Stifling the Ambitions of the Dead
By John Taylor; 2007 Nov 04, 01 Qudrat, 164 BE
Yesterday we talked about rewarding the ambitions of the dead, and we featured a video where Noam Chomsky, while discounting conspiracy theories, nonetheless asserted that 9-11 was a godsend from the point of view of those in power. The event happened in full view of thousands of television cameras, and the media is the mirror or eye of humankind. Although more severe disasters take place almost every day, none are as in-your-face photogenic as 9-11 was. Chomsky held that this made it the best thing that could have happened to the power monger, the answer to his prayers. Any disaster, rebellion, upheaval or crisis, Chomsky believes, is an excuse to tighten the reins, to load up the yoke on the shoulders of the people.
His typically cynical comments led me yesterday on a cursory review of the Wiki article on Machiavelli, a thinker very similar in many respects to Chomsky, except that the latter (contrary to popular opinion) is by far the more radical and rebellious of the two. Wiki offered several quotes from Machiavelli's discourses that counter the common stereotype. I will highlight some of them now, starting with this:
"...no prince is ever benefited by making himself hated." (Discourses, Book III, Chapter XIX)
If the Bush administration had planned 9-11, they would have risked bringing down their most stable power bases. Thus Machiavelli would probably have agreed with Chomsky that conspiracy theories involving those who already have power in their hands amount to nothing more than mental chaff, a distraction from incisive thought about political reality. Machiavelli also wrote,
"For government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able nor disposed to injure you...." (Book II, Chapter XXIII)
This almost seems to sanction the across-the-board revocation of human rights that took place in most Western countries just after 9-11, the best known being the antinomian "Patriot Act" passed in
"Now in a well-ordered republic it should never be necessary to resort to extra-constitutional measures...." (Book I, Chapter XXXIV)
Since Patriot Act-like legislation revokes constitutionally protected rights, it seems that Machiavelli would have considered them symptoms of anarchy, not measures bolstering order. Machiavelli further held that any violent or illegal attack, be it by or against government, is cruel and untenable.
"Doubtless these means [of attaining power] are cruel and destructive of all civilized life, and neither Christian nor even human, and should be avoided by every one. In fact, the life of a private citizen would be preferable to that of a king at the expense of the ruin of so many human beings." (Book I, Chapter XXVI)
In spite of their differences, though, there is little doubt that Chomsky would agree wholeheartedly with our final two quotes from Machiavelli's Discourses,
"...the governments of the people are better than those of princes." (Ib. Chapter LVIII) "...if we compare the faults of a people with those of princes, as well as their respective good qualities, we shall find the people vastly superior in all that is good and glorious." (Ibid., LVIII)
Yesterday we also looked at how both Machiavelli and Chomsky were anticipated by the Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu, who used the image of a carriage being pulled by a wildcat. That is, when we pick our leaders based on how well they praise the ambitions of the dead, that is, how well they can flatter our prejudices and ideological misconceptions, we are in for a crazy ride over rough ground. Even, perhaps especially, when we are led by a "government of the people." Interesting, though, that an oil company uses an animated wildcat, Tony the Tiger, in propaganda campaigns to sell carboniferous poison. We have indeed a tiger in our tank, a wildcat pulling our carriage, and even if you do not ride in it, you will be suffocated by the fumes. What we need to find fast is a tractable beast to put before the carriage.
So much for what I learned yesterday. This morning I awoke with a song and a question in my mind. The song was the kids' latest musical favorite on their ipod, "Everything you know is wrong," by comedian and singer, Weird Al Yankovich. The chorus goes, "Black is white, up is down, and short is long; and everything you thought was just so important doesn't matter." I could not get that song out of my head. But the question in my mind was even more persistent. Here it is: Is what Chomsky says about politics also true of religion? That is, are religious leaders using the same technique to tighten (using an expression the Guardian used) their "stranglehold on the hearts and minds of men?"
If Chomsky is correct that power mongers profit from catastrophes, does what is true of politics also apply to religion? Are cynical religious leaders manipulating our fears and frailties to their own advantage? If they are -- and if you have heard of the situation of Baha'is and Sufis in
What we need, therefore, is a religious Noam Chomsky, a rebel bold enough to document the plots and conniving of religious leaders, one prominent, and most of all, one neutral enough to hold them to account for their misdeeds. Such a scholar would make more believers aware of the motives of every power-avid leader, and as a result we might be less naive about falling for their deceptions. We need such a scholar, but it goes without saying that no matter who it is, he or she as soon as they open their mouth will be accused of partisanship. Everybody has to come from somewhere, rise out of some tradition, adhere to some belief, especially if they are to say something credible about matters of faith.
We therefore need not one but an entire body of scholars from several religious traditions, the body that Abdu'l-Baha dubbed the "religious parliament of man." Only such a group of committed, diverse, learned thinkers, acting together and apart, could do what is necessary to see that a domesticated beast is placed at the front of the carriage of our religious life. For more on the same theme, check out this video inspired by the UHJ’s recent publication, One Common Faith, put out by Baha’i in
Before I end this, I want to note that our exemplar, Abdu'l-Baha, while He did not openly criticize other faiths, nor was He ever destructively cynical in the manner of a religious Noam Chomsky, He nonetheless recognized the reality of fundamentalism, the danger that it poses to us all, and mostly He made clear its essentially non-religious, quasi-political, and essentially materialistic character. Consider, for example, the following, told to a Christian:
"O thou who doest believe in the Spirit of Christ, in the
The "mirror" philosophy of the Bab also cuts human power mongers off from any relationship with the true source of power, God. The Bab, in an important statement addressed to His own followers, wrote,
"O people of the Bayan! If ye believe in Him Whom God shall make manifest, to your own behoof do ye believe. He hath been and ever will remain independent of all men. For instance, were ye to place unnumbered mirrors before the sun, they would all reflect the sun and produce impressions thereof, whereas the sun is in itself wholly independent of the existence of the mirrors and of the suns which they reproduce. Such are the bounds of the contingent beings in their relation to the manifestation of the Eternal Being..." (The Bab, Selections, 93)
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