The students rushed off to see the grave of a classical Russian novelist and our Russian friend began to cry. Had we been rude? Had our enthusiasm caused us recklessly to disregard customs that mattered?
No.
She explained to me (quietly) that she hardly ever came to this place any more with Russian guests. Why? Russian young adults were more interested in more superficial things, they had no interest (at all) in more difficult aspects of Russian culture. They like shopping, partying, and art forms from elsewhere. Of course, all of us like to shop, party, and be entertained! There is no harm in jollification! The problem that made her weep was not that Russians on holiday were eager to party, but that their joy never included the deeper things of Russia, of anyplace. They were as ignorant of their own rich heritage as an American student who had never heard of Langston Hughes, read Melville, thought hard about a Capra film, or marveled at Copeland. That is a great deal of rich pleasure to miss.
If you have never watched a move because it is black-and-white, I am sorry. Learn: expand the joy!
She said a more difficult thing next, one that has made me think for years: “I hated the Soviets, but they forced us to learn until we loved great music, ballet, great literature. All that is gone.”
She hated the Soviet Union, but missed a good that the Soviets did.
Let me be plain: the atheistic regimes that use Marxism to kill, mutilate the soul, and destroy prosperity get no sympathy from me. Consider, however, how evil regimes get support from people who are not evil themselves. Evil regimes appropriate good causes. They trumpet literacy and “own” the issue loudly. If you also support widespread literacy (growing quickly in Orthodox Russia!), then they also appropriate your voice. They are helped when reactionaries, so fearful of their evil that they cannot reason, oppose literacy, or at least do nothing about literacy, lest they be tainted by atheist communism!
Do I support the Soviet Union if I wish that Russian schools would return to teaching Russian “deep culture?” Am I a Marxist if I think that the state should help national “high culture,” that could not survive (immediately) on mere market forces? If so, then Nicholas II (pray for me!) is a Marxist, for he did the same.
So when I walk with my African-American friends, hear their life stories, read books, learn from the art, philosophy, and culture of African-American scholars, I stand in solidarity against the deep, abiding racism they face. This is fact. Black lives have not mattered and so I state firmly and without hesitation: “Black lives matter.” I do not give a damn that this Christian truth, and most of African Americans are more traditionally Christian than most Americans, have been appropriated by dodgy people. This is true of every good cause. Ask the racists who tried to use pro-life commitments to advance their agenda!
Just as the pro-life cause is not made “evil” by those who would appropriate it, so support, deeply traditional Christian support, for abolitionism and an end to racist systems is somehow wrong because it aids Marxists. I have no doubt, as they have always done, that people like the Soviets will appropriate American evil to advance their own evil. This has happened all my life as the deeply racist Soviet Union stirred up racial tensions through “anti-colonialism” (as a colonial power!) and anti-racism.
I hate racism and stand in solidarity with an end to institutional racism. I will not let that solidarity and quiet listening be cut short by a discussion of those who would appropriate that just cause. Damn those malefactors, now what shall we do to make progress on race?
Evil flourishes and good is not done when decent people will not back a great man, a prophetic voice, like Daddy King and his son Martin because they fear association with those who would hijack their voices. There is no doubt that the Soviets tried to appropriate their prophetic lives and no doubt that these great and good men were used to dealing with white racists of all sorts who tried to control the Word. The Soviets failed, but too many decent Christians were reactionary, supporting the cause, but fearing this spurious association.
What if instead orthodox Christians refused to be distracted, fought racism, and so undercut the appropriators and the reactionaries?
Good people are silenced when bad people hijack good causes. This will not work if we fight in solidarity with good people and ignore the bad voices. After all, the Orthodox leadership could walk with King, and we understood the horrors of atheist versions of Marxism. The Orthodox did not let loud voices in the Soviet Union, or a corrupt FBI, undermine our solidarity with a just cause. We just kept being Orthodox. We build the Hagia Sophia, see it appropriated, but we still built it.
I am told that some people who have taught me have philosophical commitments I do not share. Langston Hughes, one of my favorite poets since fifth grade, flirted with Marxism. That is sad to me, but understandable. Winston Churchill, foe of the Nazis, had many bad ideas. Washington owned slaves. No human hero this side of Jesus and his Mother is perfect in dispositions.
We can end racism, individual and systematic racism, without embracing bad metaphysics. We can have a progressive vision without being “progressive.”* As an orthodox Christian, agreeing with global orthodoxy, we stand in solidarity with an end to systematic racism and racism.
*To be “progressive” is a complicated thing. . .some forms in some places at some times are good. I am dealing with those forms that are not compatible with orthodox Christianity.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In