I grew up in the powerful grip of the American myth of righteousness. In my naïve world, we were the good guys. We stood for freedom and democracy. We lived, as we were told incessantly, in “the best country in the world.” And, we believed it. In the heady years following the Second World War, we were awash in the flickering black and white television images of American triumphalism. Sitting in our PJs at night we would stare blankly as we were indoctrinated into the narrative of American power and its accompanying, deeper myth of redemptive violence. TV shows like “Combat,” “Wagon Train,” “Gunsmoke” and “Have Gun, Will Travel” programmed our minds with a panoply of endless violence which was the panacea for every conceivable problem. This trend has grown. Today it is estimated that by the age of eighteen the average American has seen over 200,000 acts of violence on television (American Psychiatric Association http://w2.parentstv.org/main/Research/Facts.aspx) .
Our play time reflected the violence that surrounded us. On jungle gyms and playgrounds we whooped and yelled, and it was always about American nobility and valor vanquishing an endless series of bad guys that reflected the nation’s enemy du jour. Each day we would take our toy guns and sally forth against Indigenous Americans, the British, the Confederacy, the Spanish, the Germans and of course, the Commies. Today, the targets of horribly graphic computer games for children are the wonderfully non-descript “terrorists,” who can take on whatever race or ethnicity befits the agenda of the moment. In the face of each threat, each enemy, we continue to resort to a justified, even noble violence which we are told will sweep clean the soiled landscape.
Redemptive violence is a deeply imbedded cultural belief that, at the end of the day, only violence will truly solve our problems. It’s nice, of course, to give a cursory nod to the idealistic dreamers. Indeed, restrained acknowledgements are given to Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Dr. King and their ilk but we have it drilled into us daily that violence is the final sanction: the only thing that will really get the job done. We are taught in our history classes, for example, that we had no choice but to use the atomic bomb on Japan because they would never have surrendered otherwise. This all too familiar conceit conveniently forgets that in reality Japan had put out several feelers for peace talks prior to the “dropping” of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Moreover, the entry of the Soviet Union into the war had a profound impact on the surrender as well. We did have options to vaporizing two whole cities, but peace talks were not acceptable. Only total surrender would do. So the Enola Gay and Bockscar took off with their nuclear payloads and headed for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In all this we cannot overlook the. story of a nation whose history is one of continual violence. The evidence is so overwhelming that it cannot be fully illustrated here, but the horrible truth is that this nation was literally built upon the bloody backs of millions of enslaved human beings (http://civilwarcauses.org/stat.htm). More than a century later, the generational trauma still tears at the souls of African Americans everywhere. Talk of reparations for this crime against humanity is met with derision and dismissal. Our so-called “manifest destiny” rolled across the continent over the mass graves of indigenous people (http://www.religioustolerance.org/genocide5.htm), in what some call the largest genocide in human history. Our industrial might rose through smoky haze of the ghosts of martyred union activists (https://study.com/academy/lesson/a-historical-outline-of-organized-labor-in-the-united-states.html) . And today we are forced to look at the truth that we are locked into an endless arc of warfare in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, The Philippines, Turkey, Somalia, Niger, and around the globe that literally sees no end. And to fuel this widening global conflagration, the United States of America spends more on its military than the next eleven countries combined (https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison).
So inured are we to the violent core of our national reality that it has become part of our spiritual reality. Indeed, it is clear that we need to come to grips with the fact that violence has become the spiritual underpinning of the American conscience. From our greed-inspired upper class revolution to the genocidal westward expansion to the prosecution of computerized drone wars that spread out endlessly before us, America has been baptized in the blood of the innocent. Our spirits have been harnessed and hitched to the wagon of a highly individualistic materialism that is narcissistically clueless about the suffering we cause around the world.
This spirituality of violence is more than a vague unfettered strain in American culture. It is highly organized into a quasi-religious practice and enforced with an increasing rigor that should disturb even the most calloused heart. The cult of violence protects gun ownership as zealously as any religious fanatic. Indeed, the National Rifle Association, which functions as a priestly voice for the spirituality of violence, funded American politicians to the tune of tens of millions of dollars last year to assure that no realistic gun control could pass through Congress or the Senate.
On top of the clear corruption of our government through literal buying of votes is the fomenting of fear and racism that drives the sales of weapons. Last year there were 14.5 million applications for concealed handgun permits in the US (https://crimeresearch.org/2016/07/new-study-14-5-million-concealed-handgun-permits-last-year-saw-largest-increase-ever-number-permits/) . 14.5 million. This does not include the voluminous sales of Military style assault weapons and a host of other implements of destruction. In. the face of nearly daily mass shootings in schools and other public areas, the US government is quietly repealing the few regulations that do exist regarding these weapons (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-house-refused-to-release-photo-of-trump-signing-bill-to-weaken-gun-law/). The alleged right to possess these instruments of death is enshrined in a holy misinterpretation of the US Constitution and God help the person who tries to legislate even a modest control over these weapons.
Propaganda notwithstanding, the US is currently experiencing the lowest crime rates in fifty years (http://time.com/3577026/crime-rates-drop-1970s/) . Murder, violent crime and property crime are at an all-time low. Yet if you watch the news this is not what we are being told. Our police forces are being deliberately militarized with armored personnel carriers, military assault weapons, and military training to combat a crime wave that does not exist. No longer do our civilian police forces protect and serve. Instead, they have been formed into military assault units leaving a trail of dead bodies, almost all of whom are people of color.
The violence of our spiritual core is coming home to roost. The bombs we have dropped around the world are exploding in our towns and cities, and the wholesale use of our national resources to support this violence has hollowed out the center of what used to be our shared values. Today, the “best country in the world” has the lowest literacy rate in the so called developed world with an education system that is starved of funding and crippled by a never ending drive to privatize and diminish it. Today the “best country in the world” has the highest infant mortality rate in the so called developed world. Today the “best country in the world” has one in ten people in its whole population suffering from malnutrition. Today, we cannot claim being the top dog in anything except the number of killings by fire arms.
The spirituality of violence and death has seeped into every corner of our existence. It is an unescapable part of who we are as a nation. If we pause and take a look in the mirror we will no longer see an idealistic, freedom loving people who are setting out to improve the world, if ever that was anything but an illusion. No. If we look through the eyes of the rest of the world we are fast becoming the ones who must be stopped. We are no longer seen as heroes. We are no longer the ones that everyone seeks to emulate. We have become an active and grave threat to the whole global community and it is a matter of time before the world comes together to put a halt to our spiritual madness.
The collective weight of our violent history has resulted in an American Spirit that is twisted and contorted. The call comes to us to renew it. The American heart is hardened and cold. We must thaw it with compassion. The American hope is shriveled into a cynical echo of shattered dreams. We must bring a new kind of hope. Now is the time to act for the healing of the nation. Now is the time to name the lies that poison our people. Now is the time to stand up and be counted.
This is more than a call to simple resistance in what is rapidly turning into an authoritarian state. This is a call to spiritual conversion. Let us throw off the tyranny of our own desires and reach for the welfare of the human family. Let us shed the spirit of death that has gripped our people and together let us reach for life. Let us name the lie of redemptive violence and live into the spiritual redemption that comes from self-giving love and compassion. In short, let us step out of this twisted and evil culture and build something new together. Let us begin to lay the foundation stones for a new America where people come before profits and where the welfare of the human family is something for which we are collectively responsible.
Let us act now to tear down the temples of violence and greed before it is too late. Let us be the midwives who birth a new spirituality that even now groans in anticipation, waiting to come forth.
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