There are many reasonable people (and even some otherwise unreasonable ones) who would maintain that Pat Robertson’s take on the recent earthquake in Haiti need not be dignified with a response. I understand that point, and I see where its adherents are coming from. But we are fooling ourselves if we think that Robertson’s position represents an isolated analytical island way off somewhere by itself, with no implications for the rest of us. We ignore him at our own peril, especially since there are many people (“religious” or not) who accept his basic premises without question. So, I do feel like a few words are in order about the significance of his supernatural claims about divine justice.
One thing to note is that the political “fringe” is no longer as fringe as it might once have seemed. I received about 10 messages (via Twitter, e-mail, and Facebook) about Robertson’s comments within a few hours of him making them. I’ve also seen his thoughts discussed on several cable-news programs on several different channels more than just a few times in the last day and a half. His comments have gone viral, and it means that “dignified” or not, they are circulating quite widely already.
If you are still one of the few people who haven’t heard it, Robertson argues that 18th- and early 19th-century Haitians were able to throw off the chains of race-based slavery and colonial dependency by (literally!) making a pact with the devil. As a function of that Faustian bargain, they have been cursed by God, which explains their history of violence and their contemporary degree of poverty.
I got the surreal news (via text message) about the Haitian disaster on an Amtrak train from Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia Tuesday evening (after attending the AAA symposium on race that I blogged about on Monday). And it just so happens that I was reading, in an almost eerie kind of irony, a small new book by Susan Buck-Morss during that train ride, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History.
The book is an extrapolation on her Critical Inquiry article (from 2000) where she tried to argue that Hegel got his master-slave metaphor from the Haitian revolution, and that such a seemingly clear and self-evident historical fact has been sorely under-appreciated (in fact, missed just about entirely) by the best and brightest philosophers and historians who have worked on Hegel. She chalks these omissions up to a series of factors, including the narrowcast biases of disciplinization and academic specialization. Buck-Morss maintains that the early Hegel was clearly influenced and inspired by the Haitian revolt (championing the psychic need for slaves to forcibly reclaim their full humanity by asserting it in the face of brutal reprisals), even if the later Hegel (of The Philosophy of History) ends up dismissing all of Africa as radically ahistorical, uncivilized, and unprepared for full sovereignty.
In many ways, Robertson’s pseudo-religious reading of the Haitian tragedy is a sensationalized version of the very logics that Buck-Morss critiques.
I call it “pseudo-religious” because I think of Robertson’s comments as self-serving political claims hiding behind the cloak of religiosity. Of course, religion is inescapably political, but Robertson’s own religious texts don’t provide evidence for such wildly specific and offensive claims of Satanic collusion. On what evidence, from what sacred book, does Robertson base his theory of Haitian history (or any of his past pronouncements, including the “argument” that 9/11 was divine retribution for America’s legalization of abortion)? Is he merely performing a xenophobic reading of Voodoo’s spiritual difference from his particular version of Christianity?
Instead of seeing 18th- and 19th-century Haitian freedom fighters as subjects of history, agents capable of throwing off the shackles of foreign oppression (in a manner similar to America’s 18th-century revolutionists, a group that I’ve never heard him call lapdogs of Satan), Robertson removes them from the political and geopolitical playing field altogether, dismissing their post-revolutionary plight as comeuppance for a bad deal with the devil. About that theory, two last things:
First, I would recommend that Robertson read Randall Robinson’s An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President, which shows, quite compellingly, that Haiti’s current politico-economic predicament is a direct result of how Europe and the United States responded to the country’s 1804 assertion of autonomy: by very purposefully isolating and exploiting Haiti (politically and economically) for the next two hundred years. Therein lies much of the answer, Robinson demonstrates, to Haiti’s current woes. (The details he provides, mostly uncontested and unhidden facts of history, will be shocking to many readers).
Second, if the Satan theory is accurate, I would ask that Robertson finally let them out of their contract with him. As a function of the kinds of horrible and inhumane ideas he spews, Robertson must be the other contractual party of which he speaks. It would explain how he knows so much about such a secret compact.
20 Responses to Pat Robertson Is No Joke
charliemarlow - January 14, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Your caricature is less egregious than Robertson’s, but of the same ilk. He was referring, apparently, to a disputed account of a voodoo ritual that was part of an uprising (that failed) against the French. Are his ideas intellectually less founded than Hegel’s, which apparently require an identification as early Hegel’s or later Hegel’s? I suppose the question to ask is, what is the solution you would see to this problem; censorship? mockery? insults? public debates? scholarly articles? If we cannot ignore him, what are we to do?
johnljacksonjr - January 14, 2010 at 4:41 pm
charliemarlow,thanks for the comments. and i appreciate the chastisement about my mockery. and it was “of the same ilk” on purpose. i was using a joke to reflect his very own outlandish claims. i did offer one version of a solution: replacing dangerous and unfalsifiable silliness with the facts of history. Robinson’s reading of things is much more powerful than Robertson’s, and one need not agree with all of his conclusions about recent Haitian politics.
lurquita - January 15, 2010 at 10:12 am
All matters of joke/not joke aside, it is simply shameful that Robertson would even consider, much less voice, such an opinion. What’s next? Fred Phelps will weigh in? How sad. How very sad.My sympathy is with Haiti, the victims, and all of their loved ones. L.
madamesmartypants - January 15, 2010 at 11:23 am
One of my professors once told me that Americans only believe the things that they want to hear–that is, that which fits their own, already-formed ideas about the world. Liberal New Yorkers deserve to be attacked by infidels? Black Haitians should be punished by God? These things already fit the racist, anti-intellectual, and xenophobic foundations of our society. So I have no doubt that what is partly fueling the spread of his comments is the fact that there is at least a small group of people who desperately want Robertson to confirm their most deeply held beliefs about the world–even, and especially, if it means that such beliefs reinforce their own sense of security and superiority.
stinkcat - January 15, 2010 at 11:32 am
Yes, people believe things they want to hear. Like the idea that the crazy ramblings of a nutjob preacher are somehow proof positive of the racism endemic in Christianity.
johntoradze - January 15, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I also have my sympathy with Haiti’s masses dying in their rubble. I will preface this by saying I am not a Christian, I am an atheist. I have spent years in developing nations running private development, studying what we call terrorism and trying to understand how to make a difference. I have a close friend who did anthropology in Haiti. It is simplistic to reject Robertson. While I have not been in Haiti, I have been in other desolate and backward parts of the world steeped in desperation, and like it or not, such evangelists ARE the conduit through which culture and aid flows which helps those people. Flatly, it does NOT flow from people likely to be seen in our hallowed halls! We send “five star aid” (see Sachs) or a few well-meaning anthropologists who split hairs over effecting change in the culture. They send dedicated people who spend their lives and die in the boat with the local people. They send cultural educators. Along with the unpleasantness that some missionaries have perpetrated on this world, most are the only footsoldiers of Western civilziation willing and able to risk their lives to help such people. And yes, they really do help them. They are the ones who teach them OUR base values and render them capable of functioning well in OUR modern world. Such narratives as Robertson’s make sense to such people and give hope to them. Such words cause some to take up new ways. We love to preserve old ways in our love-affair with multi-culturalism and academic studies of primitives; and safe in our houses, we blithely work to preserve them as they are. And yet, preserving them as they are usually means dying or being ground up by globalization, living in vacant lots, living by theft, prostitution, and despair. Such memes as Robertson professes about a pact with Satan being the cause of Haiti’s troubles are fitted well to the facing memes embraced by locals in the name of voodoo. Anybody who thinks voodoo and its culture of revenge isn’t a force to be reckoned with in Haiti lives in an ivory tower on Pluto. (I have a dear friend who was taken, placed on an altar, and the knife pierced her skin over her heart in Haiti while doing anthropology in the 1970′s. Yes, she thought she was dead. Yes, the knife sometimes goes into the heart on that altar.) Papa Doc Duvalier, the Ton-ton Macoutes, and all the rest of it are why Haiti is in the horrific state it wallows in at the best of times. To call them and the monstrous governance by terror and pillage that voodoo has perpetrated on Haiti a “pact with the devil” is actually quite apt. When one looks at this historical fact, Pat Robertson’s statements are, couched in religious language, accurate. The suffering in Haiti is political. Yes, other nations did things that were exploitive. But this is true of virtually every nation on earth. Other nations, you see, have also suffered, and none is the disaster Haiti is. Barbados, Cuba, even Dominican Republic (which shares the same island) are, and have been exploited, oppressed by governments outside. It is because of the culture of voodoo and and a state that hews to a set of mores that have been viciously evil that Haiti has gotten where it is. So I think we need to understand Pat Robertson better. Frankly, few people have a message that can be understood by the people of Haiti as clearly that they are likely to embrace. And few people are ready, willing and able to effect cultural change for Haitians that is going to really improve their lives. We can shovel money and aid into Haiti forever. The result will be a derelict aid economy filled with governmental thieves. Haiti is not the only place to know that. But the Pat Robertsons of this world will send their people into the pit to wrestle and teach. The values that they will provide to those people will be values that you and I recognize as good and worthy of respect.
msivick - January 15, 2010 at 2:51 pm
In Uganda human sacrifce (children) is on the rise. This tragedy breaks my heart. I was wondering if you Pat Robertson believes divinie intervention will intercede? It seems to be similar to what is (?) (was ?) going on in Haiti. Do you think Pat Roberston could pair up divine punishment with every bad deed?Also, as a follow up, I would like to ask Pat Roberston if this is punishment from God for Haiti (I don’t personally believe this), then, what will be the sign for forgiveness or redemption?Has God killed the most people then or is it still the mosquito?
charliemarlow - January 15, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Meanwhile, Drudge links to a Daily Telegraph video of actor Danny Glover saying Haiti’s tragedy is “the response” to the failure of the Copenhagen environmental summit. Perhaps we need to broaden the scope of the discussion here.
goxewu - January 15, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Re #6:1. From what I’ve read and have been told by evangelical Christians who minister in the developing world, their “narratives” that “give hope” to the locals include “Accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior and you will be save and go to Heaven,” but do NOT include, “The reason that you live in poverty and disease is because your forebears made a pact with the Devil.”2. To condemn Pat Robertson because he said he, individually, said something odious, is not to reject the charitable work of evangelicals as a whole. If most or even many evangelicals believed that the earthquake in Haiti is the result of a pact with the Devil, there would have been some kind of joint statement issued, no? I mean, if more than one evangelical is sure of the behind-the-scenes, ostensibly preventable reason (i.e., don’t make pacts with the Devil) for disasters that kill 45,000 people at a time, wouldn’t they all come out and say so?3. The “few well-meaning anthropologists who split hairs over effecting change in the culture” are not there to do charitable work; they’re there to do research on the culture. The reason why they “split hairs” is that they know they’re not in the business of changing the culture to something they think is better, and they want to stay out of the its way as much as possible. It’s like the “first, do no harm” part of the Hippocratic oath. 4. Voodoo is also a “narrative” that gives people hope in the sense that it gives meaning to their lives. True, it doesn’t seem to be a very good one, and it holds the standard of living down. But one could make much the same argument about Catholicism and its preventing the use of birth control in overpopulated cultures where it does its own evangelizing, or totalitarian communism in such places as North Korea. 5. How many “dedicated people who spend their lives and die in the boat with the local people”, rough guess, has Pat Robertson’s organization in specific sent into Haiti? Sure, many evangelical organizations send in “dedicated people” to try to do good, but (my impression) is that Robertson’s CBN is in another line of work.6. Robertson’s comments (the video clip is easily accessed) aren’t in the least metaphorical; they’re literal. (The Devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.”) And they’re also confusing. The Haitians were “under the heel” of the French, but apparently the Devil offered to help them get free but God didn’t. Why? Was God on the side of oppressers, the French? And how did the “deal with the Devil” go down? What form did the Devil take to communicate with the Haitians? Who signed on for the Haitians?7. Robertson’s TV program had a phone number for giving money to his version of Haitian relief, but a) nobody knows what cut of contributions his organization takes beause it doesn’t have the Better Business Bureau seal (Catholic Charities does), and b) what he said about the “deal with the Devil” probably (in my opinion) caused just as many viewers to say to themselves, “To hell with the Haitians, they’ve made a deal with the Devil and this is their own fault so I’m not giving them a penny,” as it did get people to send in money.8. When Jerry Falwell, on television, blamed the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, on abortionists, gays and the ACLU, whose program was he on, to whom was he talking, and who said “Amen” to it? Pat Robertson, that’s who. This was on September 13th, 2001, when the bodies were still in the rubble and people were still frantically searching for loved ones. Robertson still has that same exquisitely sensitive sense of timing.
drmenyweather - January 15, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Do we dare broaden the scope as suggested when to “broaden” means that one must read and interpret more than one would really desire? It doesn’t matter if you are an atheist, agnostic, religious scholar, philosopher or spiritual guru, to seek truth, real truth even with a side of humor, the words of Dr. Robinson or any other SBC seminarian or Presbyterian, Episcopalian, how many of you who have made comments on this place are aware of the socioreligious political thoughts concerning Haiti? Dr. Robinson’s observation only disturbs me because of those who would entrust ‘funds’ to one who believes in the folktale, real or imaginary, fiction or nonfiction? After all these years, Dr. Robinson whose notoriety of stopping the hurricane from hitting the shores of VA and his agreement with the late Dr. Falwell, Dr. Oral Roberts, and the son of the imminent heir of the Prophet of the Nation, Billy Graham all proclaim blame for 9/11 and the New Black Spiritual Leaders, Jakes, Morton, Prophet Bynum, and others listed by the AOL Black voices, speak the same language as their political right Christian counterparts in the false rhetoric of “we shall overcome” feel exactly the same about Haiti without the knowledge of the Slave Leader Toussaint (sp) who was responsible for President jefferson to fulfill his belief of Manifest Destiny and states such as MO, NE, KS, LA, and others were the result of the person on the other side of the sugar plantations defeating Napolean to go bankrupt? Broaden the discussion but make certain all players are included accurately!
gnickles - January 16, 2010 at 2:32 am
Read Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost. It’s one of the best explorations of religious and political intentions in our colonial history. Among other things, he addresses the complexities and nuances of evangelicals’ effects in the Congo, and while I am certainly not suggesting that one people can be readily substituted for another in some kind of ahistorical analogy, I am suggesting that Hochschild’s work goes a long way towards establishing a frame or a vocabulary for sorting out what we do and don’t do when we mess with other people and their cultures.
naturalist - January 16, 2010 at 5:16 am
The people of Haiti have suffered through this terrible natural disaster, not because of supernatural nonsense, but simply because their country is situated upon a tectonic plate boundary that has been shifting for hundred’s of millions of years and will continue to do so for many more. That scientific explanation may not make their suffering any less severe, but however it is based on reality and facts and not on willful ignorance and superstition.
edresearcherinca - January 17, 2010 at 8:34 pm
There are serious issues here, but for a laugh, here’s Lilly Coyle’s response in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, written from the perspective of the devil. If God and Satan exist, clearly Robertson doesn’t understand their philosophies …———————–Dear Pat Robertson,I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.Best, SatanLILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS
ledzep - January 18, 2010 at 2:31 am
“We ignore him at our own peril, especially since there are many people (“religious” or not) who accept his basic premises without question.”What on earth can this mean? Who exactly, who is non-religious, or non-”religious,” accepts Pat Robertson’s “basic premises” without question? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Presumably these aren’t Christian, much less Christian fundamentalist, premises, if non-religious people accept them without any fuss. The general idea that people get what they deserve? Do “many people” really think that holds true for a disaster like this? Maybe you have some examples, or evidence? I honestly have no clue what this is supposed to mean, and you seem to have no argument as to why one shouldn’t buck the stupid trend and ignore this shameless publicity artist.
johnljacksonjr - January 18, 2010 at 8:10 am
ledzep, thanks for your response. I didn’t think that I was being super cryptic. Let me quickly try to clarify: 1. To ignore him is to underestimate the significance of irrationality in public debates. Not responding to the lunacy (not calling it a special case of ‘the absurd’), potentially gives it even more legitimacy. When not denounced as ridiculous, it threatens to become just one alternative position among many, and it can gain a kind of implicit legitimacy as a function of that fact. 2. You don’t have to be “religious” to want easy and absolute answers for the major and minor devastations of everyday life. Most people won’t invoke “the devil,” but I’ve heard other arguments about Haiti’s current predicament that seem equally oblivious to the facts of history (and prove to the trap of finding one simple scapegoat for a large and complex problem). Indeed, such moves allow us to sleep better at night.
suomynona - January 18, 2010 at 9:03 am
Ledzep and stinkcat seem to want to differentiate between ‘Christianity’ broadly contrived and the ‘shameless’ and ‘crazy ramblings of the nutjob preacher’ Pat Robertson. I would do so too, and I would like to believe that Robertson represents a particularly disgusting fringe of Christianity, perhaps to the extent that many would disqualify him from being Christian.I would argue that Robertson does represent a brand of ‘Christianity’–I don’t care much whether this is understood as ‘real’ Christianity or not–that’s rather prominent, particularly when it comes to policies and political positions in this country. It strikes me as sloppy and potentially harmful to just redefine our terms, our understanding of what Christianity means here, in order to reposition guys like Robertson outside of the umbrella of Christianity when they say these kinds of things. There are plenty of missionaries who understand the core of their faith as behaving Christ-like toward others (in the case of Haiti, saying ones prayers and extending a helping hand to the needy before and instead of placing blame or leveling judgment); but there is also a very prominent wing of ‘public Christianity’ that is primarily in the business of scapegoating and judging for political gain. Robertson’s comments represent the latter, and it doesn’t stop there: blame the gays, the abortionists, the New Yorkers, the colonized slaves, the *other* people weak in their flesh who succomb to Satan–they all do themselves in, apparently. You can’t possibly tell me this is just the ‘nutjob’ fringe of the public face of Christianity. This stuff is well within the executive tent, and it ought to be seriously addressed.
lexalexander - January 18, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Two things about Pat Robertson make his insanity (which I won’t dignify by labeling “Christianity”) particularly dangerous: 1) He’s worth tens of millions of dollars, and 2) for most of the past 30 years, he has been able to get his calls to the White House returned.How many people do you know in the same circumstances?
knystrom - January 18, 2010 at 4:33 pm
the following commentary is instructive on the derivation of roberts’s loathesome accounting. i emotionally join in hurling ad hominem at him, but his perspective has historical traction. that means we must intellectually and passionately respond.http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/14/haiti-earthquake-pat-robertson-opinions-contributors-elizabeth-mcalister.html
suomynona - January 18, 2010 at 7:11 pm
1) People can continue to refuse to ‘dignify’ Robertson by ‘labeling’ him Christian, but the guy operates the Christian Broadcasting Network, quite publically too. In the fact-based world he’s a Christian, and will continue to be known as such and represent Christianity to the broader world until all these ‘real Christians’ stop allowing figures like Robertson to represent the public face of Christianity.** Though Catholics are ‘Christian,’ the evangelical community makes very clear that Catholics are not part of the club.Re. #18, the author of the cited Forbes article concludes with ‘Whatever story you subscribe to, though, let’s spend as little time as possible giving media attention to Pat Robertson, and focus instead on supporting Haitians.’ I should point out that her whole article indulges the very kind of thing–talking about Robertson and his nonsense, and using ‘air time’ asking that we deepen our understanding of his perspective–that she recommends against in her closing. THIS is the trouble with Robertson’s remarks: not that they’re nonsensical (of course they are, but so is just about everything on TV opinion shows), because we could dismiss them rather easily if that’s all there were to it. No, the problem is that a prominent ‘Christian’ leader is more interested in justifying (a different word than ‘blaming’) a life-destroying natural disaster than coming to the aid of those who need it. This is to suggest that the problem of Robertson’s comments doesn’t deserve our serious attention depth-wise, but surface-wise. We shouldn’t be historicizing that kind of bullsh*t coming from Robertson like sucker academics. But we should historicize in thinking about Haiti, its colonial past, its geopolitical misfortunes, and all the other reasons why we should be helping, rather than explaining mythical and revisionist notions of Haiti’s historical misfortunes.
22122805 - January 19, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Pat Robertson has forgotten his own contract he signed with another devil, Charles Taylor of Liberia’s regime in 1999. An $8 million investment in a gold mining venture in Liberia. He should remove the log in his own eyes before he remove the speck in others’ eyes by clothing his buffonery in some foolish pseudo religoius argument. God help us, people watch and believe this nut. ko.