“NI MARX NI JESUS”: an anarchist slogan left over from the May, 1968, student revolts in Paris? Far from it. The phrase is the title of a book (published by Editions Robert Laffont) that has deservedly captured the attention of the French reading public during the last several months. The author, Jean-François Revel, is a columnist for L’Express, a weekly news magazine that functions in France much as Time does in the United States—but without Time’s essentially conservative-republican slant. L’Express is socialist in spirit, and so is Revel.
Here we must not see red. Revel is by no means Communist. Indeed, his position is what Engels contemptuously called “utopian socialism—an infantile disorder.” Why “utopian” and “infantile”? Because of its refusal to recognize “inevitable dialectic forces” in history and to accelerate them through acts of social violence.
The question for Revel is: What can be done for modern civilization if there is no built-in economic and political perfection? The subtitle of his provocative volume is: “From the second American revolution to the second world revolution.” He is convinced that the modern world—from the rise of secularism in the eighteenth century to our frenetic twentieth century—is in continual revolutionary ferment, and that the particular revolutionary atmosphere in the United States today constitutes the single genuine crucible for proper world renewal.
Obviously Revel operates with a broad definition of revolution (this is generally true of “utopian socialists”!). He specifically lists five “conditions” for genuine revolution: (1) critique of economic, social, and often racial injustice; (2) critique of the managerial and administrative inefficiency whereby human and natural resources are wasted; (3) critique of power politics; (4) critique of accepted cultural values and of the educational system and literary productivity that fosters them; (5) critique of the status quo in so far as it insists on conformity and prevents the individual from realizing his unique potential.
For Revel, the need for world revolution is perfectly plain from the miseries on the planet: every one of his five revolutionary “critiques” can well be leveled at our modern world. Remarkably, however, he expressly endeavors to show that neither in the Marxist sphere (Russia and China) nor in Western Europe and in the developing countries can a proper revolution come about; it can happen, to use Harry Golden’s expression, “only in America”!
Why not behind the iron and bamboo curtains? “If the second world revolution has to create real equality among men, it is clear that the concentration of all power—political, economic, military, technological, cultural, informational—in the hands of an oligarchy or even, in certain cases (Stalin, Tito, Castro), (in an autocracy, is the last means capable of leading to such a revolution.” Why not Europe or the developing peoples? Because in these areas true revolution is dependent, like it or not, on the situation prevailing in America.
The openness of American society allows it to engage in continual self-criticism and self-renewal. This is the spirit that can bring a non-violent end to nationalistic Realpolitik and the substitution of a just world policy. The single illustration of American mass-media—uncontrolled (in contrast to the government-operated TV of France and of many other nations) and able directly to influence events as well as record them (e.g., opposition to the Viet Nam war)—shows how dynamic is the American potential for positive change.
But why, since America is a “Christian country,” does Revel title his book “Neither Marx nor Jesus”? (This is a nagging question for all readers, since Jesus is first mentioned in the last chapter—twenty five pages before the book ends!)
Revel notes the amazing religious pluralism in the United States and the absence of any church establishment, and regards these factors as important elements in the American open society. But any search for a revolutionary Christian vitality leads one beyond the formally organized religious groups to the “Jesus freaks” who “drop out” of the societal stream to become “very first century” with their communities in which Jesus substitutes for alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity. Revel, however, sees this as an irresponsible retreat from the grave crises of the day, and he cites Bruno Bettelheim and André Stephané on the immaturity of sidestepping reality: “The narcissistic stage consists of wanting everything in one fell swoop and if one doesn’t get it, one hallucinates.”
This vague Jesus-mysticism will solve the problems of our revolutionary era no better than a Procrustean and doctrinaire Marxism. What is needed is responsible and positive revolutionary change within the imperfect political and economic frameworks whose functioning is essential to twentieth-century life, and the furtherance of open society where change can in fact occur responsibly.
Locating points to criticize in Revel’s thinking is not particularly difficult (like most humanistic utopian socialists he thinks, with utter naïveté, that proper values will be recognized and followed by reasonable men and that self-interest falls by the wayside in the face of true values; and he does not observe that the glories of American open society arose, indirectly and in part at least, from a biblical view of man). But are we mature enough to take his criticisms seriously? As an outside observer of our society (and such observers, like De Tocqueville in the nineteenth century, generally have much wisdom to impart to us if we are humble enough to listen), Revel sees our Christianity and our social existence as two separate and hermetically sealed compartments. “Separation of church and state” has become “separation of Jesus and society.” (I am haunted by the enthusiastic advocacy of this “separation” by a high-ranking East German government official whom I spoke with in Berlin recently: the church must stick to the “spiritual.”)
How sad that the Jesus freaks so vastly outnumber the Mark Hatfields. How sad that in our fear that we will alienate Christian brethren over “practical applications” we refuse as churches to speak and act decisively in fighting biblically condemned injustice. How sad that we will send our sons and daughters to third-rate Bible schools with the anointing of “full-time Christian service” and not encourage them to go to a university where, after training in political science, economics, and law, they could enter into the maelstrom of our modern revolutionary age and seek to revolutionize it responsibly for Christ. Only then will books be written with the adversative title: Not Marx but Jesus.
JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY
