Dark Ages America: Introduction, Or Starting Off On the Wrong Foot
2/13/08
(I’m not supposed to be reading this book. I’m supposed to be reading about globalization. Unfortunately, the more I read on globalization the more bored of it I get. Globalism is more people doing business in more ways than ever before…so what. I’m convinced that I’m opposed to globalism as it is. I accidentally picked up “Dark Ages America” and read a few paragraphs. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it now, because I’m supposed to be focusing on so many other things, but I can’t help but make one comment.)
“Of course, it does seem like a gross exaggeration to equate the present (and in my view, final) phase of American history with the Dark or Middle Ages, but I am not trying to be dramatic here. Empires, and civilizations, rise and fall, and they go through a series of stages in the process. We were already in our twilight phase when Ronald Reagan, with all the insight of an ostrich, declared it to be “morning in America”; twenty-odd years later, under the “boy emperor George W. Bush (as Chalmes Johnson refers to him), we have entered the Dark Ages in earnest, pursuing a short-sighted path that can only accelerate our decline. For what we are now seeing are the obvious characteristics of the West after the fall of Rome: the triumph of religion over reason; the atrophy of education and critical thinking; the integration of religion, the state, and the apparatus of torture–a troika that was for Voltaire the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment world; and the political and economic marginalization of our culture.” Morris Berman, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire (New York, N.Y., W. W. Norton, 2006), 1-2.
This paragraph is a fine example of a post-modern atheistic critique of the current American Empire. It is at once brilliant and stupid, insightful and blind sighted, on target and off the mark. Weiss wants to make a point, but in his rage - and I’m sure he’s quite enraged - he’s mixed everything up, lost history, and failed to use his non-atrophied critical thinking skills.
Rome didn’t fall because of a triumph of religion over reason. Reason is supposed to be good sense, or logical thought, while religion is a deeply held set of beliefs - how are the two mutually exclusive? Perhaps he doesn’t mean to say that they are mutually exclusive, but his claim seems pretty straight forward to me. The only way one may conclude that these two are necessarily mutually exclusive is if one utilizes a form of circular reasoning known as “begging the question” wherein one assumes part of - or the whole of - what they are trying to prove in their argument. That is, the premise of ones argument is itself dependent on the conclusions validity. It sounds like Weiss is assuming - at the outset - that religion is contrary to reason, but he would have to prove this first. If reason is essentially good thinking, and religion is essentially a set of beliefs (or practices) there doesn’t seem to be any way that both are necessarily mutually exclusive. If I believe that we should abolish the modern nation-state altogether than I have a religious belief. This religious belief is not opposed to reason, or good sense, simply because I believe it deeply. What I’m saying is that everything we think and do is inherently religious. We have deeply held beliefs that influence the way we interpret information, and the how we live. It matters little what those beliefs are, they are beliefs. The beliefs that we have may, or may not, make good sense, but that is a whole different question. Religion does not preclude reason.
Rome fell because of the triumph of religion over reason. To put it simply, the Romans failed in good sense, and embraced a false religion - a set of beliefs that did not comport with reality. Rome fell away from God, and then fell. This assessment obviously assumes that certain beliefs circling Rome were unreasonable beliefs. It’s quite logical to argue that beliefs can be unreasonable, but not at all logical to argue that beliefs and reason are mutually exclusive - in fact, such a view statement seems to be self-refuting. Rome, like America, fell when it embraced a subtle aberration of reason. Of course my point here is that historic, orthodox Christian beliefs and living are reasonable while any aberration of the same is unreasonable and leads to all sorts of failures and dark ages.
Religion is not belief in an invisible deity. Although religion has been, at times, defined in relation to a commonly accepted invisible deity, it’s broad definition is simple a set of beliefs or practices. Religion is not necessarily a set of a priori beliefs either. Modern hatred of the Christian church - mostly a hatred of the beliefs of the Church - has wrought the notion that religion is something like a leap of faith in an invisible god before applying critical thinking skills to the matter. Religion of this sort would seem to plead for criticism. However, after we apply a little good sense we are forced to admit that we all take leaps of faith, and we all have a set of beliefs about god. Without launching into a course in epistemology I think it’s safe to say that it’s a pipe dream to think that we can be radically Cartesian. We have all kinds of assumptions, or leaps of faith that influence our interpretation of what seems to be simply “the facts”. This is been proved time and again. With regard to “God” typical definitions reduce to “ruler of the universe”, “Lord” or “supreme being.” Both refer to the person who has the final say, or authority. Everyone has a God; their God is their final authority. The final authority in someones mind, or in a system of thought, or in an organization or state is the God over it. Atheists have a God. The Atheists God is himself. America has a God. Americas God is “Demos”, the People. The final authority is always a person, or persons. Once cannot abstract authority from persons as though a particular document (the Constitution, or the Bible) stands alone apart from it’s author(s).
The Romans themselves understood, very naturally, what Weiss does not - that there can never be a separation between religion and state. Statism is religion. In old Rome the emperor was deity, because he was the final authority. The question has always been which God, not God or reason, or some such nonsense. America is a nation-state deity. America is failing, and will fail because it is a nation-state deity. The God, Demos, is an aberration - the People are unreasonable, a false deity. Demos does not comport with reality. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not, and has never been America’s God. There has never been a shift away from Demos and toward Jehovah. America was founded on unreasonable secular humanism (the worship of humanity collectively or individually) and nothing has changed. America’s world-view is running it’s course. Berman doesn’t like the results so he’s attempting to shift the blame. I realize that Berman is convinced that in some part the blame falls squarely on Christianity, but I’m equally convinced that Berman has nagging doubts about his criticism. Could it be that behind all of the Christian language the presidents of the United States have really been worshipers of Demos, liberalism, humanism, or some other modern deity?
The atrophy of education and critical thinking was planned. American’s are stupid by design. An educated populace will catch wise at some point, so in the mid-1800’s humanists devised a plan to enslave the citizenry by dumbing them down. Christian educators had built the most successful educational system the world had ever seen. Its was men who worshiped a foreign God, and who desired more and more power who destroyed it. Some of these men called themselves Christians, but they lived lives that did not comport with orthodox Christianity. Truth be told these men gave rise to Marx, and Hitler - who were both supported in one way or anther by the same anglo-phile elite who deformed, and destroyed education in America. These men were pagans, not Christians, and they were much closer to Berman than he would like to think. In the end it doesn’t matter what call yourself, what matters is how you live, and the undergirding worldview from which you operate. America - like Rome and American education - will fall because it has bad religion.
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