In Denial or Just Unaffiliated?

Jumping off what Russ said, I think that in the age of political correctness that we live in, there is a sort of denial among many people to admit that this country was founded on religious values and that much of what our country did in the earlier years (and even today) was/is justified on religious grounds. It certainly highlights the contradiction between being a land that is supposedly welcoming to people of all faith and having the territory that we do because it was justified long ago as “God’s will” for us as a nation.

When looking for a statistic on how many Americans consider themselves religious, I found an amazingly pertinent article to this discussion published recently in the Washington Post (Here’s the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/11/AR2006091100459.html) . The title is “Americans May Be More Religious Than They Realize: Many Without Denomination Have Congregation, Study Finds.” Here’s the part to which I will refer:

“ The Baylor University survey looked carefully at people who checked "none" when asked their religion in polls. Sociologists have watched this group closely since 1990, when their numbers doubled, from 7 percent of the population to 14 percent. Some sociologists said the jump reflects increasing secularization at the same time that American society is becoming more religious.
But the Baylor survey, considered one of the most detailed ever conducted about religion in the United States, found that one in 10 people who picked "no religion" out of 40 choices did something interesting when asked later where they worship: They named a place.
Considering that, Baylor researchers say, the percentage of people who are truly unaffiliated is more like 10.8 percent. The difference between 10.8 percent and 14 percent is about% Considering that, Baylor researchers say, the percentage of people who are truly unaffiliated is more like 10.8 percent. The difference between 10.8 percent and 14 percent is about 10 million Americans.”

I think this is incredibly interesting, because it highlights a couple of things I was thinking about as a result of our discussion last class. First: Has American society become increasingly secularized in recent years? It would seem from the reactions to our discussions about George Bush and religion in class that many in our academic environment seem to scoff at the idea a politician is a true believer in religion and uses it to guide his choices. I think that in a University environment, there is a tendency to be skeptical of religious arguments for actions because we are so engrossed in an environment where we must present evidence and sources for arguments—the more scientific/academic, the more accurate and well received. I think another reason it’s so hard to believe that a politician (especially Bush) is truly religious and does not just spout religion to appeal to voters is this: In a nation like ours, where 33% of people say they attend an evangelical church and half say they are “bible-believing” (according to the above study), a politician is dead in the water if he professes to be secular. Claiming to be guided by the “ultimate” authority is an instant way to endear you to followers who believe in that and makes it difficult for those who are not so fortunately endowed to argue with this claim in any way most people who believe the “guided by God” politician will accept.

In closing, another interesting, pertinent bit from the article: "What is most associated with 'no religion' from a political point of view is independence," said Barry Kosmin, principal investigator of a telephone survey that queried tens of thousands of respondents. His American Religious Identification Survey found that the number of "no religion" Americans jumped from 14.3 million in 1990 to 29.4 million in 2001. "If you don't belong religiously, you don't belong politically," he said.

Expansionism and assimiliation: the Protestant "Destiny"?

I was perturbed by how much sense a lot of the things that Stephanson pointed about about protestantism and the development of the American state (and the "American spirit") made. His overall implication seems to be that the puritan, protestant ethic upon which our nation was "founded" has never died out in our history. It guided us into the west, then to the south, then to the north, then farther west and south into the oceans (all with religious rhetoric justifying the assimilation of foreign and therefore inferior races).

I had, however, never heard the speculation that prevalent in the minds of many manifest destineers was the eventual take-over of the East and a re-conquest of the lands of the Aryans, completing the historic circle around the globe, from east to west and back again finally to the east. That's the truly perturbing notion, and one that I have little problem believing was actually in the minds of many people. It's a global-conquest doctrine as bad if not worse than Hitlerism. We're talking about the massive assimilation of the entire human species under the auspices of white, protestant Christianity. And it was accepted as morally right even by some more progessive thinkers of the period.

I feel that I have to refute the claim made in class and in some earlier posts that "the expansionst spirit", that is, manifest destiny, has fallen by the wayside in the popular American consciousness. As an extention of the mechanisms of expansion discussed in the book (genocide, concentration, war, brainwashing, etc), I would have to add the mechanism of globalization and massive industrial capitalism. Though I'm far from being an anti-globalizationist, it's clear that globalization is, fundamentally, the embodiment of the PROTESTANT Work Ethic on a world-wide scale. It requires, necessarily in order to thrive and EXPAND, that all other forms of society die out. That they perish under the enormous wave of Western Capitalism. It's happened, and it's incredibly real. For me, that seems to be the ultimate MANIFESTATION of the western "DESTINY".

Religion's Place in the Future

From the very beginning of Stephanson's Manifest Destiny, the concept of Manifest Destiny is tied very closely to notions of religious justification/ordination of expansion. From the very beginning, the United States was viewed as the place in which the forces of good and evil would battle each other for control. At this point in time, the New World was the final frontier. This ideological justification for the expansion of America contrasts with Heinlein's work, in which the expansion to Luna seems to be one more of necessity than of ideology and "frontier spirit."

Furthermore, the religious base of Manifest Destiny caused me to reflect upon the conspicuous absence of religion from most of the works we have read so far, particularly in Heinlein's novel. In The Dispossessed, one could argue that the ideology takes the place of religion, but these two novels in a sense seem purposely devoid of a discussion on the place of religion in the future.

Regarding, then, our discussion in the last class about the perceived lack of frontier spirit in our present society: does the changing nature of religion play a role in this? (I would like to acknowledge an assumption here that religion is changing, that religious institutions adjust to the times). Does anyone think that Heinlein purposely avoided the issue to avoid opening up a can of worms? I think a tendency to avoid discussion of religion is present when scientific advances are of prominent feature due to many conflicts between traditional religious beliefs and scientific knowledge (I'm trying my darnedest to avoid offending anyone here). However, since religion is something that influences politics and the lives of many people, and since Science Fiction is an examination of future societies, the omission of any lengthy discussion of it in the works we have read so far is of note.

Manifest destiny today

We talked a lot in class last week about "What is manifest destiny?" Stephanson's answer to this question is pretty simply that manifest destiny is a US-specific ideology of physical expansion.

But is this ideology still alive today? There's certainly no mass movement of settlers to contiguous land belonging to the government. The government no longer has a policy of buying or otherwise acquiring land - in fact, popular opinion against imperialism is still alive and well, as some critiques of the Iraq war and similar conflicts have accused the government of "expansionist" or "imperialist" actions. And certainly there's no longer a religious, pseudo-scientific justification for expansion, based on the racial superiority of a homogenous Anglo-Saxon population civilizing or annihilating "lower" races.

It's particularly this last justification that seems ludicrous and outdated by today's standards. And certainly, though the US has some serious race issues, those problems are by no means the worst in the international arena, and it's common to boast about the US "melting pot" where any man (or woman) can "pull themselves up by the bootstrap" to get to the top.

However, public opinion and government policies still operate on an ideology of "we're better than you" to justify our actions. Is spreading democracy to Iraq, "civilizing" the Middle East through military aggression, that different from taking over parts of Mexico in the belief that our race will naturally take over theirs?

The premise is certainly more moral; I'd agree democracy is a good thing, while racial superiority is pure bunk. But is the firm conviction that our way of doing things is better than theirs, and the desire to give or force that way of doing things onto other people, a good or a bad thing? Isn't it the modern continuation of the spirit of manifest destiny, only cleaned up for a bit for the 21st centurey?

IR Quandries in "Harsh Mistress"

I thought one of the most intriguing parts of this book was not the whole narrative related to the revolution -- although Mike's practical omnipotence was pretty cool, the fact that he could do everything, and predict the future, all at once -- but rather the relationship formed by the new post-revolutionary lunar power with the Authority on earth. Although the loonies had won sovereignty locally over the political chieftans, it was clear from the beginning that the real power lay in Earth -- in the mother land, if you'd like. The fight of two separate battles for the sake of sovereignty has a lot of political antecedents -- Cuba, for example, comes to mind. Many Latin American countries, as well.

It was also interesting how my political reading of the book changed as its plot developed. For the first hundred pages or so I was interpreting it as a pro-bolschevik "viva la revolucion" sort of handbook for any revolutionary, with the themes progressing into sort of a Cold War atmosphere after the new nation is established and a sort of "arms race" develops. Later still I started reading it as a glorification of colonial independence, and then as sort of the opposite of a glorification of the same. It was an interesting, dynamic, and I'd say altogether thought-provoking book. Plus Heinlen was really, really well versed in computer science for the time this was written.

I would not like to live on the moon....

I know I posted about this already and we talked about it in class, but I think it's an interesting subject so I'll talk about it some more!

Professor Jackson asked in class if we'd like to live on the moon. My initial reaction was "Sure! Attention, power, as many men as I want - why not!"

But then I thought about it some more, and realized that, a la Kermit the Frog, I might like to visit the moon, but not live there.

Women have power - but only as sexual objects. This implies that a woman who did not act as a sexual object but removed herself from the available pool would not be valued.

Heinlein writes as though all women are ready and willing to take on more than one male partner. I suppose this is plausible in a culture that encourages polyandry - however, not quite so plausible in Lunar culture, when so many people are recent immigrants from Earth, which still holds strong monogamous prejudices (at least in some places, as evidenced by Mannie's experiences).

Therefore, what would happen to a woman who preferred to marry just one man? Or, god forbid, a woman who wasn't interested in men at all, only other women? Would the men shove her out into the vaccuum? Would they see her as having any use?

Probably not, but still: I would not like to live on the moon.

Manifest Destiny, or Not

In the book "Manifest Destiny" there was a lot of discussion describing the religious state of the United States. The chosenness of the American people seemed a prevalent idea (as that was Stephanson's definition of the phrase). A particular section or word choice on the author's part struck my fancy. On page 36 the author describes America's plans for Mexico,

"The chief intrigue concerned the exiled Mexican general Santa Anna, whom Polk planned secretly to ferry back from exile and assist in resuming power, after which, in return, he would gratefully sell the desired territory to the United States (California). On the assumption that this would mean a short, little war, that indeed the United States would even be greeted as liberators, Polk confidently advanced American troops to the Rio Grande. When the Mexican army retaliated, Polk declared that the United States had been invaded and so war began.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? While we are not currently in Iraq because they invaded our territory, we are there for a presumed attack on the United States by someone. Is it then that we are not perhaps the chosen people? Our destiny was forged by men who desired good land and worked hard to beat out the competition even through unlawful means. What does this suggest for the history of our country? The hard toil was done by slaves, our wars fought be ignorant troops, and the country's foundation built upon a christian faith that no longer seems to rule our society. I'm not sure how this quite connects to space being the final frontier. We think of space as being empty, but really it is full of beings and things that we ignore and plow over to encourage nature to be more productive. Space isn't the final frontier, because there will always be more of it. Instead we should refer to it as the continuing frontier.

Addition to Women and Sexual Power

While looking over Anne's post about women and sexual power I started thinking about what we had talked about in class, specifically when all of the girls raised their hands at the same time. Our responces to PTJ's question about if we would rather live on the moon than the world seemed a little too quickly answered, or at least my answers were. Life on the moon for women, though they were in control, was similar to those who had the greatest wealth. Since women were a commodity, it was simply another way to say supply and demand. Women had power because in their choices they decided the sexual and reproductive fate of Luna.

However, looking at the rest of the book I think there is more to the enjoyment of women and that theme of pleasure that is carried throughout the book. Women represesnt pleasure and there are few other opportunities for pleasure on Luna. For men, the only option then is to hope for pleasure, there is no creation of it. In Mike's situation, as a computer, we did not think (as a reader) that pleasure was possible for a computer. But on page 338 Mike describes his experience of rock throwing as an "orgasm. That's what it is when they all light up. Now I know". That Mike experiences pleasure at a job well done, and at a job of destruction seems to be the opposite of what Loonies concider pleasure. Please for humans is of the flesh and of continuing life, Mike enjoys perfection and anihilation.

I think what Heinlein is attempting to show here is that woman and machiens have power, just as they both can produce pleasure. Women have the power to alter a man's mind and a machien can correct him. While women do have power, it is based on its ability to shift a man's thoughts. Women in themselves would not have power if men were satisfied in their pleasure in other ways. A machien like Mike however has power because it's facts are always correct (or at least men assume they are). The true source of social power in this book is not women as we are originally lead to believe, but artificial intelligence because men and women asume so completely that it will be correct and mathmatically falcifiable.