Privilege Was Not the Original Sin, Arrogance Was

The forbidden fruit taken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden certainly seems like it had a sour taste. For indulging in a little knowledge, the two brought sin and death into the world, got kicked out of paradise, and were each assigned their own specially frustrating labor projects. Bible commentators down through history have noted an obvious lesson here: sometimes what we learn through experience is pretty bitter. Thanks to the actions of Adam and Eve, we all have been corrupted and stand in need of salvation... or so the story goes.

Some right-leaning academics and activists have likened the concept of privilege to that of Original Sin. Both are things we are born into, that we cannot escape, and they are best dealt with by a confessional or penitent approach. James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian draw this comparison in their article, "Privilege: The Left's Original Sin," published at AllThink.com. There is no greater sin in the eyes of the left, they claim, than "having been born an able-bodied, straight, white male who identifies as a man but isn't deeply sorry for this utterly unintentional state of affairs."¹

Interesting similarities do exist between privilege and Original Sin, as noted. Yet concepts like apostasy, faith, and religion are frequently associated with secular ideas in ways that are more tenuous than they are convincing. The more the sacred retreats from the latter half of that equation, the weaker the analogy seems. If the mere association with religion is meant to be an indictment on talk of privilege, then Boghossian's unabashed borrowing from the evangelizing pages of Christian ministry in A Manual for Creating Atheists is no less guilty. Presumably, though, the main complaint is not the religious connection, but how privilege and Original Sin have both been used as shaming devices.

Certainly, privilege talk can be used to try and control or stop conversation. In that sense it is quite like Original Sin as it has been employed by brazen preachers spreading a message of hellfire and brimstone. But where many on the right have interpreted privilege in terms of personal attacks, many on the left have been endorsing it with the aim of calling attention to broader social issues. Mychal Denzel Smith, writing for The Nation, observes that when "people with privilege hear that they have privilege, what they hear is not, 'Our society is structured so that your life is more valued than others.' They hear, 'Everything, no matter what, will be handed to you. You have done nothing to achieve what you have.'"² Apology and repentance are not the goals for those who partake of the language of privilege – social reform is the goal.

Discrimination is offered in the article as a better alternative to privilege. This may be splitting hairs, but it may also underscore a valuable point. Discrimination has a history behind it, especially a legal one, and it has often been addressed on an isolated, individual-case basis. To suggest that there are more systemic problems in our courts, in our neighborhoods, and in our society, a bigger word seems necessary. Privilege stings. It evokes an air of elitism, of undeserved benefit, and it plays off the anti-magisterial sentiments that have long been a part of American culture. Privilege is less visible than we imagine discrimination to be. It saturates and it structures, as Maggie Nelson has written.

Granted, privilege has its conceptual flaws, too. It's been argued that it associates the advantages of privilege with luxuries rather than with rights. Others have suggested that it's not very conducive to understanding differences among various minority groups. Of course, these are conversations worth having civilly, and they have been ongoing in many areas of social justice for some time now. Boghossian and Lindsay are also willing to give a modest bit of credit to the term, conceding that it does describe something real and problematic. What they object to is how privilege helps to "glorify" the struggles of certain identities lucky enough to be born into the right group, while serving as a club to beat on those born into the wrong group. If social reform is what privilege talk is about, then these concerns are actually some of the focus for change.

What if these common problems with Original Sin and privilege are actually due to a confrontational attitude rather than to any conceptual similarity? There are Christians for whom Original Sin is not a weapon with which to persecute unbelievers, but a reminder to be humble and forgiving towards others. In Romans 3, Paul considers the standing Jews and Gentiles have before God. "Do we have any advantage?" he asks. "Not at all!" No one is righteous, not even one, as he goes on to declare in verse ten. Could privilege not serve as a similar reminder to humility?

Oddly, after explaining that "everybody is privileged," and that Original Sin and privilege are identical except in that they inhabit different moral universes, Lindsay and Boghossian contend that a distinguishing difference between the two is that the label of privilege is even more contemptible because it's seen to be a hindrance to the less fortunate among us. But everybody is privileged, so who can rightly take the moral high ground? Some might still claim the moral high ground, though there's no real explanation for why this would be tolerated more in the case of privilege than in that of Original Sin. Fighting privilege doesn't mean forcing repentance.

Now, it's true that no analogy is perfect, but Boghossian and Lindsay are ambiguous enough in their use of the term privilege that it presents a problem for their argument. Let's take a definition of privilege by Sian Ferguson at Everyday Feminism. Ferguson says, "We can define privilege as a set of unearned benefits given to people who fit into a specific social group."³ This doesn't tell us anything about most of what Lindsay and Boghossian attribute to privilege, such as its being an accident of birth, being inescapable, applying to everyone, or demanding atonement. That's because these are ancillary ideas about the function of privilege in society. Just as the concept of sin differs from the doctrine of Original Sin, the concept of privilege differs from the political and philosophical theorizing that has surrounded it.

The problem is that if we're going to bring in these ancillary ideas about privilege in drawing a connection to Original Sin, why stop there? Boghossian and Lindsay try to conceal the breakdown of their analogy with the line of qualification stating that Original Sin and privilege inhabit different moral universes. It allows them a little leeway to conveniently gloss over major incongruities like the importance of power systems for understanding privilege, or the supernatural nature of sin. Privilege functions between oppressors and the oppressed, whereas Original Sin doesn't really recognize anyone as being "in power," oppressing us sinners. Lindsay and Boghossian almost note this difference when remarking on how the labeling of another person as privileged is sometimes taken as a personal hindrance to us. Sin, on the other hand, isn't just a moral or interpersonal affliction, it's a spiritual one, and the "mechanism" by which it's passed down is frankly mysterious – not at all like the way that privilege persists through oppressive social structures. There is also the fact that, unlike sin, privilege actually represents a goal to aspire to. Sin can be viewed as a disease in need of healing, but the point of social justice is not to eliminate the privileges some people enjoy, it's to extend them to more people.

I'm not sure why we should feel persuaded by the criteria of similarity raised by Boghossian and Lindsay. They seem somewhat cherry picked, but their significance can be questioned, too. Death is something we have no say over, it cannot be escaped, and it's been said that all of us are dying from the moment we're born. Yet we might question the purpose of comparing death to Original Sin, or to privilege, on such grounds. It could be claimed that death isn't as comparable for some reason or other, but we have just seen a few ways in which privilege isn't as comparable, either.

It's admittedly somewhat amusing that privilege is denounced primarily when it's treated as a tool for shaming. Boghossian and Lindsay have both written in defense of ridicule when it suits their purposes, and they inhabit their own universe with other champions of ridicule like John Loftus and Jerry Coyne. They've advocated for shutting down academic studies like philosophy of religion and biblical scholarship when they dare to defend Christian beliefs, and they're quite fond of conceptualizing faith as a virus, not to mention defining it so as to be basically synonymous with irrationality. So why does privilege shaming catch their ire? One would think they'd be chomping at the bit for the chance to attack Christian privilege in such terms, which they more or less do in other language.

When it comes to our own privilege, we typically aren't exactly eager to own up to things. I can honestly admit that I still struggle with this. As Parul Sehgal eloquently observes: "It's easier to find a word wanting, rather than ourselves. It’s easy to point out how a word buckles and breaks; it's harder to notice how we do."⁴ The first sin wasn't being born into a certain class or identity. It wasn't being part of a majority group that benefits from the marginalization of others. The first sin was arrogance. It was selfish pride that motivated disobedience, as Thomas Aquinas said in his Summa Theologica.

I agree wholeheartedly with Boghossian and Lindsay that more perspective, kindness, and charity are needed. However, it seems to me that their critique of privilege has missed the mark in a number of ways. There is room for improvement, especially in how we talk to and treat the disadvantaged, but the encouragement given to "focus more on the positive qualities" you want to instill in others rings a bit hollow. It makes it sound once again like everyone else is the problem. Perhaps this is where the critic has more in common with religion than he likes to think. It would be an understatement to say that monotheistic religions haven't had very good track records of protesting privilege. On the contrary, they've often put in a great amount of effort defending their own privilege against so-called heretics and apostates.

Perspective, kindness, and charity seem mismatched to the disdain for what Lindsay and Boghossian call the religion of identity politics. It's telling where all the faith-based imagery is located in the picture painted by the two authors, and their contempt for religion is more than evident from their own writings, one of which bears the charitable title of Everybody is Wrong About God. "You don’t get to denounce identity politics," as Sincere Kirabo points out, "when your monomaniacal depreciation of all things religious is literally grounded in homage to the politics of your most treasured identity: atheism."⁵ Not everything religion has taught is worthy of derision – especially when it comes to the idea that change must begin with ourselves. There is likewise nothing patently religious about seeing ourselves as benefiting from certain social structures that disadvantage others. We should reject this claim just as we reject similar claims declaring morality to belong to the special domain of religion. Privilege talk that fails to recognize the need for humility and compassion is talk that is rightly criticized. At the same time, a critique of privilege that cloaks its main argument in anti-religious and politically conservative rhetoric is not doing anyone the favors its writers think it's doing.

References

1. James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian, Privilege: The Left's Original Sin, AllThink.com (May 24, 2016).
2. Mychal Denzel Smith, No One Cares If You Never Apologize for Your White Male Privilege, The Nation (May 5, 2014).
3. Sian Ferguson, Privilege 101: A Quick and Dirty Guide, Everyday Feminism (Sept. 29, 2014).
4. Parul Sehgal, How 'Privilege' Became a Provocation, The New York Times (July 14, 2015).
5. Sincere Kirabo, Navigating Critical Thinking, Intersectionality, and Identity Politics in the Secular Movement, TheHumanist.com (July 6, 2016).

Religion in BioShock Infinite

Last month, a concerned Christian received a refund for his purchase of the recently released game BioShock Infinite, after complaining that a particular scene involving a 'forced' baptism offended his religious views. [1] Prior to Infinite's release, one of the game's own artists had even come close to resigning over its depiction of religion. [2] On the other, polar opposite end of the spectrum, one blogger has gone so far as to describe Infinite as "the most deeply Christian game" he's played in recent memory. [3]

Few video games tackle the subject of religion, and when they do, it's often through imitation, such as the fictional religion found in Skyrim, or the Church of Unitology in the Dead Space sequels. Commentaries on religion are frequently limited in scope and kept somewhat vague, specifically to avoid singling out any one group. In BioShock Infinite, however, the floating city of Columbia is enraptured by the beliefs of the Prophet Zachary Comstock, a devout Christian of the late-19th century American fundamentalist brand.

Religion is far from the only subject addressed in Infinite, but it is arguably one of the most continually emphasized subjects. The game also discusses politics, bigotry and inequality, quantum mechanics, time travel, and alternate realities, among other topics. From practically the very beginning of the game, though, all the way through the very end, religion is front and center. It does not shy away from challenging questions, either, whether they are about the debate between religion and science, or about the intersection of faith and morality. In my opinion, this is a large part of what makes Infinite so unique and so interesting; while it has plenty of action, it is definitely a game that makes you think and feel - a breath of fresh air amidst popular game franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and Halo.

Warning: spoilers ahead. You may not want to continue if you have not yet beaten the game.

I am a huge fan of Ken Levine's work, including the first BioShock, and especially including (my personal favorite) System Shock 2. It's important to realize that Infinite is not the first time he's made reference to the religious debate. At the entrance to Rapture, below the haunting face of Andrew Ryan, hangs the iconic banner that reads, "No Gods or Kings. Only Man." The underwater utopia envisioned by Ryan is based heavily on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who was an outspoken atheist. Rand advocated ethical egoism, elevated man to a heroic status, held a disdain for collectivism and altruism, and believed strongly in free will and laissez-faire economics. In interviews, Levine has stated that Rand was the major influence he drew upon in creating the environment of Rapture and the figure of Andrew Ryan, and he found this to be particularly intriguing and challenging because, in some ways, he is sympathetic to certain views held by Rand and Ryan.

Levine has also explained that one of his interests for BioShock Infinite was to create an antagonist notably different from Ryan, perhaps even someone at the other extreme. The contrast of the city in the clouds with the city underwater is just one of many inversions we can find between BioShock 1 and BioShock Infinite. Columbia's philosophy is nearly the reverse of the banner above Rapture: men are little more than instruments for a greater good, that envisioned by the "king" - Prophet Comstock, actually - who claims to receive his authority from no less than God himself. While Ryan places individualism as one of the highest priorities, going so far as to claim that a man chooses, while a slave obeys, Comstock fosters an atmosphere of racism and social inequality, and premises many of his beliefs on an alleged gift of foresight to a predestined future.

Brigham Young

Zachary Comstock

Despite invoking popular Christian language about "the Lamb", about Eden and Sodom, about the Exodus, and even about forgiveness, Comstock's religion is no Mere Christianity. In fact, it rings a bit familiar to Mormonism in the prominence of "The Prophet", not to mention the image of the Prophet, which bears some resemblance to Brigham Young, the second President of the Church of Latter Day Saints. In 1847, on the heels of persecution, Young - who became known as the "American Moses" - led the Mormon pioneers out beyond the Western boundaries of the United States, into their 'promised land' of Salt Lake City. Young's treatment of Native Americans has been a subject for controversy, and he was also responsible for revoking the priesthood and certain Mormon rites from black members of the Church. In a line that would fit well in the mouth of Comstock, Young said on the matter:

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. [4]

There are many other similarities with Mormonism in BioShock Infinite, like the temple at the beginning of the game, with all its members dressed in white robes, and the abundance of large religious statues throughout Columbia. Oh, and did I mention the City of Enoch, which Mormons believe was taken up into heaven by God, and will return for the Second Coming of Christ?

Of course, there is more to Comstock's religion than a simple imitation of Mormonism. There is the strong sense of American exceptionalism, held with such fervor that the Founding Fathers have been deified within the religion of Columbia. In the game, there is a particular painting of George Washington holding up the liberty bell, with the Ten Commandments in his other hand. Four corners of the painting are marked by symbols of a cross, a dove, arrows, and wheat, with the words "Faith", "Purity", "Defense", and "Prosperity". What's interesting about this piece of artwork is how it conveys a similar message to a real painting done by Jon McNaughton, shown below.

This work is titled, "One Nation Under God", after words that were added to the United States Pledge of Allegiance as late as 1955. It depicts Jesus Christ holding the US Constitution, with the American Founders standing close by in the background, hands over their hearts, as if Jesus were delivering the Constitution from heaven to them, on the condition that they pledge themselves one nation under god. McNaughton's paintings are not tongue-in-cheek, as is made clear by various statements on his website, and his comments in interviews. "One Nation Under God" has become his most popular work, not because of its sheer ludicrousness, but because there are those who support its message.

Before Infinite was released, there was much speculation that it would feature somewhat of a parody of the Tea Party movement. The voices that, for better or worse, spoke up loudest in defense of Tea Party principles, were religious conservatives like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Rand Paul. It's easy to see some connection between the themes of Infinite and the themes emphasized by these figures, but I don't see Infinite as being all that focused on the Tea Party. Fortunately, it targets deeper issues and deeper questions, albeit ones that are very much about the intersection of faith and politics. There are people out there like David Barton [who claims BioShock Infinite is teaching kids to hate conservatives and Christians], who seek to establish a revisionist history for America, tying it in to their fundamentalist religious beliefs just like Jon McNaughton and Zachary Comstock. Levine's depiction of the unique religious beliefs of Columbia in BioShock Infinite is no more of a caricature than was his depiction of Ayn Rand's philosophy in the first BioShock game.

On the other hand, not everything the game says about religion is so obvious. At the end of the game, you come to find out that Booker, unable to forgive himself for his participation in the massacre at Wounded Knee, sought to make things right by being baptized. However, he didn't go through with it and opted out at the last minute. Except, in another reality, going through with it changes him into Comstock. The baptism, it seems, only turns him into more of a monster than before. The god he finds is a vengeful one that crushes its followers into repentance. Perhaps this is the penance Comstock forces on himself for Wounded Knee. Or perhaps his conversion merely reinforces the prejudices he already had within him, now believing he is justified by God Almighty. Whatever the case, Booker's redemption only comes through Elizabeth, not from baptism or from acceptance of any religious belief or identity.

To cast things in another light, though, the means by which Booker finds redemption through Elizabeth is in sacrifice. The sole hope for breaking the circle of failed attempts at saving Elizabeth, and thereby saving yourself, is to essentially lose yourself, to sacrifice your life in return for hers. There is also a strong theme of the "sins of the father" in Levine's two BioShock games. By the end of BioShock 1, you discover you are the illegitimate son of Andrew Ryan, and you have been conditioned to kill upon hearing a certain phrase, one which results in you, the son, murdering your father. By the end of Infinite, you discover you are the father of Elizabeth, who has the ability to bend space and time (which is restricted by the Songbird, who is controlled by a certain melody), and Elizabeth's ability eventually results in your own death at her hands and the hands of her alternate forms. The corruption of humanity is definitely familiar to Christianity, as Jordan Ekeroth notes in the third link above, as is the notion that only a loving sacrifice will end the cycle of destruction and bring about salvation.

What baptism symbolizes is forgiveness, the cleansing of sins, and the renewal of the spirit, through the grace of god that comes through faith in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. Breen Malmberg, the Christian who got a refund for the game over the baptism scene at the beginning, professes this much in why he wanted to get his money back. But there is supposed to be another dimension to Christian faith, at least as I've learned of it. It's one thing to speak the right words, even to know what they mean, but it's quite a different thing to truly believe them and live them. The Apostle Paul had a lot to say about this distinction:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing... For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

-1 Corinthians 13:1-3,12-13

A common complaint against Infinite is that we don't really get to see any of Booker's transition to becoming Comstock. But in my opinion this has been left up to the imagination of the gamer for good reason. Is Comstock aware he's a  fraud or does he actually hold to all the beliefs he espouses? It doesn't matter either way. He talks with a silver tongue, he speaks in prophecy, and he has a faith that boasts of great conviction, but he is missing that crucial thing that could make it all count for something true. Comstock is so devoid of love that he murders his wife, he murders the two people that made his dream of Columbia possible, and he confines and tortures his own daughter, all for the goal that his legacy of fire and brimstone will live on through Elizabeth. And waiting to usurp his place is none other than Daisy Fitzroy, who claims to speak for the poor and oppressed, who gives her body to fight for the people, but is so lacking in love that she nearly kills a child in her quest for liberation.

In the end, we witness the demise of the utopian visions, and the lives, of Ryan, Comstock, and Fitzroy. This is, I believe, the critical point that Levine is attempting to make with his BioShock games; to quote Robert Burns, "the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry." It isn't until Booker learns to put someone else above himself, to make that loving sacrifice for his daughter, that he finds peace and redemption. To call this an anti-Christian message would be to greatly miss the point of the gospels. Recall John 15:13: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."

So is Infinite a "deeply Christian game", as Ekeroth believes?

Booker and Elizabeth, BioShock Infinite's protagonists

The game begins with the voice of Elizabeth asking Booker, "Are you afraid of God?" "No," he responds, "but I'm afraid of you." Why would he fear Elizabeth, but not god? To be blunt, it's because god is not there. The city of Columbia, despite all its religious language and devotion, is godless. Comstock's prophetic visions and the miraculous floating of the city are really due to the scientific technology of the Luteces. The future shown to Comstock is just one of many possibilities, which is overcome by Elizabeth's manipulation of space-time. God is conspicuously absent when Booker hands over his daughter, when Comstock rises to power, when Elizabeth is captured and tortured, when she destroys New York City in 1983, and when Booker is finally drowned. If you've noticed, the person present for all those events, often turning the tide in her favor through her own effort, is Elizabeth. Booker fears her because of what she represents - not just in her power, but in his past, and perhaps even in his future.

Though it has religious overtones, Infinite is not a game about religion, it's a game about people. Ken Levine has stressed this multiple times, that the focus of the story is on the relationship between Elizabeth and Booker. In that regard, it is a somewhat significant departure from the first BioShock. There is plenty of complex subject matter in the setting where that relationship takes place, but a good deal of it (maybe even all of it) points back again to Elizabeth and Booker. Like the best comedians use humor and laughter to drive home hard, sometimes controversial life lessons, the best writers use the aspects of the human experience with which we are all familiar to drive home hard, controversial lessons of their own.

Some players may not like the fact that there is no positive Christian alternative to Comstock, but for me this only reaffirms that the game's focus is not actually on religion. What's more intriguing to me is that the first game, as popular as it was, did not seem to garner an extreme visceral reaction from Ayn Rand followers. Nothing in BioShock 1 really offers a counter-point or positive note to end on regarding the philosophy of people like Ms. Rand. Infinite does have a light at the end of the tunnel, though, and yet there continue to be outraged responses from conservatives and Christians alike. In an ironic sort of way, Levine's game has possibly revealed some things about the kinds of people who subscribe to such religious and political beliefs, without even really saying much itself, but in simply allowing individuals like Barton and Malmberg to make fools of themselves. Of course, we didn't need BioShock Infinite to show us that.

In conclusion, then, while religion features prominently in the world of Infinite, there is really no message to be gained from it other than a warning against placing ideology on a pedestal above the things that truly make us human and truly make life worth living. This was the message delivered in BioShock 1, where Andrew Ryan had sacrificed basic regard for human life to his preferred ideology - an ideology that paradoxically claimed to value man above all else. I see Levine as doing something similar and still different in Infinite, showing Comstock sacrificing the human need for love to his ideology - an ideology that claims love as the greatest thing of all, even greater than faith. In a fascinating twist, it is Booker, the unbaptized, seemingly irreligious predecessor of Comstock who is finally able to sacrifice the only thing he should have the right to sacrifice, giving his life out of love for his child.

Many born again Christians look back on their previous lives of "sin", before they accepted Christ, with groaning and despair. How lost they were. Comstock certainly treats Booker this way throughout the game. But what if things are not so simple? What if the choices we make now shape the way we view our past? It isn't just our past that affects who we are today, nor is it just that our decisions affect who we become in the future. At times it may indeed seem like there are infinite worlds of possibility, infinite ways of carrying on with this journey of life. That a video game can capture some of this experience may seem like a miraculous feat in itself.


Sources:
4. Journal of Discourses, vol. 10, p. 110