Rise of the Superstitious Christians: Predicted in 1941
Fantasy often serves as a platform for social commentary. In 1941, science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, a pragmatic libertarian, wrote Revolt in 2100, a novella about an American lapse into a dictatorship of superstition. Heinlein's novella was part of Heinlein’s future history tales. The protagonist starts as a young true believer, a young soldier completely sold on the religious propaganda taught him through childhood. Brought to serve The Prophet, he learns and begins to question, eventually becoming a revolutionary and officer of the revolt. Presciently, Heinlein's theocratic dictatorship, one based on manipulation of superstitious Christianity, is elected in 2012. It never allows another election.
Robert Heinlein's 1953 essay on the danger facing America remains pertinent:
“[These works] involve two [themes]: the idea that space travel, once apparently firmly established, could fall into disuse; and secondly the idea that the United States could lapse into a dictatorship of superstition….”
“…the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.
“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is communism or Hollyrollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.
“Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country—Sunday closing laws here and there, birth control legislation in spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva’s Zion, Smith’s Nauvoo, a few others. The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance now exists from expedient compromise; the minorities constitute a majority of opposition against each other.
“Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain a deciding majority at the polls and take over the country? Perhaps not—but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda [might work]. Throw in a depression for good measure, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicsm, anti-Negrosim, and a good large dose of anti-“furriners” in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the result might be something quite frightening—particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington….
“Now, I will never write the story [about the dictator] because I dislike him too thoroughly. But I hope you will go along with me that he could
happen….”
Watching the Karl Rove, Fox, and their recent campaigns, watching the Republican debates, one can’t help but wonder how well Heinlein predicted their propaganda playbook. Substitute "Muslim" for catholicsm and you've got something fairly close to the Republican stump speeches. Unfortunately, religion all too often is used to cloak debauchery, corruption, and various forms of power grabbing unacceptable to everyone but the religious faithful of some sept or creed. Today's Republican's seem no different from the bad outcomes one would predict: From the “called to god” Perry campaign’s $3,000 bar bill (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...); to Santorum’s virtual theft of $20 million from the Veteran’s Administration (http://motherjones.com/...); to Gingrich’s well, entire public career; to the Bush Administration’s cynical use of religion (See Kuo’s book Tempting Faith): any rational observer would be disgusted and a little frightened.
The republicans have subtly undermined the “uneasy truce” described by Mr. Heinlein—the foundation indeed of the Founder’s conclusion Church and State should be separated—by ignoring the problem of which superstitious group gets to be in charge. Ronald Reagan finessed the issue by claiming "It wasn't a problem." Additionally, Republicans consistently define impermissible “bias” as prohibitions of their supposed right to deny minorities their rights, their right to legislate morality based on their claim they know what God wants. Thus, the Republican war on homosexuals continues unabated.
And it will likely get worse: The Republicans are stocking the courts with judges who cheat for them: in the Massey Coal case, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia voted to allow an appellate jurist who received $5 million from Massey Coal to reverse an adverse judgment against Massey coal. To reverse Mr. Santorum’s and Mr. Gingrich’s recent claims, in fact the dangers faced by the rational from a superstition based dictatorship may never have been greater.
As I wrote this essay, I checked for essays about Heinlein. And found a recent blog on Daily Kos by David Brin, who apparently read the same books as a kid as the undersigned. Heinlein's Revolt in 2100 imagines a future evangelical theocratic dictatorship arising in 2012; Mr. Brin points out that Heinlein’s prophet shares much in common with current candidate Rick Santorum (and I would point out, even more with former candidate Rick Perry, once the Republican front runner for their 2012 Presidential pick).
Mr. Brin’s blog entry: http://www.dailykos.com/....