Some years ago a radio program dramatized the conversion experience of a young woman who’d become involved with drugs. She begged her family to let her see a psychiatrist. They refused, telling her Jesus was the only answer. Finally, she accepted their solution.
I had two reactions. Since I knew nothing about the woman or her family, it seemed possible she needed to confront them and their religion, and this was the right solution for her. It also struck me she should have had some choice, should have come to that conclusion on her own.
Free will, the idea that human beings are able to act to improve their lives, is the most potent of those associated with the Protestant Reformation, and is not characteristic of every group. Followers of Jacobus Arminius were persecuted by the Calvinists, but sired the Methodists and midwived the Baptists.
Free will today has two definitions. The narrow one was presented to the young drug addict who was told this or damnation. In 1901, William Dean Howells sketched a Ohio family threatened by a wastrel. The Kentons wanted their daughter to terminate the relationship, but refused to coerce her. Instead, they told the girl they would go abroad until she decided what she wanted "of your own free will."
General free will is under attack today by Protestants who embrace the binary Manichean view of the world as good or evil. Conservatives have generalized the fatalism of the drug addict’s parents to our civil life and tell people no human agency can help them - not the government, not the courts, not unions, only the church,
Most of us were raised with an expansive, Howellsian view of what’s possible, and are genuinely surprised when institutions don’t work. I’m sure this is behind much of the anger about hurricane Katrina. We knew the government could respond; it had in the past. It’s willful failure stunned us. We wouldn’t be so obsessed with retaining walls if only it had tried.
Many have drawn the appropriate conclusion, resignation that one more ideal has failed them. Few are still so angry they want to organize. That response has dissipated in the face of political indifference. They have seen so many cases where human energy has been disparaged, they’ve given up.
When people were being attacked by their manager at the last place I worked, no one thought about a union or group response. Only one considered a lawsuit; another thought about reporting incidents to a whistle blower telephone line, but wouldn’t call the ACLU for advice. Most just grumbled, but no one would file a formal
complaint with human resources for fear of reprisals.
Several left it to fate, saying "God will see me through." They were not the people known for attending church, and they would have shrugged off advances made by those who were. Their comments were less a religious response than the fragments of their self-esteem protesting they could survive.
One sees the same range of responses in interviews with automotive workers who’ve been told their plants are closing and their jobs are gone. They don’t consider the government an ally. They learned with Chrysler and the steel industry that Ronald Reagan didn’t consider a strong industrial base part of the national interest.
Chris Brown, a Delphi worker in Coopersville, told David Moberg, "We can’t depend on the unions, the Democrats, the Republicans...We have to get ourselves mobilized."
A Delphi worker in Dayton, Tony Henderson told James Hannan, "I'm mad as hell, but what can
you do?"
But in Flint, Delphi worker Lisa Simpson told Christ Christoff, "If it's going to happen, it's going to happen...You can only live one day at a time; it's in God's hands."
And in Saginaw, a Detroit News photographer found a prayer circle in the parking lot after Delphi announced the plant would close.
Is it free will when politicians and their strategists systematically attack civil institutions in the belief they should not exist? Or, is it exhausted acceptance of the only alternative proclaimed by those in power?
The loss of this piece of the Protestant ethic may be more serious than all the jobs that are lost, because it is the belief humans can act, can persevere that has separated this country from others. Once it’s gone, it no longer can be channeled into secular projects like conservatives’ wars for the greater good of mankind, or, the welfare of families like the Kentons.
Sources:
Christoff, Chris. "As beat-up Flint faces more bad news, Delphi workers are disgusted," Detroit Free Press, 1 April 2006.
Detroit News, The. Photograph, 1 April 2006.
Hannah, James. "Delphi Plants Proposal Upsets Employees," Associated Press, 1 April 2006.
Howells, William Dean. The Kentons, 1901, reprinted by Greenwood Press, 1969, free will discussed on pages 36 and 274.
Moberg, David. "Dueling over Delphi," The Nation, 3 April 2006.
No comments:
Post a Comment