The Uneasy Alliance

The above picture of Donald Trump and evangelical Christian Mike Pence symbolises the uneasy alliance which exists between the extreme right and Christian fundamentalists. I don't think the fundamentalists really like it at all (at least I hope they don't!) especially in view of Donald Trump's indecisiveness in condemning the fascists at the Charlottesville demonstration/riot. But it may be an example of "My enemy's enemy is my friend", with the common enemy being Western liberalism whether in its Christian or atheist forms - generally, fundamentalists don't make a point of drawing a sharp distinction between the flavours of liberalism - to them they are all part of an evil satanic conspiracy against them.  But let's have a look at some of the people they are in effective alliance with (whether they like it or not). These people recently showed up at the Charlottesville demo-riot and this is what they looked like:

Bold, brazen, shameless displays of fascist allegiance
with the threat of militaristic coercion. 
Thank you Donald Trump and Breitbart! 

If these people don't like you this is what they might do to you:

...that is, they try to kill you; plenty of examples of that from their exemplar, a certain Mr Adolf Schitlgruber.  These are the people who, if they get in power, knock on people's doors at night, shut down independent media, throw opposing voices into jail and generally use coercion as they attempt to impose a fantasy world that exists only in their debauched imaginations. 

To be fair to Nietzsche he never thought it would come to this; a nuanced non-selective academic reading of Nietzche may not lead to fascism, but when one hears about the self asserting will of the ubermensch and Nietzxhe's contempt for supporting the weak in society, it perhaps is easy to understand Hitler's fascination with Nietzsche and social Darwinism. Moreover, according to  Wiki:

Bertrand Russell wrote that Nietzsche had exerted great influence on philosophers and on people of literary and artistic culture, but warned that the attempt to put Nietzsche's philosophy of aristocracy into practice could only be done by an organization similar to the Fascist or the Nazi party.

Nietzsche, Hitler and Oliver Cromwell could not come to terms with the untidy argumentative pandemonium that necessarily accompanies authentic democracy.

We can also read in Wiki:

The initial form of morality was set by a warrior aristocracy and other ruling castes of ancient civilizations. Aristocratic values of good and bad coincided with and reflected their relationship to lower castes such as slaves. Nietzsche presents this "master morality" as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece. To be "good" was to be happy and to have the things related to happiness: wealth, strength, health, power, etc. To be "bad" was to be like the slaves the aristocracy ruled over: poor, weak, sick, pathetic—an object of pity or disgust rather than hatred.

"Slave morality" comes about as a reaction to master-morality. Here, value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and submission; and evil seen as worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive. Nietzsche sees slave morality as pessimistic and fearful, values for them serving only to ease the existence for those who suffer from the very same thing. He associates slave-morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions, in a way that slave-morality is born out of the ressentiment of slaves. Nietzsche argued that the idea of equality allowed slaves to overcome their own condition without hating themselves. And by denying the inherent inequality of people (such as success, strength, beauty or intelligence), slaves acquired a method of escape, namely by generating new values on the basis of rejecting something that was seen as a perceived source of frustration. It was used to overcome the slave's own sense of inferiority before the (better-off) masters. It does so by making out slave weakness to be a matter of choice, by, e.g., relabeling it as "meekness". The "good man" of master morality is precisely the "evil man" of slave morality, while the "bad man" is recast as the "good man".

The concept of the self-asserting ubermensch
 was probably music to Hitler's ears. 

Fortunately the extreme fascists, like the extreme socialists, are as yet a fringe group but both groups, as they feed off social unrest and disaffection, are gauges of movements in social attitudes and influences.  The American fascists have come to the fore in the USA because their appeal and boldness has been enhanced by a number of factors. Disaffection caused by market disequilibrium which in turn was caused by creeping globalization is one factor. The accession of Donald Trump to the presidency aided by Christian fundamentalists is another. Publicity organisations like the alt-right Breitbart and Donald Trump himself don't provide a commentary which decisively condemns fascist white supremacists but instead they reserve their vitriol for the liberal establishment (liberal to them!)*   In prevaricating over fascism they have probably given a confidence boost to fringe fascism and even raised the suspicion that they are themselves (crypto) fascists.  

The extreme left with its "dictatorship of proletariat" and the extreme right with its self-asserting ubermench both ultimately lead to the dismantling of a democracy which allows for a cacophony of voices. But it seems that currently fascism is being well in truly stamped on by Western liberalism, I'm glad to say. The same needs to happen to the extreme Marxists; but then perhaps that battle has been won with the fall of communism; however, we must be vigilant on that score. Left-wing labour leader Jerry Corbyn has some extreme supporters, for example the Socialist Workers Party. Moreover, Corbyn was as indecisive in condemning the creeping dictatorship in Venezuela as Donald Trump was of the Charlotteville fascists. 

Links on the relation of Fundamentalism and Fascism

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-charlottesville-mike-pence-president-supports-stands-by-remarks-response-white-nationalists-a7897216.html

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/baptists-fascists-and-fundamentalists.html

http://www.bpnews.net/43382/baptists-humbled-by-failure-to-oppose-nazis

Footnote

* I have yet to see an organisations like the fundamentalist ministry Answers in Genesis unequivocally  condemn the extreme right; presumably for them, as with Breitbart, they see the greater danger coming from the Western liberal establishment.

New Agers and Fundamentalists

 Two anti-establishment, anti-science publicists: David Wolfe and Ken Ham both challenge the establishment with their radically different version of "science". 




I have recently become acquainted with the name David "Avocado" Wolfe, a new age alternative concepts salesman and pundit. According to his Wiki page his ideas revolve around the following subject areas (most of  which I quote directly from Wiki):

1. Nutrition, in particular organic food and raw foodism

2. Kirlian photography

3. He promotes a variety of conspiracy theories

3 . He promotes a diet based on raw plants, stating that this has a "detoxification" effect.

4. He advocates that people with cancer take dietary supplements instead of getting medical treatment, which he describes as “largely a fraud".

5. He believes that "chemtrails" exist and are harmful to people and animals.

6. He has considered cocoa to be one of several "superfoods"

7. He says that deer antler spray is "levitational" and an "androgenic force", which he promotes and sells.

8. He claims that mushrooms have an "advanced intelligence and consciousness". He has stated that mushroom spores can "levitate off the planet" and believes they are trying to "get to the center of the sun". He has stated that mushroom spores originally came from "distant planets" and were "carried by cosmic winds or meteors into the Earth's atmosphere", stating "the preliminary work develops as the mushroom mycelium sets itself up to network and nourish multi-celled carbohydrate-forming organisms". He has also stated that the mushrooms that grow in trees are "medicinal mushrooms".

9. He believes vaccines are dangerous and may not work.

10. He believes that the Earth is flat and that gravity is a hoax. (see also here for this one)

It has only recently become clear to me that these new agers have a lot in common with Christian fundamentalists, not only in their attitude to the scientific establishment but also in some of the theories they promulgate. The list above has an overlap with ideas that do the rounds among Christian fundamentalists Viz: Nutrition and supplements as the right way to treat cancer, conspiracy theories such as the chem-trail conspiracy, anti vaccination concepts and flat earthism are all alternative "theories" I have seen promoted by Christian fundamentalists.  In particular, one fundamentalist of my acquaintance has, on one occasion or another, promoted the millennium bug conspiracy, the chem-trail conspiracy, anti-vaxing, young earthism and also proclaims that the standard medical treatment of cancer is fraud and should be replaced by treatment using diet and supplements. Significantly this same person was a one time new ager who promoted new age ideas and new age diets.  

The common theme running through both subcultures seems to be disaffection with and rejection of the academic establishment, in particular the scientific establishment. But in spite of this overlap it is ironic that Christian fundamentalists and new agers would otherwise not see eye to eye; far from it in fact. 

An important question is this; how do these fundamentalists and new agers know all this alternative stuff? Do they have alternative research departments scientifically testing their ideas and remedies? More likely, however, is that they have conspiracy theory generating pundits who join the data dots in bizarre and convoluted ways. These constructions may seem arbitrary but they primarily serve an important purpose for the disaffected and alienated; they furnish an argued platform on which the deep disillusionment with established authority can find a home and provide the pretexts needed to espouse an opposing world view to challenge the  powers that be. 

The take home lesson here is that whatever is at the bottom of the malaise afflicting people as diverse as new agers and Christian fundies there are, nevertheless, significant commonalities*.  I am not really sure what  it is about our society that causes of this general disaffection; perhaps it's a rebellion against the apparent demystification and desanctification of the cosmos. After all, H. G. Wells once wrote:

Science is a match that man has just got alight. He thought he was in a room - in moments of devotion, a temple - and that this light would be reflected from and display walls inscribed with wonderful secrets and pillars carved with philosophical systems wrought into harmony. It is a curious sensation, now that the preliminary splutter is over and the flame burns up clear, to see his hands lit and just a glimpse of himself and the patch he stands on visible, and around him, in place of all that human comfort and beauty he anticipated - darkness still

On that basis it is no surprise there is a reaction against a science that is easy to interpret in nihilistic and post modern terms (See also here). But in the final analysis this nihilism and postmodernism undermines the very science on which nihilistic and postmodern claims are based (See here).

Footnote:
* An interesting question arises in connection with climate change: Christian fundies tend to see climate change science, as they do old earth theory, as a conspiracy of establishment control, whereas in contrast, I would expect new agers to be pro green energy. But either way both use the subject as a stick with which to beat the establishment: Fundamentalists will accuse the establishment of lying over it and the new agers will accuse the techno-industrial establishment  as being the cause of it. 

Nuclear Enabled Cranks

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/crank?s=t

Crank noun: Unbalanced person who is overzealous in the advocacy of a private cause. 

One major difference between the two clients above: Any despotic tendencies in the guy on the left are currently moderated by the untidy, unholy but controlled row that is necessarily the routine business of a democracy. This system has to be dismantled before a despot can rule in the quietus of repression. Those who look for a morally entitled authoritarian system (as did Oliver Cromwell, for example) are ill-prepared to accept that the very "unholiness" of democracy, its compromises, its cut and thrust, its reversals, its highly partisan arguments and above all its lack of peaceful quietus which is actually its strength and a good sign that a democracy is healthy. However, like Oliver Cromwell* of old some of the American Christian right simply don't accept this outcome of human nature and look for the hegemony of a authoritarian, morally entitled system. Ditto the hardened left such as we see among some of Jeremy Corbyn's more extreme supporters. Both left and right extremes may resort to fanciful apocalyptic end of world scenarios and especially conspiracy theorism in order to convince us of the fantastic claim that the necessarily unfinished & disordered "building site" we call democracy is in fact a highly controlled state. They conclude therefore that their vision of society gives them moral licence to overthrow the current status quo.


Footnote
* To be fair to Cromwell he appeared to have a sound conception of democracy, but when he saw its untidy logic at work he was repulsed and made himself a dictator, albeit an unwilling dictator. 

Postscript.

Conspiracy theorism is way of joining the random dots of social complexities in order to attempt to make sense of the otherwise chaotic jamboree of societal life. This is done by multiplying  myriad Machiavellian entities who run society by deception  The epistemic process of conspiracy theorism resembles joining the stars into constellations and then believing those constellations to represent something real when in fact all the constellations are is a good aid-memoir for holding complex distributions in the head with an otherwise fanciful background structure. Now, I'm not altogether against this post-facto "joining of the data dots" into sense making narratives because in world view synthesis we may have little choice but to proceed in such a fashion if we want to attempt to answer the deep questions of origins and reason (in fact currently string theory and multiverse theory are of this ilk). I'll freely admit that this is the role that my adherence to a progressive form of Christianity plays in my life; I'm very much aware that law and disorder science, based as it is on imperative algorithms, inevitably leads to a grand logical hiatus, a hiatus where human questions about purpose and consciousness may appear to be emptied of meaning. However, the dot joining activity of world view synthesis must be carried out with epistemic humility, caution, frugality and the realization that it never comes with the authority to bludgeon detractors into belief. 

Relevant links
On conspiracy theorism: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/whats-gone-wrong.html
On epistemology: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/epistemic-notes.html