Can You See the Matrix?

“While the voices of blockbuster movies and pop culture cry out for a life outside the matrix of numb efficiency… thankfully there is a movement of ordinary radicals sweeping the land, and ordinary people are choosing to live in radical new ways.”

A friend of mine wrote a blog about Shane Claiborne’s book “Irresistible Revolution.” I started to leave a comment, but it was getting to be just as long as the post itself, so I decided to write a blog in response to his.

http://reverenceofthemysterious.blogspot.com/
2008/04/first-century-christianity-brought-to.html

Shane Claiborne is definitely someone who backs up his writing with actions. He’s not just promoting this sort of life-style; he’s living it. As a pseudo-Portlander, I was interested to note that an emerging church here in Portland, Imago Dei, was supported by the proceeds of his book.

One of the (many) definitions of Postmodernism is “Late-capitalism.” Everything is infiltrated with the capitalist mindset. I went to the Portland Art Museum today with some 9th graders, and I couldn’t tell you how many times they suggested to one another that they should become an artist, because they could make millions! Especially attractive to them was the ease with which they could do it. Work is not valued, in and of itself; only as a means of making capital.

Seeing how money is really only illusionary and symbolic, it seems like a shaky ground to base one’s potential happiness on. However, the real troubling aspect is that we not only judge inanimate objects within the capitalistic mindset, our fellow human beings. When we meet someone, one of the first questions we ask is “What do you do?” which is secretly the question, “How much money do you make?” Depending on their answer we know how much society values them based on the sort of work they do, a.k.a we’ll have much more respect for a doctor than a janitor, since they make more money. Even our houses and cars are structured around appearances, trying to make them look as expensive as possible to get people to think that we are well-valued in society. From what little I know of Foucault, he would see that as a power struggle; the more societal value we have, the more power. Having just read Karl Marx’s, “The Communist Manifesto,” his criticisms are particularly notable in light of this conversation.

And perhaps that is one thing Christianity can take from Marx. Not just his criticism of capitalism, but perhaps even his alternative lifestyle. As Victor alluded to in his blog, politically communism has failed miserably and it would be foolish to say that it is flawless. But in the context of the Church, should our communities be somewhat communistic? The Anabaptists seemed to think so, abolishing private property and private capital, etc.

The New Monastics, which Claiborne and some of his fellow brothers are sometimes being called, seem to value this sort of counter-cultural lifestyle as well. One could argue that we need to realize that we live by a different paradigm of reality; what the world tells us is “real” is really an allusion; a matrix we are stuck in. However, it is possible to recognize the matrix and have a rebirth (not unlike Neo’s– full of lots of pain) and to see the world as it really is. Rodney Clapp wrote a book called “A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian World.” While Neibuhr’s renowned “Christ and Culture” was profoundly important, Clapp’s criticism of it is that he addresses “culture” as this monolithic thing; Clapp recognizes that we live in a multi-cultural society, and that the church itself should be one of those cultures. And as its own culture, Christianity has a lot of practices (liturgy) that operates under a different way of thinking that reveals itself differently, and perhaps even counter-cultural (or, my favorite word, subversive). The New Monastics practice this liturgy in a profound way; but that is not to diminish the subversiveness of the “normal” Christian practices. Even getting up and going to church is itself a counter-cultural act; “time is money” capitalism says, and as such we should spend every minute we can trying to increase our capital. There is no way to “make money” at church (unless you’re the pastor?), but more than that, it is saying there is something much more valuable than money.

Teaching the Communist Manifesto… to 9th Graders.

It is a horribly distasteful feeling to look into seventeen pairs of eyes belonging to the brightest freshmen I know… and see blank stares. Irritably, I cannot even interpret why they look blank; are they bored, apathetic, did they get enough sleep the night before, or do they just not see me as someone they can learn from? Of course, my real hope is that they are actually learning something, despite the evidence to the contrary.

I am a senior in high school, and the reason I was teaching The Communist Manifesto is because of my role as teacher’s assistant, and the teacher was out of town. I petitioned for the role of TA because I thought I wanted to be a teacher; but to be honest, I don’t know if teaching is even a profession I want to go into. I know I love to learn, and that I would love others to love to learn as much as I do. Not to mention the numerous ways my life has been changed by those who see their identities as “teacher” not just their occupation. But do I have the gifts and strengths to be a teacher myself? That is a question I hope I won’t have to wrestle with for a few years. But for the time being, I know I wanted to do my best in this role.

The class curriculum itself is quite fascinating in and of itself, even for me; the freshmen are learning things most people do not learn until college, if they learn it at all. The highlight of the year is the number of months they spent on the Enlightenment, reading literature that correlated with the time and/or themes of the Enlightenment. Now they are struggling through “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx, the most difficult reading they’ve had all year.

I began reading it myself, and it certainly was not a piece of cake. The language especially is the difficult aspect for a group of 14-year-olds who would much prefer the writing style of Ted Dekker than the antiquated language of Karl Marx (and… perhaps I secretly speak for myself as well). So not only did I face the challenge to lead a discussion over the message of Karl Marx and its long-reaching implications (which I was not even sure if I understood correctly), but I also had to be able to tell them what specific paragraphs and words meant. It’s one thing to read something and have a nice summary to use for inspiration in an abstract discussion; quite another to actually encounter the text itself.

When it got down to it, certain things were disastrous. I selected a number of quotes that I printed the day before on transparencies, only to find the next morning I had not allowed the ink to dry before stacking them on each other, leaving them smudged and pretty much useless. Then I had thought we would start from page one, spending the most time on the first section, and if time allowed, move on to the second. Apparently I was not present (or paying attention) previously, since the class had already talked about the first section. In hindsight I realize I should have asked someone to summarize, both for my benefit and theirs, but instead I was so flustered I just opened it up to questions and jumped right into the material. I’m not sure if this was a good strategy on my part, especially because in some ways I made it clear to them that I really had no idea what I was talking about. Not to say that I told them I was unqualified (although they could have taken it that way) , or that nothing could be learned; I just wanted them to know that my comments and explanations were undoubtedly imperfect, even if my experiences gave me a better context from which to interpret the passages more accurately than they could.

For the majority of the period, I opened it up to specific questions the students had, and after having them read the paragraph they were struggling with, I’d try and explain it in layman’s terms. I had a dictionary on my desk for the words I had never heard of, or did not want to explain poorly. All-in-all, I think it went… alright. of course, there’s always things that can be improved. But, on the positive side of things, we parsed out exploitation, discussed why Marx would want to abolish things like private property, the family, and eternal truths and religion. I even tried to talk about metanarratives with them at the very end, but with about three minutes on the clock I think I just confused them more than anything. Hopefully it was at least a starting point for further conversation.

My biggest obstacle was not knowing whether or not they actually cared about trying to learn the material. A lot of my experience as a student has shown me that in most classrooms, the learner is almost entirely passive. As I’m studying teaching, however, I’m realizing that if true learning is taking place, it is the student who is the main character in the classroom, and as such should play a very active role. As a student myself it is a little uncomfortable to do that in classrooms in which my peers are content to be passive, and in which the teacher has some sort of agenda that makes them prefer to be the main character in the classroom. Because I am chiefly a student, it felt like I was masquerading as a teacher for the period, and I had no way of knowing whether or not the students saw me as someone they could truly learn from or someone not worth their time. Ultimately I hope despite their passivity and my own experience, learning occurred, at least in a foundational way that can continue to be built upon.