate group propaganda be part of what we teach our children - is something the American Evangelicalism gets consistently wrong.

And why I am done. And why my children will not be raised in the Evangelical faith tradition.

Stop whistling past the graveyard on this. My family is just the tip of the iceberg. The younger generation is abandoning Evangelicalism in droves. Gee, I wonder why?

***

Just an observation: this election and its aftermath has done more than all the Richard Dawkins of the world have ever done to convince people of the moral bankruptcy of American Christianity - particularly Evangelicalism. The very fact that Steve Bannon is welcome at a homophobic conference is the strongest possible argument that opposition to gay marriage is indistinguishable from vicious racism. And so many Evangelicals - including my former pastor - are so eager to excuse hate groups and their poisonous teachings rather than take a moral stand against lies, fear and hatred, and harm of other groups. I stand by my prediction on the morning after the election: 20 years from now, Evangelicals will be wondering why the young people have left, and why Evangelicalism is reduced to a bunch of old white people, it won’t be because they didn’t focus on apologetics, or because they didn’t spend enough time on systematic theology. It will be because they allowed politics - and hate - to take precedence over the teachings of Christ. “Evangelicalism” now - and in the future - will look an awful lot like Steve Bannon, Ayn Rand, and Donald Trump. And not the least bit like Jesus Christ. 

UPDATE 10-17-2017: Michael Gerson hits it out of the park.  Some of the best quotes:


"There is no group in the United States less attached to its own ideals or more eager for its own exploitation than religious conservatives."

"There is more at stake here than bad politics. When Christians ally their faith with bias and exclusion, they are influencing how the public views Christianity itself. They are associating the teachings of Jesus Christ — a globalist when it came to the Great Commission — with ethnonationalist ideology. This should be a sobering prospect for any Christian. But few seem sobered. Instead, the faithful give standing ovations to the purveyors of division and prejudice."

As Gerson points out, a belief in the Common Good was originally a religious idea, based on the inherent value of all human life. But this belief is nowhere to be found in Evangelicalism these days. It's Social Darwinism and Ethnonationalism all the way down...

***

Just a reminder: I blogged about this before the election. Le Toupee managed to slander and show contempt for every single group in the hate speech list:

National origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability.

We aren’t even a full year into his term, and he has taken time to cause harm to EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. THESE. GROUPS.

Ask yourself if this reflects the character and teachings of Christ...

And then, think of the deathly silence about all of this from the Evangelical church in the last few years. Um, yeah. I had to endure several screeds from the pulpit about homosexuality. And not one freaking word about racism or social darwinism. Or one freaking bit about, let’s see, sexual assault, or slander against immigrants. Or one rebuke against hate group affiliation, immersion in white supremacy, or contempt for the poor. Nope, it was too damn clear that it you could hold any political opinion - as long as it was Republican - and Trumpian - in every respect. Others need not bother. 

***

Additional link 10-19-2017:

William Saletan reports from the Values Voter Conference on what some of the other speakers said.  

Interesting highlights: "Keep the refugees out." "No more civil rights protests." "We are at war with China." "Yay for Confederate Statues." Just saying. 

***

Before commenting, please read my comment policy. In the context of this post, I don’t need an argument about why I am wrong and why Evangelicalism is right. I have left. I am not going back. And you have likely lost two generations - probably more - as a result. Maybe instead of arguing you need to look in the mirror. It isn’t me that has chosen hate groups over keeping the next generation. It isn’t me that has made Evangelicalism = Trump. Take a look in the mirror.

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe by Anne Applebaum

Source of book: borrowed from the library

Totalitarianism (Merriam-Webster Dictionary):

1: centralized control by an autocratic authority

2: the political concept that the citizen should be totally subject to an absolute state authority

Totalitarianism (Benito Mussolini):

“Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

Totalitarian Regime (Carl J. Friedrich & Zbingiew Brzezinski):

A dominant ideology, a single ruling party, a secret police prepared to use terror, a monopoly on information, and a planned economy.

If there is one political philosophy that I hold to without reservation, it is my hatred of totalitarianism. The Twentieth Century saw the rise of totalitarianism on a global scale, and hundreds of millions would be sacrificed to its need for control.

The names are familiar to all of us. Mussolini first coined the definition - and he meant it as a compliment and an aspiration. Hitler and Stalin seem to have competed as to who could slaughter more. (Stalin won, by the way.) Mao and Pol Pot and a host of lesser imitators added to the carnage.

This book was published just last year, and contains a wealth of information from recently opened archives throughout Eastern Europe. In addition, Applebaum interviewed a number of survivors of the Stalin era. Their words are often the most haunting of all.

I first became familiar with Anne Applebaum from her nuanced reporting and writing in the Washington Post and on Slate.com on foreign affairs. From 1988 through 1991, she chronicled the collapse of communism for the Economist, writing and reporting on location in Warsaw. She also wrote from first hand experience in the Baltic States when they were on the verge of independence. While on this assignment, she met and married Radoslaw Sikorski, currently the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Republic of Poland. One of her previous books (which I want to read), Gulag: A History, won the Pulitzer prize in 2004.

Iron Curtain covers the period from the last years of World War Two through the death of Joseph Stalin, (1944-1956) focusing on three Eastern European countries: Poland, Hungary, and East Germany. It is an excellently researched and written book. Although it is not exactly easy reading, it is compelling. While most of us are at least passingly familiar with the basics of how Stalin “perfected” the art of using violence to suppress dissent, this book shows just how it was done, and how Communism was able to destroy the existing civil society and attempt to replace it with an all-encompassing State that attempted to control the very thoughts of the people it conquered.

Probably the thing that struck me the most while reading this book was the similarities between totalitarian systems and cults. Here I use “cult” not in the sense of non-mainstream religious organizations, but in the sense of dangerous, controlling and destructive movements. Think Jim Jones or the Branch Davidians. These movements employ manipulative and authoritarian mind control over members, have a totalitarian and communal organization, aggressive proselytizing, and systematic indoctrination. Add the coercive power of the State, and secret police, and you pretty much have Nazism or Stalinism. (Raymond Aron makes a compelling case that Communism is a religion in The Opium of the Intellectuals. I think the case that it is a cult is quite strong as well.)

It wasn’t just the common features listed above, it was the way that Communist ideology was deified and made into an article of faith that was immune to all proof to the contrary. As a biographer of Walter Ulbricht of East Germany noted, “here was a seemingly simple, convincing formula that enabled him to categorize and explain everything he learned, heard and saw.” It was a complete worldview. A complete lens by which all truth could be perceived.

But how could such a cult take over such a large portion of the world in such a short period of time?

According to those Applebaum interviewed, it came about primarily because of the terror and destruction of the war, which caused a desire to return to “normal.” When combined with the apathy by the Allies, and the military force of Stalin’s army, it seemed inevitable.

In my review of They Thought They Were Free, I noted that the Nazis were able to gain power in the aftermath of World War One and the subsequent collapse of the German economy. Anything seemed better than the status quo. Similarly, in Eastern Europe, the Nazis destroyed much of the conquered nations, and the Soviets could appear on the surface as liberators, if only by comparison. After all, of the Jewish population in Poland, barely ten percent remained. Anything was better than that, right?

But it was an illusion. The Soviet army was every bit as brutal as that of Hitler. The old concentration camps, including Auschwitz, were simply repurposed for new political prisoners. As in wars from time immemorial, gang rape was used as a military and political weapon. (There are some heartrending first-hand accounts in this book. Not graphic, but awful nonetheless.) If there were not enough reasons to hate Stalin, his response to reports that soldiers were looting and raping, demanded to know how the complainant could not, “understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle.” (More than any of the other good reasons I loathe Sartre is that he defended Stalin’s evil behavior as justified under the circumstances. Ick.)

Another interesting fact brought to light is that the first thing the Soviets established was not a collective economy, or communist schools, or puppet leadership. It was the secret police. The basis for all that would come after.

This was necessary because the first order of business was to destroy all competition in the realm of ideas. This was the closest cult parallel, in my opinion. True cults - and cult-like organizations (such as the one I experienced) depend on limiting information. They depend on complete control over the ideas that are allowed to be heard. For Stalin, this meant eliminating everything that was not Communist propaganda.

It is probably impossible to overstate the degree of suspicion that the Communists had for all institutions other than the Party. As Christians, we have generally been aware of the atheistic nature of Communist philosophy - and also of the systematic campaign by Communist regimes to destroy the Church. However, this hatred and destruction was much broader than that. Any small group that met for any purpose was suspect. In Poland, there was a particular distrust of Chess clubs; but all civic organizations such as charities, sports clubs, literary groups, social groups were targeted for either destruction or assimilation into the Party.

For the same reason, those who owned books were often arrested - they might have unapproved ideas. Barbers and pub owners were suspected because of the informal “groups” that might naturally meet at their establishments. As Applebaum puts it:

In the end, the fate of the Polish Scouts, the Hungarian People’s Colleges, the German Christian Democratic youth, and a vast range of other institutions - mainstream and idiosyncratic, political and apolitical, from shooting clubs and fencing teams to folk-dance troupes and Catholic charities - was the same. The nascent totalitarian states could not tolerate any competition whatsoever for their citizens’ passions, talents, and free time.

Likewise, education itself became based exclusively on Marxist/Stalinist theory, and all “Western” influences (such as Montessori - which was popular in Eastern Europe) were purged. The idea was that acquired traits could be inherited. Thus, if the next generation could only be raised without any taint from “capitalist” ideas, this would then be passed on to succeeding generations, and presumably the Communist Utopia would follow. (This is roughly the same philosophy followed by the Christian Reconstructionists, in my opinion, particularly Douglas Phillips and Jonathan Lindvall, who advocate extreme restriction on reading materials and essentially forbid friendships outside of the group. If only one can shelter the children from all “secular humanist” ideas and control every influence, the slate will be wiped clean, and eventually a new Christian Utopia will follow. It’s kind of uncanny how totalitarian systems end up resembling each other.)

In the end, all organized resistance was either destroyed by force, assimilated, or faded away under threat. The book illustrates these options with the stories of the two Catholic cardinals that took different approaches. The cardinal for Hungary actively resisted, and was destroyed along with most of the church organization in that nation. In contrast, the cardinal for Poland played along to a degree in order to survive, but was accused of collaboration. In the end, the Polish church was to be a crucial factor in the liberation and rebuilding of Poland after the fall of Communism. Which choice was better?

For most, there was little day-to-day reason to resist. (I discussed this at greater length regarding They Thought They Were Free.) As Applebaum puts it, unless there were “dramatic circumstances,” there was no reason to buck the system. After all, they depended on the State for food, health care, housing, jobs, and pretty much everything. One defied the State only when circumstances demanded it.

Somehow, though, all of the rosy dreams of the doctrinaires never came to pass. As a Hungarian joke went, “The definition of socialism: an incessant struggle against difficulties that would not exist in any other system.”

One of the surprising things about this book was the wealth of information from those who hated the system, but had no power to change it. Particularly in the intellectual and artistic realms, the officially approved forms were stultifying, and the products laughable. (Some of the poetry quoted - later disowned by its reluctant authors - such as an ode to a steel foundry are so bad as to be impossible to parody.)

One of my favorites was this slogan printed on a banner.

Every artificially inseminated pig is a blow to the face of Imperialist warmongers.

The poor guy who had to come up with that - and the one that had to design the banner. Applebaum sums this up with another great quotable line: “The experience of living in a society that forced everyone to sound enthusiastic all of the time, and that forced many people to say and do things they didn’t believe in, eventually had profound psychological consequences.”

Naturally, such control over every aspect of life, and the attempt to control even thoughts would lead to subtle forms of protest. Eventually, the entire system would collapse as a result.

I love the chapters on the the passive forms of protest. Since everything was controlled, even the silliest things could be serious protest. For example, in a system of “enthusiasm,” and earnest seriousness, even ordinary jokes would be seen as subversive. Actually, the root of much humor is the absurdity of the status quo, so this was naturally alarming to the authorities.

I found it immensely interesting that jazz, of all things, came to be the music of protest. Because of its American roots, it was viewed as the very devil by the Stalinists. Here is the money quote from an East German musicologist (speaking the official position, no doubt):

"American entertainment kitsch" was a  "channel through which the poison of Americanism penetrates and threatens to anaesthetize the minds of workers." The threat from jazz, swing and big band music was, he said, "just as dangerous as a military attack with poison gases." After all, it reflected: "the degenerate ideology of American monopoly capital with its lack of culture ... its empty sensationalism and above all its fury for war and destruction ... We should speak plainly here of a fifth column of Americanism. It would be wrong to misjudge the dangerous role of American hit music in the preparation for war."

I just about fell off my chair when I read this. In a past post on Christian Patriarchy, I noted that Rousas Rushdoony (a holocaust denialist and segregation proponent) condemned jazz (and later rock and roll) as inherently evil. As I noted then, it was really the fact that it was derived from Africa that made it problematic. So, lo and behold! The communists hated it too, once again for its political meaning. I doubt Ellington and Gillespie were thinking specifically about Stalin when they performed - but Stalin thought so, and therefore, the music was political on both sides. It was shocking to see the exact same rhetoric in a different context. (I need to write a post someday about the political nature of music throughout history. Notes in and of themselves are not “good” or “evil,” but they have always been used as symbols - and have always been a threat to autocrats. Someday.)

Again, this protest was inevitable. One of the most powerful quotes in the book is from an anonymous blacksmith quoted in one of the semi-underground newspapers.

"How many times have I been obliged to accept the opinion of others, one which I perhaps don't share. As that opinion changes, it's demanded that mine change equally. And that makes me feel sick, sicker than if I'd been beaten. I'm a man, I too. I also have a head which I use to think. And I'm not a child. I'm an adult, who gives his soul, his heart, his youth and his energy for the construction of socialism...I do it willingly but I want to be considered like an adult who lives and knows how to think. I want to be able to speak my thoughts without having anything to fear - and I want to be heard as well..."

For those who have survived any autocratic system, this is at the heart of the issue. This is freedom of thought and speech in a nutshell - and it is what the First Amendment of the Constitution has at its core. Freedom to disagree.

Soon after Stalin’s death, some things loosened up in Eastern Europe. Applebaum considers the end of Stalinism in Poland to have begun with a festival wherein representatives of a variety of nations were invited. Things quickly got out of control (from the communist point of view), and there was spontaneous mingling and communication, and the cat was out of the bag. It was no longer possible to maintain the illusion that the capitalist nations were impoverished, or that there was no world worth having outside of the Marxist paradise. In contrast to the grey and humorless - gloomy even - officially approved clothing and conversation was the fun of spontaneity.

As a Polish newspaper reported, “It turned out that it was possible to be ‘progressive’ and at the same time enjoy life, wear colorful clothes, listen to jazz, have fun, and fall in love.”

(I hate to have to refer to this again, but this is exactly the kind of thing that my friends who have escaped from the Christian Patriarchy paradigm have been saying. In an ideology that controls clothing, music, and particularly love and romance, this is precisely the freedom one misses.)

Two quotes provide a good closing to this book.

The first is from Doctor Zhivago (the book, not the movie):

And so it was necessary to teach people not to think and make judgments, to compel them to see the nonexistent, and to argue the opposite of what was obvious to everyone.

This quote parallels the one I loved from Why Does the Universe Exist. The demise of any cult occurs when the members realize that they are being fed a lie.

The second, is Applebaum’s:

By trying to control every aspect of society, the regimes had turned every aspect of society into a potential form of protest.

I note that there are plenty of online reviews from people who hate the book because of its supposed bias. In response, I would note that the history of repression by the communist regimes is so well established as to be rather beyond dispute. The gulags were not an invention. The evidence from those who escaped, survived, or perished is overwhelming. Those who, like Sartre, continue to drink the koolaid continue to look at the flaws of the West and capitalism (and there are many) and cling to the dream that there is one “simple, convincing formula” explains everything - and shows the way to utopia. I would also note that, like the Party apparatchiks before them, these reviewers cite suppose Western sabotage of the economies of communist nations. Some things never change.

Note on the music:

Here are four musical selections which dovetail nicely with this book.

First, when the Nazi’s conquered Poland, the last broadcast from the radio was a live rendition of Franz Chopin’s Nocturne in C# Minor by Wladyslaw Szpilman (who would later write The Pianist). Upon liberation from the Nazis, he would repeat the performance on live radio, but the station would again be silenced by the Soviets.

 

The ludicrous interference with the arts led to some bad art, but many true geniuses managed to hide their protest within their “officially approved” works. Sergei Prokofiev wrote Lieutenant Kije for a film of the same name, which officially poked fun at the old Tsarist bureaucracy. A paperwork mistake is made, attributing great heroism to Kije, who doesn’t actually exist. In order to keep the mistake from being discovered, the bureaucrats invent an entire life for Kije - and eventually kill off their creation. (In other words, Manti Te’o wasn’t that original...) The music is full of humor, and clearly shows how ludicrous the whole thing was. The communist officialdom apparently never realized that the joke worked well on them too.

 

Bela Bartok fled to the United States ahead of the Nazis, and died there before the end of the war. Had he lived to see the Soviet tanks rolling through Budapest, he would have wept as much as he did for the German tanks. I love the Divertimento for Strings, and had the chance to play it a decade and a half ago. The middle movement is widely believed to represent his sorrow at the destruction of Hungary. Starting at the 3:45 mark, there is an ostinato in the lower voices that starts soft, but eventually overwhelms everything, while the higher voices scream in anguish. The machine has crushed all, and nothing is left but mourning. 

The final selection combines so many elements hated by totalitarians everywhere. Rock and roll. Check. African American musicians. Check. Atonality borrowed from “degenerate” classical music. (“Degenerate” and "decadent" were code for “Jewish” in the Nazi lexicon, and “American” in the Stalinist dictionary. And, I should add, “N------” in the Rushdoony paradigm.) And, well, it is about the Cult of Personality. I present Living Color, and some pretty rad 80s pants.