Obama's Error - and What It Would Really Take to Rectify It
Rabbi Lerner - April 17, 2008
A continuing irony of American politics is that the candidates of the ruling elites have been able to convince many Americans that the candidates who seek to redistribute wealth to the less fortunate, provide health care for all, and provide jobs and housing for the poor are the real elitists.
They've been able to get away with that not only by demeaning the "Hollywood limousine liberals" (never explaining why those wealthy who support tax increases on their own wealth to feed, house and care for the hungry are not deserving of more praise than those who horde their wealth for themselves), but also by portraying liberals as hostile to the religious concerns of the American people.
Unfortunately, on that latter point Right-wingers are often accurate. The relgio-phobia Americans encounter in many sections of the liberal and progressive world often push them away and into the hands of the Right. Deeply suspicious of the slippery slope from some right wing religious beliefs to religious coercion, homophobia, sexism, and racism, people on the Left have created a cultural assumption that anyone who is into religion or spiritual life is probably a little less intellectually or psychologically developed than the secularists, perhaps seeking mystery or a father-figure God to compensate for some lack in their lives.
The message that most Americans receive from the Left is an elitist and demeaning put-down: "We need your votes, so you are welcome into our ranks, but we hope that by hanging out with us secular leftists you will eventually give up your pathological need for religious beliefs and evolve to a higher level of rationality that us secularists have been developing as the only possible way to think clearly about the nature of reality." Often unconscious, this religio-phobic message has done much to push away the majority of Americans whose religious beliefs are extremely important to them, even though on purely economic grounds they'd feel more aligned with the Left's agenda than that of the Right.
Barack Obama understands this, and has done much in his career to avoid failing into that trap. His political worldview draws upon the spiritual and religious wisdom of the human race, without making explicit some of those connections. Others may shout about their religiosity to score points with particular religious constituencies, but Obama is the closest thing we've seen in American politics to a man who actually embodies spiritual depth.
All the more sad, then, to have witnessed his error in listing religion as one of the compensations people who are bitter about their economic situation embrace along with guns and anti-immigrant sentiments. Seeing religion as a substitute gratification grabbed on to by people who are otherwise oppressed is an insight that has been part of liberal and progressive culture for at least 150 years. Unfortunately, Senator Obama, like Karl Marx before him, got it wrong because he identified the needs that are being systematically denied as purely material, thereby failing into the deep "It's the economy, stupid" mistake of the Left. And so far, he has sought only to justify his description of people as "bitter" rather than to address his mistake in reducing their upsets to those that flow from the current economic downturn. The fact is that significant growth in the religious right happened in the 1990s, during the Clinton Administration's years of growing prosperity, precisely when people were feeling most economically secure.
When I met with Senator Obama in his Senate office, I explained to him the ideas behind the newly formed Network of Spiritual Progressives. In the research my colleagues and I did for ten years at the Institute for Labor and Mental Health we found that it was not only material, but spiritual deprivation that was at the heart of much of the pain that Americans experience today. That's why even at the height of American prosperity in the Clinton years, a powerful resurgence of right-wing religious forms was providing an avenue of expression for people whose needs were being ignored by the liberals in the Clinton administration, the Democratic Party, and even in parts of the liberal churches.
Similarly, the revival of a religious Left has not gotten much traction to the extent that it adopts the liberal political and economic agenda and makes it "religious" by finding some useful Bible quotes to back up the peace and justice planks of the Democrats. Valuable as that may be, it too misses the deeper pain that has led people to embrace right-wing religions.
What we discovered in groups that we ran for over ten thousand middle income working people is that most people spend their days in a work world governed by the "bottom line" that judges institutions and social practices to be efficient, rational or productive to the extent that they maximize money and power. Day after day, people breathe in the message that to be rational in this society is to "look out for number one" and treat other people instrumentally-that is, as valuable to the extent that they help us achieve our own goals and desires. People learn how to treat each other as means to our own ends.
We were struck, however, by how bitter many people feel about this way of life. Over and over again, middle income working people told us that they felt they were wasting their lives because their economic survival required them to do work that in no way connected to their hunger for a higher meaning to their lives, what Rev. Rick Warren correctly described as a desire for a purpose-driven life.
Moreover, as people bring into their personal lives the values of "looking for number one" and believing that getting their own needs met is the highest possible good, they find that their families and friendships become increasingly unstable, as more and more people switch from one relationship or marriage to another, imagining that the next one might satisfy yet more of their needs. No wonder people feel lonely, afraid, and deeply troubled by a society in which the narcissism is bred not by some peculiarities of one generation or another, but by the fundamental notions of rationality that predominate in all of the major economic and social institutions.
For this very reason, we've been urging candidates in every political party to embrace a "new bottom line" in which corporations, social practices, government policies and individual behaviors are judged rational, efficient or productive not only if they maximize money or power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological sensitivity, enhance our capacity to treat others as embodiments of the sacred and to respond with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of the universe.
It was this that I tried to express in the "politics of meaning" that I shared with Hillary Clinton in the mid 1990s when the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and much other media mis-described me as "the guru of the White House," and it was this that the Network of Spiritual Progressives now describes as a "spiritual politics" for the 21st century. In my contact with Senator Obama I've become convinced that he understands this, and that the reason he fell back into a materialist and reductionist account when speaking with supporters in San Francisco is that he knows how resistant many people in liberal and progressive circles have been in the past decades to anything resembling a religious or spiritual discourse.
Because of the almost allergic reaction many liberal and progressive insiders have to the concept of "spiritual" and the reality of religion as an explanatory category, the Senator fell back into the categories of thought that have made most liberals unable to understand the legitimate spiritual hungers that lead people to embrace religious and spiritual practices, and hence unable to connect in a deep way to many Americans whose economic circumstances could have been expected to embrace progressive politics but whose spiritual and religious yearnings make them feel unwelcome in many liberal contexts. That's why we created a Network of Spiritual Progressives to help bridge this gap, and a Spiritual Covenant with America to help progressives articulate a politics that addresses these spiritual needs.
In substituting a reductive materialist explanation rather than articulating the real spiritual crisis, Senator Obama, who reassured me, as Hillary once did, that he understands and agrees with this spiritual politics, may have critically weakened his credibility among many who might otherwise embrace his candidacy. Yet if he does explicitly embrace a spiritual politics, he can transcend the left/right dichotomies that have torn our country apart. What remains to be seen is he can do that in the context of a Left whose religio-phobia is both intense and unconscious, and a media determined to make every mistake into a fatal error no matter who the candidate. If his supporters let him do so, Senator Obama has the understanding and capacity to become the first national figure to embrace a spiritual progressive agenda, and doing so may be the only way he will overcome the stigma of elitism with which the Republicans (with the aid of Hillary Clinton) now seek to mis-describe him. But making it safe for Obama to publicly embrace his own highest vision while acknowledging what was really mistaken in what he said will require a struggle by those of his supporters who are spiritual progressives--and they may remain too intimidated by the anti-religious culture of the Left to feel empowered to raise these issues with their standard-bearer. If they do not, the elitism charge may outweigh issues of war, race, and economics in the unconscious but powerful mass psychology that often determines the outcomes of American elections.
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Posted by Rabbi Lerner at April 17, 2008 02:54 AM
Comments
1. Posted by
Irvine Welsh
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on
April 17, 2008 06:31 AM
Rabbi Lerner,
What would it take to rectify all our errors?
The Seeds of Compassion event in Seattle with His Holiness the Dalai Lama provides a recipe. This compassion model can be used in our systems of economics, politics, ecology, education, etc.
We don't need to keep re-inventing the wheel and going in scattered directions. Seeds of Compassion is a wheel to jump on board, support and expand.
What would the political field look like if we applied some of the insights from www.seedsofcompassion.org? What would politics look like if we included social and emotional awareness?
Trish~~
www.communitythreads.net
2. Posted by
Trish
on
April 17, 2008 07:17 AM
Hello Rabbi Lerner,
In his Nobel Peace Prize speech December 2006, Mohammad Yunas referred also to this in terms of a future Free Market having 2 forms. One, a profit-maximizing type business and the second, very appealing to so many, social businesses.
He does it without much talk of religion at all. No right. No left. He mentions the word spiritual. And he does exclaim, "My God" upon relating a story about a woman making 2 pennies a day.
I think Obama has it right and people are oversimplifying what he said. He did not walk to the podium and say, "People are bitter." He went through the list of things that Washington said would be done for them and weren't then he expressed how tired they were of it all.
Someone is simply deciding to edit and spin.
Further, people who feel financially secure because they really understand markets, money, and investment can spend less time in desperate prayer looking for magic, luck, and miracles. I don't worry myself about whether that is left, right or liberal.
I don't know about elitism coming from people who want to reorganize things. I do think lucky money people and poor people both come up with poor people's solutions. So, yes, the ones who appear to be elite are often the ones who know how complicated a money education is, how really valuable hard-earned money is, and may find it difficult to communicate with lucky money people and poor people when it comes time to negotiate for wordly solutions.
Parade Magazine had their salary issue. When I see celebrities making 33 million and I bought their CD, I figure they can make a donation in my name and skip or not skip the limo. So I don't know if they deserve more praise. I would simply agree it is good of them to have a social awareness and desire to help. Some even rise to great heights, motivated by wanting the means to help. Hence, "social entrepreneurs."
3. Posted by
Tapestry
on
April 17, 2008 10:20 AM
Dear Rabbi,
The old game is coming to an end both sides play it. We are switching to collective control. The issue is the current system of things that usurp the wealth of the producers using mechanisms that allow a few to gain disproportionably to the detriment of others. All great conspiracies or should I say “collaborative efforts”, are done completely in the open, right under our noses sometimes it’s all about controlling perception. We need to transform energy, transportation / travel, housing, food, health and education systems from a holistic perspective, having a foundation of truth, not one of fiction.
Liberal = Freedom
Conservatism = Wisdom
There is no conflict everything else associated with the terms is a fictional fabrication in the minds of men.
4. Posted by
Richard Thomas ∞Φ
on
April 17, 2008 03:18 PM
Click my name to see and hear.
The Ark of the Covenant, the Eye of Creation, or I of creation. It was not the Ark that was of value it was the contents a crystal orb and a resonant chamber fueled by the flow of water. Not sure how it works, although it may be attributed to the piezoelectric properties of the crystal. It was found in South America, there is no documentation to confirm it’s origin, only an oral tradition passed down by Shamans, you will just need to decide for your self. It is said to impart creative intelligence to the observer and may do simply do this by putting the observer into deep theta. Gaze at the center some see images but these only exist in your mind.
The primordial sound produced generates a binaural beat frequency of 4.6692 Hz which happens to be Feigenbaum’s constant or the first number of chaos. Feigenbaum called this number the universal convergence parameter and became known as the principle of universality. It is a complex subject.
This is also in the frequency range of deep theta, normally achieved after years of meditation. In about 5 minutes your brain waves will have synchronized. At about 4 minutes and 30 seconds the crystal orb seems to warp space and time and loses it’s solid form even warping the containment vessel.
No one has been able to entirely explain the phenomena. The shaman alluded to the notion that this is what priests used to engage God or the all pervading intelligence however they were corrupted by the power and used it for their own gain, and they lost possession of it…. It has now been released to the world as a part of Infinite Play the Movie.
Some people may not be ready to experience it, if you feel uncomfortable please stop watching.
Feigenbaum's constant can be used to predict when chaos will arise in such systems before it ever occurs. Based on current analysis human civilization is approaching chaos as is the planet earth for different reasons, as evidenced with the increase of phonons of a magnitude of proportion, in other words increased vibration.
This may be adverted or transcended with the application of Phi, the golden ratio, or divine proportion. 1.618.. to infinity. I hope to be helping in this area.
5. Posted by
Richard Thomas ∞Φ
on
April 17, 2008 03:21 PM
So the right believe out of hand and the left only see what's in front of them - generally speaking. Where's the middle ground? It's in the emerging consciousness that is represented by many, including Barak Obama.
You say it's Obama's 'mistake' but I think it's your mistake to interpret it that way, with respect. His words were met with general resignation by the people who he was talking about. They accepted because the words resonated truthfully with what is out there. However, the people who feel threatened by Obama and his entire movement were inspired to strongly criticize, attack and divide, twisting the meaning for their own benefit which is to diminish other human beings. Not very conscious or reflective of the emerging awareness.
6. Posted by
Radiate Heat
on
April 18, 2008 09:07 AM
It is my contention that the acceptance of SECULARISM HAS BEEN THE MAJOR CONTRIBUTING FACTOR to the problems we are currently witnessing in operations of government and in the educational system.
There has been an increasing trend of dysfunctional activity in both areas. There is a failure of co-operative action among the members of the two political parties. There is a very pronounced increase in a lack of respect shown for educational leaders by students. There is a huge problem with the moral state of students; they are being drawn to drugs and are showing very aggressive behavior.
You cannot remove the spiritual element from any institution or any activity of mankind without experiencing devastating effects. Mankind was not created to ignore that part of his being which was meant to be the preeminent one.
If Obama is the closest thing we've seen in American politics to someone who actually embodies spiritual depth as Rabbi Lerner states, how could he make an error of listing religion as a substitute gratification grabbed onto by people? And, why has he failed to address his mistake? Could it be that he is afraid of criticism and censure by his fellow party leaders?
Best Wishes,
"Betsy" S.
7. Posted by
"Betsy" S.
on
April 19, 2008 01:48 PM
Dear Rabbi Lerner,
To reiterate my contention:
First I would like to address the concept of SECULARISM. With the removal of spiritual guidance (religion) has come the degeneration of the political, educational, and scientific systems.
The triune nature of mankind (spiritual, mental/emotional, and physical) demands the combination of all these elements of mankind's nature in order to realize a balanced outcome or manifestation of the Creator's Laws. The spiritual element is meant to be the Preeminent Guiding Force.
The political system is suffering from a lack of spiritually guided individuals.
The educational system is suffering because the acknowledgement of the word "God" has been disavowed.
The scientific community has refused to acknowledge Creationism and has chosen instead to give credibility to "the chance evolutionary concept" of Darwinism.
There has to be an AWAKENING in order for the advancement of civilization to take place.
Best Wishes,
"Betsy" S.
8. Posted by
"Betsy" S.
on
April 19, 2008 03:18 PM
Should candidates listen to spiritual advisors?
9. Posted by
arizonasunset
on
April 19, 2008 05:35 PM
Should candidates listen to spiritual advisors? Is that a violation of the constitution?
10. Posted by
arizonasunset
on
April 19, 2008 05:36 PM
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Recent Comments
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arizonasunset commented on Obama's Error - and What It Would Really Take to Rectify It
Should candidates listen to spiritual advisors?
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arizonasunset commented on Obama's Error - and What It Would Really Take to Rectify It
Should candidates listen to spiritual advisors?
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"Betsy" S. commented on Obama's Error - and What It Would Really Take to Rectify It
Dear Rabbi Lerner,
To reiterate my cont
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"Betsy" S. commented on Obama's Error - and What It Would Really Take to Rectify It
It is my contention that the acceptance of SECU
-
Radiate Heat commented on Obama's Error - and What It Would Really Take to Rectify It
So the right believe out of hand and the left o
Thought provoking post...
Obama may embrace spiritual progressive ideas to and expect to reap political advantage in the process on the strength of those ideas. While this is optimistic and theoretically sound, and may take sometime to permeate through the American consciousness(through media, places of worship, political discourse...etc) this may not work to actually win substantial votes in a short term, which could hinder the long term goals. The real drawback with Democrats in the politics of perception is not that the Republicans were successful in painting them as liberal elitists, socialists ...etc. It's this: The democrats are seen as sissies. Republicans are seen as people who have the courage to speak their mind. Americans love guts. This dynamic needs to change if the dems want to win big by taking advantage of the anti-bush feelings.
Moreover Obama is bringing in a lot of new voters in the young and AA who are not susceptible to these stereo-types (and majority of independents won't either, many tend to vote on issues.) You got to beat the republicans at their own game.