Nowhere to go but Church

Capitalism, Christo-fascism, and the erosion of public space

“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis

“Capitalism is what is left when beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration, and all that is left is the consumer- spectator, trudging through the ruins and the relics.” - Mark Fisher; Capitalist Realism

Photo by M. Cooper on Unsplash

You might have seen the shocking news: Louisiana is now the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill that has just become law. These “poster-sized” displays must be paired with a four-paragraph “context statement” describing how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries,” according to the Associated Press. Legal action against this unconstitutional and egregious violation of the separation between church and state must be imminent. You would hope that the likelihood of the law being struck down is 100%, but with the current Supreme Court we have to acknowledge that the odds are less than certain.

A response I often see to religious fundamentalism, Christo-fascism, and other homegrown movements that advocate far-right and unconstitutional positions is derision and mockery – in addition to some logical and legal arguments. I understand thinking that making fun of the right might have an impact; in truth it could influence some young people to stay away, to head in another direction, and that would be a good thing. I also understand arguing for the illegality of their vision and the detrimental effects of their policies, but I don’t think public debate has quite the impact we tend to think it does in our less-than-democratic country. In particular, when the infrastructure and economic layout of society is conducive to the rise of a movement, and when it aligns with the interests of the ruling class, responding with debate and mockery, even if it’s born out of good intention, out of a desire to be helpful to society at large, is bound to be insufficient. And that is the situation we find ourselves in right here.

Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

I’ve decided to take a slightly roundabout route to a solution today, but I’ll still to get there quickly. Just before seeing the Louisiana news I saw a different, and odd, development: Netflix is building physical “experience venues'' in Dallas and right outside Philly. These new “Netflix Houses” will be something like glorified malls, with shopping, restaurants, and “experiences” connected to the company's biggest shows like Bridgerton, Stranger Things and even Squid Game. There’s a whole different essay to be written, or already written, on the virtual streamer realizing the value of physical investments, but I’m more focused right now on how we spend our time, and how we’re forced to spend our time.

I say forced because in many ways public space has been consumed by profit motive. This centuries-long project, from the seizing of common land for private gain to defunding parks and libraries to simply making it expensive to exist in public, has always been crucial to capitalism, and is still underway. In countless public spaces around the country the very infrastructure that makes it possible to exist without being a paying customer has disappeared. Benches and chairs are removed from public spaces, while restaurants add outdoor seating. Public bathrooms go out of service, if they ever existed to begin with, while cafes have restrooms – for paying customers. Parks are defunded, while Netflix builds “experience” venues around their biggest brands. Like so much of capitalist encroachment into our lives, there is economic theory and analysis that attempts to justify why privatizing our world somehow comes back around to benefit us, but our own experience and guts tell us that making it harder and harder to step outside without spending money isn’t ultimately good for any of us. And common sense tells us the same.

Now it’s not that Christo-fascists are exempt from profit motive, not by a long shot. They have their sizable arena of grifters, from talking heads to pastors bringing in tons of money. But their physical spaces, their churches, function in many ways like a public space. This is vitally important to their mission and their successful growth and propagation. Countless churches, evangelical and otherwise, give out free meals, host free community events, and function as communal hubs for large chunks of America. Some of these institutions are simply living up to the actual mission of Jesus, but a lot of this communal interaction at deeply conservative churches is in truth more concerned with bringing people into the fold, and often into the flock of paying members, than it is about doing good deeds and serving the needy.

More importantly, a society where the most accessible and helpful public space is a church, where the place to get the food you need or the clothing you need or the human interaction you need is a conservative religious institution, will grow more conservative. A country where you have to spend money to exist in public, but can show up to church for free, will grow towards that church.

Photo by Sander Weeteling on Unsplash

All of this just one way that the neoliberal project of privatizing public goods and public spaces has fed the growth of the conservative movement. We shouldn’t be compelled to retreat into stores or restaurants or churches; we should have beautiful and useful and free public spaces and goods that we easily available to all of us. Much like the ruling class is criminalizing homelessness instead of providing houses, they’re monetizing our existence in public instead of funding decent public services. Poverty is becoming increasingly untenable, and in the process the common goods that allow for a good life for everyone are being stripped away.

Doing something about the disintegration of that which makes life livable, about the decay of the public good into a series of worsening, privatized services doesn’t just look like bashing conservatives, their churches, and their ideas. It looks like providing alternatives, it looks like building up and funding great public spaces, it looks like funding public goods. That material investment in a society where we actively care for one another, both through policy and through our organizing, is an infinitely stronger bulwark against Christo-fascism than debate or condescension. We have to build the world we want to see, both to show people that the world they were told is impossible is within reach, and to show them that it’s better than the conservative and oppresive vision that’s been placed in their imaginations. It’s time to show, not just tell.

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