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Spectator Belief
According to its etymological base (see Lexicon), "to believe"
means to be willing to act . This definition raises the need to
distinguish between active and passive belief. Active belief is enacted,
but passive belief is held without acting on it. It might seem
contradictory to define passive belief in this way, because we assume
by strict etymological definition that belief indicates willingness to
act. If I am not willing to act on what I believe, can I really be said
to believe it?
Take this example of belief from the realm of science: nature is purely
mindless and mechanical. I may hold this belief without acting on it, or
I may enact it in specific forms of behavior: for instance, by extracting
ores from the earth with no consideration of how the earth (the environment)
may respond to this action. If I believe the earth knows and feels nothing, I
can act on it without any concern about the effects that might arise if the
earth could react physically or even emotively, like a sentient being. (In
fact, such reactions may occur, and even be obvious, but if I believe nature
is mindless and unfeeling I will not perceive its sentient response
— an example of how preemptive belief conditions perception. Moreover, I
may explain and dismiss any sentient reponse as a mere result of mechanical
laws, thus confirming my overall belief-system.)
Many people who hold this paricular scientific belief — that the earth is
insentient -- do indeed act on it. Countless examples could be cited. But
many more people who hold this belief no not enact it in specific and deliberate
ways. How do these two cases relate to each other? How are active believers and
passive believers linked to each other by the beliefs they hold in common?
It is tempting to assume that belief held without enactment is merely passive,
inert, ineffective, but is this really so? In the dynamic of passive consent,
those who hold a belief passively may be complicit with those who act out a mutual
belief, even when they act it out in ways that are objectionable to the passive
believers. This occurs inevitably when the same belief is shared in different
modes. Since belief always involves a volitional posture ("willing to act"), modes of believing that produce enactment can
override and co-opt the moral energy latent in passive believing.
In the example given, it requires only a small number of people to deliberately
enact the belief that nature is mindless and mechanical — this group would
include scientists who articulate the belief theoretically and technicians who put
it into practice — but these active believers are supported by the passive
consent of many. And to the extent that the passive believers do not dissent and
resist, the active believers will dominate. They will determine the prevailing
course of action. In the dynamic of passive consent, the will of the active
believers directs the massive energies of the passive believers. In The Mass
Psychology of Fascism (suggested reading, Eternal Conflict), Wilhelm Reich
analyzes the social dynamic of massenpsychosen, mass psychosis as
demonstrated in Hitler’s Third Reich. He explains how the small handful of
active believers commandeered the power of millions of passive believers. He
argued that this phenomenon occurs because passive belief engenders a moral
vacuum, and invidious people gain power from the energy that rushes to fill
such a vacuum.
Cultural anthropologist Rene Girard called the complementation of active and
passive belief "the mechanism of unanimity." In Violence and the
Sacred, he argues that unanimity is the primary dynamic of all religious
belief, but it is extremely difficult to detect because "religion protects
humanity as long as its ultimate foundations remain concealed."
The complicity of active and passive belief is deeply devious, operating as if
it has a mind of its own. Consent occurs even if the passive believers openly
object to the deeds of the active believers. Even though the two groups exhibit
different modes of believing, the fact that they share the same beliefs assures
that the active believers will draw power of conviction from the passive
constituency. It is difficult to accept that belief could operate in this
manner, contrary to the true intentions and concerns of many believers, but
history and current events provide countless examples of this dangerous
tendency.
The relation of passive believers to active ones can be compared to the crowd
dynamic at a football match or any sporting. On the playing field is a handful
of people, two teams who represent the active believers. In the stands are the
fans, spectators of the event, who represent the passive believers. Both groups
are there for the event because they share the same beliefs regarding the rules
of the game, the necessity of competition, the capacities of the various players
and the values (monetary, if the fans are betting) at play in the contest. The
handful of team players who enact the beliefs gain enormous support from those
who sit and watch. The analogy is somewhat awkward, because the spectators do
not watch passively in the strict sense of the term. They get excited and
excitement can even lead to violence. Hooligans are not mere spectators. They
shift from the passive to the active mode of participation. However, most
spectators are content to cheer the players on or simply take in the action
"vicariously." In passive consent, the spectators (passive believers)
may not cheer the actions of the active believers, but they nevertheless support
them by the act of witnessing. The spectator to belief who watches his or
her beliefs being enacted by others is accessory to the their enactment.
What might be called "spectator belief" is not so strange as it may
sound. The United States is a country with deep traditions of religious
fundamentalism. Many Americans are Christians of one denomination or another
who cherish beliefs scripted in the stories of the Old and New Testaments. Among
these is the belief in an apocalyptic world-ending in which Good, represented
by God’s people, triumphs over Evil. In the current geopolitical situation
(2003), President George W. Bush is an active believer whose behavior is
reportedly influenced by beliefs scripted in the apocalyptic Biblical scenario,
as was that of Ronald Reagan before him. Bush is supported by many passive
believers who enthusiastically share the same beliefs, and not only by his most
devoted followrs, such as the neo- conservatives. He is also supported by other
believers who hold deep reservations about his policies and actions but who cannot effectively refute those policies or resist those actions without
questioning the cherished articles of faith they hold in common with the
President. It may be objected that passive believers who are unwilling to
act out the apocalypptic script in a literal and fanatical way can still cleave
to their beliefs and insist on a different way of interpreting them. This is a
misleading objection. What matters on the world stage is not how beliefs are
interpreted but how they are enacted.
Consequent to the devious "mechanism of unanimity," millions of decent,
peace-loving Americans who hold Christian beliefs must time and again passively
stand on the sidelines, alarmed, seemingly helpless spectators to behavior they
support by default. Through our passive beliefs, we are all accessories to the
harm and violence perpetrated by active believers.
Political rhetoric that invokes the eternal conflict of Good and Evil is highly
effective because it plays on the complicity of active and passive belief. With
absurdly righteous declarations of how pre-emptive violence will defeat Evil in
the world, President Bush holds millions of passive believers in a schizophrenic
bind, unable to renounce their fundamental belief that God will assure the
triumph of Good over Evil, and yet unwilling to accept the way this belief is
enacted in their name.
There is enormous power in the passive witnessing of others who enact the beliefs
we hold, and the power works both ways. In the American South during the many
decades when the lynching of a black person could go uninvestigated and
unpunished, the crime almost always involved a few active believers in racial
supremacy who did the lynching, and others who either egged them on or merely
watched. In the dynamic of the lynch mob, the act of witnessing enables the deeds of the active believers and at the same time gratifies the
convictions of the witnesses. (Insidious participation of this type,
characterized by a sense of righteous gratification that unifies active and
passive believers, has its original or mythological model in scapegoating,
the "victimage mechanism" as Rene Girard calls it.)
It is relatively easy to see how the passive participants in a lynch mob —
that is, those who witness the hanging — are caught in the same dynamic as
the perpetrators, but what about other people who share white supremacist views
but would never be caught dead lynching a "nigger"? These people might
not be capable of witnessing a lynching first-hand, but would they be capable of
stopping one? Due to the beliefs they share with people who are willing to
lynch black-skinned people, they too are credo-bound to racial murder.
In the shared dynamic of active and passive belief, there are no innocent
by-standers. No matter if concerned citizens protest under banners that
declare NOT IN OUR NAME, protestors may be credo-bound to the actions of
those who share their beliefs. How can passive believers disown their
share in the perpetration of active believers? To renounce the beliefs they
hold in common with the perpetators is perhaps a lot to ask. But such
renunciation is likely to be what it takes to withdraw the share of the
power co-opted from them by the active belivers. The other option is for
the passive believers to dis-identify from the stories that carry the beliefs
nefariously enacted by the active believers. As noted elsewhere in this site,
beliefs scripted in racial-religious narratives are universally operative in
the perpetration of personal and social evils. Until the racial-religious
scripts are changed, these beliefs will continue to provide cause for active
believers and spectacle for passive believers.
Unanimity and passive consent operate in a most dramatic way in religious
beliefs. With the events of 9-11 the entire world saw a small band of religious
fanatics act out their beliefs. Although we do not really know why those
horrific attacks were committed -- that is, what the preconceived intentions
of the perpetrators may have been -- one part of the story about these events
is relatively certain. It is highly probable that the Islamic extremists who
died crashing airplanes into the Twin Towers believed in the literal sense of
the Koran. According to the Koran, those who die defending Islam
are instantly transported to heaven where they enter a paradisical setting,
complete with virgins who attend to their every wish.
If the suicidal hijackers believed (as we presume) that at the moment of death
they would be instantly transported to paradise, they enacted this belief in
a most dramatic way, but many other devout Muslims do not enact it in this way,
or in any way. This being so, the response of "moderate" believers
(i.e., who do not act in direct and extreme ways on their beliefs) in rejecting
and condemning the behavior of extremists has to be re-examined, for the
situation is not as straightforward it might seem. Moderate Muslims who hold
the same beliefs as the suicidal hijackers exhibit a different mode of
believing: they live with what they believe but they do not live it
out to the fullest implications. Yet the insidious link between active
and passive believing cannot be ignored. Unless moderate believers renounce
what they believe, they are credo-bound to the same belief-system as the
extremists. As Wilhelm Reich observed regarding the Nazi ideology of the
master race, the rare few extremists who enact a credo with massively
destructive intent draw their strength from the vicarious consent of the
masses.
Active belief is the potent mode of believing, and passive belief is the latent
mode. (These and other terms are defined in Modes of Believing.) Due to the
"mechanism of unanimity" (Girard), the latent supports the potent.
Many kind and well-intentioned Muslims around the world may protest the terrible
deeds of extremists who enact Islamic beliefs in a fanatical manner, but as
long as the moderates cleave to the same beliefs as the extremists, how can
they effectively repudiate the violence arising in their midst? In all the
debate among Muslims since 9-11, there is never a word about putting any of
the fundamental beliefs of Islam in question. The assumption is, Muslims can
retain their belief system and create a society in which they are not
threatened by those who enact their beliefs literally, in an extremist
manner. But is this really feasible? The problem with passive belief may be
compounded by the fact that, additional to making passive believers powerless
when someone enacts their self-confessed credo. Potent belief empowers those
who act on it, but latent belief can disempower those who hold it.
In its default status (hence, "default belief") passive belief can
prevent the believer from dissenting or resisting those who perversely exploit
their shared credo.
There is a difficult paradox here: it may be necessary to disempower some of our
beliefs so that we can withdraw their disempowering effects. The discipline of
metahistory proposes that we examine our beliefs so that we can detect those
that might serve inhumane ends — that is, operate against the fulfillment
of our humanity.
As noted on the home page of Applied Metahistory, belief confers identity on the
believer. It produces solidarity. It engenders vast sentiments that engage the
believer in rites of hope, vindication, reassurance, and even transpersonal
participation. To abandon beliefs is to risk losing one’s identity and
falling out of social grace. We may well suppose that many people cling to
their beliefs more from the need to maintain identity and insure belonging
than because they find compelling truth in them.
With 9-11 the Muslim world experienced the horrific paralysis of spectator belief
with distress and disbelief. Eighteen months later with the Bush-Blair offensive
against Iraq, the American and British public got their own dose of the same bitter
medicine. As I write these words, ten of millions of concerned people, Muslim
and Christian, stand on the sidelines of history watching a small band of
power-crazed individuals perpetrate crimes against humanity and willfully
jeopardise global social order for generations to come. Yet they wonder what
they can do about it. But in this wondering, do they look at their own
involvement in the actions they detest? Do they consider complicity by
belief? And how would the equation change if they did?
JL: July 2003
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