Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter

A couple of weeks ago I signed onto Facebook and saw that one of my friends had voted in some poll as to who was the worst president in recent history. My friend had cast his voted for George W. Bush. Now my friend grew up in the same conservative Christian circles that I did, but much like myself, finds himself somewhere outside these circles. The first comment came from an unbelievably opinionated and obnoxious person--who we both know: "Are you kidding me Josh? What about the peanut farmer from Georgia?" Josh unsuccessfully tried to brush this off with a bit of a joke. Twenty comments later people are referring to Carter as a "disaster," and some crazy man who inexplicably capitalizes the first letter of every word is ranting about Obama and the end of the United States as we know it. These are Christian people...I suppose. Carter is a Christian. How is it that these people could harbor such negative feelings toward arguably the most active ex-President? Well, as luck would have it, this book offers at least a partial answer to this question.

The first thing to note about this book is its overtly Christian perspective. As he has for most of his life, Carter speaks candidly about his religious beliefs in this book. He does not shy away from the fact that he is a Christian (a Baptist, to be more precise) or that Christian values inform much of his thinking. You would think this would appeal to Christians.

Our Endangered Values addresses the rise of fundamentalism and the threat that it poses to our values. That's right, Facebook wackjobs: you are the insidious threat to our nation! Ex-President Carter and I say so, so it has to be true. Carter is a good person to address this, since his personal life was directly affected by it. In the book he talks about how in 1979, fundamentalists essentially took control of the Southern Baptist Convention. Their "with us or against us" approach drove many thinking people away, while at the same time it bolstered their prominence on the political scene. Their intransigence no doubt informed the definition of fundamentalism that Carter uses in this book. "Fundamentalists tend to make their self-definition increasingly narrow and restricted, to isolate themselves, to demagogue emotional issues, and to view change, cooperation, negotiation, and other efforts to resolve differences as signs of weakness."

This book begins in the late 1970s, with the rise of such religious zealots as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Jerry Fallwell. But Carter levels criticism at those who were in positions of power at the time when this book was written (2006). He criticizes Bush II on issues such a "faith-based" initiatives, torture, his economic policies, and the war in Iraq. His criticisms rest on sound Christian and American principles, such as the Separation of Church and State (I can capitalize first letters too), Christ-like love, and the redistribution of wealth that runs like a current through the New Testament. However, Values does not devolve into some Olbermann-esque screed against Bush, or a listing of his blunders. Far from it, Carter is composed and cool in his criticisms. (But does he set them to a sweet Coldplay song?)

While not its intent or purpose, this book provides a two-fold answer for why fundamentalist Christians dislike President Carter so much. Firstly, they are as he describes them: openly hostile toward negotiation, alternative ideas, and entire groups of people (I am paraphrasing). Secondly, he calls them out on it. Why would a Christian support the invasion of Iraqi? How could a Christian possibly be okay with torture? Should not Christians be good stewards of the planet? But fundamentalist are not about self-reflection. They are not about loving others. They are about attacking those who do not believe exactly like they do. So it doesn't matter that Jimmy Carter worked to reduce the need for abortions, what mattered was that he did not attack the judiciary for the decision in Roe v. Wade. The religious right loves attacking the Judiciary. Separation of church and state be damned! And while were at it, let's get rid of the separation of the powers of government as well. It doesn't matter that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. To these religious ideologues, Carter is a total sellout, a lukewarm Christian that will ultimately be spewed out of God's mouth.

It is comforting to know that amongst all the Christian wackos out there, Christians like President Carter exist. Principled people who use their lives to effect positive change on the world are much preferred to people who wake up every morning, pull on their waxy costume of Christianity, plaster a televangelist smile over their cesspool of hatred, and start shouting.
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The Private Faith of Jimmy on American Public Media
"Just War -- or a Just War?" by Jimmy Carter
Interview about this book with Mother Jones

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Warning: Here, too, are minor spoilers.

A while back I received a signed copy of Ender's Shadow, one of the sequels to Ender's Game. I thought pretty highly of it, especially the first half which follows Bean (an ancillary character in Game) during his youth as a homeless but brilliant runt in Rotterdam. Ender's Game, as I kind of expected, is similar almost to the point of overlap. Both are about children who are sent to Battle School (a space station where they are taught to fight humanity's enemy, the ant-like Formics) at an unusually young age; both characters are brilliant strategists and canny judges of character who are adept at manipulating situations to their benefit. The only difference is that Ender carries quite a bit more guilt about it, and as a result is probably the more interesting character. Even the twist ending is the same!

But that doesn't mean that Ender's Game wasn't worth reading. I love how tightly plotted Card's books are; they embody a kind of human logic and predictability that I don't think actually exists in real life. This is best on display at Battle School, where the students play a team-based strategy game that involves fighting in zero-G rooms with lasers that have the ability to freeze an opponent's limbs or body. Ender, being cast into leading a squadron before his time, is a master at this game and never loses; in each game he out-strategizes his opponent brilliantly. These episodes are a lot of fun, and reading about Ender using his strategic skills in the real world drags quite a bit in comparison. (By contrast, the first half of Ender's Shadow illustrates Bean's social intelligence outside the Battle Room more capably.)

One thing I found myself thinking about was the political implications of Ender's world--while Ender is at Battle School training, his psychopathic brother Peter and his compassionate sister Valentine are cooking up a scheme to protect the world from internecine conflict by pretending to a pair of adversarial writers who form public opinion on domestic matters. This is a neat bit, because it pretty accurately presages the existence of blogs, though the power of any individual blogger and the amount of security that exists on Card's equivalent of the internet are pretty laughable.

But that's not the point I want to make. Ultimately, Peter and Valentine are able to orchestrate it so that Peter becomes the leader of the world, staving off a world war after the Formics are defeated by Ender, who we have come to learn is pretty much the only guy that exists with the ability to lead world forces into battle. I think that makes them basically a more formidable family than the Adamses, Bushes, Kennedys, and Osbournes combined.

Card dabbles in right-wing punditry, but strikes me as more the Huckabee type--he is an outspoken critic of gay marriage, but maintains a pretty strong skepticism of free markets. I see this reflected in Ender's Game; collective human actions seem to lead to disaster without the guidance of a few super-individuals. In Ender's world, at least, a strong central power is both the political and military solution--oligarchy, monarchy, fascism, whatever you want to call it, it works. Does that idea make you a little bit uncomfortable? I admit that while I am of the opinion that a particular human being can change the world in significant and measurable ways, it isn't always for the better and this kind of solution is generally not to be trusted.

But maybe I'm inventing parallels when there are none--after all, one of Ender's chief strategies in battle is to delegate a lot of responsibility to his subordinates. But, then again, in the end he's the only one who can be trusted to take his ship to the Formic homeworld.

Political positions aside, this is probably one of the better traditional science fiction books I've ever read, as good as Asimov or Bradbury and a sight better than most of Card's contemporaries. I've been getting recommendations to read it for years, and I'm glad I did.