All this talk of Sam Harris, and Nietzsche, and Christianity, got me thinking:
Politics is a religion
. Like all other religions, politics is also chock full of it’s own rites and rituals. In the west, voting is the most seductive - and perhaps, most important - ritual in the repertoire of rites in this cult. Specifically, it is used to help maintain the fantasy that politics is a peaceful art. By assaulting our consciousness regularly with the rhythmical, methodical, and incessant recitation of scripture-like propaganda, and urging us to fulfill our destiny as citizens, the state teaches us, prods us, implores us, slowly, methodically, and hypnotically, into the fine art of gentle submission to unjust and unearned authority.
Voting, in other words, is the primary holy sacrament of initiation into the cult of power worship, in the West. We are supplicants to this religion. Each and every time we imbibe the ritual, drinking deeply of the chalice of power-lust, we murder just a little more of our own soul, sacrificing it gradually but inexorably, to the God whose name we dare not speak. With time, and regular observance of this tithing to the God of power, we are seduced to seek merger with his conscience, thereby transforming it, and immortalizing ourselves in the process. But this belief is a rabid fantasy. The act of casting the ballot is in truth not an act of self-expression, but an act of ultimate submission disguised as wish-fulfillment. We must be consumed whole, so that it may be made healthy through our sacrifice. Thus, by voting, we achieve the highest state of ecstatic self-annihilation within the cult of the state.
The politicians - as the high priests of this cult - know the truth of all of this. It is a key reason why they push so hard to expand participation, even to the point of demanding it be made a duty. Much pomp and circumstance surrounds the ceremonial display of politicians engaging in the ritual themselves, thereby helping to reinforce the subtle but undeniable siren call of a capacity to dispose of lives at whim, and control the world by mere word alone. But politicians adhere to a whole pantheon of rituals exclusive to themselves as well. Rituals designed to help them balance the tightrope of internal contradiction and hypocrisy. Much like the Church of Rome, they employ rites meant to sanctify their status as moral superiors to the supplicants drawn by blind lust, to the polling booths on each holy day of ritual sacrament.
The media - as the revered prophets and evangelists of the cult - entreat us with great epic narratives - describing glorious feats, and bestowing great honors upon, those who have been entered into the ranks of the priesthood. As the evangelists for the religion, they spread the ‘good news’, and excite us to participation with calls to duty, and dreams of fantastic achievement. The politicians, as the reverend theologians, are not permitted to engage in such histrionics, since the behavior might openly betray the lust they share with supplicants. Good priests must appear like disinterested scholars, deferential to their God, and patient with the eager supplicants. The media exists, then, to fulfill the role of snake charmer, miracle worker, ecstatic proclaimer of the glories of the faith. In this, they have not failed.
Like many other iterations of the cult of power recently, the Church of Democracy is now also in the throws of a desperate crisis of faith.This religion, at least in the West, is roughly 300 years old. It has reached a stage of maturity in which missionary zeal can be observed throughout. In the thrall of this zeal, the religion has begun to show signs of a significant internal transformation. The evangelists are fighting amongst themselves, the cabal of the priesthood has cloistered itself within the walls of its holy city, safe from supplicants, and the supplicants themselves have been imbibing the ritual sacrament less and less with each passing holy day.
But mine is not a message of desperation, or a demand for revivification of this faith. Instead, it is a message of tense hope, and passionate desire for, as Sam Harris put it, the “End of Faith”. But, not just select faiths - an end to all faith. It may or may not be, that our generation will be a witness to the collapse of one of the most powerful religions in human history: the religion of politics - and I, for one, look forward to that.