Beyond Unrefined Frustrations – Simon Appolloni

“Can the education system from high schools to universities help youth to engage in deeper and more reflective deliberations? Or will youth simply turn to the vastness of the Internet or the convenience of railway corridors and graffiti to express unrefined frustrations?”

Check out this graffiti. I spotted it not long ago on the side of a building flanking a seldom-used railroad track in Brampton while walking my dog. The quality is iffy – as I used my old cell phone – so I’ll repeat what it says:

Adore [with the o in the shape of a heart]

Religion is War.

Know God. No Peace.

No God. Know Peace.

The intent and message is clear: obviously someone is not keen on religion and sees its presence as a hindrance to achieving peace. But this is not what initially fascinated me – I mean, So what else is new?! Many are displeased with religion. What I found interesting is that someone – in Brampton no less – took the time and paint to create this, risking – admittedly the risk is low here – to make his/her point. Moreover, what is not evident by this photo is its size. If I were to stand in front of it, it would be a good foot taller.

I’m intrigued by its presence. On the one hand, I see youth (OK, a presumption, but a fair one I’d say) taking a political stance. The message is political and confrontational, two things we don’t see too often around this neck of the woods; such engagement excites me. On the other hand, the message makes broad assumptions and characterizes religion too superficially. Was it one person? Was it a daughter (I’m guessing female by the presence of a heart) of an immigrant Sikh? Christian? Hindu? Muslim? tired of following too rigid rules at home and using this as an avenue to get-back-at-parents? Or was it a disgruntled atheist trying to get the last word? The graffiti can’t be that old judging by the sheen of its paint (again not evident in this photo) as well as the lack of growth in front of it.

Ooooh, I so want to meet this person and buy her/him a coffee so that I can ask all sorts of questions. Maybe it’s a group? OK, coffee all around.

I’d ask them all what experiences led them to make such conclusions and make such a poignant statement about it. I’d want to know whether it was their experience with/of one particular religion or many religions that brought them to see things like this.

I’d also ask them if they have read David Loy’s “Religion of the Market,” a clever paper that suggests that as traditional religions wane in their authority in Western society, the Market system has replaced them as the most authoritative system to tell us who we are, why we are here, and how the world ‘ought to’ function. Its value system, also attractive, is consumerism. Its theology is economics, and its god, the Market!

I’d then want to know if they considered the $147 billion dollars spent in one year alone by the advertising industry in order to proselytize the religion’s mission as following under their understanding of ‘religion as war’? After all, in just the U.S., people will spend – and at Christmas time alone – half a trillion dollars and create five million tons of extra waste. Is this not a war on the poor, those who manufacture our goods in sweat shop conditions? And a war on the gullible, those millions in credit card debt purgatory? Not to mention a war on ecosystems, as there has never existed and never will exist a place ‘out there’ where we can safely dump our waste?

And then I’d ask them whether it was the God they were thinking of or the god of the Market who, according to the UN Development Report in 1996, arranged things so that the world’s 358 billionaires are wealthier than the combined annual income of countries with 45 percent of the world’s people, while a quarter million children die of malnutrition or infection every week, and while hundreds of millions more survive in limbo of hunger and deteriorating health?

Don’t get me wrong, I applaud these youth reaching out of their skins to deliberate and act upon issues bigger than the zits on their noses, and more passionate than the urges in their loins. But I also want them to engage in deeper and more reflective deliberations so that they can differentiate between sophisticated and simplistic statements. We need dialogue on such issues and I just hope that the societal avenues open to creating such dialogue remain amenable to fostering debate.

However, I’m not confident: our political institution does not seem up to it these days, and the economic system never was open to debate. The religious system seems more preoccupied with pronatalist and fundamental issues to discuss such things. Those of the religious realm who are open to debate find themselves, as Loy shows, increasingly less influential to take on the powerful Market religion. That leaves us with the educational system.

Can the education system from high schools to universities help youth to engage in deeper and more reflective deliberations? Or will youth simply turn to the vastness of the Internet or the convenience of railway corridors and graffiti to express unrefined frustrations?

• David R. Loy. “The Religion of the Market.” In Worldviews, Religion, and the Environment: A Global Anthology, edited by Richard C. Foltz. Belmont, California: Thomson Wadsworth, 2003. 66-75.