Activism or Reform?
By John Taylor; 2009 Feb 05, 16 Sultan, 165 BE
I just viewed a locally produced documentary called "Rebel Without A Pause, Noam Chomsky," made during the visits of the Great Dissenter to Trent and McMaster Universities during the build-up to the American invasion of Iraq. Chomsky points out that the spontaneous, worldwide activism and protest against a war that had not yet happened was a first in history. Until then protests had always happened afterwards, not before. Of course, none of it had any effect in stopping it, as it turned out, but at least there is broader awareness that war is a bad thing. The film starts by making a good point about Noam Chomsky as a star speaker. Unlike other public figures who give lectures, Chomsky has no glitz, no rhetorical flourish or even visuals or PowerPoint presentations to back him up. He just goes out and talks. It shows interviews with his wife (recently deceased), and she points out that this does not mean that Chomsky does not prepare. He reads eight newspapers a day and subscribes to fifty journals. Yet people turn out in droves to see him, out of pure interest in an all too rare alternative point of view. Certainly, that is why I follow him.
It was especially interesting to see Chomsky speak informally with local activists, even children and ordinary young people, in this film. To the activists, he always says the same thing in response to the question, "What should I do to change this situation?" He tells them that they should go on just doing what they are already doing. If they act locally, they show to the power mongers that the issues they care about have support from real human beings. To the children he pointed out that there is nothing he ever says in his political lectures that is beyond their level, and that we should not talk down to them about what is going on.
To the youth, who always ask what they can do about the problems he is always pointing out, he says, "Just get involved." That seems hardly adequate. Get involved in what? Is not activism disparate and unfocussed enough as it is? I could not help but wonder what Comenius would have told them. He would surely have suggested something more coordinated and coherent than just, "Become an activist." Comenius understood the power of universal participation, of a universalist, cosmopolitan approach. I will have to write an essay on what I think he would say to the youth if he were to meet with them today.
One youth, for example, pointed out the old truth that we have to start with ourselves if we want to change the world. Chomsky had nothing to say to that. But she was right, that is where any serious reformer has to start. Otherwise, the knowledge and will that are the basis of action will just dissipate like air from a leaky tire. Chomsky, in my opinion, fumbled the ball badly. Comenius had much more powerful things to say about this crucial step,
"Then if the reform of human states is to become possible, we must reform the individuals who comprise them. In the case of men, we should begin by reforming schools which are the factories of men; in the case of schools, we should reform books, as being the appropriate instruments for the formal education of men; in the case of books, we should reform the method of writing and producing them; and finally to enable us to reform the method fully, we must attend to the order of the material world itself, which cannot be moved since it has been framed by the skill of God and has unchangeable laws to prescribe for human understanding.
"Therefore the basis of all our hope for the true reform of human transgressions is the order of the natural world itself, as it lies inside its frontiers and is kept within its boundaries by God and sets the limits within which our intellect may function. For I repeat, the method of teaching about nature must be reformed according to the laws of nature, so that books may be reformed by improvement in method, schools by the aid of books, men by the service of scholars, and finally human assemblies themselves through the reform of men, and consequently mankind itself, with the return (thanks to all these gradual reforms) of light and peace to schools, churches, and politics in the abundance of God's blessing." (Panorthosia, Ch. 19, para 14, p. 15)
In a recent edition of New Scientist, whose atheistic bias has become so pronounced lately that they should probably rename the magazine, "New Scientism," an article appeared called, "Born believers: How your brain creates God." If such a presumptuously anti-theist tone like this article evinces were taken in an American popular science magazine, it would lose half its readership. Popular resentment against religion in England and most of Europe seems to allow New Scientist to be blatantly anti-religion. Nonetheless, I found some sympathy with the following paragraph from that article,
"There is plenty of evidence that thinking about disembodied minds comes naturally. People readily form relationships with non-existent others: roughly half of all 4-year-olds have had an imaginary friend, and adults often form and maintain relationships with dead relatives, fictional characters and fantasy partners. As Barrett points out, this is an evolutionarily useful skill. Without it we would be unable to maintain large social hierarchies and alliances or anticipate what an unseen enemy might be planning..." ("Born believers: How your brain creates God," New Scientist, Michael Brooks, 04 February 2009)
My son Thomas does not carry his stuffed tiger "Hobbes" around everywhere he goes, as he did a few months ago, but he did say last night that I should come into the house first, since Hobbes would be angry with him for leaving him home, since Hobbes loves going to the cinema. My mother, after witnessing the death of her two children, felt the presence of her mother comforting her. Then I was born, as a sort of compensation for her loss. At least, that is what she always told me.
I never had an imaginary friend that I can recall as a child, but lately I have been getting a strange, unprecedented feeling that I do. I really feel the presence of Comenius. I sit down to do my writing, and he takes over. I really do not feel any longer that I am doing my writing. I feel Comenius right here with me. He is not so much an imaginary friend as a real person in my life, more real than most of the living, walking persons I interact with in the flesh. He is using me, or should I say guiding me, to get out what he had to say, and what is being ignored. Unlike Chomsky and the leading British activist, George Monbiot, Comenius thinks that activism is in a sorry state. We could and should be doing far more than we are to unite the world. We should be cooperating with authorities, not just blindly resisting in a knee jerk manner, impotently protesting rather than creating a new reality through education, piety and action.
Take the latest protest in George Monbiot's column. He writes,
"For the first time in my life I resent paying my taxes. Until now I have seen this annual amputation as a civic duty - like giving blood - necessary to sustain the life of a fair society. Suddenly I see it as an imposition. Its purpose has reverted to that of the middle ages: subsidising the excesses of a parasitic class. A high proportion of the taxes I pay will be used to bail out companies which, as the Guardian's current investigation shows, have used every imaginable ruse to avoid paying any themselves." ("A new mobilisation could revitalise politics in the UK - but only if you get involved," George Monbiot, The Guardian, 3rd February 2009, http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/02/03/from-the-bottom-up)
He goes on to point out how certain amorphous internet groups are organizing activism through rolling petitions, and how an American grouping helped elect Barak Obama. But again, this is mere reaction to events, usually long after it is too late to do or say anything positive or make constructive initiatives. What a different activism Comenius would organize today. For one thing, he would not call it activism because that just takes in a third of what reform involves. Yes, we have to act, but we also have to know, and we have to will. Three steps, knowledge, volition and action. Anything less and, as Hamlet put it, "the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." You get nowhere. Adolph Nobody takes over. Give me Comenius any day. Let him have the last word about the caution that reformers (as opposed to activists) have to take to avoid backsliding.
"I say that the task must be tackled in order as I fear that a haphazard process would produce more disturbances than reforms. But in what order?
"The first essential is to convey light to the Mind, giving men the correct outlook on themselves and things, good or evil, so that they learn to reject the evil and choose the good, especially the supreme good, which is God. If they are seized with His love, and truly unite with Him in their desires, they will also find it easier to cooperate with one another. You must understand that education must be reformed first and true wisdom instilled into the minds of men; then we must reform religion, and lastly politics.
"The reason for this order is that mankind cannot possibly reach agreement within its own ranks before agreeing with God, and this in turn is impossible until it agrees about the natural world, which comes from God, exists with God, and is related to God. But man cannot even agree truly about Nature until each individual agrees within himself and knows how to know and apply himself, and this is attained by the light of true wisdom." (Panorthosia, Ch. 19, para 13, pp. 14-15)
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