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What Kind
of a President Does America Need?
by
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Lets start with what
America does NOT need:
It does not need a
President who is deemed (by the media, the pundits, the
chattering classes, the owners of capital, and the
mavens of the Democratic and Republican party)
"realistic," "pragmatic," "knows how government works,"
"not too partisan," or "savvy."
All these terms are
short hand for this: they will accept the existing
contours of power (both economic and political) and work
within them to accomplish some limited but valuable
reforms.
In the prophetic tradition of Judaism, we
think of "being realistic' as the functional equivalent
of idolatry. Idolatry is: Accepting "That Which Is" as
the criterion of "That Which Can Be."
To believe in God, on
the other hand, is to believe that there is something, a
force, a being, a reality, an ineffable "no-Thing" or
"nothingness" or Ayin or boundarylessness-Eyn Sof, which
makes possible at all times the transformation from
"That Which Is" to "That Which Ought to Be." In fact,
in my interpretation of Judaism, whatever that is, that
is what is meant by YHVH or what in English called God.
That's why it has
always seemed particularly perverse that some Christians
call the God of the Jews "Jehovah," trying to sound out
four letters that Jews have always said were
unpronounceable. The Hebrew word YHVH is a concept, not
a proper name. The root of the concept is HVH, which in
Hebrew means approximately what the words "To Be" mean
in English-the present tense of the verb to be. And when
you put a 'yud' (Y) in front of a root of a verb in
Hebrew you are indicating future tense. So the word
can't exactly be translated, but it would mean something
like "the movement into the future of the Being of the
present." In context, it means the transformative force,
that which makes possible the movement from what is to
what should be, the force that breaks the repetition
compulsion (the tendency in human life to pass on to
others the pain and cruelty that has been passed on to
us) and allows us to transcend our conditioning history
and act freely in accord with our God nature to be
loving, peaceful and just.
So we need our next
president to be filled with the spirit of God in this
sense-that s/he refuses to accept that which is as the
framework of that which can be.
Instead of being realistic (an
idol-worshipper), we need a president who is unashamed
to talk and act from a commitment to that which is best
for the planet and that which most advances the
capacities of the American people and the peoples of the
world to be their most loving and generous and kind
selves. And we need a president who can communicate and
enthuse the American people and the people of the world
with that sensibility.
The central unifying idea of the next president's
campaign and the major focus of his presidency should be
a call for a New Bottom Line in American society. Today,
institutions and social practices are judged efficient,
rational and productive to the extent that they maximize
money and power. That's the Old Bottom Line. Now Here is
the NEW BOTTOM LINE for which he should advocate:
Institutions (including corporations and governments),
social practices, and even person actions should be
judged rational, efficient and productive not only to
the extent that they maximize money and power, but also
to the extent that they maximize love and caring,
ethical and ecological sensitivity and behavior,
kindness and generosity, non-violence and peace, and to
the extent that they enhance our capacities to respond
to other human beings in a way that honors them as
embodiments of the sacred, and enhances our capacities
to respond to the earth and the universe with awe,
wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of
creation. .
To make this kind of a focus for his/her presidency,
s/he must talk at a far deeper level than merely
repeating or reframing the traditional leftist demands
for economic and political rights. While s/he should
strongly advocate for a Global Marshall Plan, s/he
should also acknowledge that these political and
economic changes will only be won on a global level when
the social change movements are able to address the
spiritual consequences of the triumph of corporate
globalization: a society-wide depression and repression
of what we can variously call the life-force, eros,
God-energy or Spirit.
Please note that this is very different from those who
talk about spiritual politics but actually mean only
this: that it would be politically advantageous and
opportune to take the traditional liberal agenda and
dress it up with some spiritual or "values" language. So
they take the existing liberal/left agenda, with its
primary focus on social justice, inclusion of those who
have been left out, economic redistribution, and
peace-and then they find some Biblical quotes to bolster
the case for the pre-existing liberal/progressive
agenda. We support all that, but our movement goes much
deeper.
I don't believe that our next
president can convince the Congress or the country of
the liberal agenda simply by reframing it in spiritual
language. For a large section of the American public,
the primary source of pain in their lives is not about
economic deprivation or non-inclusion, but about the way
that the ethos of selfishness and materialism plays out
in their personal lives and in the lives of people
around them in ways that are destructive and feel
terrible. They are wounded and personally despairing
about the manipulative, narrowly utilitarian way people
treat each other and themselves and the earth. They want
a framework of meaning to their lives and to the lives
of those around them that speaks of higher meaning to
life, shows a path to a life that is not only about
maximizing money but about maximizing a meaningful
life-in short, they want and need a politics of meaning,
and need a meaning-oriented movement that can counter
the spiritual depression that surrounds them.
Don't confuse this with those who
simply are trying to put some Biblical quotes in front
of the same old Democratic Party or liberal agenda.
The spiritual depression and
emotional repression that suffuse contemporary life are
the near-universal responses to the globalization of a
self-congratulatory individualism, obsessive
materialism, and consumption-all provided as
compensation for the meaninglessness of our present-day
culture. The one-dimensional technocratic consciousness,
speed-up of work, perception that we have "no time" to
do what we really believe in, and our inability to
recognize others in terms that go beyond what they can
do for us to advance our own agendas as rational
maximizes of self-interest-all these combine to create
human beings who, if they don't explode in violence
(like that which we recently saw at Virginia Tech) or
self-destructive alcohol and drug abuse, find themselves
in varying degrees of disconnection to their inner
selves, their feelings, and their capacities to be
loving towards others and responding to the universe
with joy.
In contrast to this, our next president should encourage
the recognition that "there is enough," that we can
afford to share, that the material consumption that
drives our destruction of the global environment does
not actually yield satisfaction. Such a president
should seek a replacement of postmodernist
self-alienation with a renewal of Being based on awe,
wonder and radical amazement at the mystery of the
universe and the mystery of every human being on the
planet as a manifestation of the sacred. Our economic,
social and political institutions need to be replaced
and rethought not only because they are unjust, but
because they foster a consciousness that keeps us from
connecting to the deepest truths of the universe and
make it harder for us to recognize each other as fully
free, fully conscious, self-creating, loving beings. In
this sense, the globalization of Spirit is the antidote
to the globalization of Capital.
Why is it that people who live in the advanced
industrial societies of North America, Europe and Japan,
the richest societies that history has ever known,
believe we "can't afford" to share what we have with the
rest of the world so as to eliminate poverty, hunger and
homelessness? It is partly because of our collective
paranoia that no one will be there for us if we should
ever really need their help that leads us to think our
only security lies in endless accumulation, to protect
our isolated self-interest in face of a deep inner
certainty that others can't be counted on. And partly
because we have a deep emptiness inside and we have come
to believe that only material goods can fill it. We buy
things to buy happiness, to compensate ourselves for the
alienated work, the disconnection from each other, and
the estrangement from our own inner selves that
constitute the texture of our daily lives.
In our spiritually impoverished world, acquiring ever
more things provides an illusion of fulfillment-and a
replacement for the deep connection with each other and
to the spiritual realities of the universe for which we
both hunger and simultaneously deny to ourselves (lest
we re-experience the pain and disappointment we had at
earlier points in our lives when we allowed ourselves to
be vulnerable and then failed to receive the loving and
recognition we needed but didn't fully get).
In addition, almost every child in our culture gets
strong messages to focus attention on that which can be
useful, and away from the spiritual dimension which has
no "practical application." Indeed, this message has
been so deeply ingrained in many of us that we
instinctively shy away from the spiritual realm as
though it were as dirty as not being toilet trained. We
fear that were we to acknowledge to ourselves or others
that we actually wish for connection with that which
cannot be used or made practical, cannot be subject to
empirical observation or turned into a commodity or
something that will make us more attractive or salable
on the job or relationship marketplace, we would subject
us to ridicule and humiliation.
Fearful that we will experience that pain once again, we
often build strong external walls to keep us out of
touch with this deep yearning for connection to each
other and to the universe. Instead of drawing on our own
inner resources, we too often find ourselves looking to
the media-dominated mass culture for fulfillment and
reassurance that our scaled-down sense of possibility is
"what everybody else is doing" and hence "the only
possible path for us too." The media is one of the many
institutions that speeds up time-protecting us from the
quiet moments in which we might doubt the whole way our
lives our being lived.
Instead of finding our own pace, we find ourselves
rushing about, seeking machines and gadgets that make
things go faster, becoming accustomed to media and
technology which speed the pace while "shallow-ing" the
intellectual and emotional level of our daily
consciousness. We learn to forget the past and focus
only on the new while devaluing the old, which leads to
decreasing literacy and an increasing difficulty in
following a complex discussion, sustaining a long-term
relationship, or committing to social goals that can't
be accomplished immediately.
Sadly, our social institutions only reinforce this
materialist view. Our institutions provide us with the
illusion of permanency (pretending we won't die) and the
illusion that the "real world" is the world of power and
wealth. Compound this with the patriarchal assumption
that we should be tough and ignore our feelings, and we
are left with a "common sense" that dismisses the
relevance of our inner lives. We are told that
spirituality should be left in the home, relegated to
the weekend, kept separate from the pragmatic decisions
that should shape politics and the business world. On
the contrary, the next President should be someone who
can help people affirm progressive spiritual values in
the public sphere without weakening the separation
clause that protects us from allowing any particular
religion from becoming "established" as the only
legitimate form of spiritual life. I've detailed how to
do this in my book The Left Hand of God: Healing
America's Political and Spiritual Crisis (paperback,
2007, Harper San Francisco).
This is one reason why our next President
should take the Spiritual Covenant with America that
we've developed in the Network of Spiritual Progressives
and make this the center of her/his political agenda.
While space here precludes a full presentation, of the
idea (you can find it at
www.spiritualprogressives.org
• Changing all global and regional
trade agreements in which the U.S. is currently involved
so that they no longer privilege the most powerful and
economically successful Western countries and the elites
of other countries at the expense of the poor of the
world. Global trade must be both multilateral and
equitable. New agreements must provide support and
encouragement for working people organizing, being paid
a living wage, and providing adequate safety and health
conditions and environmental safeguards so that economic
growth is encouraged in ways that respect the rights of
working people, promotes their well-being, and ensures
their dignity and human rights. Trade agreements must
also protect farmers, both at home and abroad,
encouraging food prices that make it possible for
farmers to make a living and poorer people to buy
adequate food.
• Ensuring hands-on involvement from peoples of the
Western world, starting with the United States. We wish
to create an international Peace and Justice Corps which
would provide ways for people with useful skills to
volunteer two years of their life (at any age of their
life) in donating their talents toward the goals of the
Global Marshall Plan. To make this viable for
professionals and others who have gained valuable skills
and who fear losing their jobs, we envision a guaranteed
job for anyone volunteering two years in the Peace and
Justice Corps at the level of income at which they were
working before they entered the program. While
participating in the Peace and Justice Corps, people
would receive the average salary that they were
receiving in the five years before volunteering so that
they could continue to help their families (though they
would be encouraged to bring with them and spend in the
countries in which they were working the same salaries
that the people in those countries receive for doing
comparable work). For high school graduates, three years
of volunteer service in the Global Marshall Plan would
be rewarded with a fully paid college or professional
school tuition plus student housing and food for four
years as long as they were making satisfactory progress
in an accredited college or graduate or professional
school.
• Using the International Peace and Justice Corps not
only to build the capacities of people around the world
to ensure their own future economic well-being , but
also to deliver certain necessities including emergency
food supplies, the building of environmentally-sound
housing not only for the millions who are currently
homeless but for the hundreds of millions of people soon
to be born into poverty before the program can fully
succeed, the rebuilding of crumbling city
infrastructure, the building and/or rebuilding of dams,
levees, roads, bridges, ports, railroads in
environmentally sound ways, and the training of hundreds
of millions of people with the skills necessary to do
well in the economic marketplace and to survive those
aspects of environmental collapse that at this point may
be impossible to avoid.
• Retraining of the armies of nations around the world
to become experts in ecologically sensitive construction
of those aspects of their own societies that need relief
and reconstruction, including agriculture, health care,
housing, infrastructure, education and computers, and
other appropriate technology.
• Training for everyone on the planet in techniques of
nonviolent communication, respect for ethnic and
religious diversity and differences, family and parental
support,
` stress reduction, child and elderly care, emergency
health techniques, diet and exercise, and caring for
others who are in need of help.
- Training for everyone on the planet in the essentials
of living in accord with the survival
and sustainability needs of the planet.
We estimate that this program, if fully implemented,
could cost as much as 3-5% of the GDP of the world. Our
commitment is to start with the 1% of US GDP and move
from there.
We offer this plan with a commitment to humility and a
conviction that it cannot work unless it is understood
as deriving from our own commitment to the well-being of
everyone on the planet and not primarily as a
self-interested plan to advance American power or
influence. One of the values of having an international
agency to administer the plan is that from the start it
will be clear that this plan is not simply another
puppet for U.S. power.
We must also insist that the plan be implemented with a
clear message that although the West has superior
technology and material success, we do not equate that
with superior moral or cultural wisdom. On the contrary,
our approach must reflect a deep humility and a spirit
of repentance for the ways in which Western
dominance of the planet has been accompanied by wars,
environmental degradation, and a growing materialism and
selfishness reflected in a Western- dominated global
culture.
Given these distortions, it is central to our mission to
convey in the Global Marshall Plan a recognition that we
have much to learn from the peoples of the world, their
cultures, their spiritual and intellectual heritage,
their ways of dealing with human relationships. So part
of the program must also include cultural exchanges in
which we invite into the cultural and educational
systems of Western countries some of the teachers,
musicians, artists, religious leaders, authors, poets,
and philosophers of the non-Western world. We view this
not as a sop thrown to ameliorate possible hurt egos,
but as a genuine attempt to recognize that our superior
technology and material success has not brought with it
a superior ethical or spiritual wisdom, and that there
is much to learn from societies that from a material
standpoint are "under-developed" but from a spiritual
standpoint may have within them teachers and cultures
that are far more humanly sensitive than our own.
That is not to say that such a president should be
unaware of the Yetzer HaRa, the inclination toward
hurtfulness that has been shaped in each of us by our
childhoods (as it says in Genesis, God saw that the
inclination of people was evil from their childhood).
Our president will need a dose of Niebuhr-ian
sensibilities. S/he must be aware that all the calls for
love, generosity, peace and social justice will face an
immediate resistance from the people of the U.S. and the
people of the world. And so s/he must take that into
account and plan for how to overcome it.
But what such a president should
do with that recognition is to develop a public campaign
against cynicism that speaks about its roots, and
simultaneously a new program for education that seeks to
develop in children some of the necessary defenses
against the ways that their inclinations toward
hurtfulness are fostered in school and in family life.
This is, of course, a hefty
agenda. To some it will seem naïve and utopian. But in
my view, what is utopian is to imagine that our world
can survive the 21st century without this kind of
political leadership. It is certain that the locus of
global power will shift in the next twenty-thirty years
to China and India. But this is the moment in which the
West still has the power and influence to shape the
development of a sustainable and morally coherent global
culture. What America needs is for our next president to
have the vision and the courage to engage with the
spiritual vision I've hinted at in this article.
Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine (www.tikkun.org
), rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco and
Berkeley, and national chair of The Network of Spiritual
Progressives, an interfaith organization for people who
agree with the vision articulated above (and co-chaired
by Cornel West and Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister).
He is author of 11 books, including Healing
Israel/Palestine, The Politics of Meaning,
and most recently The Left Hand of God.
courtesy: The Tikkun, the
newsletter of
The Network of Spiritual Progressives
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