Tag: Rebellion

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Donald Trump and the Cult of the Rebel

Fresno Bee, Oct. 1, 2023

It’s worth asking why Donald Trump remains popular. He’s been indicted for crimes including a scheme to subvert the 2020 election. A court ruled that he committed sexual assault. He paid off a porn star. His language and demeanor are divisive. If you want a soft and sympathetic character, don’t look to Trump. But if you like rebels, Trump is your man.

You would think that all of these accusations would disqualify Trump from the political stage. But the former president is so popular among Republicans that he didn’t bother to show up to the Republican debate this past week. As the underdogs searched for the limelight in Simi Valley, Trump’s shadow eclipsed the headlines.

This past week, a court ruled that Trump’s business was liable for massive fraud. Other headlines reported that Trump suggested that the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Miley, should be executed. The Wall Street Journal editorial board used words like “lunacy” and “unhinged” to describe Trump’s rants.

But people still love Trump. Republican voters appear to think that the indictments are unjustified political persecution. They see Trump as a martyr who is being attacked by a corrupt federal bureaucracy. From this standpoint, it is the cops, the courts, and the generals who are the bad guys.

If we push a bit deeper, we stumble upon a strange theme in American culture: the cult of the rebel. Americans idolize rebels and vigilantes, bad guys and martyrs. We tend to view those in authority as self-righteous hypocrites who abuse their power. And we cheer on those who throw mud at the stiffs in uniform.

We might trace the cult of the rebel all the way back to Jesus and Socrates, rebel martyrs who questioned authority. But this is also uniquely American. The founding of the country was revolutionary. The founders heroically pledged their “sacred honor” to the rebellion of 1776. In 1787, Thomas Jefferson said, “a little rebellion now and then is a good thing.” He described rebellion as “a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

Rebels and outlaws are icons of American culture. Criminals like Billy the Kid and Al Capone are favorite fixtures of Americana. Pop culture often portrays bad guys and gangsters as heroic figures who have no choice but to use violence to defend their sacred honor. There is a whole genre of heroic vigilantes, including Batman and Spiderman.

The cult of the rebel implies that for good to be done, good guys have to go rogue and break the law. Instead of obedience and conformity, rebel culture values honor, pride and self-assertion. This is a bipartisan tendency. Leftists wear Che Guevara T-shirts, and right-wingers view the Jan. 6 rebels as patriotic heroes. Rebels on the left and the right think the establishment, the system, or “the swamp,” is made up of biased bureaucrats who are venal and corrupt.

This cult of the rebel is part of the dysfunctional attitude of what I have called elsewhere the moronic mob. The unthinking mob wants heroes and villains, spectacles and melodrama. It is fun to cheer on the rebels in “Star Wars” as they battle the empire. We rally with Neo as he fights the Matrix. And we sing along with the hippies, punk rockers, gangster rappers, and outlaw country stars who celebrate sticking it to the man.

This is all, of course, childish and dangerous. Rebellion is rarely justified and often unpredictable. Vigilantes end up in jail. Modern societies cannot function without widespread commitment to the rule of law. And most cops, lawyers, judges, and bureaucrats are decent folks trying to do their jobs.

But the story of decent people operating within the rule of law is boring. Reform is slow, incremental, and tedious. Rebels spice things up. And the mob is always hungry for what is spicy and spectacular. But ordinary social and political life is rarely spectacular or spicy.

Even if he outrages you, Trump isn’t boring. I personally think that boring would be nice for a change. But we are unlikely to be bored as the next presidential election unfolds. The cult of the rebel runs too deep. And we, the people, seem too fascinated by the spectacle to look away.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article279879484.html#storylink=cpy

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Rebellion, Fantasy, and Nihilism

Fresno Bee, January 10, 2021

The mob’s attack on the Capitol was a juvenile outburst of rebellion doomed to fail.

What we witnessed on Wednesday was a juvenile outburst of rebellion. A motley mob stormed the Capitol without a plan or strategy. The violence was disorganized. This was a desultory insurgency instigated by a leader who lives in a fantasy world, where ranting and raving masquerade as thinking.

The image of Shakespeare’s King Lear comes to mind. As Shakespeare put it, nothing comes of nothing. This shambolic coup offers a warning about nihilism and a lesson about power and rebellion.

There is in the human soul an impulse toward anarchy. We bridle against restraint. We want the world to conform to our own image. This impulse is often destructive and nihilistic.

The rebel is a toddler angry at his parents. He is an adolescent lashing out at the world. Rebellion can do short-term damage. But the rebel’s ferocity is feckless. Juvenile rebellion cannot effect lasting change.

The rebel paints the world in black and white, leaving no room for compromise. He has no desire to build because he is focused on burning things down. He has no strategy because in his fantasy, the world should revolve around

The rebel fails to understand that this is a world of highly organized systems of power. There really is a deep state. It cannot be transformed by random outbursts of violence or emotion.

Power is tightly woven in complex webs involving political bureaucracies, transnational corporations, educational institutions, religious traditions, and so on. Political change in the modern world requires strategy based in this reality. This is slow and complex work. Random protest is toothless in the face of the bureaucratic state and institutionalized power.

The would-be revolutionaries of the 21st century — on the left and on the right — are deluded if they think this system can be opposed by disorganized explosions of anger. In the long run, the cops and the courts will win every time.

Political change requires an organized, fact-based approach to the world that avoids wishful thinking. Almost always this involves compromise and working to find common ground in a shared conception of the world. Most of what the party of Trump has done since the November election has been futile because it is based on the fantasy that Trump actually won the election. Lies have limited power. They eventually run aground on reality.

Juvenile rebellion is prideful and angry. Sometimes it is simply thrill-seeking. Other times it is a violent convulsion of despair. Almost always it is based in an unrealistic view of self and world. This leaves the juvenile rebel strangely susceptible to lies, conspiracy theories, and authoritarian politics.

The rebel feels that the world ought to satisfy his desires. When it does not, he gloms onto a savior or hero who makes him feel powerful. The rebel seeks out lies that feed his ego. This can evolve into a cul-de-sac of conspiracy, where the truth gives way to a reflection of the rebel’s own self-image.

Most rebels grow up and grow out of this nihilism. When rebellion comes of age, it mellows and deepens to discover a larger truth. A good explanation of this is found in Albert Camus’s book “The Rebel.” Camus describes how rebellion becomes nihilism. From nihilism, totalitarianism can emerge. Those who believe in nothing are susceptible to anything. But if we keep growing and looking for reality, rebellion can give birth to solidarity, justice, love, generosity, and wisdom.

The impulse of rebellion will always be with us. But it must be educated and sublimated. Artists and entrepreneurs nurture the spark of anarchy. So too do religious mystics and scientific geniuses. The creative imagination smashes barriers. But it does not destroy for the sake of destruction. Rather, it aims to build something out of nothing.

The energy of anarchy is youthful and exuberant. Without guidance this energy circulates in nothingness. When rebellion remains stupid, it is merely destructive. But when the spirit of rebellion is informed by truth, there is hope for justice, compassion, and wisdom. For this to happen you need a strategy that accepts reality. Instead of ranting into the storm with King Lear, you need to harness the wind and put it to work.