Apocalypticism as social control (III).
(Part one of this series dealt with the nature of apocalypticism and its ability to create an insular culture. Part two concerned the investiture of otherness into the primary culture.)
Adherents to the apocalyptic tradition have now, in pluralist societies, two powers not well known to secondary cultures: freedoms of religion and association. By removing the social structures so effective in oppressing the minority culture, the primary has disarmed one of the major reasons for continued loyalty to the apocalyptic secondary identity (and the infrastructure that surrounds it). If there are no codified methods of oppression, then the methods and metaphors of apocalypticism lose relevance as critical techniques.
It is not entirely preposterous to believe that individuals used to whispering would aim these newfound voices first at speaking, and then screaming against those who had so desperately attempted to assimilate them. The allusions and dream-logic of apocalyptic social criticism can now be decoded into free and public debate, protest, or legislation; the secondary culture has been allowed not only to exist, but to self-identify.
But the maneuver to grant the right of self-identification serves more than one useful purpose to the primary culture. Aside from moralistic tones of right and wrong, the deliverance of autonomy within the regulations and preexisting codes of primary culture also defuses a potentially dangerous situation, and that situation is the impending revolt (or at least the simmering hatred) that underlies all attempts at re/oppression. It is also the best strategy for nurturing an identity that is a hybrid of primary and secondary culture.
Consider the circumstances of minority groups in New Zealand: identification as either European descent or Maori is no longer a point of contention. There are Maori institutes of higher education and Maori is one of the primary languages of the New Zealand government. But greater than either the Caucasian/Maori identity is the larger, less specific cultural identity of being a New Zealander. In allowing the secondary culture the (many, if not all) freedoms of the primary, the government begins assimilating them into a larger collective citizenry.
Why does apocalypticism then still appeal to radical or marginalized groups? For the same reasons that it has become accepted that apocalypticism was an appropriate response historically. Pluralist societies are not immediately tolerant of all secondary behaviors or identifications. There are still codes and mores that govern behavior, still taboos that clearly delineate what is and is not acceptable to the majority body politic. Some secondary groups organize themselves around a shared interest in a taboo, or have found themselves on the wrong end of the cultural pendulum as the primary culture or the larger, nationalist monoculture (as I'm calling the assimilative collective citizenry) redefines what is or is not acceptable.
But the individuals threatened the most by the disarming of the traditional means of social critique that apocalypticism represents are the prophets, the charismatic leaders, the empowered individuals of the secondary culture. Whereas in the oppressive old regime, the secondary culture might have required primary-sanctioned mediators or have instituted cultural overseers (Jewish representatives to Rome, conservative community leaders in the segregated South), the allowance of self-determination obviates the need for middlemen. And in any circumstance where power is redistributed, there will be resistance to that redistribution.
This is not to suggest that current apocalyptic trends are somehow different because they are contemporary. The infrastructure that supported the status quo was served well through the wholescale uptake of the apocalyptic critique because of its previously discussed revolutionary/anti-revolutionary social message. Bodies of people who are accepting apocalypticism are doing so for the same reasons that it was accepted earlier: in a concerted attempt to shroud the messages of a secondary culture from the prying eyes of a monolithic primary culture. What is different is the context--that of a pluralistic society as opposed to a larger imperialist behemoth.
Because the secondary is allowed to self-identify, while simultaneously being aware there is a larger identification--and a larger pool of identifications to choose from--the secondary culture and its leaders are made aware of their status as secondary. Existence in a pluralist or democratic society necessitates recognizing this fact, and it is a construction that encourages identification beyond the secondary. The freedom then to self-identify as secondary is also coupled with the inherently contradictory requirement to identify beyond the secondary.
Freedom comes at a de-privileging of the self. In being allowed to exist, one must also allow others to exist, and this is the conflict that drives the current evangelical Christian movement in America. Any ideology that positions itself as the true or right way will come into conflict with pluralism and autonomy. Further, the dedication and abjection that any fundamentalist religious movement requires is inherently threatened by that same autonomy that allows it to exist. In other words, people must be free to choose their religion, so that they might choose fundamentalism; but that same freedom to choose also allows potential converts to choose something else.
This is the thesis of this entire series of articles: Autonomy is at best a necessary evil, and at worst a direct antagonist, to the contemporary fundamentalist Christian movement in the United States.
The next segment will discuss a repercussion of the positioning of autonomy as adversarial to fundamentalist Christianity: the legislation of morality.