Fake Demons and Real Demons

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here!” ~ The Tempest

 

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” ~ Antonio Gramsci

 

(Commonly paraphrased as “The old is dying and the new struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.”)

 

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.  Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” ~ I Timothy 4:1-2

 

“Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the person which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which come out of the person are what defile the person…Are you so lacking in understanding as well? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the person from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated? That which comes out of the person, that is what defiles the person. For from within, out of the hearts of people, come the evil thoughts, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, murders, acts of adultery, deeds of greed, wickedness, deceit, indecent behavior, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile the person.” ~ Jesus Christ (the Gospel of Mark)

 

“I swear, it's as if they believe in the power of demons more than they do their own god they claim to worship. Meanwhile, the real demons of xenophobia, nationalism, resentment, fear, and hate they welcome without realizing it -- what a weak ‘faith’.” ~ my friend J. M. 

 

***

Because I love Albrecht Durer... 

 

Did you know that originally, the word “demon” (often spelled daemon) didn’t refer to a fallen angel or malignant supernatural spirit?

 

Rather, it meant “a divine power, lesser deity, guiding spirit, or genius.” Which is why Plato referred to Socrates as having a special “daemon” - a guiding light, an inner genius. 

 

It wasn’t until post-exilic Judaism fused the Zoroastrian cosmology of lesser divine beings with monotheism that the idea of “demons” as malignant supernatural beings took hold. 

 

It is important to understand the root of this belief in the superstition that misfortune was caused by malignant spirits (and inspired by the missteps of whomever people wished to scapegoat - and hence the burning of women as witches…) rather than being an unfortunate part of existence. 

 

(As Stephen Pinker put it: “A great principle of moral advancement, on par with ‘Love thy neighbor’ and ‘All men are created equal,’ is the one on the bumper sticker: ‘Shit happens.’”)

 

I believe that understanding that a belief in literal demons in the sense of invisible malignant supernatural beings is just a superstition. These are the fake demons. And in my life experience, this belief is seriously harmful. It makes one fearful and superstitious, blames natural phenomena on supernatural causes, and scapegoats innocent humans for bad luck. It also distracts from the real demons that plague our society. 

 

***

 

My family history of superstition

 

It will come as no surprise to anyone that most Evangelicals believe in literal demons and angels. Historically, this was a widespread belief. In fact, one can see elaborate hierarchies in Judaism (which I will not pretend to be particularly familiar with.) 

 

In the Christian tradition, the most influential - and detailed - angelology comes from 7th Century theologian and writer Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who ranked angels (and thus demons who are “fallen” angels) in this order, top to bottom: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. Note that “thrones” and “virtues” are titles, and have nothing to do with the normal use of these words. 

 

Honestly, I had no idea about this elaborate classification system until I read The Revolt of the Angels, by atheist Anatole France. It’s a great book, but I definitely had to look up all of the angel stuff. 

 

This system of classification was criticized by Martin Luther, who largely rejected Pseudo-Dionysius. Thus, we Protestants didn’t get quite the same thing. Although one could argue that Frank Peritti’s fantasy novels would have been better with interesting names to go with the ranks of demons and angels. 

 

(Maybe someday I will have time to write about Peretti - his books were part of my teen years, and I have things to say about that.) 

 

More generally, Evangelicals believe in literal angels and demons, but without necessarily the expectation of ever meeting one. Pentecostals, well, in that tradition (which I spent time in in my teens) does “spiritual warfare” as they call, it, with a lot of “binding and rebuking” of demonic powers. 

 

Looking back, it was more than a little weird. Although there was this time at Christian Summer Camp that a friend rolled his eyes at the ever-present sophomoric fart jokes, and quipped, “I really want to rebuke the Spirit of Indigestion.” 

 

Pentecostals take a lot more seriously the idea that humans can be “possessed” by a demon, or the lesser version, “demonization.” I’ll talk a bit more about that below.

 

It was even before we had our foray into Pentecostalism (that’s a whole story too…) that my mom got really into demons and stuff. 

 

Probably the first thing I remember is her reading Turmoil in the Toybox. I do not recommend that book at all, but I am linking to it because of the influence it had on my birth family. The basic premise is that most “modern” toys are intentionally designed to give your kid demons. It is all a vast conspiracy against Christianity, etc. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

Now, to be clear, the idea is that crazy, although it is misguided. The modern, late-stage-capitalism version of toys are deeply problematic. Too many of them are plastic, causing environmental harm as well as breaking easily, requiring replacements. It is planned disposability. 

 

And, of course, the endless cross-marketing. When I was a kid, it was the Saturday Morning Cartoons which were created mostly to sell toys based on the shows. And shows which were created to be based on toys. And books, and records, and anything else you could aggressively advertise. 

 

But demons?

 

So, this meant that for many of that subculture, you had to burn your Cabbage Patch dolls, avoid anything with fantasy symbolism (because the occult, yo!), and only watch cartoons (if at all) from the golden age. 

 

I should be clear here that in many ways, this didn’t affect me that much. I was always all about the LEGOs, which were, apparently, fine. I never got the appeal of He-Man, which seemed pretty darn cheesy to young me. In fact, I can’t really think of any of the “forbidden” toys that appealed to me. I was a weird, nerdy kid, who wanted to build stuff. So all of my favorite toys (other than the usual stuffed animals and blankets) were creative things: spirograph, capsella, LEGOs, books, art supplies. That was who I was. And still am. 

 

Where this affected me was when I played with friends. If they weren’t into the Moral Panic Culture™, they had these toys, and I had the awkward job of explaining why I couldn’t play with them. Sigh. 

 

Things accelerated for my parents when we got first into Pentecostalism and then Bill Gothard’s cult. For both, there was an increased paranoia about demons, although they took different approaches. 

 

For Pentecostals, modern culture was generally okay. They did music with drums and electric guitars, watched regular movies, played with regular toys. 

 

But they did have a baseline paranoia about getting demons, and an obsession with blaming problems on supernatural causes. 

 

This is nothing new, of course. Even in the Bible, we see the ancient lack of understanding about illnesses such as Schizophrenia and Epilepsy. Thus, Christ’s healing of illness was described as “casting out demons.” These days, for a person like my mother, who suffers from epilepsy, the cause is bad brain wiring, not a demon, and appropriate treatment is medication, not an exorcism. We learn more, we discover better explanations and treatments. 

 

This bled into a lot of superstition that naturally-caused problems and difficulties were the result of demon activity. Obviously, this was unhelpful. A child with ADHD doesn’t have a demon - they have different brain wiring, so an exorcism isn’t going to fix it. Mental illness isn’t supernatural either, so “treating” it like that is singularly unhelpful, and distracts from legitimately useful treatments. 

 

And, lest we forget, the blaming of sexual orientation and gender identity on demons. Just cast out the “demon of homosexuality” and your kid will turn heterosexual. It’s like magic! (Spoiler: it doesn’t work.) 

 

I’m sure you can figure out where this is going. As I went through puberty and started pushing back (“rebellion!”) against my parents, finding my own way of life, this got blamed on malignant supernatural influence. Instead of what it was: normal human childhood development.

 

Another influence here was a book called Pigs in the Parlor, which I also do not recommend reading. My mom was hugely into this book for a while, at a time in my life when she seemed to find everything about me annoying and problematic. 

 

The basic idea is that, while Christians cannot be “possessed” by demons - we already belong to Christ - we can be “demonized” - tormented, influenced, bothered by demons. I read part of it, and, ugh. It was just terrible, like all such books are. Utter dreck, unsupported by evidence, not remotely based in scripture or Christian tradition, just superstition.

 

Actually, what it reminded me the most of was….literally every fad diet book. It is the same superstition, just with intangible “demons” rather than slightly more tangible stuff like “gluten.” Hey, same with Turmoil in the Toybox too! 

 

Again, you can easily imagine how this affected my mom’s approach to a normal teenager who she found problematic. 

 

And that brings us to Gothard. 

 

For Gothard, the risk of demons was mostly focused on culture. Specifically, the culture of people who weren’t white. 

 

So, he recycled the old moral panic about music created by black people. Rock and Roll, Jazz, Pop - all that - gave you demons. Cultural artifacts, particularly if they looked like or could be thought of as “idols” gave you demons too. 

 

Certain books were suspect as well, particularly if they contained “magic.” Which is how we ended up burning our Lord of the Rings books. (Narnia was spared, fortunately.) Magic gave you demons. 

 

But that misses the REALLY BIG ONE.

 

“Rebellion” was literally opening up your mind to Satan himself. 

 

As proof-text for this, the story of King Saul and his disobedience to the prophet Samuel was used. “For rebellion is as of the sin of witchcraft…”

 

Yep. Disagreeing with your parents meant you were opening yourself up to demons. 

 

This idea has, more than any other, I believe, been at the core of my trauma and estrangement from my parents. I disagreed. (And, honestly, I was right about things most of the time.) Therefore, I was opening my mind, heart, and soul to Satan, and letting demons enter my inner self. 

 

If this sounds like an abusive thing to say to a child, you would be right. 

 

I’m not going to recount all of the stupid, unnecessary fights I had with my mom (and occasionally with my dad) over this. We fought over food, music, books, theology, and eventually even my right to an education. (Which I was denied, by the way. I never got to go to a normal college. Bill Gothard’s law school was my only ticket out, so I took it, even though it wasn’t what I wanted. But I had to tell my parents it was what I wanted, or I was “rebellious.”)

 

Even now, my mom threatens me with hell because I am not “walking in truth.” Disagreement with her is “rebellion,” aka opening myself to Satan. 

 

What I learned from all this is that I was not loved as a person, but persistently invalidated and treated as a problem to be managed. I was told, repeatedly, that who I was made me unsafe to be seen. I was demonized, literally, because I was who I was. My parents were seemingly blindsided by the fact that all their prayers and discipline and formula-following never “fixed” me. And that is how we ended up estranged. 

 

I’ll add in one further detail that came years later. I can pinpoint when my mom lost the respect of my now-adult children. The older ones would have been tweens at that point. 

 

My mom, rather than actually listening to and building a relationship with them, was more focused on making them her personal mission field. 

 

But it was when she insisted that reading Harry Potter would give you demons that I saw the eyes glaze over, and I never saw my older kids take my mom seriously again. She had chosen to spew her ignorance and bigotry rather than treat her grandchildren with respect and love, and they took note. 

 

The overall result of this kind of obsession with demons is that you start seeing them everywhere. 

 

Every book, song, toy, movie, TV show, or cultural artifact is a potential source of demons. Every cultural change is the result of demons. Anything that makes you uncomfortable is a demon. 

 

They are like the common cold: a little sniffle and you can catch one. 

 

This is a horrible way to live. In fact, superstition is always like this. It feeds off of fear rather than love and a sound mind. When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer. 

 

Far better is to invest in learning how to understand the world we live in. Find treatments for epilepsy and mental illness. Evaluate toys and culture on merit and utility, not paranoia. See other cultures as normal, valid, and beautiful expressions of humanity and the image of God. Listen to other people and what speaks to them - you might learn something. Build relationships around mutual respect, not condescending missionary zeal. 

 

***

 

So, how about those real demons?

 

I am indebted to my friend J. M. for the quote above, which I will repeat here:

 

“I swear, it's as if they believe in the power of demons more than they do their own god they claim to worship. Meanwhile, the real demons of xenophobia, nationalism, resentment, fear, and hate they welcome without realizing it -- what a weak ‘faith’.” ~ my friend J. M. 

 

This came up in a comment on a Facebook post I made regarding Barry Manilow and the superstition about music. 

 

 

This is the tragedy of it, as J. M. points out. 

 

My parents - and indeed so many Evangelicals - have wasted their time chasing imaginary demons, and, distracted, have fallen prey to the real ones. 

 

The daemons - the guiding light, inner motivation - of evil. The true evil in our world. 

 

Xenophobia, nationalism, resentment, fear, and hate.

 

It isn’t literal invisible supernatural beings who are calling for the ethnic cleansing of America. That would be real humans like Stephen Miller and Donald Trump and their goons and ghouls. 

 

An invisible supernatural being didn’t kill Renee Good, Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Víctor Manuel Díaz, Parady La, Luis Beltrán Yáñez–Cruz, Heber Sánchez Domínguez, and Alex Pretti. They were killed by ICE as part of an ethnic cleansing operation. 

 

It isn’t invisible supernatural beings that make children die of measles. They die because very real human beings believe lies and deprive children of life-saving vaccinations. 

 

It isn’t invisible supernatural beings who kick tens of millions of humans off of health insurance. That was done by Republican politicians, who I am pretty sure are actual human beings, not supernatural demons. Although honestly, it is often difficult to tell, because their souls were sold to evil long ago. 

 

As the Bard said, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” 

 

Our world has no need to invent invisible supernatural beings to explain our evil. We humans are damn good at doing it ourselves. “The Devil made me do it” has always been bullshit. 

 

The real demons are those internal motivations that we embrace and make part of us - those internal “daemons” that motivate us toward xenophobia, nationalism, resentment, fear, and hate. 

 

Christ himself noted this. The religious hypocrites of his day (and of ours) focus on preventing external “contamination.” Don’t eat the wrong foods, don’t hang out with “those people,” be sure to avoid all “labor” on the Sabbath, and of course look down on those who fail to meet expectations. 

 

Christ’s response was that contamination comes from the inside: it is those internal motivations - the real demons - that contaminate us, because of what comes out of us. 

 

We need to be looking at our fruit. Are you full of goodness, or a whitewashed tomb? Does it match the Fruit of the Spirit? Or does it look a lot more like the Fruit of the Klan? (And yes, MAGA is the 21st Century iteration of the Klan.) 

 

The writer of I Timothy talked about the “doctrine of demons.” It is helpful to understand this in context. 

 

Where does this “doctrine of demons” come from? Well, it comes from “hypocritical liars.” Hey, do we know any of those? It sure describes the Orange Fascist and his followers. And also a hell of a lot of people occupying pulpits. 

 

These false teachers (hey, check out my list of dead ones!) have “seared their consciences with a hot iron.” This is literally the core of MAGA and Christian Nationalism. Just look up “The Sin of Empathy.” These people have literally seared their consciences - the part that might make them hesitate before inflicting violence, hatred, and death on people different from them. That is the point. 

 

But there is also the rest of the passage. A hallmark of the false teachers is that they teach that contamination comes from outside. “Don’t eat that.” “Don’t marry like that.” Concentrating on externals is the way false teachers operate. It distracts from the real evil within, the evil that overflows out of the abundance of our hearts.  

 

Finally, the writer warns against “godless myths and old wives’ tales.” In other words, superstition. Don’t be superstitious. Don’t chase imaginary malevolent supernatural beings. Instead, focus on what is inside of you. If what is inside reflects the love of God, the virtues that lead to good fruit and love of neighbor, the outside will take care of itself. 

 

Don’t worry about the imaginary fake demons. We have enough of the real ones in our world already. 

 

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Source of book: I own this

 

The Shadow of the Wind is this month’s selection for the Literary Lush Book Club. My wife nominated this book, which we generally enjoyed. I don’t think I would have discovered this book on my own, but you never know. 

Originally written in Spanish by an author from Spain, The Shadow of the Wind is a gothic mystery, full of atmosphere, pouring rain, violence, sex, revenge, the Spanish Civil War, trauma, and books. I feel that it has some stylistic parallels with Cathedral of the Sea, another Spanish book from the era; and that having previously read The Cypresses Believe in God, a far more serious book about the Spanish Civil War, I understood the various parties to the war better than I would have otherwise. 

 

So what is the book about? Well, I’ll do my best to not give away too many spoilers. There are a lot of twists, up until almost the very end, and unravelling the mystery is much of the fun. 

 

The book opens with young Daniel panicked that he has stopped being able to remember his late mother’s face. His father - who is a real mensch, a thoughtful and kind and understanding parent - comforts him, but also decides that it is time for him to become a man. 

 

By this, his father, a bookseller, means that Daniel must visit the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where all the books ever published (even if forgotten) reside. There, a book will select him, and it will become part of his identity. 

 

When they visit, he is drawn to a book named “The Shadow of the Wind” by the relatively unknown author Julian Carax. 

 

As expected, Daniel loves the book, and indeed becomes somewhat obsessed with it and the author. 

 

And then, as he begins to investigate the story behind the book, he is accosted by a mysterious stranger, with a burned face, who offers to buy the book from him. By this time, Daniel has learned that nearly all of Carax’s books have been bought by a mysterious man going by the name of a character - the devil - in one of the books, and burning them. So, he refuses to sell, and hides the book again. 

 

Most of the story happens a number of years later, when Daniel is a young adult. He befriends Fermin, a homeless man who turns out to have been tortured as a political prisoner during the Civil War, and is being hounded by the police inspector Fumero. Fermin is given a job at the bookstore, and turns out to be talented at the job. 

 

Throughout the book, Fermin and Daniel investigate the mysterious death or disappearance of Julian Carax, interviewing those who knew him, and trying to discover the lurid story at the center of his existence. 

 

Beyond that, I won’t get into the plot. 

 

There are a number of fascinating characters in the book. One of the interesting things we discussed is that the young females seem mostly to exist as plot devices, except for Bea, who is given a bit more to do. In contrast, there are multiple older women who get backstories and interesting roles to play, even if they are not main characters.

 

The book also strikes me as having stylistic similarities to other Spanish books I have read, even though the settings and stories varied greatly. For example, the medieval story in Cathedral of the Sea shares some elements with this book that are unmistakable. For example, the question of paternity and how it affects later relationships, the hidden identities, the single-minded persecution by an obsessed authority. And also some similarities in how the writing translates to English. I can’t exactly describe this, but if you have read books by different authors that just “feel” similar in the writing style, you know what I mean. 

 

Also common in the Spanish books I have read is a different approach to female sexuality than in our more typical American (and even more so English) literary fiction. Both countries have a centuries-long hangover from Puritanism that colors sex for everyone. But particularly women. This isn’t to say that you don’t find female sexual desire in our books, but that there is never desire that isn’t either colored by guilt, or a reaction to it. 

 

In contrast, in this book, women often just want sex. And the hangup is around the Catholic church, which in my reading experience, leads to guilt about the sin committed, but not about the desire. I am having difficulty explaining this, but it is a very real thing in literature. 

 

And then, there are the horndog males. Fermin, who is one of the good guys, is also a bit, um, interesting in his pursuit of tail. It’s pretty amoral in theory, although (spoiler) his actual romance in the book turns out a bit different. 

 

One of the discussions in this vein that we had with the group is whether you ever get over your first love. For my wife and I, this is a weird conversation, because we were each other’s first in nearly every way. (My wife had a brief date in her teens with a family friend - neither of them were particularly interested in the other, though.) 

 

So, one might say, after nearly 25 years of marriage, we still aren’t over our first loves. 

 

That idea does play a key role in the plot at various points. 

 

I thought the writing was excellent in this book, well suited to the gothic plot and the quick-paced style. It is on the borderline between literary fiction and genre, and I am not entirely sure how to classify it for that reason, although I think I will stick it in my “mystery” category. Because of this, I did write down a number of memorable lines. 

 

For example, the words of Isaac, the keeper of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, to the young Daniel.

 

“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”

 

I just love that, and think of my own library (which consists mostly of books my wife and I bought used) as that collection of souls each book has touched over the years - decades or even centuries.

 

I also loved this description:

 

Barcelo signaled to a waiter of such remarkable decrepitude that he looked as if he should be declared a national landmark.

 

This one, in a passage about how Gustavo Barcelo (an older bookseller and friend of Daniel’s father) was one of the first to predict the Civil War is interesting. My wife and I were talking about White Christian Nationalism - the primary cause for our ongoing cold civil war here in 21st Century America - decades before most others picked up on it. 

 

Some considered his fear exaggerated, and maintained that nothing could possibly happen in Barcelona. In Spain, both the cradle and pinnacle of Christian civilization, barbarism was for anarchists - those people who rode bicycles and wore darned socks - and surely they wouldn’t get very far. But Clara’s father believed that nations never see themselves clearly in the mirror, much less when war preys on their minds. He had a good understanding of history and knew that the future could be read much more clearly in the streets, factories, and barracks than in the morning press.

 

One of my favorite characters is that of Bernarda, the servant with a traumatic childhood, who Barcelo took in and gave a bit of the Pygmalion treatment to, at least making her pass as a provincial maid. She is thoroughly devout - which is why it is fun that she ends up with (spoiler) the atheist Fermin in the end. This bit about how she sees Barcelo is pretty amusing. 

 

Every morning she went to the eight o’clock service at the basilica of Santa Maria del Mar, and she confessed no less than three times a week, four in warm weather. Don Gustavo, who was a confirmed agnostic (which Bernarda suspected might be a respiratory condition, like asthma, but afflicting only refined gentlemen), deemed it mathematically impossible that the maid should be able to sin sufficiently to keep up that schedule of confession and contrition. 

 

Fermin is always quick with a witty remark, such as this one about how he ended up in the civil service (and thus persecuted by Franco’s thugs later) rather than in the humanities. 

 

I’m rather old-fashioned, and I believe that a father, however dim-witted, should be obeyed, if you see what I mean.

 

As Daniel approaches adulthood, he is threatened with being drafted. Fermin decides to figure out how to prevent this. In the end, rather more violent means end up doing the job, but the plan is more predictable. I like Fermin’s opinion, even if I don’t entirely agree with it:

 

“The only use for military service is that it reveals the number of morons in the population, and that can be discovered in the first two weeks; there’s no need for two years. Army, Marriage, the Church, and Banking: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yes, go on, laugh.”

 

This theme is also noted when Daniel finds he has feelings for his best friend’s sister, Bea. The problem? Well, she is already engaged to a soldier. Fermin advises Daniel to be ready to take her when she offers herself - which Fermin predicts will happen. And as for guilt?

 

“Ah, the army, blight and refuge for the basest simian instincts. All the better, because this way you can cuckold him without feeling guilty.” 

 

Fermin also has a good line after a discussion of the roughing up of a local LGBTQ old guy by the police - particularly Fumero. 

 

“It’s not fair, no, sir,” argued Merceditas, positioned by the door of the bookshop, far from Fermin’s wandering hands. “Poor thing, he has a heart of gold, and he always minds his own business. So he likes dressing up as a Gypsy and singing in front of people? Who cares? People are evil.”

“Not evil,” Fermin objected. “Moronic, which isn’t quite the same thing. Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. He acts on instinct, like a stable animal, convinced that he’s doing good, that he’s always right, and sanctimoniously proud to go around fucking up, if you’ll excuse the French, anyone he perceives to be different from himself, be it because of skin color, creed, language, nationality, or, as in the case of Don Federico, his leisure habits. What the world needs is more thoroughly evil people and fewer borderline pigheads.”

 

This is, by the way, a great description of MAGA and of self-righteous white evangelicals. Convinced they know everything, are always right, and are entitled to go around fucking up other people for being different. Bonhoeffer was correct in calling such people stupid and thus more dangerous than consciously evil people. 

 

There is a later scene, when Fermin has fallen for Bernarda, and she for him, where he suddenly has a crisis of confidence, worried that he might not be a good husband and father. This blows Daniel away, because to that point, Fermin has said he doesn’t believe in marriage or families. His response is excellent. 

 

“Well, then, for what my opinion is worth, I’m sure you’ll be an excellent father and husband. And since you don’t believe in those things, you’ll never take them for granted.” 

 

I think he is on to something. Because of my own background in a subculture where marriage vows are fetishized, and people stay in miserable and even abusive marriages because they believe in "commitment," I myself don’t entirely believe in marriage, commitment, or “forever.” As I have said to my wife, if she finds someday that she believes she would be better off without me, she should leave. I do not cage her. But because of this, I do not take our marriage for granted. I believe I need to make sure that her life with me is better than without. 

 

Featuring significantly in the story is an old abandoned mansion, once owned by the rather nefarious father of Julian Carax’ first love. Now, it is in decay and is unsellable because of its reputation of being haunted. In fact, there is even a film that purports to have captured the ghosts. 

 

Alas, all Ricardo Aldaya could see during the screening were large stains. He also maintained that both the film itself and the technician who operated the projector stank of wine and other entirely earthly spirits. 

 

Don Ricardo of course leverages the rumors to his own financial advantage. He also has, let’s say, a reputation. He keeps firing maids, for example. 

 

His reputation in this field was almost as notorious as his fortune, and there were those who said that at the rate his exploits were taking place, the illegitimate children he left behind would organize their own union. 

 

Fermin has a bit of the same, um, reputation, although perhaps his is more talk than actual offspring. At one point, after he is roughed up by Fumaro’s goons, and is recovering at Barcelo’s house, he sends a message for Daniel via the doctor. 

 

“Moreover, as proof of his vigor and presence of mind, he has asked me to transmit to you that, when Nurse Amparito was putting a few stitches in his leg, he had an iceberg of an erection.”

 

Ah, Fermin…you may protest a bit too much. 

 

The ongoing drama surrounding Daniel and Bea leads to Fermin intervening yet again, threatening to take Daniel to a brothel. He, however, will just wait in the hall reading a magazine, because he is, as he puts it, “a convert to monogamy, if not in mentis, at least de facto.” 

 

He also gives his advice that Daniel needs to call Bea, since she didn’t call when she promised. 

 

“It is one thing to believe in women, and another to believe what they say.” 

 

Another Fermin line that was hilarious was in the scene when he and Daniel are having ham sandwiches in a cafe, and one of Fumero’s goons is watching them. He calls the waiter over. 

 

“Could you please go and tell him immediately that there’s an urgent message from Inspector Fumero? He must go immediately the Boqueria Market to buy twenty duros’ worth of boiled chickpeas and take them without delay to Police Headquarters (in a taxi if necessary) - or he must prepare to present his balls to him on a plate. Would you like me to repeat it?”

“That won’t be necessary, sir. Twenty duros’ worth of chickpeas or his balls on a plate.” 

 

I hear that in Jeeves’ voice, of course. 

 

Speaking of Fumero, Fermin gives a correct and highly perceptive analysis of his character.

 

“What I can tell you about Fumero is common knowledge. The first time I heard him mentioned, the future inspector was a gunman working for the anarchist syndicate, the FAI. He had earned himself quite a reputation, because he had no fear and no scruples. All he needed was someone’s name, and he’d finish him off on the street with a shot in the face, in the middle of the day. Such talents are greatly valued in times of unrest. The other things he didn’t have were loyalty or beliefs. He didn’t give a damn what cause he was serving, so long as the cause would help him climb the ladder. There are plenty of riffraff like him in the world, but few of them have Fumero’s talent. From the anarchists he went on to serve the communists, and from there to the fascists was only a step. He spied and sold information from one faction to the other, and he took money from all of them.”

 

This, I believe, is a reasonably accurate description of ICE thugs as well. 

 

I also want to mention a line, where Don Federico delivers a message from Fermin, who is being wrongly accused of murdering a woman who once was in love with Julian Carax. 

 

“What have you got against umbrellas, Daniel?”

“What could be more beautiful than the rain, Don Federico?”

“Pneumonia. Come on in, I have your repair ready.”

 

That woman is the daughter of Isaac - there are a lot of connections in this book. After her murder, Isaac has a belated epiphany, one I wonder if a lot of authoritarian fundamentalist parents are going to have someday. 

 

“In over fifteen years, I didn't go to see her once. I always told her she’d chosen a band neighborhood. Not enough light. An old building. She would just nod in agreement. Like when I used to tell her she’d chosen a bad life. Not much future. A jobless husband. It’s funny how we judge others and don’t realize the extent of our disdain until they are no longer there, until they are taken from us. They’re taken from us because they’ve never been ours.” 

 

I want to mention another line, but can’t give context without a major spoiler. I do think, however, it stands on its own. 

 

They had parted as boys, and now life presented one of them with a fugitive and the other with a dying man. Both wondered whether this was due to the cards they’d been dealt or to the way they had played them. 

 

That is the unanswerable question, isn’t it?

 

Another one to mention out of context is the line about a father, in view of the impossibility of obtaining his daughter’s suitor on a platter, settled for giving consent to the marriage. 

 

There is also a line about Fermin’s eventual wedding, where he had to get a priest drunk enough to do the ceremony - and quoted one of Neruda’s love sonnets rather than the usual scripture. Alas, the book does not say which one. I like to think it is this one, a very favorite poem of mine:

 

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

 

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries   

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,   

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose   

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,   

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,   

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

 

I’ll close with what probably isn’t a spoiler, but comes at the end. After Fumero is gone to his reward (or more likely punishment), his memory, well, I’ll let the book explain. 

 

The years were not kind to the memory of Inspector Fumero. Not even those who hated and feared him seem to remember him anymore. Years ago, on Paseo de Gracia, I came across Lieutenant Palacios, who left the police force and now teaches gymnastics at a school in the Bonanova quarter. He told me there is still a commemorative plaque in honor of Fumero in the basement of Central Police Headquarters on Via Layetana, but a new soft-drinks machine covers it entirely. 

 

Someday, when Trump is dead, and his minions out of power, this too will happen for most of them. They will be like the Confederate memorial that exists somewhere buried in the shrubbery at our local county museum. Mostly forgotten, not remembered much and not honored. Hey, have you thought much about Rush Limbaugh lately? He’s been dead almost exactly five years, other hatemongers have taken his place, and few bother to remember him now. So will it be with MAGA, who will be remembered as a faceless evil, a force of hate that enveloped millions of people, then faded away with the turn of the tide, unable to sustain itself without its clown prince. 

 

The Shadow of the Wind was a fun read. Apparently, it is the first in a series, which might be fun to explore further. 

Where Do We Go From Here? by Martin Luther King Jr.

Source of book: I own this

 

This is one of my official reads for Black History Month this year. You can read the whole list here. You can read my thoughts on Black History Month here. 

 

I have been intentionally reading black authors this month for the past 16 years, and I have found that the eloquent voices of African-Americans have had a profound influence on my thinking. Many of the best writers of this century and the last and the one before that have indeed been black, and all of us would do well to listen to them. 

 

I also read black authors throughout the year, and have included them on my list, because I think it is important to read broadly and find authors who are all too often overlooked. 

 

 

My experience with Martin Luther King Jr. has been limited to his more famous shorter works - the “I have a Dream” speech, and the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” both of which I have read to my children as part of their education. I had not, before this, read any of his full-length books.

 

Where Do We Go From Here? is his last book, published soon before he was murdered. It is a truly outstanding book, eloquent, profound, thoughtful, and concrete. Our world would be such a better place had his policies been put into full effect. 

 

In the light of the whitelash embodied in Trump, the book feels more relevant than ever. It also is so good-hearted and kind-spirited that I think it should serve well as an inspiration to us white folk who wish to be allies in the cause of anti-racism. This isn’t an anti-white book, but it is an anti-racism book and a bold call for true justice. 

 

I took an absolute ton of notes, so I will be quoting extensively from the book. In many ways, the book says everything far better than I could. I strongly recommend that everyone should read it, and take its words to heart. 

 

One thing that repeatedly came to mind is that this book is a far better writing of practical theology than the insipid spiritualization crap that white evangelicalism pushes. The Culture Wars™ were specifically created for racist purposes, of course, but they also are an intentional distraction from the cause of social justice - aka Christianity in action in our world. 

 

By distracting well-meaning white religious people with manufactured panics about sex and culture and change, the momentum that MLK and other civil rights activists created in white communities was largely deflected. That is a total shame, but it is also a criminal level of spiritual malpractice. 

 

If there is an afterlife, most American clergy are going to have a hell of a lot to answer for. 

 

Because the book was written after the long-awaited passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, it is forward-looking: what comes next? What do we need to do to create a truly just society? What steps need to be taken to actually create equality, now that the obvious need to end government-sponsored and tolerated active discrimination has resulted in legal change? 

 

The answer then and now is “a lot still needs to be done.” Exploring the facets of the continuing need for change is the subject of the book. 

 

Within it, MLK starts with the United States, but expands by the end to the need for global action, and a view of our world as inherently interconnected and interdependent. The future thriving of anyone is dependent on the thriving of everyone. 

 

With that, I will jump into the book, and the many quotes that I felt were necessary to explain its message. 

 

I’ll start at the beginning, with his description of the aftermath - the “whitelash” against the passage of civil rights laws. 

 

One year later, some of the people who had been brutalized in Selma and who were present at the Capitol ceremonies were leading marchers in the suburbs of Chicago amid a rain of rocks and bottles, among burning automobiles, to the thunder of jeering thousands, many of them waving Nazi flags. 

 

Um, does that sound familiar? In explaining one reason why all too many white “allies” abandoned the cause, he explains that for many, they were on board with ending the worst evils, but were not comfortable with true equality. 

 

But the absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood. 

 

And this one:

 

The real cost lies ahead. The stiffening of white resistance is a recognition of that fact. The discount education given Negroes will in the future have to be purchased at full price if quality education is to be realized. Jobs are harder and costlier to create than voting rolls. The eradication of slums housing millions is complex far beyond integrating buses and lunch counters.

 

MLK favorably quotes Hyman Bookbinder, then the assistant director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, as to how all of this is to be paid for. Again, this sure seems relevant today, when marginal tax rates on the obscenely rich are far lower than in MLK’s time. 

 

“The poor can stop being poor if the rich are willing to become even richer at a slower rate.” 

 

And, as MLK also points out, civil unrest is costly. Poverty is costly. A concerted effort to eliminate poverty would benefit everyone, including the rich. 

 

After going through a list of areas in which black folk have significant economic disadvantages - jobs, wages, housing, mortality, unemployment, health care, military service - he tackles one of the favorite myths white people believe. 

 

Depressed living standards for Negroes are not simply the consequence of neglect. Nor can they be explained by the myth of the Negro’s innate incapacities, or by the more sophisticated rationalization of his acquired infirmities (family disorganization, poor education, etc.). They are a structural part of the economic system in the United States. Certain industries and enterprises are based on a supply of low-paid, under-skilled and immobile nonwhite labor. Hand-assembly factories, hospitals, service industries, housework, agricultural operations using itinerant labor would suffer economic trauma, if not disaster, with a rise in wage scales. 

 

This will be a theme throughout the book. Justice requires equal access to jobs with sufficient wages, and blaming the poor (and especially poor minorities) for the well-documented lack of access to these jobs is unfair, and indeed unjust. I’ll mention Albert Murray’s excellent takedown of this idea as well - that was a past BHM selection.

 

A significant factor in the change in my political views (which in turn drove changes in my religious views), was educating myself about the realities that people outside my subculture experience. MLK insists that this education is something that all white people owe others and themselves. 

 

Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn. The reality of substantial investment to assist Negroes into the twentieth century, adjusting to Negro neighbors and genuine school integration, is still a nightmare for all too many white Americans. 

 

There are so many amazing lines just in this first chapter. 

 

The line of progress is never straight. For a period a movement may follow a straight line and then it encounters obstacles and the path bends. It is like curving around a mountain when you are approaching a city. Often it feels as though you were moving backward, and you lose sight of your goal; but in fact you are moving ahead, and soon you will see the city again, closer by. 

 

This is the hope that many of us cherish during these dark and backward times. 

 

A final victory is an accumulation of many short-term encounters. To lightly dismiss a success because it does not usher in a complete order of justice is to fail to comprehend the process of achieving full victory. It underestimates the value of confrontation and dissolves the confidence born of a partial victory by which new efforts are powered. 

 

Another thing many of us white folk, unused to being activists, need to keep in mind. No victory is ever complete - the struggle for justice is eternal. But that doesn’t mean you don’t struggle, and celebrate incremental victories. 

 

There is a good passage at the end of the chapter about the way white people tend to fear “riots” and protest generally. I have seen this in so many friends and family. There is a visceral sense of discomfort at other people displaying anger. (Women and minorities are supposed to be positive at all times, right?) MLK notes that there is actually a cure for all this. 

 

Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention. There is no other answer. Constructive social change will bring certain tranquility; evasions will merely encourage turmoil. 

 

If the first chapter is a general look at justice, the second is all about the inner disagreement over “black power” and the role of different forms of action within the civil rights movement. Here, MLK asserts his commitment to non-violence, in large part because he saw violence as counterproductive to the goal. 

 

I think he is correct here. In fact, the power of the protests against ICE has been in their non-violence, putting on full display the moral depravity of ICE and its actions. 

 

MLK does not dismiss the impetus behind the Black Power movement either - he assumes good and understandable motives, but pushes back on methods. He also notes that the movement itself is diverse, and many within it share his commitment to nonviolence, and to a multi-racial movement.

 

I should have been reminded that disappointment produces despair and despair produces bitterness, and that the one thing certain about bitterness is its blindness. Bitterness has not the capacity to make the distinction between some and all. When some members of the dominant group, particularly those in power, are racist in attitude and practice, bitterness accuses the whole group. 

 

This is also a great line:

 

Like life, racial understanding is not something that we find but something that we must create. What we find when we enter these mortal plains is existence; but existence is the raw material out of which all life must be created. A productive and happy life is not something that you find; it is something you make. And so the ability of Negroes and whites to work together, to understand each other, will not be found ready-made; it must be created by the fact of contact.

 

I mentioned that this book sure seems a hell of a lot more Christian than white evangelicalism. Here is a great line about that, and it expresses my feelings here in the Trump Era perfectly.  

 

All of this represents disappointment lifted to astronomical proportions. It is disappointment with timid white moderates who feel that they can set the timetable for the Negro’s freedom. It is disappointment with a federal administration that seems to be more concerned about winning an ill-considered war in Vietnam than about winning the war against poverty here at home. It is disappointment with white legislators who pass laws on behalf of Negro rights that they never intended to implement. It is disappointment with the Christian church that appears to be more white than Christian, and with many white clergymen who prefer to remain silent behind the security of stained-glass windows. It is disappointment with some Negro clergymen who are more concerned about the size of the wheel base on their automobile than about the quality of their service to the Negro community. 

 

The great trauma of my loss of religious community nearly a decade ago was the discovery that the core of the religion was whiteness, not Christ-following, and that white Evangelicals would gladly forsake even the pretense of Christian values in favor of racial hatred. 

 

One of the most powerful passages in this chapter is one about the subordination of slavery. It wasn’t merely physical subjugation, but the demand of intellectual and moral servitude. He quotes earlier works on slavery regarding the attitudes that enslavers attempted to impose on the enslaved - attitudes which still reverberate today. 

 

What caught my eye the most, however, were the quotes from enslavers that sounded eerily familiar, particularly these ones:

 

“Unconditional submission is the only footing upon which slavery should be placed.”

 

And:

 

“The slave must know that his master is to govern absolutely and he is to obey implicitly, that he is never, for a moment, to exercise either his will or judgment in opposition to a positive order.”

 

Ooof. That’s literally religious authoritarian parenting there, as taught by the unholy trinity of John MacArthur, James Dobson, and Bill Gothard. We children were to show unconditional submission. And we were never to exercise our own will or judgment. We were to outsource our morality and will to our parents. 

 

MLK was a master of the metaphor, and one of my favorites in this book is his use of the wind. In aviation (as he points out), winds make a huge difference. The Jet Stream, for example, makes it quicker to fly east than to fly west - a flight from Europe to North America takes longer than one the other way. He uses this to encourage activism even when the winds are unfavorable. 

 

In any social revolution there are times when the tail winds of triumph and fulfillment favor us, and other times when strong head winds of disappointment and setbacks beat against us relentlessly. We must not permit adverse winds to overwhelm us as we journey across life's mighty Atlantic; we must be sustained by our engines of courage in spite of the winds. This refusal to be stopped, this “courage to be,” this determination to go on “in spite of” is the hallmark of any great movement. 

 

In this chapter as well, he speaks of the need for white allies. For those of us who wish to do good in the world, and who want our white children to see themselves positively in the story of history, the way forward is not to whitewash history, as the MAGA movement seeks to do, but to encourage ourselves and our children to identify with the white people who have been on the side of justice, of right, of equality. 

 

Within the white majority there exists a substantial group who cherish democratic principles above privilege and who have demonstrated a will to fight side by side with the Negro against injustice. 

 

I want to be part of this group and raise my children to be part of this group. He also notes, though, that there is another group of potential allies as well: those whose lives would be better if we eliminated poverty. After all, there are a lot more poor white people than poor black people, and raising up the poor would benefit them a hell of a lot. 

 

(This is why the predator-capitalist class, both the enslavers of the past, and the billionaire oligarchs of today, are so intent on stirring up racism. If black and white united against the predator-capitalists, they would be forced out of existence.) 

 

(This is also a good time to recommend Dying of Whiteness, which really shows how people let their racism overpower their rationality, and in essence kill themselves rather than let minorities thrive.) 

 

There are several passages where MLK asserts the interconnectedness of the races in America (and around the world.) I believe he is spot on here. 

 

In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man. However much we may try to romanticize the slogan, there is no separate black path to power and fulfillment that does not intersect white paths, and there is no separate white path to power and fulfillment, short of social disaster, that does not share that power with black aspirations for freedom and human dignity. We are bound together in a single garment of destiny. The language, the cultural patterns, the music, the material prosperity and even the food of America are an amalgam of black and white.

 

Again, I should recommend Albert Murray’s wonderful The Omni-Americans for further discussion of how America isn’t separately black and white but instead blackandwhitetogether. 

 

Later in the book, MLK talks about the inescapable reality of a multi-racial America - something we have been since the first Europeans and Africans set foot here. 

 

But after reflection one has to face some inescapable facts about the Negro and American life. This is a multiracial nation where all groups are dependent on each other, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. In this vast interdependent nation no racial group can retreat to an island entire of itself.

 

This is a truth that MAGA refuses to understand. 

 

When it comes to the issue of violence, MLK is thoroughly pragmatic. 

 

In violent warfare one must be prepared to face the fact that there will be casualties by the thousands. Anyone leading a violent rebellion must be willing to make an honest assessment regarding the possible casualties to a minority population confronting a well-armed, wealthy majority with a fanatical right wing that would delight in exterminating thousands of black men, women and children. 

 

This is to a degree what all of us humans of good will face right now. The fanatical right wing of our country would delight in seeing millions of men, women, and children dead. And not merely brown and black people, but anyone who stands up to them. (See: Renee Good and “fucking bitch.”) 

 

Which is why, like MLK and the Civil Rights Movement, our power is not in starting a civil war, but in revealing the depravity of MAGA and thereby getting a large majority on our side. Which ICE thugs are certainly helping us with at this time. The history of revolutions and overthrow of tyranny demonstrate that creating that overwhelming majority is a key factor in toppling evil. 

 

Nonviolence is power, but it is the right and good use of power. Constructively it can save the white man as well as the Negro. Racial segregation is buttressed by such irrational fears as loss of preferred economic privilege, altered social status, intermarriage and adjustment to new situations. 

 

He then discusses the antisocial ways people are stirred up to address the fears in non-constructive ways. 

 

But how futile are all these remedies! Instead of eliminating fear, they instill deeper and more pathological fears. 

 

And this:

 

A guilt-ridden white minority fears that if the Negro attains power, he will without restraint or pity act to revenge the accumulated injustices and brutality of the years. 

 

Does that sound familiar now? It sure does. And, I think MLK is right that non-violence is the most effective way to prove those fears to be mere paranoia. 

 

There is also the central issue that we cannot kill our way out of hate and racism. 

 

Are we seeking power for power’s sake? Or are we seeking to make the world and our nation better places to live. If we seek the latter, violence can never provide the answer. The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence only increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

 

Yep, that quote is often used, sometimes out of context. But it is still in many ways the core of the book and MLK’s prescription for action. 

 

My favorite part of the idea is the truth that you cannot kill a lie by killing the liar. This is actually the big problem with the whole White Christian Nationalist project: it seeks to eliminate all those who have different points of view - and indeed all those brown skinned “contaminants” to our supposed national blood. But no amount of violence against “the other” will make a utopia. 

 

The chapter on racism and the white backlash - the “whitelash” - is excellent, and unfortunately prescient about the white response to the Obama presidency - the whitelash embodied by Trump. The opening is outstanding.

 

It is time for all of us to tell each other the truth about who and what have brought the Negro to the condition of deprivation against which he struggles today. In human relations the truth is hard to come by, because most groups are deceived about themselves. Rationalization and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our individual and collective sins. But the day has passed for bland euphemisms. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing truth. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” 

 

He goes on:

 

It would be neither true nor honest to say that the Negro’s status is what it is because he is innately inferior or because he is basically lazy and listless or because he has not sought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. To find the origins of the Negro problem we must turn to the white man’s problem.

 

MLK notes that white America has always had a disconnect between its outward principles - the equality of humankind - and its determination to retain privilege and power. Which is why it has never made a true concerted effort toward righting the historic wrongs of slavery and segregation - undoing the damage done, making restitution. Instead, it is a step forward followed by a step back. 

 

The step backward has a new name today. It is called the “white backlash.” But the white backlash is nothing new. It is the surfacing of old prejudices, hostilities, and ambivalences that have always been there. 

 

Again, MLK is quick to note that white folk are not a unified bunch here. Rather the contrary. 

 

This does not imply that all white Americans are racists - far from it. Many white people have, through a deep moral compulsion, fought long and hard for racial justice. Nor does it mean that America has made no progress in her attempt to cure the body politic of the disease of racism, or that the dogma of racism has not been considerably modified in recent years. However, for the good of America, it is necessary to refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country even today is freedom and equality while racism is just an occasional departure from the norm on the part of a few bigoted extremists. 

 

I think MLK’s definition of racism is spot on - it gets to the heart of things, and also demonstrates that mere racial prejudice of the kind more universal, is not the same as the systemic white supremacy that plagues the United States. 

 

If a man asserts that another man, because of his race, is not good enough to have a job equal to his, or to eat at a lunch counter next to him, or to have access to certain hotels, or to attend school with him, he is by implication affirming that the man does not deserve to exist. He does not deserve to exist because his existence is corrupt and defective. 

 

You can see this throughout MAGA and throughout Trump’s rhetoric. Brown people are corrupting us, so we need to do mass deportations. Jobs should be for white males. Your life sucks because undeserving brown people have stolen your job, your taxes, your healthcare, your housing. And on it goes. MLK will explore this in more depth throughout the chapter. The core idea is one he nails:

 

Racism is a philosophy based on a contempt for life. It is the arrogant assertion that one race is the center of value and object of devotion, before which other races must kneel in submission. It is the absurd dogma that one race is responsible for all the progress of history and alone can assure the progress of the future. Racism is total estrangement. It separates not only bodies but minds and spirits. Inevitably it descends to inflicting spiritual or physical homicide upon the out-group. 

 

That is so good. Again, it distills MAGA in a nutshell, from the lies about black accomplishments (which, like the accomplishments of women have often been stolen by white males) to the idea that only white males should be in leadership today. 

 

I have mentioned it in other posts in the past, because it is a recurring truth that every black writer has proclaimed, but it is worth saying again:

 

Racism was created to justify economic exploitation, not the other way around. 

 

It seems to be a fact of life that human beings cannot continue to do wrong without eventually reaching out for some rationalization to clothe their acts in the garments of righteousness. And so, with the growth of slavery, men had to convince themselves that a system which was so economically profitable was morally justifiable. The attempt to give moral sanction to a profitable system gave birth to the doctrine of white supremacy. 

 

This then led to an utter corruption of white religion. Realizing this was a significant factor in my decision to leave organized religion nine years ago. 

 

The greatest blasphemy of the whole ugly process was that the white man ended up making God his partner in the exploitation of the Negro. What greater heresy has religion known? Ethical Christianity vanished and the moral verve of religion was atrophied. This terrible distortion sullied the essential nature of Christianity. 

 

There is indeed no greater heresy than white nationalism. It is from the pit of hell. Realizing that my faith tradition was in fact based on this was devastating, although not quite as much so seeing people like my parents, who literally taught me anti-racism, forsake that faith and instead embrace this filth. 

 

I’ll also make a plug here for another excellent book, Reconstructing the Gospel by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. 

 

Later, MLK notes that even well-intentioned white people have to fight against what is in essence an emotional difficulty. Our culture has inculcated us into certain ways of thinking, and led us to take for granted a certain position of perceived superiority. Even Lincoln struggled with this - but at least he admitted it. 

 

Morally, Lincoln was for black emancipation, but emotionally, like most of his white contemporaries, he was for a long time unable to act in accordance with his conscience. 

 

Next, he examines that myth that Emancipation was the end of oppression. He illustrates this with the example of how my own family came to be middle class. Simply setting the enslaved free without giving them land to farm or jobs to support themselves was just another form of bondage. What was needed was restitution - making right the wrong. (We might call this reparations, which as a legal matter, is undeniably appropriate.) 

 

What greater injustice could society perpetrate? All the moral voices of the universe, all the codes of sound jurisprudence, would rise up with condemnation at such an act. Yet this is exactly what America did to the Negro. In 1863 the Negro was given abstract freedom expressed in luminous rhetoric. But in an agrarian economy he was given no land to make liberation concrete. After the war the government granted white settlers, without cost, millions of acres of land in the West, thus providing America’s new white peasants from Europe with an economic floor. But at the same time its oldest peasantry, the Negro, was denied everything but a legal status he could not use, could not consolidate, could not even defend. 

 

We still owe those enslaved who built our country just compensation for their labor - and indeed for 150 years of continued exclusion from the economic mainstream of our nation. It is in the resistance to this that white racism is most apparent. Notice the hostility to “DEI” and “Woke” or anything that might seek to improve the status of marginalized groups. Racism hasn’t gone away, and it is endemic. 

 

To live with the pretense that racism is a doctrine of a very few is to disarm us in fighting it frontally as scientifically unsound, morally repugnant and socially destructive. 

 

Brownie points to MLK for using the Parable of the Prodigal Son here - as an example to white America that it too can return to its purported values of equality and the common welfare. 

 

This chapter also has a clarion call to all of us humans of goodwill (now considered “liberals” in our current political climate):

 

When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men conspire to preserve an unjust status quo, good men must unite to bring about the birth of a society undergirded by justice. Nothing can be more detrimental to the health of America at this time than for liberals to sink into a state of apathy and indifference. 

 

And also a reminder that “love” isn’t love at all, if it does not include justice as its core value. (Something I really wish my parents understood when it comes to family dynamics.) 

 

Love that does not satisfy justice is no love at all. It is merely a sentimental affection, little more than what one must have for a pet.

 

He goes on to explain what justice must look like, and I think this is the other core of the book. Justice has specific elements in our society, and they are not optional. 

 

The white liberal must affirm that absolute justice for the Negro simply means, in the Aristotleian sense, that the Negro must have “his due.” There is nothing abstract about this. It is as concrete as having a good job, a good education, a decent house, and a share of power. 

 

It isn’t enough for some abstract “equality of opportunity” - which does not and has never existed in the United States. What is needed is that floor of basic human needs. To the ones listed, I would add access to sufficient food and clothing, and healthcare. 

 

In addition to calling out white liberals, MLK also talks directly to the white church. 

 

Among the forces of white liberalism the church has a special obligation. It is the voice of moral and spiritual authority on earth. Yet no one observing the history of the church in America can deny the shameful fact that it has been an accomplice in structuring racism into the architecture of American society. The church, by and large, sanctioned slavery and surrounded it with the halo of moral respectability. It also cast the mangle of its sanctity over the system of segregation. 

 

It is encouraging to see the Catholic Church, as well as the mainline denominations - Episcopal particularly - step up on the side of justice lately. May it continue. White Evangelicalism, unfortunately, seems to be a completely lost cause. 

 

He ends the chapter with a note that while legal changes are indeed necessary and helpful, the ultimate change needs to come internally, in the hearts of men. (And this is where I feel that much of American white clergy has committed egregious spiritual malpractice during my lifetime, stirring up demonic impulses rather than exhorting people to good.) 

 

A vigorous enforcement of civil rights will bring an end to segregated public facilities, but it cannot bring an end to fears, prejudice, pride and irrationality, which are the barriers to a truly integrated society. These dark and demonic responses will be removed only as men are possessed by the invisible inner law which etches on their hearts the conviction that all men are brothers and that love is mankind’s most potent weapon for personal and social transformation. True integration will be achieved by men who are willingly obedient to unenforceable obligations. 

 

In stark contrast to the anti-christian rhetoric of all too many white theologians today, who claim that empathy is sinful, MLK notes that the root of goodness is in fact empathy. 

 

What is needed today on the part of white America is a committed altruism which recognizes the truth. True altruism is more than the capacity to pity; it is the capacity to empathize. Pity is feeling sorry for someone; empathy is feeling sorry with someone. Empathy is fellow feeling for the person in need - his pain, agony and burdens.

 

Pity comes from a place of superiority and self-righteousness. Empathy recognizes we are all in this together and the pain of one is the pain of all. 

 

The book then talks more directly to African Americans. To understand - to truly empathize - one needs to feel the suffering. MLK lays out the horrors of the slave trade, of slavery, of segregation. It’s painful but necessary. For this to have a positive result, however, the horror needs to be faced, and both blame and cure directed appropriately. 

 

As public awareness of the predicament of the Negro family increases, there will be danger and opportunity. The opportunity will be to deal fully rather than haphazardly with the problem as a whole - to see it as a social catastrophe brought on by long years of brutality and oppression and to meet it as other disasters are met, with an adequacy of resources. The danger will be that the problems will be attributed to innate Negro weaknesses and used to justify further neglect and to rationalize continued oppression. 

 

The most inspiring part of this chapter to me was MLK’s enthusiasm for diversity. To this end, he encourages black folk to stop trying to meet white cultural ideals, but to embrace themselves for who they are. 

 

Whether some men, black and white, realize it or not, black people are very beautiful. Life’s piano can only produce the melodies of brotherhood when it is recognized that the black keys are as basic, necessary and beautiful as the white keys. The Negro, through self-acceptance and self-appreciation, will one day case white America to see that integration is not an obstacle, but an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.

 

Another great insight in this chapter is that inequality in income has the effect of making honest labor seem insignificant, when the kinds of jobs that are low wage are usually the most important ones we can do. Giving dignity - and just compensation - for these jobs is crucial to a just society. 

 

But no work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and worth and should be pursued with respect for excellence. 

 

He also calls for continued effort. It has been all too easy for me as a white guy to assume that things will continue to get better by inertia. In reality, the struggle against evil and injustice never ends. It must be fought and refought for every generation. 

 

We will be greatly misled if we feel that the problem will work itself out. Structures of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance. Evil must be attacked by a counteracting persistence, by the day-to-day assault of the battering rams of justice. 

 

The next chapter, Where are We Going? takes a look at practical goals and policies, and it really does read like a road map for a society that is more just for all of us, black, white, and brown. 

 

One line that stood out is the observation that parties change. The Republican Party had (at that point) coasted on “the illustrious ghost of Abraham Lincoln” but had failed to “shrink the influence of its ultra-right wing. 

 

The book was written before Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” started the process of making the ultra-right wing the core of the GOP, a process which became complete with Trump. 

 

He likewise warns against taking coalitions for granted. 

 

The art of alliance politics is more complex and more intricate than it is generally pictured. It is easy to put exciting combinations on paper. It evokes happy memories to recall that our victories in the past decade were won with a broad coalition of organizations representing a wide variety of interests. 

 

Instead, it is important to build coalitions that share the same goals. This is something that the Democratic Party has forgotten too much lately. There is no point in trying to get the xenophobic crowd on board. You can never out-Trump Trump. Likewise, pandering to the transphobes will never end well. The coalition needs to consist of those who wish to make a more just society for all, not just their tribe. And those people are enough to win with and to create positive change. 

 

To that end, MLK notes that there are twice as many impoverished white people as impoverished black people. Addressing poverty - inequality, jobs, housing, healthcare - should be the goal, and getting those who are needy of any race on board is necessary.

 

Up to recently we have proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils: lack of education restricting job opportunities; poor housing which stultified home life and suppressed initiative; fragile family relationships which distorted personality development. The logic of this approach suggested that each of these causes be attacked one by one.

 

Instead, he argues that the common issue in all of these is a lack of income. Full stop. Yes, work on the other things, but money, while it cannot solve every problem, its lack causes most problems. 

 

Because of this, he argues for a universal basic income. 

 

I have come around to this idea, in no small part because jobs these days are mostly doled out at the whim of the oligarchs, who are working desperately to replace humans with technology. Because humans are needed, noisy, and demand things like living wages and humane work hours. A world in which most “work” is done by machines, and machines owned by the very few, is not a just world. Thus, maintaining the funds necessary to live needs to be the priority, not maximizing profits for the oligarchs. 

 

The last chapter takes the ideas global. The whole world is interconnected, and any true sense of justice needs to include the entire planet. 

 

Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, most prominently underscored being this one: “A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together.” This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together - black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu - a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace. 

 

To illustrate this, he mentions the story of Rip Van Winkle. The point of the story isn’t that he fell asleep, but that the world had changed, and he had missed it. 

 

The most striking thing about this story is not that Rip slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution that would alter the course of human history. 

 

The point for us today?

 

One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain away through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools. 

 

The term “woke” originated in the Civil Rights Movement, and MLK uses it here in that sense. We must stay away, vigilant, and committed to justice. This is why I take it as an honor to be accused of being “woke.” 

 

Obviously, the bait that Trump and MAGA dangle is that we do not have to be “woke,” that we do not have to adapt to a changing world. Everything will go back to the imaginary past, if we just brutalize enough immigrants and LGBTQ people and force the rest of the world to kow tow as they should. 

 

But it doesn’t work that way, and all we do is make things worse by trying to ignore the world as it is. And the thing is, white supremacy has always worked against our national interest. 

 

Nothing provides the Communists with a better climate for expansion and infiltration than the continued alliance of our nation with racism and exploitation throughout the world. And if we are not diligent in our determination to root out the last vestiges of racism in our dealings with the rest of the world, we may soon see the sins of our fathers visited upon ours and succeeding generations. 

 

This is coming true in our day, as Trump takes a bulldozer to our country’s reputation and further isolates us. We are all paying for the racism and hate of MAGA. 

 

I love his call to action, which actually echoes the words of Alexis de Tocqueville. 

 

The time has come for an all-out war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled and feed the unfed. The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for “the least of these.”

 

Preach!  

 

We are all interconnected. 

 

From time immemorial men have lived by the principle that “self-preservation is the first law of life.” But this is a false assumption. I would say that other-preservation is the first law of life. IT is the first law of life precisely because we cannot preserve self without being concerned about preserving other selves. The universe is so structured that things go awry if men are not diligent in their cultivation of the other-regarding dimension. 

 

This goes double for the spiritual dimension. 

 

Deeply woven into the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God, and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value. If we accept this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with ill-health, when we have the means to help them. In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied together. They entered the same mysterious gateway of human birth, into the same adventure of mortal life. 

 

This is how I was raised. And how I still believe. I was also raised to believe in the following:

 

We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing”-oriented society to a “person”-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A civilization can founder as readily in the face of moral and spiritual bankruptcy as it can through financial bankruptcy. 

 

So relevant today. MLK also notes that both capitalism and communism suffer from this same moral bankruptcy.

 

This revolution of values must go beyond traditional capitalism and communism. We must honestly admit that capitalism has often left a gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, has created conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few, and has encouraged smallhearted men to become cold and conscienceless so that, like Dives before Lazarus, they are unmoved by suffering, poverty-stricken humanity. The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspire men to be more I-centered than thou-centered. Equally, Communism reduces men to a cog in the wheel of the state. 

 

True justice doesn’t come from ideologies on either side, but on a commitment to make sure everyone has what they need, and none are allowed to become obscenely rich. To that end, slogans are useless. 

 

The problems we now face must take us beyond slogans for their solution. In the final analysis, the right-wing slogans on “government control” and “creeping socialism” are as meaningless and adolescent as the Chinese Red Guard slogans against “bourgeois revisionism.” An intelligent approach to the problems of poverty and racism will cause us to see that the words of the Psalmist - “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” - are still a judgment upon our use and abuse of the wealth and resources with which we have been endowed. 

 

This is one reason I stopped discussing politics and religion with my parents even before our estrangement. It devolved into their recycling the same right-wing slogans as if they were irrefutable arguments rather than campaign signs. We were never able to actually address the question of how we keep people from dying of starvation or disease due to lack of money. 

 

MLK argues that our approach to communism has been largely futile, because of this. Communism got a foothold because of a genuine problem. And even worse is calling everyone who disagrees a Communist. (Hello, Trump administration…) In reality, Communism is a symptom.

 

Communism is a judgment on our failure to make democracy real and to follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal opposition to poverty, racism and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.” 

 

As the chapter - and the book - come to an end, MLK’s ideas rise to a crescendo of inspiration, a vision of a possible future that so many of us desire. One hinted at in the apocalyptic literature of the Bible. 

 

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. 

 

MLK asserts - and I have come to understand over the last few decades - that this love transcends religious dogma, political ideology, and tribal affiliation. It is the love Christ taught - and humans of goodwill around the world have always embraced.

 

The book has a brief appendix where MLK discusses some specific issues, such as education and housing. I thought I might mention a point he makes in the section on employment. In his view, providing “job training” is misguided. It all too often means training for jobs that do not exist. (A great example is the Navajo program for training welders. There are literally only a handful of welding jobs on the reservation. What is needed are jobs.) MLK asserts that providing jobs first is the way to go. Training can be done on the job as needed. First employment and income, then additional training. I agree with this, particularly watching my children struggle to find employment while in college. There are too few to go around that work with class schedules and a lack of a car (which is expensive!) 

 

This book is truly excellent, and I highly recommend everyone read it. Particularly us white folk. MLK was more than just a historical figure, he was a true prophet of his time. Which is, of course, why he was murdered. The defenders of the status quo have always murdered the prophets. 

 

The book is thoughtful, inspiring, and shows a path for white people of good will to follow. Stay woke.