The Manichean Thread

February 3, 1985
Lakeland

re-written from November 27, 1966, Plainfield

(Reading, p. 29/32 – THE PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS, Richard Hofstader)

The Manichean Thread is an attitude found in the culture of the Western World for at least twenty-five hundred years. I call it a “thread” because it seems like a decaying strand twisting in and out of the tapestry of history, a thread which again and again weakens the cloth produced by human efforts to weave freedom, reason, dignity, peace, and equal opportunity as the prevailing pattern of living. By the “Manichean Thread” I refer to the belief that evil is a conspiracy which permits no middle ground, no open discussion, but only incessant warfare. Much of this sermon was stimulated by Richard Hofstader's essay, THE PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS. The historian used “paranoid” to indicate those attitudes which are characterized by delusion of persecution and conspiracy, marked by a completely disproportionate suspicion of all attitudes and actions which fail to adhere precisely to a particular party-line. As he wrote (p. 14), “the central preconception of the paranoid style (is) the existence of a vast, insidious, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish character.”

I would like to speak about the “Manichean Thread” as a strand in our historic religious culture; cite a few parallels in our national political history and associate these with some destructive forces in the present. Then, lastly, I will attempt to say a few words about where one may correctly draw a line between good and evil.

I – In the year 242 of the Christian Era, a young Persian religious enthusiast, Mani, proclaimed himself the Messiah sent to Earth by the only true God to reform and save mankind by teaching right religion and morals.

As a young man, Mani had set out to convert the world. In his travels, he learned something about the religions of India; in the Near East he was exposed to Judaism, Christianity, and Mithraism. But most influential in the formation of his religious convictions was the religion of his own Persian heritage, Zoroastrianism. Mani preached his faith for about 30 years and was martyred by jealous Magian priests. Crucified, his dead body was stuffed with straw and hung from the gates of the then-important Persian city of Susa.

But, as has happened so frequently in history, martyrdom had the opposite effect than that intended by the executioners. Following his crucifixion, the faith of Mani spread through all the Roman world and became the most formidable rival to Christianity in the first few hundred years of the Christian era. St. Augustine, most influential theological figure since Paul, had been a Manichean for ten years before his conversion to Christianity. But Augustine never wholly cast out the Manichean influence.

Manicheanism was outlawed when Christianity became the official religion in the fourth century. One historian remarked that if you wished to curse emphatically, or use an unpleasantly profane slur, you could accomplish this by calling a person a Manichean. But Manicheanism persisted in the East for at least 1000 years, and its distinctive notions have surfaced again and again in the West, even to this day.

Rooted in the teachings of Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), who founded the religion named for him 600 years before the beginning of the Christian era, the distinctiveness of Manicheanism is best understood in its genesis in Zoroastrianism.

Zoroaster was somewhat unique among the religious prophets of his day and succeeding times, because Zoroaster taught that there were two gods – a benevolent god and an evil god. These two deities were equal in strength. Or at least, humans could not know with certainty which god would prevail in the end. Every moment in the life of man was part of the struggle between the good god and the bad god, or as Christianity later incorporated this teaching, between god and the devil. In Zoroastrianism, however, the Devil was not created by God, but existed independently. Zoroaster believed his mission was to call people to become part of the relentless conflict against the forces of evil.

This developed into a theological dualism. The Universe was the battleground of these two vast and infinite forces, good and evil, light and darkness – an unpitying struggle between polar opposites.

Although the early Christian church destroyed most of the writings of the Manicheans, its doctrines appeared again and again in certain heretical groups, the Priscillianists, the Albigenses, and the Cathari, for example. Frederic Speigelberg, one of the most thorough of the students of Manicheanism makes the following comment (LIVING RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, p. 465-7):

“Christianity is only half-rejected Manicheanism, extirpating it consciously but absorbing much of it subconsciously.... Wherever Manicheanism traveled, it brought about a radicalization of ethical doctrine, presenting extremes of dualism....

“Christianity survived because it was literally driven underground, where it developed and gathered strength and accumulated to itself an impenetrable mystery. Manicheanism has survived by much the same process, for the unknowable has a stronger grip on our minds than the knowable. But we may well ask ourselves which of the two survives primarily today: are we Christians with a Manichean subconscious or Manicheans with a Christian subconscious?”

II – There are parallels in our American history to this Manichean Thread which proposes that life is an interminable conflict between good and evil; and that evil is a total conspiracy.

Historian, the late Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., in an article published Nov. 65 (SR) listed some examples found in American political and social history, although he was not making this “Manichean” analogy.

If you were on the NY Thruway between Rochester and Buffalo, you would see an exit for Batavia, New York, where an event in 1826 illustrated this Manichean Thread. William Morgan of Batavia was abducted and presumed murdered. Popular hysteria soon whipped up a whirlwind of alarm because Morgan, a bricklayer and a Mason, had written a book exposing the secrets of the Masonic order. It was generally thought that an awful fate awaited those who revealed lodge secrets. “When four persons were found guilty of the kidnapping and got off with light sentences,” there was widespread suspicion that the Masons controlled courts, police, and government. Incidentally, Morgan’s body was never found; the disappearance is an unsolved mystery. But at the time, “Manichean” hysteria, paranoid suspicion of all Masonic lodges and members spread like a raging virus. Traveling lecturers “denounced the hydra-headed monster” (the masonic order). “Churches expelled Masonic preachers and laymen. Many lodges disbanded; in New York State alone their number dropped from 600 in 1826 to 50 in 1834.” The hysteria affected legislation and candidates for local, state, and national offices. The anti-masonic movement did not endure; Masonic orders again became not only respectable but an honorable association for men, and still is. But that 8-year hysteria was an example of the Manichean Thread.

Soon after anti-Catholicism became the example of paranoia, with all sorts of defamatory stories, rumors, and gossip circulated by fanatic minds. Anti-Catholicism persisted. The following anecdote from my own experience is illustrative. Some years ago in N.J. on a boiling July Sunday afternoon, ... the glaring sun and 100 degree temperature made a twelve-mile peace march against the Vietnam War trying and exhausting for those of us trudging along. On the way, a nun, a member of a Roman Catholic religious order, saw why we were marching, and joined in. She was the administrative head of a nearby Roman Catholic orphanage. She happened to be walking with me for awhile. First, she gave me hell that more of the religious orders were not on the mailing list of the peace organizations so their members might know the time and place of peace demonstrations. Then, she said, because the evening meal at the orphanage must be prepared, she could not stay with the march. She left; but before long she was back again with other sisters bringing cold watermelon, sandwiches, and lemonade to the thirsty and hungry marchers.

Another marcher said to me as she observed the kind, generous sisters, “You have no idea what an emancipation it is to have some of my prejudices fall away like dead leaves.”

In my own lifetime I can remember the appearance of the Manichean Thread in attitudes toward Roman Catholicism. The election campaign of Al Smith provided too many illustrations to require further evidence, not to speak of the deluge of “sick” mail I received at the time of the John F. Kennedy campaign for the presidency in 1960.

This is not to say that one should not oppose political efforts of the Roman Catholic Church when one disagrees with principles and particulars in such thoroughly basic issues as the separation of Church and State, family planning, a woman’s right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and other attitudes. But it is to say that to attribute all evil to Roman Catholics, calling the Pope the Anti-Christ and expressing crude bigotry and vicious charges without proof, is to become twisted up in the Manichean Thread.

III – Has history turned about? No. Need we fear that the Manichean Thread will condemn persons without evidence; convict without trial; charge conspiracy without proof? Unfortunately, yes. The Manichean Thread still weaves its destructive ways through the fabric of our lives. Bigots and warped persons still speak their baseless, wretched accusations.

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Catholicism still hurt the lives of many persons. But also the Manichean Thread is found on the extremes of political and economic thought in our day.

Some of us are old enough to remember the hey-day of the John Birch Society, founded by Robert Welch, who dided not long ago (and at the time of the founding, he was a Unitarian). The John Birch Society falsely accused thousands of being communists or part of the “communist conspiracy.” Welch named President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles “conscious agents of the Communist party” and his organization made fervent and loud cries to impeach Earl Warren, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

And of course the hysteria and fear caused by the late Senator Joe McCarthy needs no rehearsing.

Today the far right, including the religious far right, has been pulling out all stops accusing “secular humanism” of eliminating God from the public schools, of being responsible for all social ills, drugs, morals, lack of patriotism, crime in the streets. Today, whatever is amiss in society, or does not conform to the far right’s doctrines is “secular humanism” which must be wiped out.

As I perceive it, the radical right organizations use a paranoid style of attack – anyone not in their corner is under suspicion. The extremists believe thoroughly that a conspiracy prevails in our land. As the anti-Masons believed that the courts were part of a Masonic conspiracy, so the John Birch Society wanted to impeach Earl Warren. As Senator McCarthy created a vast wave of fear with his ruthless and baseless charges, so the far-right makes humanism a target for equally baseless charges. Another characteristic of the Manichean Thread is that the far-right arouses fear of absolute evil [with] which there can be no authentic communication, only warfare.

Within the memory of most of us, the income tax, the United Nations, fluoridation of water supplies, foreign aid, community mental health programs, the National Council of Churches have been accused of being part of the Communist conspiracy or that they are “communist dupes.” The extremists see themselves and only themselves as America’s savior from international conspiracy. They believe they are on the “good” side against the “evil” - and that there is no middle ground, only extremes.

As Hofstader wrote (p. 73), “moreover the Manichean and apocalyptic style of thought prevalent in the fundamentalist tradition can easily be carried over into secular affairs and transmuted into a curiously crude and almost superstitious form of anti-communism.” And, I would add, the same rigid, uncompromising attack is being made on humanism – an attack without definition, and without serious attention to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The point should be made, however, that conspiracies exist. When two or more persons conspire to break laws and engage in illegal acts, to steal authentic government secrets, to destroy by innuendo, to infiltrate a labor union, PTA, or any other organization for the purpose of subverting it to extremist ends, these are conspiracies. But there is an elementary difference between lawful assembly for political planning and influence and unlawful conspiracy – a conspiracy to plan and execute violations of the law. If one has any qualities of fair play or any respect for the Constitution of our land, he/she will not accuse others of conspiracy unless there is credible evidence. Hofstader has a telling sentence (p. 37-38), “The plausibility the paranoid style has for those who find it plausible lies, in good measure in (the) appearance of the most careful, conscientious, and seemingly coherent application to detail, the laborious accumulation of what can be taken as convincing evidence for the most fantastic conclusions, the careful preparation (to jump) from the undeniable and the unbelievable.” There is only one bridge from vague feelings of hostility to accusations of conspiracy or evil – that bridge is evidence. Vague feelings should not bear the weight for sensible people. Neither is the crossing to the unbelievable accomplished by mysterious sayings or hostile feelings toward one with whom one does not agree. One may not require more than a feeling to believe God is good, but much more authentic evidence is needed to accuse rightfully a person of being a devil.

I like what the late Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in A SENSE OF LIFE, “We must put aside the passions and beliefs that divide us, for once we give them our allegiance, they bring in their wake, a veritable Koran of unshakable truths and all the fanaticism that springs from them. It is possible to align men as men of the Right and men of the Left ... as fascists and democrats; these distinctions are unassailable. But truth – and this we know – truth is what clarifies and not that which creates chaos.”

IV – You may be thinking, if Manichean thought does ill, not good, in its irrational, uncompromising and unreal division of good and evil, where shall we draw the line? As human beings are we prone to such patterns of feeling and thought that we always will respond to the idea that conspiracies exist even when there is no evidence? It is dangerous to assume too much from questionable circumstances. A few years back, it was reported that a high official of our government, in filling out a personnel form, was asked to answer whether or not members of his family had participated in an attempt to overthrow the U.S. Government by force. When the applicant answered “Yes,” there was a startled, solemn request for more information. When asked to specify, the candidate wrote, “my two grandfathers, both of whom fought with the Confederacy in the Civil War....” The information supplied by Dean Rusk, Secretary of State.

The Manichean impulse doesn’t readily, easily, or willingly distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information. We know that anxieties are great in a time of troubles, fears, insecurity, baffling problems – a time such as ours when the overwhelming and prime problems – peace in the world, world hunger, the domestic and economic problems – seem to become more muddled rather than more clear, and responses filled with more malice than good will.

Theologically, the Manichean Thread was correctly rejected because it is neither true to the human condition nor a credit to any God or any system of human values. But where would you draw the line between good people and bad people?

In THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN, Aldous Huxley wrote (p. 237), “No man can concentrate upon evil, or even upon the idea of evil, and remain unaffected. To be more against the devil than FOR God is exceedingly dangerous. He is haunted by the wickedness which he attributes to his enemies; it becomes in some sort a part of him.”

If we want to draw a line between good people and evil people, we will draw the line right through ourselves. An aged man in Ohio told me that he heard that as a boy from a Unitarian minister in Marietta. The thought has enduring wisdom.

It is an ancient verity – true – theologically, sociologically, and psychologically.

We experience strange mixtures and sequences of good and bad feelings surging up from within us, do we not? Who of us has never been selfish, vain, deceitful, antagonistic? Yet now and again we are moved also toward kindness, self-honesty, truthfulness, and peace. The story is told of a youngster in a New York City settlement house who, when asked what he would most want if he could have three wishes, answered, “A machine-gun, a revolver – and everybody should be happy.” This lad was not different from most of us, was he? We do want everybody to be happy, but lurking within us are hostile wishes for machine gun and revolver-like things too. St. Augustine’s painfully honest prayer was in this same vein: “O Lord, free me from sin, but not quite yet.”

If we want to draw a line between good people and bad people we should always divide ourselves as well as labeling others. This I believe is the human reality that is sometimes called “sin” or “depravity” in theological language. This is behind such religious myths. Joseph Campbell (MASKS OF GOD, p. 26-7) remarks, “Whenever a myth has been taken literally, its sense has been perverted; but also, reciprocally, that whenever it has been dismissed as merely priestly fraud or sign of inferior intelligence, truth has slipped out the door.”

The ancient Chinese were wise in this matter of our divided selves. One of the oldest of their religious symbols is the circle which blends the Yin and the Yang, symbol of the merging nature of light and shadow, male and female, positive and negative – good and evil. These qualities contrast each other; and their blended nature creates the whole.

No one wears an inner garment that is either a seamless robe of purity or a besmirched rag of vice. Blemish and virtue are always there, although proportions differ. Society protects itself from the outlaw who victimizes his fellow men and women. The law limits the ways we may ACT toward our fellow humans. The difference between the captured, convicted criminal and ourselves is not a difference of kind, but of conscience and control – and sometimes, luck. Years ago I knew an aged, picturesque, fulsomely corrupt character who had been a professional gambler and swindler among his more respectable occupations. He would say with a wink of his jaded eye, “I never met a guy who didn’t have a streak of larceny somewhere.”

We are sunk in a sea of riddles and inscrutables, knowing and understanding neither what is around us or in us, completely. When one adopts the absolute ways of Manichean judgment of good and evil, one proceeds not on evidence, but on feelings unfounded in fact. He/she who weaves the Manichean Thread seldom realizes that the soul he is primarily judging is his own.