Much of the modern political right in the United States consists of evangelical Christians, enough to taint the platform and the positions of an overwhelming majority of the members of the Republican Party. This presents an immediate and difficult problem with respect to Quiddity. Jesus himself was an example of Quiddity in his economy and effectiveness of speaking. As the poet Robert Graves observed, he “never wasted a word.” The Christian right isn't really centered on this eloquent speaker, though, it is associated with a personal relationship with Christ as filtered through modern Protestant theology. This is a very strange Jesus who has been conjured, one who rewards obsequious hysteria.
I am tempted to entertain a long discussion about what this means intellectually. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) as well as the general epistle of James and the red letter words of Jesus do, yes, indeed, seem to present a Christ different than the one presented in the rest of the New Testament. This is important because the rest of the document emphasizes and is dominated by Paul's letters. The first group of books seem consistent with a high-Quiddity (and adamantly non-political!) Jesus, whereas the Christian Right as well as most modern evangelism, is heavily influenced or dominated by the second set of books.
I am also tempted to go on at length about the standards of this blog, which emphasizes, as noted in the first post, realism. The Christian Right is based on faith instead. There's nothing wrong with this until it enters the pokey world of secular government, as it did in the Scopes trial of the 1920s about the theory of evolution. The religious viewpoint technically prevailed in the trial, but this hollow victory created a national laughingstock that kept the evangelicals out of politics for 40 years. Thanks to Crick and Watson and the double-helix of DNA, as published in 1952, evolution is now a fact, not just a theory. We know how the information is transmitted to the next generation. “Creationism,” the response of the evangelicals and fundamentalists, is not respectable from the viewpoint of realism. In fact, it's a waste of time bordering on propagandistic misinformation. This inability to face scientific facts is, automatically, low Quiddity.
The arts demonstrated by the evangelicals and fundamentalists are a key indicator. The hymnal and religious songs are an unholy horror, whiny minor key ballads that would make a saint perform somersaults in the crypt, arias for trite soap operas. The gospel singing is laughable compared to real talent, say, Mahalia Jackson. The country-and-western motif, concentrating on personal unrequited love, is unbearably hideous because of its suffocating mawkishness; reasonable people don't whine like this once they grow up. The actual divorce and domestic violence rates in the “Bible Belt” are reputedly the highest in the country. Where is the peace? The joy? The born-again improvement in personal character? Lo and behold, a soul needs to be saved again and again before any change is lasting. Instead there seems to be a worship of authority as a thin veneer over a potential for violence. The pacific nature of the Sea of Quiddity demands the end and crusting over of such rage and destructive impulses.
The worst tendency of the Christian Right is an ugly lust for acquiring the reins of power in order to manipulate foreign policy through military adventures in order to fulfill supposed Bible “prophecy.” This cancerous error is rife in the build-up to the Iraq invasion of early 2003. It oozes into other policies as well, including the threats made to Iran that caused the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff to threaten to resign as a body early in 2006. The invention of non-existent allies, like Pakistan, is consistent with this theocratic militarism as well. As a result, young Americans are dying for an impossible theocratic military goal. So cunning and deeply planned is this error that it migrates from one administration to another; America has been on the ground in Iraq and bordering nations since February of 1991 with no end in sight. The nation is borrowing money (from the atheistic Chinese) to continue this endless theocratic gambit, but the Christian right offers no complaints.
To an extent, the Christian Right is winning the political fight in the United States. Criminal felonies about mistreatment of prisoners of war go unprosecuted. The American people appear sanguine about robotic weapons killing dozens of civilians with each strike in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Perpetual war against the other rapidly growing religion is viewed as proper. This is policy of a very low quality that proceeds without significant political opposition.
CONCLUSIONS
Religion and politics don't mix
Religious impulse is a disastrous motive for going to war
Bad art is a sign of low Quiddity
Authoritarianism reaps a whirlwind
The Christian Right, and its tool of implementation, the Republican Party,
are of low Quiddity
are of low Quiddity
and incapable of preserving and defending quality
Indefinite detention without trial is the definition of a police state
Indefinite detention without trial is the definition of a police state
* FOOTNOTE on chaos: It is unclear what the ultimate proper use and design of chaos is in The Great and Secret Show. Chaos may well be a necessary force (as it is in Hindu religious structure and in classical Greek mythology). But the force of chaos (the Iad Uroboros) must be kept away from the Cosm. Chaos in the wrong sector of the universe is overwhelmingly destructive.
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