Talk with Jeff Sharlet - Updated


Discussing the ideas behind his new book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power."
i still have to finish Jeff Sharlet's new book. I had a delectable distraction. But here's the conversation we had in the comments thread. Of course, I get the technopagan green and Jeff is the midnight blue.

Hi, Neo -- we're probably in greater agreement than it seems. I don't think the Family has a "generations-long secret plan to take over the country." I think it's a generations old ideological movement with enduring influence on the shape of conservative thought. That's not quite as exciting a claim, but it's still important. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Jeff Sharlet | 07.09.08 - 6:21 pm


Hi there and thanks for stopping by.

I live in an isolated area and I have to do most of my book shopping online. Your book is on the way and I will even move it to the top of my "to read" pile when it gets here. I should warn you, that probably means a review.

That being said, I've seen both progressives and conservatives accuse the other of having a hidden agenda that governs their actions and shape the government.

I'll give your book a chance, but color me skeptical.

(just so you know, skeptical is a light blue set off with tasteful bone highlights)
NW | 07.10.08 - 1:55 pm

Empire is hardly a hidden agenda; it's one of the two great visions of what America can be. Contrast Walt Whitman's "democratic vistas" with the vision of John Foster Dulles, Ike's Sec. of State and the man widely credited as the "architect of the Cold War." Dulles, a very conservative Christian, saw the world as divided between the forces of Good, as represented by the U.S., and the forces of Evil, as represented not just by the USSR but by anyone who didn't agree with his vision. To ensure the victory of the Good, he set the pattern of U.S. support for dictators who agreed to cooperate in the struggle. That wasn't a "hidden agenda"; it was the Cold War, and then the Vietnam War, the overthrow of Allende in Chile, support for the Contras in Nicaragua and Jonas Savimbi in Angola and Siad Barre in Somalia and General Park in South Korea etc., etc. No accusations necessary -- that's all in the history books. The question becomes: How did well-intentioned leaders make such bloody, and, by all accounts, counterproductive alliances? Anticommunism alone doesn't explain it. But when we review the documents, we find an aggressively expansionist theology at the heart of much of foreign policy. Not a conspiracy; not a "hidden agenda"; ideas that won the political fight in Washington. But not necessarily democratic ideas.

Anyway, my two cents on top of the heap of pages winging their way by mail to you right now. Thanks for your interest. Ready to take my lumps, if necessary.
Jeff Sharlet | 07.10.08 - 3:41 pm

I'm really trying to give your book a chance, Jason's picks are usually well worth it.

But pardon me, your bias keeps showing.

Two great visions? Only two? Is that really all you see?

Not even Whitman limited himself to that. Precisely the opposite in fact.

Anyway, I'll read your book.
NW | 07.10.08 - 7:58 pm


What is my "bias"? I write pretty openly as a critic of what I argue is an imperial tendency. That's not a "bias," that's a perspective, only stated it.

Of course there are more than two visions of America; the point I was making was that there are two broad categories that have shaped foreign policy, economic policy, etc. Both have left and right flanks, both draw from many different ideological streams. There have been imperialistic democrats and democratic Republicans and independents of all varieties.
Jeff Sharlet | 07.10.08 - 9:30 pm

Your answer to Jason's first question sounds remarkably like some of the accusations leveled against "secular humanists" over the years.

That's what I mean by bias. I want to think I am wrong and that there is something more to your argument than the flip side of Christian fundamentalism. Although judging by the comments there, some of my fellow pagans don't necessarily make that connection.

When you talk about two alternatives, or even two "major" alternatives, it sounds suspiciously like the "EITHER/OR" thinking that I have learned to associate with fundamentalism of all stripes over the years. I'm historian enough to know that government is usually reactive.

It's very seldom that the "elites" set policy, and even less that one group sets policy over the continued objections of other groups.

Again, I'm reading the interview and I see more than a shadow of modern-day McCarthyism. "They're ALREADY HERE and they want to CONTROL OUR WAY OF LIFE."

Believe me, I am one of the last people who defends Christianity, especially evangelical Christian involvement in government. You should read some of the stuff I have said about the Faith Based Initiative.

We'll see when your book gets here if I am getting excited about nothing.
NW | 07.11.08 - 2:09 pm


Hardly. I've been very critical of the lockstep secular hysteria around fundamentalism. When I say there are, generally speaking, two great visions of what America should be -- democracy and empire -- I'm not aligning those visions with religious beliefs. Indeed, one of the greatest and most famous fundamentalists of the 20th century, William Jennings Bryan, was fierce anti-imperialist. As was Dorothy Day -- hardly a fundamentalist, but far from secularism, too. Secularism has no monopoly on democracy. And empire claims more than fundamentalism. Indeed, JFK, one of the great secularists of the 20th century, was also one of the more imperially minded presidents.

Ultimately, though, The Family is about a group of people and what, according to their own documents and secondary verification, they did and meant to do. You may interpret those actions as you wish.

But as for your argument that it's seldom that elites set policy -- I'm completely confused. If not elites, who else? Last I checked, the Senate was a pretty exclusive club.
Jeff Sharlet | 07.12.08 - 1:04 am


Hmm, with your permission, when we finish with our conversation in this comment thread, I'd like to copy/paste it into a regular entry so Google and the other search engines will pick it up.

I was referring to the various versions of secular fundamentalism. Anthropomorphic Anthropogenic lobal warming is the obvious example, but there are others. Political speech codes are another example, as are the definitions of "race" that mean that some groups are more deserving of government largess and special treatment than others. Everything that you have said about The Family can also be applied to the groups pushing for these objectives. Fundamentalism and crushing dissent doesn't change that much in tactics, no matter who does it. I just don't like to see it excused because the "right" people practice it.

The elites don't often set policy, government is reactive, not proactive. The classic example is slavery. Even through the opening salvos of the U.S. Civil War, the abolitionists weren't given much credence. Lincoln's own writings show that abolishing slavery wasn't even one of his goals at first. He was more interested in collecting taxes. It was only AFTER that he decided to go after slavery. Even then, he was pretty selective about it. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the states who had seceded.

I talk about the civil rights movement in one of the entries below.

When it comes to social policy, government almost always reacts to a small and vocal minority.

Your book did come yesterday, I'm about to have a late lunch and start it.
NW | 07.12.08 - 3:18 pm

Permission granted, of course. Conversations such as these are what make the internet worthwhile to me.

I agree that there is such a thing we could call "secular fundamentalism," though not on your examples. The defining quality is not a particular practice but a tendency toward absolute belief, toward certainty, and toward the conviction that MY way is the only way. Secularism has some automatic safeguards built in to protect it against this way of thinking -- the scientific method, for instance, constantly revises thinking about global warming. Don't like today's theory? Wait for tomorrows. Policies around race are also subject to revision. (I suspect you and I disagree very strongly on this front.) But secularism can still fall prey to fundamentalism, particularly in the form of nationalism. Indeed, the point of my book -- and why I was a little annoyed that you kept insisting I was some mini-Hitchens -- is that for decades liberalism, secularism, and ELITE fundamentalism blended together very smoothly into the toxic mix of the Cold War. And they are doing so again around the idea of "Islam."

As for elites vs. grassroots -- that's a delightfully optimistic theory. Also, very narrow. Tell me, please, which "vocal minority" was responsible for the grassroots revolt that led to the 1999 Silk Road Act, sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback and Rep. Joe Pitts, Family brothers, funneling money to "key men," as Brownback calls them -- "dictators," as the rest of the world calls them -- in Central Asia? Or how about The Family's policy of support for Siad Barre in the 1980s, through which General John Vessey, then-chair of the Joint Chiefs, Senator Chuck Grassley, defense contractor Bill Brehm, and others advocated for increased military support for killer Barre?

I suppose you could call a senator, a general, and a defense contractor a "small and vocal minority." You might also call them "elites." They do, themselves.
Jeff Sharlet | 07.13.08 - 8:55 am


Thanks for your permission.

Actually your definition of secular fundamentalism is pretty close to mine.

http://www.paganvigil.com/C11631...5926/ index.html

"But the one thing that I have found in all True Believers is an absolute belief that their particular book, method, faith, interpretation, or silly hat is The Only Acceptable Choice. They will ignore anything that anyone else does if it doesn't adhere totally to The True Way. Worse, they will overlook mistakes and abuses made by the people on the correct side, even as they violate the principles they hold central to their belief."

I've found that secularism doesn't have as many safeguards as you might think. People cherish their passions, rationality seldom even places in THAT race.

I was actually trying to go out of my way not to classify you until I had read and finished your book. It's just that there were all sorts of little signs that I have learned (much to my regret) to associate with certain types of thinking. You get major kudos for taking the time for this conversation AND for sticking around when it's obvious we don't share a lock-step agreement on every subject under the sun. That's rare no matter what your politics, I admire it.

I wasn't talking about grassroots, I was talking about government reacting to a "small and vocal minority." Even in your example, there were more than three people involved. From what I can see, the group you've called "The Family" is predicated on exactly that premise. My question at this point is just how big a threat they are. It doesn't change my opinion though, government usually reacts.

Which of course raises the question why we give government so much power to begin with? But that is outside the questions raised by your book, so I won't deal with it here or in my forthcoming review. 

I am still reading your book. Even though I read fairly quickly, I still have to find time here and there, mostly meal times and a little bit before I shower. Lately I've found that if I don't balance my political reading with fiction, I rapidly lose interest in the politics. So that does slow me down a bit.
NeoWayland | 07.14.08 - 4:55 pm

_____
Update - Regular reader BTHO pointed out on 24Feb2010 that the correct term is anthropogenic, not anthropomorphic.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - July 27, 2008 at 02:06 PM  Tag


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