Monthly Archives: November 2009
A Celebration of Plenty: A Thanksgiving Special
“Feasting at God’s Table: Father Divine, Conspicuous Consumption, & Racial Harmony.”
During the Great Depression, a man who believed he was God came very close to achieving a measure of racial harmony in America. How did he do it? Through conspicuous consumption and the belief that salvation can come through sharing a feast. His success, although also attributable to charisma, was primarily the result of his skillful use of American traditions, traditions that appealed to a broad range of people regardless of race, class, or gender. He took familiar conceptions of religion, the work ethic, and the centrality of food and compiled them to form an attractive social doctrine familiar enough to the mainstream to attract millions of followers throughout his life, despite his eccentric pronouncements of divinity.
As you read about Father Divine on this Thanksgiving Holiday, think about how blessed we have been with the bounty bestowed on this county, and how the simple act of sharing food got us through one of the darkest periods in our history.
What is Totalitarianism? Part II
What is Totalitarianism? Part II
In the first part of this essay, we defined totalitarianism as the state-orchestrated dissolution of the private sphere, initiated by an ideologically-driven political organization with the goal of exercising total control over the population of a country. In the words of the father of Italian fascism, Giovanni Gentile, the totalitarian state seeks “total representation of the nation and total guidance of national goals.” While this control is most obvious and pronounced under a dictatorship, it is not entirely absent in democratic republics. A legislature may vote in favor of a totalitarian state just as easily as a dictator may impose one.
What is Totalitarianism? Part I
What is Totalitarianism? Part I
If the United States came under the control of a totalitarian regime, would we recognize it? This question is of utmost importance today, when many of us harbor fears that some time in the near future ideas such as freedom, liberty, and privacy will be alien to our society. But as we witness the regular passage of legislation designed to restrict and regulate, and the tendency of the Federal government to increase rather than decrease its power (with a handful of exceptions), we are struck by the uninterrupted routine of life in the USA. As the central government brings more and more of private society under its control, we continue to watch cable TV, shop at supermarkets overflowing with products, and eat at our favorite restaurants. Could it be that we have already passed that dreaded threshold and missed it?
