the left hand of god

March 12th, 2006

Last week I ventured down to Powell’s Books (the best bookstore on the planet) in order to check out a talk by Michael Lerner, a Rabbi, activist, and former therapist. I say ventured because I was just starting to come down with this nasty flu bug that’s been kicking my ass for the last week or so. But I’m glad I made the trip.

Lerner’s just published a book called The Left Hand of God, which is his take on how the religious right has gained so much power in this country. Lerner’s background gives him some interesting insight into the question. He spent several years as a therapist and social activist studying the attitudes and personal concerns of a cross section of American working people. So he does come at this question with some expertise. I have to admit that I’ve only read the first fifty or so pages of the book, but based on that and the talk the other night, his thesis boils down to two main points.

First, there is a widespread spiritual crisis in this country. People in all walks of life, and from all socio-economic classes, feel a deep sense of alienation and dissatisfaction with their lives. As our society has become more materialistic, and we’ve come to commodify not just goods and services, but each other, we’ve lost a very important and critical component of any healthy community. That missing component is, well, community.

In the world of work, Lerner argues, most people experience an everyone-for-themselves mentality. This flows from the top down, as the giant corporations commodify their workers, so do the workers commodify each other, until everyone’s relationship with everyone else is defined by one single factor: what can you do for me?

These ideas are not exactly new to me. I’ve felt this way on some level my whole life, which is the main reason I’ve largely avoided “regular work”, and have sought to work more on my own terms, to subsidize the travel and experience that was most important to me. But Lerner’s take on how the religious right capitalizes on this alienation, and how the Left misses the boat, is quite interesting.

Lerner argues that the reason the religious right has been so successful in wooing legions of Americans to vote against their own economic and other interests is because they’ve chosen to speak to this alienation and spiritual void. They may do it by demonizing gays, Hollywood, or secular humanism, but what they’re doing is addressing a fundamental human need – that of community, meaning, and a relationship, in whatever way fits the individual, to god.

I use the small ‘g’ there because I don’t think this relationship has anything to do with any particular religious dogma. I just happen to believe that there is something innately human about looking at our world, at creation, and seeking to understand it’s wonder, and that which really cannot be understood. It’s part of our nature as conscious and self-conscious beings to try to make sense of that which we can barely begin to comprehend. Whether we do that as Christians, Buddhists, Muslims or Atheists, I think is irrelevant. The underlying need is the same, whether you believe you live in the loving embrace of Jesus, or you think you’re just monkey meat destined to be worm food and nothing more. Both require a leap of faith, and both stem from the need to ‘know’.

And, speaking of Atheism, that brings me to Lerner’s second point of the evening. That is, we on the ‘Left’, whatever the hell that means, need to learn to address this spiritual need if we’re to ever speak to the millions of folks out there who feel this sense of emptiness. Lerner claims, quite rightly I think, that there’s a significant anti-religious bias out there among progressives and liberals. I would agree. I feel that bias myself, which I would blame mostly on the hacks and snake oil salesmen that presume to speak for Christ these days. That, and I’ve never been much of a joiner, or been particularly drawn to dogma and ritual in general.

But the spiritual need I can relate to in a big way. More and more so all the time, what with the state of the country and world being what it is. Which is perhaps why this message is so important right now. We live in a remarkable time in human history, and a pivotal time in modern history. The global capitalist cluster fuck we worship as a society is fundamentally untenable, as those of us who choose to keep our eyes open are witnessing.

Global warming is becoming so obvious that even the most deluded ditto-head has a hard time denouncing it with a straight face. The abundant and cheap fossil fuels that have fueled the requisite perpetual growth are soon to become perpetually shrinking resources on the down side of the bell curve, while our economy requires continual growth in energy and resource use to prevent depression. Sound problematic? Oh, hell yes.

But, at the very least it’ll be interesting. I don’t claim to know what’s going to happen, and I think anybody who does is a crackpot. The equation is too complex, and the variables are too numerous, for anybody to really know. What I do know is that our way of life is going to change dramatically over the next few decades. This is not me being a fear monger, it’s just simple arithmetic.

What this change will entail exactly, nobody knows. But I think we can be assured that the survival of the human race, or at least the survival of what we like to call civilization, is going to require that we promote what Lerner calls the left hand of God, as opposed to the right. In other words, peace, progress, and inclusion, instead of fear, intolerance and hate.

It’s a very simple formula, and it’s laid out there for everyone to see. For the last five years we’ve followed the right hand path. But, as the situation becomes more critical, it’s not hard to predict where it will lead us. Take one part over-population, two parts energy resource depletion, a dash of fear, intolerance and hatred, shake vigorously and pour over melting polar ice caps. What do you get? Well, I’m sure you can see it just as well as I, and it ain’t pretty.

Like I said, interesting times. I’m not sure, had I the choice, that I would have chosen to live at this time in history. Maybe, had I been asked, I would have been born in 1869 instead of 1969, rode the Oregon trail west, homesteaded a piece of land and raised sheep. But this is the hand I was dealt, and I really can’t complain. I’ve had a good life, and like I said, the rest of it’s bound to be interesting.

Peace.


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2 Responses to “the left hand of god”


Sister slayer Says: March 14th, 2006 at 9:28 am

This is very interesting stuff…you must be highly intelligent and (it follows naturally) attractive. Keep up the agitating, but don’t get too attached to the City of Roses when Ponderosa Pines at 7000 ft are calling your name.
XO


Linda Says: March 16th, 2006 at 3:05 pm

So right on with your comments. Lessons from the 60’s unlearned. Tolerance be damned, differences be damned, and the unwillingness of a current administration to even consider that WE (the usa) are not infallible, that WE are a big part of the global warming problem, that we are now the laughing stock of the world, compared to one of respect in the past. I am glad I am aging so that when and if one of the idiots decides to push the button, and memeories of grammar school and the A bomb advice to “hide under the desks”, comes to pass, I will hopefully be in a better place to witness mankind at it’s worse….

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