Finding Spirit Among the Dems

"Americans give a tremendous amount of credit to anyone who can name a pain that they've been experiencing but have been unable to locate," writes Michael Lerner in his new book "The Left Hand of God: Taking Our Country Back From the Religious Right" (HarperSF, 2006). (Full disclosure: The rabbi was also, at one time, my employer).

Every once in a while a book or an idea comes along that doesn't just change the view so much as it changes our way of viewing. George Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant" was one such book and "The Left Hand of God" has the stuff to be its heir.

In Lerner's view, the Religious Right's considerable political power is the result of, not so much a particular liturgy or ideology, but its ability to locate this pain. More important, therefore, than its current domination of the federal government is that long after its allies are gone from office, the ability for the Religious Right to dictate the terms of the debate itself -- from tax cuts to war to civil rights for gays and reproductive freedom for women -- will remain unless something is done to change course. A few victories in the upcoming election isn't enough.

Having focused on short-term battles like ending this or that war and localized social justice issues, the inability of the Left in general, and the Democrats in particular, to insert these crucial issues into a larger framework that speaks to the deeper needs of many Americans, threatens to marginalize progressive and liberal ideas even further.

Ben Franklin's definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Here's Lerner's take on the Left:

Instead of trying to understand the religious Right ... the Left tries to point out the irrationality of the Right's positions, imagining that one more good argument will knock the socks off the Rightists, and then everyone will throw away their crutches and start a stampede to the Left. Imagine their surprise when it doesn't happen.

Using decades of interviews from his Institute for Labor and Mental Health and examples ripped from the headlines, Lerner has written a book that challenges assumptions on both the Left and Right, eschewing musty old arguments and putting forward a bold plan for progressive ideas to gain a foothold in the public debate. Along the way it's sure to piss off more than a few readers.

First, just briefly explain what the Left Hand of God means.

The Left Hand of God means looking at the universe through the perception that love, kindness, generosity and caring for others are the central ontological realities of life, and that when they do not manifest in the world in which we live, the world is distorted and needs to be healed. The Right Hand of God, conversely, means looking at the universe through the perception that life is a struggle of all against all, and that the only path to security is through domination of others.

Regarding the quote above about the Left's mistaken view that all we really need is one more good argument, aren't you simply suggesting that one irrationality be replaced by another? Isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place?

What I'm suggesting in this paragraph is that many of the millions of people who get attracted to the Religious Right are not motivated by excitement for their political program, but by the experience of community, caring for others, and its ability to recognize and address the deep distortions in life that are caused by a societal ethos of materialism and selfishness.

You can't undermine that attachment by arguments against what is really peripheral to their motivation. Yet there is nothing fundamentally irrational about being motivated by a desire to be part of a loving community or to want a world with less materialism and selfishness. What is irrational is that the Left is unable to see that this very desire is a positive and healthy desire, and that it could best be addressed by a progressive spiritual critique of capitalist society which is, as I show in my book, the source of the materialism and seflishness that people are seeking to escape.