Seriously?

Did I just read this? Or am I imagining it?

. . . public atheist Pullman says he isn’t perturbed at all by the complete excision of theocratic corruption in the film because all forms of totalitarianism are the same.

Except they’re not. Life in a theocracy means everyone – not just members of the Communist party or the military junta – must live out the philosophy of the rulers every day of their lives. There is a peculiarity to a complete absence of the separation of church and state that doesn’t prevail in a communist or a fascist state. When there is no distinction between religious and secular power, it’s not enough to obey the rules, you have to believe in them, too. Theocracies are obsessed with sexuality in a way that common or garden totalitarianism is not. Women get a spectacularly raw deal in a theocratic state, which is what makes Mrs. Coulter such a notable character; she plays the religious hierarchy at their own game and wins, albeit at a terrible cost.

I'm sure the victims of the Khmer Rouge, the Great Leap Forward, the Stalinist purges, and the Holocaust would be surprised to hear that they didn't have to live out the regime's ideology in their everyday lives.

Comments

In a secular dictatorship, only members of the party must follow the official philosophy. Everyone else can choose death or exile...

Posted by Peter Bautista | December 7, 2007 5:36 PM

Yeah, Maria's not very bright. If she thinks Charlemagne was worse than Stalin, she is too ignorant to be worth debating.

Posted by rew | December 7, 2007 5:47 PM

It's been a while since I've done serious history reading, but I have the impression that theocracies have actually been very rare in Christian countries. Historically, you'd mostly have the secular power (kings or whatever) existing side by side in tension with the bishops and popes, with the secular power occasionally subjugating the religious hierarchy (see Henry VIII or Peter the Great). I suppose the Papal States were a theocracy, but I've never heard that they were particularly repressive. In fact, lots of people (like Martin Luther) thought that they should have been more "theocratic" in the Pullman sense.

Posted by Amy P | December 7, 2007 5:58 PM

First off, the definition of totalitarianism is a regime where the enforcement of the ruling ideology encompasses all aspects of life.

Second, theocratic states don't always demand control of belief. The status of dhimmis under sharia law is a perfect example of this. Sharia law respects their right to religious freedom, depite not granting them the full set of rights that muslim citizens would enjoy under it. And it's not like secular totalitarian regimes were particularly shy about ideological indoctrination either.

Finally, the idea that secular totalitarian regimes aren't very concerned with sex is belied by the history of pretty much any secular totalitarian state. The Nazis sent homosexuals to the death camps. Cuba locked them up. Romania under Ceauşescu put wide ranging restrictions on abortion and contraception. China continues to enforce it's coercive population control policies.

It's a hat trick of ignorance!

Posted by MattXIV | December 7, 2007 6:53 PM

I have to admire Pullman's ability to get all the right people mad at him. "Stalinism, Fascism and theocracy the same," and everyone from Teheran to the Tufts Faculty Club is placing fingers on the home keys.

I'm afraid to read the books or see the movie now. It can only be downhill.

Posted by Bob Hawkins | December 7, 2007 8:21 PM

I'm afraid to read the books or see the movie now. It can only be downhill.

Well the first book is fantastic, whatever your feelings about religion. The two sequels are pretty good; not as good as the first, but still interesting. The sequels are a lot more explicitly anti-Church than the first one, though, if that bothers you (it doesn't me).

Posted by Dan | December 7, 2007 8:28 PM

This argument is just one of the reasons I think Communism should properly be understood as a religion. All sorts of things make more sense once you think of it that way.

Posted by Clint | December 7, 2007 9:06 PM

Clint,

Maybe human beings are such that we always have a religion of some kind, and the question is only what form it will take.

Posted by Amy P | December 7, 2007 9:30 PM

Oh, I'm sure there are no problems with sexual and gender issues in secular dictatorships.

"Theocracies are obsessed with sexuality in a way that common or garden totalitarianism is not."

Should we just ignore the abysmal records of gay rights in Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and Cuba? The extermination of those labeled with the Pink Triangle under the Nazis?

As for women's rights, well, Romania banned abortion and birth control, while China's one child policy has hardly been a boon for 'undesirable' girls. As for fascism, I don't have any references on hand but I'm sure ideologies concerned with strengthening the state through 'propagating the master race' are particularly conducive to women's rights.

Posted by DPT | December 7, 2007 10:09 PM

DPT,

Good points. Also, I'd like to see a list of Christian theocracies. My gut instincts suggest that Christian theocracies have been either small and short-lived or big and fairly relaxed. Jim Jones' Jonestown would be one item to put on the list, but I think you'd have to categorize that one as a left theocracy--the People's Temple was a big player in San Francisco Democratic politics for a while, and up until the mass suicide/murder, Jones was talking about relocating the group to the Soviet Union.

Posted by Amy P | December 7, 2007 10:22 PM

There is a subtle, yet significant distinction that political philosophers make between "totalitarian" and "authoritarian" states. Authoritarians just make you OBEY, while totalitarians insist that you also BELIEVE. Getting your hand hacked off for stealing is authoritarian, while speech-codes and thought-crimes are totalitarian.

In theory, right-wing tyranny is more likely to be authoritarian, while left-wing tyranny is totalitarian (though in practice most tyrannies have incorporated both). I think it's more a matter of emphasis -- leftism is a moralist ethos, concerned with people's intentions, while rightism is more concerned with maintaining law and order.

I think that leftism's obsession with a person's inner feelings and thoughts rather than just their actions -- think speech codes and hate crimes -- makes me think that a theocracy would veer closer to left-wing totalitarianism in the way it operates.

On the other hand, however, from what I've seen Iran nowadays is more authoritarian -- urban women wear makeup and sexy lingerie at home, but just cover up to go outside so they won't be harassed by the cops. The theocratic spirit of the Revolution is more lip service than reality nowadays. But I've been to Cuba, and I can say that it is still definitely a totalitarian tyranny, with every apartment block crawling with spies listening in on people's conversations.

Posted by Pedro | December 7, 2007 11:26 PM

Has anyone read Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer?" In about 150 pages he eviscerates the idea that there's any difference between religious, nationalist or class-based radicalism. I mean he completely destroys the notion, and all the while maintains a very easily approachable style. I'm always surprised he isn't mentioned more often amongst libertarians, but if ever there was a time for some Hoffer, its after that preposterous claim off of Crooked Timber.

Posted by Jared | December 8, 2007 12:54 AM

Non exhaustive list of Christian Theocracies:

(very) late Roman Empire
Byzantine Empire
various Crusader States
Crommwell's Republic
Isabella's Spain

Most European monarchies until the American/French Revolutions had their head of state take a politically significant role as "Defender of the Faith." This basically ended in the Christian world with the death of the Czar. The remaining monarchies still have a nominal role as the head of their respective state churches.

Posted by Kolohe | December 8, 2007 1:24 AM

There's a significant difference between having a state religion and being a theocracy. I'd put the Byzantines in the former category, for instance. The government seemed to meddle a lot more in affairs of the church hierarchy than the other way around. Expelling the Arian bishops and installing Nicenes, for instance, and then switching back a forth a few times. Hard to say a nation is being ruled by religion if the religion isn't even staying the same.

Similarly, Henry VIII was the first Defender of the Faith, and I think you could hardly call him a theocrat. All the other English Defenders were proclaimed so by Parliament, which seems more like the government heaping religious trappings on itself rather than actual religious rule.

Posted by Jared | December 8, 2007 2:08 AM

speaking of the Khmer Rouge, here's a take from Cambodia on Eric Hoffer:
http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/hoffer.htm

general search result:
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Eric+Hoffer+%22The+True+Believers%22

Jared,

nice pick vis a vis E. Hoffer's take, with this: 'I'm always surprised he isn't mentioned more often amongst libertarians", though, I'm not sure he ever added Keynesians, rightly, to his list of "True Believers".

with this: "..one of the reasons I think Communism should properly be understood as a religion. All sorts of things make more sense once you think of it that way."

Clint may want to swap out Communism, in the above, with Keynesianism, and see how that works.

Posted by Mark E Hoffer | December 8, 2007 2:19 AM

Theocracies and secular totalitarian states are different. No particular value judgment is implied in that statement; I haven't though about whether I'd rather have lived in Stalin's Russia or Torquemada's Spain. There doesn't seem to have yet been a religious or secular totalitarian state that was a very nice place for Jewish intellectuals, though there are plenty of Kahanites who are itching to try. But Maria is correct that there are differences between religious and secular totalitarian states.

It is also fair to argue that one such difference is a stronger focus on gender inequality and the repression of sexuality in theocratic states. Communist totalitarianism, true to its all-nurture, no-nature ideology, was often accompanied by significant increases in gender equality; indeed many women in Communist societies resented its feminism, feeling that they had effectively been burdened both with traditional family responsibilities and with new wage-earning responsibilities. Nazi totalitarianism, with its biological ideology, did entail sharp distinctions in gender roles, but never anything as discriminatory and oppressive as, say, today's Saudi Arabia. As for sexuality, while Nazism (and fascism) involved a narrow definition of the type of sexuality considered permissible, and hence murderous persecution of homosexuals, they also involved a positively Hellenistic celebration of sexuality and the body within a heterosexual, pro-natal framework. Communism, meanwhile, vaguely condemned open sexuality as bourgeois and decadent, but this distaste was never a major factor in the ideology, and sexual repression only became a significant element in Communist repression during the madness of China's Cultural Revolution, when pretty much anything would do as an excuse to beat your teacher to death. European Communism tended to share fascism's celebration of the body, especially in its idolization of athletes, and its de-emphasis of the family led to a widespread tolerance of extramarital affairs which would be (and was) considered "decadent" by American religious anti-Communists. It's possible that a non-anti-sex theocracy might someday come into existence, but neither the Abrahamic faiths nor Buddhism have produced one. A Hindu theocracy, maybe, or some African syncretic Christian thing.

But on the "When there is no distinction between religious and secular power, it’s not enough to obey the rules, you have to believe in them, too" count -- that's a reach, at best. A substantial minority, at least, of Iranians don't really "believe" in the rules of the theocratic Iranian state, and obey them in much the same pro forma fashion which Europeans acceded to under Communism.

Posted by brooksfoe | December 8, 2007 3:02 AM

Didn't Orwell (or rather the character of Winston Smith) say just the reverse - that the Inquisition only cared about external behavior, whereas Big Brother wanted to control your thoughts as well?

Posted by James Kabala | December 8, 2007 9:29 AM

I read a couple biographies of Teresa of Avila (the reformer of the Carmelites) a while back. Up until Teresa's reforms of the order (which were fiercely resisted), her Carmelite convent was essentially like a big sorority house. If the convent was easy-going, think how much more relaxed society at large was.

I think what's going on here is that solid knowledge of history is very uncommon these days, and people are projecting some sort of Handmaid's Tale back on the past, when the reality of medieval life would have been much messier, very pious and very bawdy all at the same time.

Posted by Amy P | December 8, 2007 10:48 AM

"I haven't though about whether I'd rather have lived in Stalin's Russia or Torquemada's Spain."

Seeing as how the death tolls were about 20 million versus somewhere between 800 and 4000, I think that's a no brainer.

Posted by Knox Harrington | December 8, 2007 12:58 PM

Non exhaustive list of Christian Theocracies....

Cromwell's Republic

As I understand it, during the Civil War years and the ensuing Commonwealth, the Church of England was (temporarily) abolished as the state religion, and censorship of the press was also temporarily abolished. These two phenomena together resulted in a proliferation of religious sects -- Baptists, Seekers, Diggers, Fifth Monarchy men, Ranters, Quakers, etc.

It has always seemed to me that this had to be a major contributing factor to the English development of religious toleration, much admired by Voltaire in the 18th century. As he said in his Philosophical Letters, (paraphrasing)"If there were only one religion in England, there would be despotism to fear; if there were two, they would slit each others' throats; but there are thirty, and they live happily and in peace."

Posted by Tom O'Bedlam | December 8, 2007 1:51 PM

Here's another possible item for the list of long-lived theocracies: the Amish. I don't know how their customs have developed over the centuries, but in the documentary "Devil's Playground," you can see Rumspringa, their name for the period during which their young people discern whether or not they want to commit to baptism and full membership in the Amish church. Much partying in the cow pasture ensues as the kids make up their minds.

I don't know a lot about Mikhail Bakhtin, but I do own a bunch of his books, and I know that one of his big ideas in "Rabelais and His World" is the importance of carnival, a sort of ritualized transgression and inversion of medieval and renaissance norms. I think it's very interesting that medieval and renaissance society had this sort of built in safety valve, just as the Amish do.

Posted by Amy P | December 8, 2007 4:25 PM

Amy P wrote: I read a couple biographies of Teresa of Avila (the reformer of the Carmelites) a while back. Up until Teresa's reforms of the order (which were fiercely resisted), her Carmelite convent was essentially like a big sorority house. If the convent was easy-going, think how much more relaxed society at large was.

Not necessarily. Prior to the 1500s, since the protestant reformation had not yet shaken up the religious power structures of Europe, the privileged position occupied by the monasteries and convents, and the self-isolated nature they enforced, provided fertile ground for more than a few of them to descend into all manner of excesses without much interference from the governing powers.

Posted by anony-mouse | December 8, 2007 4:59 PM

anony-mouse,

You may be right about Spanish society, although based on the descriptions I've read of the un-reformed Carmelite convents, I don't think they were "self-isolated" from the outside world. The nuns had lots of visitors, and part of the year, the convent would send them home to their families because there wasn't enough to feed them in the convent.

Posted by Amy P | December 8, 2007 5:39 PM

Yeah, well, Maria knows what she doesn't like (nasty Christians, especially Catholics) and she knows what she does like (unreflective Popular Front leftism), and I think it's very mean of Megan to apply logical analysis to anything Maria says. As well as being a complete waste of time.

Posted by y81 | December 8, 2007 5:41 PM

Just for fun, here's a quote from Florence King's "Wasp, Where Is Thy Sting?" which is a piece of fictional anthropology on the traditional WASP way of life. Mrs. Myrtle Bailey (a "low WASP") is thinking disapprovingly about Catholics: "Catholics drank and smoked and gambled and danced and cursed and fought. The Baileys drank not, smoked not, gambled not, danced not, cursed not, and fought not. Which just goes to show you." Does this have a point? I don't know. If there is any, it is that anti-Catholicism is a constant, it's just that the stated reasons for it shift as our society changes.

Posted by Amy P | December 8, 2007 5:56 PM

Amy P wrote: You may be right about Spanish society, although based on the descriptions I've read of the un-reformed Carmelite convents, I don't think they were "self-isolated" from the outside world. The nuns had lots of visitors, and part of the year, the convent would send them home to their families because there wasn't enough to feed them in the convent.

In Spain at that time, it could be. I didn't mean to imply that the monasteries and convents were isolated from the otuside world as such (although some were), merely that they could choose to close the gates to the compound and then take a "what happens in Vegas..." approach to whatever followed.

The governing powers generally didn't try to nose into the monastic affairs because to do so would likely have incured papal wrath, and until the reformation and the shakeup that followed, the pope generally maintained some sort of third- or fourth-hand control over all of the European states in any matters touching the Catholic Church -- partly by virtue of the threat of excommunication, and partly by the political adroitness many of the popes exercised in playing the European powers off each other.

Posted by anony-mouse | December 8, 2007 10:55 PM

Seeing as how the death tolls were about 20 million versus somewhere between 800 and 4000, I think that's a no brainer.

You can only die once. I'm Jewish.

Posted by brooksfoe | December 8, 2007 11:02 PM

After the end of WWII, the Soviet government became increasingly hostile to Jews. Things were coming to a head right around the time that Stalin died. They have a pretty good round-up of pertinent quotes over at Wikipedia. (There is a mistranslation over, with the famous phrase "murderers in white coats" (i.e. Jewish doctors) rendered as "murderers in overalls.")

Posted by Amy P | December 9, 2007 12:41 AM

But for the wholesale slaughter of it's citizens, Stalinism wasn't all that bad.

Posted by Yancey Ward | December 10, 2007 10:42 AM