SPIRITUAL POLITICS:
THE POLITICS OF THE INDIVIDUAL

© 1983 by Stuart Norman


Appeared in RFD #36, Fall ‘83, “Rhythmic Faggot Deliria”
This was my first article for RFD. It was an attempt to share my views of an integrated spirituality and politics and set the tone for my editorship.



        The ancient Greeks called it Hubris - overweening pride - a divorce from the spiritual, that limited state of ego consciousness that leads to personal destruction. We live in an age of Hubris - that smug belief that Western technical/scientific culture is the best, can provide all the answers, that it is leading to an ultimate enlightenment for all humankind. But there are those among us who feel it in their souls that this objective approach is shallow, superficial and has little to offer of the real wisdom of how to live. Politics, philosophy, religion have become its servants - only practical, utilitarian justifications to the cause of an increasingly regimented, mechanistic society.
        The argument that the technical revolution would bring more freedom has no foundation, but technique does give those of power the ability to make us slaves. There are countless books on the subject, such as Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity - all reductionist - squeezing out the last drop of spirituality. This is a narrow, limited pride in ability to achieve more facts and put them to use; all without any ethic of whether we should turn fact into action except the cold technical ethic that states if we can do it, then it must be done, humanity be damned. But it is we who are human who do it. Or have so many forgotten what it is to be human, lost in the maze of the machine state?
        Pride. In itself it is a positive emotion. A state of being, knowing oneself is okay, a sense of accomplishment. It is an individual emotion. Little of lasting significance can be accomplished without this sense of pride. The gay movement is based in pride in ourselves, that it is okay to be gay, even against an ingrained social belief that says we are sick or deviates or dangerous to the society. And we are dangerous to the culture, we are a threat to its long-held, cherished values, but those values are a pale shadow of what was once true pride in American culture. The old values are only empty beliefs now convenient to technique, but surely being replaced by the soulless, impersonal ideology.
        Ours is a culture in search of values. There is pressure to conform to the scientific ideology; that may fill stomachs and provide material diversions in an endless stream, but where will it end? And there is the soul searching of many through this arid industrial wasteland for a way to live in harmony with the world and with our brothers and sisters.
        Politics has not provided an answer. Social movements have not lived up to their ideals in practice. Religion is a stale, dead, decayed thing served up on a sterile stainless steel platter of platitudes simply to act out an empty ritual in service to the current social ideology. Or there are the bread and circuses of professional team sports, all distractions to prevent us from feeling the emptiness in our souls.
        The old Greeks knew better. To them, politics was an art of the possible based on human interaction and values, not the cold, inflexible methods of statistics, public relations image creating propaganda, or of strict scientific laws leaving no place for human fallibility, warmth, forgiveness, understanding, or sense of community.
        It is often said that there is no sense of gay community, that it is an artificial thing. Perhaps so. But there is a sense of pride and accomplishment among many of us. That is the reason for the gay movement. There is no total agreement on how to live our lives, and that is good, for it should be an individual decision. Our goals are not the same. We have different visions: leathermen, faeries, disco twinkies, radical lesbian feminists, conservative businessmen, and all of us want the freedom to pursue our individual purposes and goals. That enriches society. And we have to fight among ourselves when the chimera of Political Correctness raises its fearful head. Like all political ideologies, social beliefs, cultural mores which are not absolute, but arbitrary, we are limiting ourselves to a narrow part of the spectrum of human expression. Although we have pride in gayness, our energies are squandered if we disagree about what we must be and act to be gay. There are many ways.
        We have much to teach the rest of the world: new visions of humanity. We are outside the mainstream of culture; we have few cultural blinders. We can be a part of a quiet evolution in spirituality going on now, for only spirituality will conquer the technical state which runs over everything like a bulldozer.
        Politics can’t change a social reality, it will only replace one status quo for another. Politics is adversarial, building position and opposition, not cooperation. Modern revolutions have failed to give the world better governments. The masses are lead blindly into revolution and sacrifice for empty ideologies by those whose goal is power. That is the single vision of our age.
        Politics cannot and will not change human awareness, but that is what must change. The real revolution is a quiet one which comes from within the individual and cannot be stopped. Violent revolution may overthrow an entrenched order only to replace it with the same. Only the names change. The quiet revolution will eat slowly away at the foundations of the mammoth state until it crumbles into ruin. Then there will be values which can deal with a new society already in place in its people and there will be pride in human achievement in harmony with the world.

Contents Complete Chronological List of My Articles in RFD - 1983 - 1989 A New Spirituality for Gays