Assumptions about "Utopianism" in Conservative Christian Ideologies

One of the truisms at work within certain Conservative Christian circles is the assertion that things like socialism or even anarchy (properly understood) are fine and noble ideals but are far too “utopian” to be worth applying within a world defined by things like “sin” and “fallenness.” I say that this functions as a truism, and not as any sort of rigourous argument, because it is the sort of thing that is simply repeated ad nauseum and never really critically engaged or sustained. Additionally, the word “utopian” is always taken to be a bad word, with negative implications. Christians who utilize this language against their (perceived) opponents are claiming to be more “realistic” than others.
Craig Carter’s recent post on socialism, pacifism and sex illustrates all of this rather well. While writing about socialism, Carter asserts that “socialism is in many ways a high and noble ideal” but then goes on to write that:

Socialism is utopian in the sense that it is incompatible with the fact of original sin. The reason that socialism always leads to tyranny, poverty and atheism in this world is because of the tragic flaw in human nature – not because of the idea of socialism itself. As an idea, it is wonderful. But when implemented in a society of fallen sinners, it becomes horribly destructive.

There are a few responses one can make to this. On the one hand, some Christian anarchists have responded to this line of thought by arguing that it is Conservative Christians who are hopelessly utopian and who fail to fully consider human fallenness and sin. So, for example, some Christian anarchists would say that it is mad utopianism that leads some to think that you can give guns, pepper spray, handcuffs, zip batons and badges to some people — and then tell those same people that they are only accountable to their own internal chain of command — and expect those people to act in a manner that is just and compassionate. Thus, these Christian anarchists would argue that they are opposed to armed police forces precisely because they take human sin and fallenness more seriously than others (of course, any who have had any sustained experience with the police quickly learn that the evidence favours the anarchist position; however, those who have learned this have usually been minorities and folks without any voice in the broader social discourse, which is why one of the benefits of the Occupy movement have been a partial revelation of the true nature and purpose of the police to the general public as members of the middle-class have now been on the receiving end of the force of the law).
On another hand, however, and this is more to the point regarding my opening sentences, Conservative Christians like Carter are extremely selective with the evidence — essentially they see what they want to see, regardless of what else is available to be seen — and so they term some things (like socialism) utopian but then advocate for other things that the evidence would suggest are equally utopian. The evidence for this is in Carter’s earlier paragraph on sex. He writes:

sex is easy. Natural reason tells us that sexual activity is oriented to and leads to procreation and that marriage naturally is the best context for procreation to occur… Sex belongs in marriage and every serious form of natural law or religious morality affirms this conclusion. But sex outside marriage is destructive of personal communion, social stability and children.

There are a few things worth observing here. First, and somewhat tangentially, “natural reason” and “natural law,” within the context of this argument are not actually rooted in anything we observe in nature. In nature, we see sexual activity that goes on in all sorts of ways outside of the realm of procreation — we see animals engaging in homosexual relationships and in masturbation (in the Toronto Zoo, not far from Carter, you can find examples of both in the penguin and monkey sections, respectively). It’s also somewhat anomalous to talk about “marriage” within the context of the kind of relationships other animals enact. Most species have multiple sexual partners, and a lot of animals seem to enjoy having sex just for the sake of having sex. So, when Carter grounds his argument in “nature” he is really just grounding his argument in a few verses of the Bible that tell him what nature teaches us (regardless of what we actually observe in nature).
Second, and more to the point, it is easy to charge Carter with being utopian in his observations about sex and marriage. What about people who are gay? What about people who can’t have kids? What about all the violence that has taken place within traditional family settings? What about all the kids beaten and abandoned by their biological parents? What about all the wives raped by their husbands? What about all the affairs? What about all the failed relationships? This list of questions could be expanded almost endlessly, but the point is that Carter’s position on sex and marriage is at least as susceptible (of not more so) to the charge of utopianism as the picture he paints of socialism. His view of sex and marriage could be called “a high and noble ideal” (if we’re being generous) but it surely is “incompatible with the fact of original sin” (to borrow Carter’s language).
The same argument, of course, could be made about the institution of the Church as it has manifested itself throughout history and up to the present day Roman Catholic Church, which Carter seems to particularly admire (despite the evidence that such things as systemic cover-ups of the sexual abuse of children extended all the way up to the level of the current Pope… just to pick one of a million possible examples). Surely the institution of the Church could be described as a high and noble ideal but one that is far too utopian to play out well in practice…
Anyway, Carter’s approach is true of many of those who hold views like his. The opposing position is said to be noble but too unrealistic, while the speaker’s position is held without any sort of compromise and without any recognition of the presence of the same criteria that were employed to attack the supposedly utopian position they just rejected.
Carter lays out no criteria as to why one view (his position on sex) should be treated as an ideal that is held realistically and without compromise, while another view (the socialist position) should be treated as an ideal that is too utopian and so should be compromised in the world of realpolitik. All of this then suggests that Carter is simply making assertions about what he wants to believe and is not actually building any sort of sustained, consistent or compelling argument. Of course, for any person with half a brain this is painfully obvious (which is why nobody usually bothers responding to Carter) but it bears mentioning for the sake of those kids who may mistake what Carter is saying for some sort of critical thinking.

An Aside…

The other day an old friend — a former roommate and colleague, and one of the few women in the world I would agree to walk with in the alleys of Vancouver’s downtown eastside at one in the morning — was visiting and discovered that I have a very small, “secret” facebook account. She was appalled that I had not “friended” her online, and took this to mean that we were not actually “real” friends — despite the fact that we do things like actually hang-out in person, or talk about pretty much everything from our sex lives to our most private struggles. We’ve had each others’ backs a number of times in a number of situations (including two where people were at risk of dying imminently), but what really mattered to her was that we were not “friends” on facebook — i.e. within an online community wherein personal brand images relate to other personal brand images (i.e. Second Life by another name).
Sure gives substance to Baudrillard’s claims about the triumph of the simulacrum (or Zizek’s remarks about the rise of the internet as the rise of a new form of gnostic disembodiment).

Dancing Towards Nihilism: Third Sketch

To say that something is fictional is not to say that it lacks any significance. Money is a good example of a significant fiction. The material employed in money — metal, paper, or most recently here in Canada, plastic — has no intrinsic value in relationship to other objects (as far as I can tell — actually, as far as I can tell, nothing has any intrinsic value in relationship to anything else). So why can I trade two pieces of paper for one piece of wooden furniture? Because we, as a group, choose to participate within a fictional understanding of that which we call “money.” Money is like the Emperor–clothed in incomparably beautiful robes… as long as we all pretend that he is not naked.

Other examples abound: nation-states are also fictions, as are all political boundaries, but our choice to participate in those fictions has serious ramifications for our actions. As I stated before, we are all creating the world in which we live, and when we create a (fictional) world that has (fictional) components like money and nation-states, how we act in that (fictional) world will be significantly modified.

Language, itself, may be the most powerful example of this. Non-sense, or fiction, that we take as “sensible” or “real” based upon the games that we play with it.

That said, to say that something is a game is not to say that it is not serious. Some games, of course, are more serious than others–usually, what is risked in a game of Scrabble amongst friends is significantly different than what is risked in a game of Russian Roulette and the same spectrum of significance applies, I think, to the different language games we play as we construct meaning and value and, literally, make sense of our lives. Yes, all language is game playing, yes, all definitions are tautologies as worked out within the rules of a particular game, but that game can be deathly serious. Again, what matters is the way in which the game impacts one’s actions.

Of course, all of this assumes that game-playing and participating in fictional constructions of the world do, in fact, impact a person’s actions. This assumption could be reversed — we could argue that one’s beliefs and values are determined by one’s actions and not vice versa. In fact, I believe that this is the case far more often than we care to think — we do what we want to do and only then find ways to narrate those actions so that we are good people within the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and within the stories others tell about us. However, I don’t think this has to be a strict either/or. Actions (more often? ) influence beliefs; but beliefs (less often?) can influence actions.

The other assumption operating here is that, while appearing to try to objectively describe things as they are, there is still a system of valorisation operating within this post. That is to say, I believe that things are significant to the extent that they impact what we do and make our actions more or less life-giving or death-dealing. I am not just saying that fictions impact action, nor am I saying that game-playing can have repercussions for a person’s lived existence, I am saying those things are significant because of that.

Dancing Towards Nihilism: Second Sketch

Everything we believe is fictional. This does not mean that (some of it) is not also “true” but it means that any belief or system of meaning is true in the same way that The Brothers Karamazov, or the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, or the Bible are true. All truths are fictions — which is not the same thing as saying all truths are insignificant (to me), or all truths of equal value (to me).

By saying that all truths are fictions, I mean that we all actively participate in the construction of anything we take to be true. We choose what we will believe as true and what we will believe is false. We choose what we will value and what we will disparage. We choose what is good and what is evil. We choose how we will construct our understanding of our own selves and of others (“nobody knows who I really am…” more on that in a moment). We participate not only in the embodiment of our truths (which is what makes them significant), but also in their creation. Each one of us, recreates the world anew every morning. For there is no “world” apart from the one we choose to create when we awaken.

However, because all of us do this, and because all of us do this in different ways, some will say one thing is true, others will say the opposite is true, and some will propose mediating positions or speak entirely different languages.

Because this has been going on since we first created the world, we inherit many of the truth-full fictions of others. Some are more susceptible to accepting these than others. Some will take these truth-full fictions to be “absolute truths” and others will take them to be “objective descriptions” of the “real world”. So it goes. Many seem to find it scary to think that “reality” (one of the oldest truth-full fictions ever created and pass on) may be nothing more (nor less!) than a fiction, or an ideological construct… I’m not sure why… so people prefer to hold on to what they receive and find ways to assert that their truth-full fictions are the Truth.

Perhaps an illustration of this would be useful. Let us take myself — who I am — as our object of study. You could ask many people who I am (who I really am) and you would receive a host of different answers. Some would blatantly contradict each other. In the story each person is telling him- or herself about the world, I would be interpreted as very different characters, and in the story I am telling myself about the world, I play another kind of character than many of those other descriptions of me and my role. Of course, it is at this point that many people give priority to the story that they tell themselves about themselves, but why should we think that our story about our selves is any better or more accurate than the story others tell about us? Maybe you know yourself better than others because you know a lot of what you think and do that others don’t know… but maybe you’re far too close to yourself, and far too personally involved with yourself, to have any more of an accurate read of yourself than any other person. Or maybe, and this is what makes the most sense to me these days, I am all of the people I am taken to be by myself and others. Of course, because those people are often the polar opposite of each other, I cannot simply be some compilation of all those people — there is no core, single true, single real, me. I am a multitude. I am Legion.

Of course, this conclusion is no more and no less fictional and truth-full than any other conclusion. It is simply the one that is the most compelling (to me).

Dancing Towards Nihilism: First Sketch

To do right is to do that which is admirable (to me). That which I find admirable is sharing abundant life with others. Thus, being life-giving is right in my eyes.

To do wrong is to do that which is despicable (to me). That which I find despicable is taking life from others or barring others from abundant life. Thus, being death-dealing is wrong in my eyes.

Apart from these two things, nothing else matters (i.e. is of significance to me). Or, rather, it is only in the context of these two things, that anything matters (i.e. is of significance to me). Any belief, any value, any moral, any law, any story or text, any ideology, any construction of meaning or of identity–none of these things have any intrinsic significance (in my eyes). They are only significant as far as they are life-giving or death-dealing and their significance carries no farther than that (but it does carry that far).

Here, what is of foremost importance (to me), are one’s actions. Again: beliefs, values, constructions of meaning–these are only significant to the extent they they impact one’s actions in relation to that which is life-giving or death-dealing. Beliefs, values, and constructions of meaning, do not matter (to me) in and of themselves. Their sole significance (to me) is the way in which they influence what we do.

A Response to Viewing "Beyond the Blues: Child and Youth Depression"

[Tonight, I sat on a panel of three respondents at the (ongoing) Sarnia Justice Film Festival. The film being discussed was Beyond the Blues: Child and Youth Depression. The other two speakers were psychiatrists, pretty firmly rooted in the medical model of care, and so I was a bit of the odd-person-out. This is an extended version of what I said.]
Within his history of madness, Michel Foucault argues that madness, or mental illness, is not a natural and constant phenomenon throughout human history but is, instead, a construct that arises within a given society based upon various cultural, socioeconomic, political, and intellectual structures. Countering political, scientific and psychiatric narrative that posit an ongoing history of discovery and progress – a narrative which assert that we have simply gotten better and better at diagnosing and treating an unchanging historical constant – Foucault argues that societies construct their own unique experiences of madness.
I was thinking about Foucault’s analysis while watching this documentary.
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October Books

Kinda busy… proofreading to follow later… hopefully… apologies for sparse reviews.
1-2. The Plains of Aamjiwnaang and Ways of Our Grandfathers: Our Traditions and Culture by David D. Plain.
These two short books were written by a member of the Ahnishenahbek at Aamjiwnaang. That is to say, they were written by a member of the First Nations people who live on the land where I now also live. Given that I am keen to become involved with the First Nations community here, I was very pleased to discover these educational texts by a local author. In fact, I’m not just keen to become involved, what is going on in their community — essentially, they are being murdered, especially their children, by chemical pollutants released from industrial plants that surround them; a few documentaries like Toxic Trespass, The Beloved Community, The Disappearing Male, and Waterlife cover this in some detail and I highly recommend them, not only for locals, but for any who want to get a sense for both the environmental destruction and the colonial project of genocide against indigenous people that continues to occur not just in the two-thirds world, but here in Canada. Just to get a sense for the damage the pollutants cause the community, while male to female birth rates are generally sitting at 51% males born to 49% females, the birth rate in the community is 67% female and the rates at which pregnancies are lost are about three times higher than the national average. This is because pollutants related to the plants here disrupt the endocrine system. Speaking of pollutants, 21% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario come from these plants. According to the World Health Organization, this town has the worst air quality in Canada. The folks who live close to the hazardous waste processing plant, called “Clean Harbors” (the largest in North America) have to be evacuated from their homes on a semi-regular basis. Think something along the lines of Delillo’s “airborne toxic event” (people usually know it’s time to go when nausea, migraines and fainting spells set in, although this also happens elsewhere in the city depending on what and how much the plants are releasing)… only that has occurred more than half a dozen times over the last two months. This is just the tip of the iceberg, I could go on and on… apparently something like 80% of the oil-based products used in the industrial world are somehow connected with this chemical valley (all the oil giants are here or were here)… maybe in a future post…
Anyway, back to the books. In the first book, The Plains of Aamjiwnaang, David Plain recounts the history of the Ahnishenahbek in the Aaamjiwnaang region and beyond from the late fifteenth century til the mid-twentieth century. He focuses upon his own lineage, the Plain family, who include a number of historical chiefs (both civil and war chiefs). Personally, I found the history to be both fascinating and useful. I never knew the historical significance of this region, nor did I know of the battles fought in this area (one hears a lot about battle grounds in Europe but we don’t know the history of our own regions). Not surprisingly, one of the things that comes through pretty clearly is just how dishonest and brutal the Settlers were in their actions toward First Nations people. Broken promises, theft of lands, betrayals, manipulation of peoples by trying to create internal divides and create powerful parties who are interested more in themselves than in the good of the community… all that happened in this location, just as it happened everywhere else colonialism goes.
The second book, Ways of Our Grandfathers, was also a useful read for me as I get situated here. While the first book explores events and people, this book examines cultural practices, religious beliefs, political and economic structures, and healing practices (including a list of regional plants, how they were prepared, and what they were used to heal). All in all, recommended reading for any local folks.
3. A Second Birthday: A Personal Confrontation with Illness, Pain, and Death by William Stringfellow.
Many thanks to the folks at Wipf and Stock for this complimentary copy.
This is the second book in Stringfellow’s autobiographical trilogy (my review of the first volume is here). I can’t say that I enjoyed it as much as the first. Having witnessed some very close friends and family members deal with serious illnesses or lifelong pain, I was hoping for a more sustained reflection upon that subject (as the book is roughly structured around the time in Stringfellow’s life when he became very sick and almost died until a last-ditch-effort surgery saved his life). However, the book was more of a rambling series of tangents about a wide variety of subjects. Much of it did not seem as exciting as some of his other reflections, although some of the sections were quite good — his criticisms of nostalgic American family television shows and his reflection on the dangers of simply going with the “default” option one has in society were especially good (but too short!). Also, his section on why he despised being relegated to the role of a “theological gadfly” and why he began to cease given lectures in contexts where he was perceived that way is worth quoting:

Too often the difficulty with that task, I found, was that the ecclesiastical authorities, bureaucrats, and flunkies whom I addressed actually relished criticism as a means of further avoiding reformation or renewal. They were flagellants, morbidly enjoying punishment for misbehavior in which they fully intended to persevere. My involvement as “gadfly” or whatever-you-call-it was becoming a charade.
I would drop out of it. And I did.

I have had very similar experiences when it comes to speaking in Christian contexts (from churches, to universities, to conferences) about matters related to poverty, restitution, and oppression, and these experiences have also made me question the whole process and look to other angles of action beyond the written word (I’m beginning to wonder if the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that the pen is mightier than the sword).
Anyway, all that to say, this book was quick and easy and mostly pleasant reading with a few bright moments but not nearly as inspiring as other things written by Stringfellow. The groupies will like it, the others could skip it without much loss.
4. The Epic of Gilgamesh (Penguin Classics edition).
Found this in an old box of books my wife brought from her mom’s farm and thought I would give it a read. I reckon that I’ve probably read the whole epic in bits and pieces over the years but it was good to sit down and read the whole thing. I find it absolutely fascinating to read literature that was written thousands of years ago… I love reading old stories (even if they’re not all that exciting on the surface). It blows my mind to think that such things have endured over the years and that I am now reading, in the year 2011, a text that was originally recited in ancient Mesopotamia. I definitely want to prioritize other such texts as I look for reading material next year
5. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.
I had read a number of beautiful quotations from these letters, so when I saw the collection in a used book shop for a few bucks, I was happy to pick it up. The letters are enjoyable — some good reflections on creativity, writing, love, and loneliness — but don’t come close to matching some of Rilke’s poetry.
6. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
Some time back, Brad Johnson recommended this book when I asked him to list some of his favourite novels, and so I finally got around to reading it. I’m very glad that I did. It’s a great story about how one person — in this case, an unnamed black male who moves from the South to New York in the early twentieth century — constructs his own identity in light, especially, of the ways in which a wide variety of others, construct his identity in other ways (i.e. in ways that don’t really see him, hence the title). Recommended reading.
Bonus Crazy Christian Book: Love and Sex Are Not Enough by Charles P. de Santo.
So, I was visiting with a friend who passed this book onto me. I sort of have a thing for reading wacko Christian books from previous decades. I think they offer a different way of reading a lot of contemporary Christian books — i.e. they may be just as wacko — and I think this is particularly true in relation to the subjects at hand in this work: love, sex, and marriage (also, reading books like these is an amusing way of killing time on the can). Of course, like most Conservative Christian books about how to live life, this one is full of lines about how we cannot permit our culture to dictate our values (Christians need to espouse to traditional, universal values) and then it goes on to embrace a slew of culturally-conditioned values from hetero-normativity to patriarchy to the Protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Now, what makes this particular book stand out, is the way in which it employs an appeal to sociology in order to affirm both racism and classism. Essentially, the authors central point boils down to the fact that “love and sex are not enough” to make a good marriage. Furthermore, it’s not enough to also share the same religious outlook as a prospective partner. Rather, one has the best odds of producing a good marriage if one also dates within one’s class (poor people are especially bad marriage prospects, according to De Santo, as are atheists), and within one’s race (I quote: “While it is not immoral to marry outside one’s race, it probably is unwise). Again, it bears repeating that it may be easy to unveil the absurdity of pretty much all of this book, but the point then is to turn the critical lenses on any present day Christian texts that address these matters and ask if they will not be considered equally absurd in a few years.

The Poverty Industry and the Early Assemblies of Jesus-Followers: Seven Provocative Contrasts

[What follows is a transcript of a lecture I presented at a course a friend of mine is teaching to Christian Social Service workers in Toronto’s Yonge Street Mission (YSM) — one of the most respected and oldest Christian charities engaging homeless and street-involved folks in that city (and also a former employer of mine). It was interesting that, immediately prior to me delivering this lecture, the President of GM Canada spoke in the room next door to a group of homeless and street-involved teens. He presented a tale of how he worked his way up from nothing and spoke about North America as the land of the free. In such a free space, all that limits what a person can be (according to this fellow’s talk) is how hard a person is willing to work and what choices they make. He spoke about how he chose to be a businessman because he knew they were important people who could do a lot of good things. Basically, what he presented was the ideology of freedom, choice, and capitalism-with-a-human-face… thereby providing a perfect illustration of the sort of things I criticize in my own presentation. I would love feedback from any who take the time to read this (sadly, I didn’t find the time to make this as tight, polished and as well-argued at points, as I wanted it to be), as I will be revising this lecture for a course I’m helping to teach next summer.]

The Poverty Industry and the Early Assemblies of Jesus-Followers: Seven Provocative Contrasts

Introduction: Questioning the Relationship of “Charity” to “Justice”
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#OccupyCorinth

I was talking with Gallio the other day about some of the latest rumours that are spreading throughout the Empire. Strangely enough, there seems to be some sort of “movement” establishing occupations in various central cities in the Eastern provinces. However, it seems that some of the members of the movement are objecting to the language of “occupation” – they seem to think that the land is already undergoing an occupation by us, the Roman people, which is pretty laughable left-wing nutbar material if you ask me – we are the agents of peace and security, salvation, civilization, prosperity and the Golden Age, how can we be viewed as some sort of negative occupation?
Anyway, as far as I can tell, this “movment” started in the Middle East in the Spring with #OccupyJerusalem, and then spread to all sorts of other places – #OccupyAntioch, #OccupyTessalonika, #OccupyGalatia (although people are uncertain if that is happening in the North or South of the province) and so on. There are even rumours that one of the more active members of this movement is hoping to set up an occupation (or perhaps help develop an occupation that has already taken place unbeknownst to us?) in Rome itself before moving on to the Western provinces.
Anyway, my curiosity got the better of me and so I thought I would go and check out the occupation that is taking place here in Corinth. After all, the rumours suggest that these people want some sort of “revolution” and they seem to be claiming that some fellow who died as a state-executed terrorist is actually the agent of peace and security and salvation—they seem to want to refer to this person in the same way as we refer to our Lord, Caesar (blessed be) and they seem to think this fellow established some sort of economy that runs counter to our own. How mad… and maddening, really. Don’t these people know what a gift we have given them with our law and order? For, as the divine Augustus once said: the slave-based economy of Roman imperialism is the worst of all the possible options… except for all the other ones! Besides, our economists know that slavery is a necessary growing pain of any recently developed economy and, really, its a far better option than a good many of the choices available to those barbarians. Ungrateful bastards—when the tide rises, all boats rise (and the divine Caesars are, of course, lords of the sea, ever since Pompey liberated the world from pirates).
So, perhaps there would be some money in it for me if I went to visit #OccupyCorinth. If there really was anything seditious going on there, I might make some money by being the first to turn them over to the authorities.
You can’t imagine my disappointment when I got there. What a joke of a “movement.” I couldn’t even make out what their objectives are. They are incoherent and divided. Various factions have arisen. I could identify those of Paul, of Apollos, of Cephas, and of someone called Christ, and, as far as I can tell, they all have different models by which they seek to pursue some sort of change.
This is all pretty humourous for a movement that claims to be leaderless – or, rather, claims that their leader is some immaterial Spirit and some poor dead, uneducated Jew who they think underwent an apotheosis (more like an apocolocyntosis… I should tell Seneca about that play on words, he would appreciate it, I think). Of course, even these supposed “leaders” of “the leaderless” appear to be the dregs of all things. I saw one of them speaking at their General Assembly (they meet weekly for this and so for the civic administration has turned a blind eye to this, even though it is illegal for them to assemble in this way). He was poorly clothed, apparently homeless, seemed to have marks from beatings, coarse hands from hard work (how shameful!) and appeared to be hungry, foolish, weak, disreputable and altogether rubbish. I mean, who can take people who look like this seriously?
They make their own clothes (if you even want to call those eclectic rags “clothes”)? Egad. What do they have to tell us about anything?
Not only that, but they appear to be a profoundly immoral group. While visiting the occupation, I learned that one fellow is having sex with his father’s wife! Can you imagine! Even the most licentious of us Romans would never consider such a thing. Of course, the supporters of #OccupyCorinth have tried to tell me that such a person is a rare exception to the rule – and that we should not judge a whole movement based upon one bad apple – but I think we all know that they are just trying to hide the fact that they are all probably incestuous.
Not only incestuous, but also atheists. They reject our gods – the very same gods who gave us our economic values, who raised the standard of living of all throughout the empire, and provided us with the family values we admire and protect (the divine Augustus worked harder than any other to restore the dignity of the family, did he not?). So, while they claim to talk in some sort of religious language, we should not be fooled: these are atheists and, literally, motherfuckers.
Things only became even more of a joke, when I learned that some of the occupiers were using our legal and judicial system in order to resolve conflicts that occurred within the occupation. These people claim to be embodying some sort of alternative kingdom, centred around the Spirit of new life and the revaluation of values but as soon as the going gets tough, they appeal right back to systems that any true revolutionary would see as opposed to their goals. What a bunch of poseurs and hypocrites.
I could go on and on, but I’ll just mention three more things. First, the occupation can’t even figure out their eating arrangements. Some are meat-eaters, some are vegans, some only eat “free range” meat or something like that (is that what “kosher” means?), and they can’t sort out how to address everybody’s needs without getting into fights with each other. How pathetic. Not only that, but for all their talk about being a new society of brothers and sisters, when they do get together to eat, it seems like those who have higher status (which, let’s be honest, is only relatively higher status, since they are all a bunch of beggars and inbreds) appear to be taking the better portions of food and eating more than others. So much for loving one another in new ways. This isn’t the sort of concrete and material mutualism that we Romans practice with our siblings.
Second, they seem to be permitting women to run around acting in roles that should only be reserved for men. I would feel entirely emasculated if a woman told me what to do, yet there are some women who seem to be acting as “leaders” (in a “leaderless” movement). Now, obviously we Romans value women, but everybody knows that they are to play a different role in society. I would never follow a leader I could beat in a fight (something Senator Marcus Driscolius once said about those barbarians who were revolting up north under the authority of a woman). Women, obviously, are made to bear children and care for the home. This does not mean they are any less human than men, but it means their role is different.
Third, a good portion of those at #OccupyCorinth appear to be either high or in psychosis. Some are walking around speaking in tongues that nobody can recognize, some claim to be able to heal the sick with alternative medicine (or simply by touching them while speaking certain words!), some claim to be able to prophesy the future, and some even claim to be able perform vaguely defined “works of power.” What a bunch of crazies. Seriously, I would expect this sort of madness from the Gauls and other barbarians (damn tribal people, they would probably have drum circles… yuck!) but I expect more from Greeks.
That said, despite their obvious beggarly nature, despite their juvenile behaviour, despite their immorality, incompetence, and incoherence, there still were some very troubling and destructive messages being proclaimed. If anybody started taking them seriously, we could be in trouble – indeed, given the way this Occupy Together thing is spreading, the Empire itself could be in trouble. Not because something better is coming along, but because these people seem to proponents of chaos and anarchy and ways of structuring life together that are proven failures.
For example, one of their leaders-but-not-really-leaders, is trying to encourage them to share their resources and money with one another in some sort of “Collection,” and is trying to network the occupations throughout the Empire so that, even though they are all poor, there will always be enough for everybody. This sort of utopian economic theory is the sort of thing we might expect from the barbarians in East Germania and beyond, but it has obviously proven false and was thoroughly refuted at the fall of wall of Alesia (and the defeat of Vercingetorix). Not only is it wrong from an economic angle, it is wrong from a moral angle. It refuses to respect the divine laws of private property and disregards the fact that people have earned what they have and deserve to keep it (whether that be a little or a lot). Yet, these atheists refer to these divine laws as idolatry. Perhaps we have spoiled our colonies a little too much and now some are responding by acting like ungrateful children. Spare the fasces, spoil the child.
Not only that but, as an aside, we should note that it probably isn’t good for the Empire to have various members of vanquished nations interacting with each other in this way, apart from some sort of Roman intermediary. Given that this movement likes to imitate our political ways of structuring life together – both by forming local assemblies (“occupations”), establishing its own law courts (and claiming that they are beyond or above the law because of grace and love – a fuller expression of anarchy has never been heard before!), and using political metaphors (referring to their groups as a single body, when really we know that the political community is the true body) – we should note how this might end up creating a transnational alternative to what we offer… that is, if these incompetent, immoral fools can get their act together.
There are other heretical and seditious views proclaimed by some members of this “movement.” Thus, perhaps in a moment of megalomania, I heard one of them proclaim that: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.” I might be tempted to respond: “Okay, buddy. Keep telling yourself that and living in your fantasy land,” but this is a dangerous fantasy. I heard the same person say, that the “rulers of this age are doomed to perish,” in part, I think, because they are said to have “crucified the Lord of glory.” This same Lord will, supposedly, hand our empire over to his God who will “destroy every ruler and every authority and every power” and will put “all his enemies [including us, I suppose, since we crucified their “Lord”] under his feet.”
This is rebellious talk and should not be tolerated. We all know that crucifixion is a form of death reserved only for the worst members of society. Thus, to say that some crucified person is Lord, while proclaiming doom upon the rulers, is an offense that should not go unpunished… and should be punished severely. Of course, this same fellow who said those words, also described our judicial system as “unrighteous” and “unjust” so there may be no hope of reforming him (given the scars on his body, he may not have been hyperbolic when he described himself as “sentenced to death” and being “in danger every hour”).
I went back to Gallio and told him about these things but he said I’m getting a little worked up over nothing. Obviously, we are dealing with a bunch of juvenile, immoral (probably high), ignorant, and hypocritical wannabes who like to throw around some provocative rhetoric but who won’t make it through the first winter. Gallio assured me that, while they are monitoring the situation, the main thing to do is to present a benevolent face to the public. Lord Caesar knows, it wasn’t that long ago that we completely destroyed Corinth so, even though these people are beyond ungrateful for the grace we have shown them since then, violence might not be the answer yet. These people will implode upon themselves or fall apart before they can offer anything serious to the city. In a year, I reckon that this “movement” will be completely dead and gone.
Yours,
A Roman Citizen and friend of Liberty, Property, and the Rule of Law

Worst Title Ever?

I recently found this amongst donations in a church library. I challenge anybody to come up with a better title and cover page for a Christian book (in other news, I think Ratzinger distributed this one to priests throughout his empire).