Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1998 13:37:26
To: ishambat@us.oracle.com
From: "Fredric L. Rice"
Subject: Demonization posting

I enjoyed your posting (faithfully reproduced below) very much. You certainly underscored the facts of the matter and corrected the unfortunate misconceptions Rebecca stated.

I don't see any need to treat all of the brands of Christianity any differently than all the other brands of Christianity. There are ideological cornerstones which they all subscribe to -- without exception -- which are fundamentally evil. The idea of "sin" being the first evil ideal responsible for uncountable tyrannies down through the centuries, and the idea of an "after life" being the second.

-=-

Rebecca Dionne wrote: > What you are doing is called demonizing. In your case, literally. You
> are characterizing diverse groups of individuals with many many
> organizational mandates as a single collective agency with harmful
> qualities.

Diverse groups? Are you accusing the Christian Right of diversity? When these said groups, working in unison, pushing the same lifestyle, containing the same indoctrination, espousing the same perceptual model and running the same apocalyptic Christian script, have spent the last two centuries demonizing then slaughtering other civilizations, demonizing then destroying the biosphere, demonizing then enslaving their young - you are speaking of them as "diverse groups"? Then why are their actions so purposeful, so coordinated, so predictable, so apparent, so intolerant of all other groups and individuals? "They are just doing their own thing"? "It is human nature"? "People are people"? I think not.

If you don't believe me, read some history. Watch them. Go to another country, spend a few years, come back. It is very easy if you have lived all your life in the same area to keep your eyes to the ground and think that, well, these are all different groups and different individuals, each with its own agenda, in no way connected to one another, all doing their thing. Excuse me, but that "thing" they want to do, unless they themselves are magickians who have worked deliberately to overcome socialization, is only what they've been conditioned into wanting to do - in case of a homogeneous group like the Christian Right, planetary destruction! Whether you have been conditioned to be a slave and are being one of your own volition, or you are being forced to be a slave, makes no difference. The same master benefits from your labor.

As for demonization - how very convenient. After all the demonization and shadow projection for which that particular socio- cultural group used me, before I even saw what it was doing the world over and before I could conceive of such things as collective unconscious or the demonic, you now accuse me of demonization! I have learned demonization from that particular socio-cultural setting and nobody else; by God it has taught me the ropes. Don't mind at all if I throw the demonization that got thrown at me back to its source.

> I say, if you're going to be bad you've got go all the
> way be be really evil. I always did.

Do you seriously believe that the Christian Right is benign, or are you running the same script as these people?

> Where there is a will, there is a way. You want it that badly, go do it.
> Ask, seek, knock and you will receive.

What do you think I am doing right now?

> You care that much, pay the price neccessity imposes. Certainly, I have
> decided what is worth my while and what isn't, and freely pay my price.
> You want to save the world? Shut up, stop yammering for other people to
> do the work, and pay the price yourself. If you want something done
> right, do it yourself.

I AM doing the work. I am encountering the resistance that billions of minds running 2000 years of apocalyptic scripting have placed in the way - not just of me, but of the entire humanity. I ask people who have more experience than I do for an advice on how to fight this, and your advice is what? Shut up? Tend to your own garden? I would have loved - really, I would have loved - for that to be sufficient. Given the history of the Western civilization, I cannot bring myself to believe that this would be nearly enough.

There can be only two explanations for your approach. One, you don't give a damn about humanity, biosphere, etc. and want to keep to your own corner (and, of course, keep others from tending to it). That could have been a reasonable decision if you had been, say, living in a cabin, tending to your own garden and not bothering anyone else; like, say, I want to do eventually but not before paying my debts. It is not remotely reasonable when you are an American living an artificially good life on the backs of humanity, while the biosphere is being destroyed by other people in your name. The American lifestyle depends on externalization of costs; the American lifestyle creates artificial underclasses; the American lifestyle makes other people and countries shoulder its burden. Saying you're just living your own life, tending to your own corner, etc., is therefore fallacious and hypocritical. Your life is affecting many others, and they are paying the price for your illusion of responsibility.

This, of course, is not a personal attack but a general one. An American has no business talking about responsibility, nor about self-sufficiency, nor about tending to one's own garden.

The other possible explanation is that you are running the same script as the Christian Right and do not want to see it dismantled. If this is the case, forgive me for interrupting. I had a case of mistaken identity.

> If everyone saved just one little bit of the world, everything would
> turn out all right. But the problem is that rarely do people take
> responsibility for themselves, much less that beyond themselves.
> Therefore the first and best contribution you can make to the salvation
> of the world is to put your own house in order and do what is right,
> what you ought, and take care of your little corner of the world.

I have seen far too many people do that and still get run over by a collective menace. Which might explain the continued nagging feeling I get whenever I try such a thing.

But you are right. Tending to one's garden is, should we say, satisfying. Soon roses start blooming, and birdies start chirping, and in a while you don't realize that you're on a planet about to explode - and the villains have taken over the world.

- Ilya.

===============

"But doesn't it make you feel better?
The pigs have won tonight.
They can all sleep soundly
And everything is all right." -Trent Reznor