William F. Buckley Jr. once said of socialism something like “everyone knows that it doesn’t work, but when did it get so creepy?” (The emphasis, as I recall, was his.) This phenomenon, of regarding ideas as not just intellectually suspect but threatening or sinister, is all too common these days. Socialism, which originally was simply an economic theory, continues to occupy a high position on this list, resorted to by Eric Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene as an all-encompassing epithet when they want to call a Democratic politician or supporter of liberal causes something truly horrifying, without saying anything meaningful. I seem to recall one of them accusing Bill Gates of being a socialist, which is sort of like calling Sir Mick Jagger a radical because he still sings Street Fighting Man in concert.

Socialism does not, however, have this ideological haunted house to itself. The liberal version of socialism is populism, which etymologically means “of the people,” until recently meant something like “anti-establishment” and now seems, at least in the New York Times and The Guardian, to be a synonym for “fascist.” Typically, however, the party out of power spends more effort creating these intellectual boogey men. This makes sense, because it’s easier to run against a mythical monster than a real person. A highly popular example these days is “critical race theory.” The 1960s saw the development of a philosophy known as critical legal studies. It made the claim that legal systems reflect the interests and goals of the powerful, rather than an attempt to achieve justice. Laws are a political, not a jurisprudential act. In retrospect, what’s most surprising is that CLS theory was at one time controversial, it now seeming rather self-evident. CLS sought to diagnose the flaws in our legal system, saying in effect “here are ways in which we fail to live up to the ideals that we profess to endorse, because might trumps right time and again.” However, CLS did not stop there. It held out the hope that there really was such a thing as justice, and that it could be achieved. CLS was both diagnostic and aspirational.

“Critical race theory” is an offshoot of critical legal studies, in that it holds that the crucial variable in interpreting the American legal system is race. Legal systems, the theory goes, reflect an attempt to sustain racial privileges and burdens. (Critical race theory has expanded to become an interpretive tool for history as well as law.) Again, so far as it goes, nothing about this strikes me as overly controversial. Arguments about affirmative action, or voting rights, or police violence, are so intractable precisely because the two sides of the argument see, quite literally, two different worlds. Ethnic majorities see race-based college admissions as unfair, because they violate principles of equal opportunity. Ethnic minorities, on the other hand, claim that centuries of oppression make “equal opportunity” a polite but insidious fiction, so that race-neutral admissions policies serve to perpetuate inequality.

However, at least for right-wing news outlets and school boards, critical race theory is a threat to national existence, along the lines of what might happen if Dr. Evil got ahold of the Russian Doomsday machine and a bunch of murder hornets. Critical race theory, in these circles, has joined the ranks of the creepy and must be rooted out similarly to Communist hunting in the 1950s. While I do not understand, let alone endorse, this fear of the theory, there is one thing about it that does trouble me. 

Many critical race theorists seem to believe that not only are our views of the world dependent on our racial identity, but that they are inescapably so. Whites not only do not but cannot understand what it means to be Black. Therefore, White legislators, writing laws from a White perspective, are incapable of truly addressing the needs of Blacks. Critical Race Theory, in other words, questions whether, if there is such a thing as a higher law, it is something we can achieve. The belief in a higher law was something that the originators of Critical Legal Studies shared, whether they were religious or not. Critical Race Theory, however, suggests, that perhaps there is no better way, that we are hopelessly trapped in our ethnic silos. Law cannot address the fundamental problems of race, because legislators cannot see their way clear to understand them. Therefore, the only answer to institutional racism is to fight power with power.

Despite their shared origins, these are very different ways of seeing the world. Ways of seeing the world inform the New Testament time and again, including the 10^th Chapter of Mark (last Sunday’s reading.) Jesus, visiting Jericho, ignores the hoots and hollers of the crowd, and restores the sight of the blind beggar Bartimaeus, who then joins Jesus’s followers. Mark, in his usual fashion, is telling us much more than the facts themselves suggest. Two things intrigue us.

First century readers would have perked up their ears at the name “Bartimaeus,” which occurs nowhere else in the Bible.  The name, of course, means “son of Timaeus,” but just in case the reader missed it, Mark calls him “Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus.” Timaeus was not just any old Greek name; Timaeus was the name of one of Plato’s Socratic dialogues, and of the lead participant in that dialogue. Timaeus sets out an elegant theory of the beginning of the universe as the creation and will of an all-powerful and benevolent deity, a universe that both reflects the benevolence of the deity and has a purpose and end to it.  Moreover, the universe consists of both ideal forms, which we can’t see, and their physical manifestations, which constitute the visible world. The physical universe, according both to Timaeus and to Plato’s theory of forms, is just a pale shadow of the ideal. There seems to be little doubt that this incident happened, but we will never know whether the blind man Jesus healed was in fact named Bartimaeus. We do know from contemporary records that that name was extremely uncommon. Neither Bartimaeus or Timaeus is among the 99 most common names among Palestinian Jews between 330 BCE and 200 CE, according to Richard Bauckham. So, it is tempting to think that Mark is making a point here: Bartimaeus, who can’t see Jesus, nevertheless intuits that there is a reality beyond the physical, a truth beyond truth, and Jesus opens his eyes to what that reality is.

Equally intriguing is Mark’s report that Bartimaeus, now able to see, joined Jesus’s group of followers. “Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.”Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.” (Mark 10:51-52) This story is preceded by Jesus’s admonition to James and John, that they are to drink the cup that he drinks, and to the twelve that he is to give his life as a ransom from many. (Mark 10: 39-45). What follows is their arrival in Jerusalem to observe the Passover. Bartimaeus, as it turns out, was in for a bit of an unpleasant surprise.

In other words, having the higher knowledge comes with a cost. Learning the truth about ourselves and about the world can be painful, even dangerous. The Bible never mentions Bartimaeus again, but one wonders whether he considered his newly-gained sight a blessing come the following Friday.What, you say does this have to do with Critical Legal Studies / Race Theory? Quite a bit. First, if we are all sons and daughters of Timaeus, somehow aware that there is a disjunction between perceived reality and truth, this is something we need to know. Second, there is the hope of a higher and better law, and the hope of seeing reality as it truly is. That reality will be found in better understanding of one another, not in legal pronouncements. Critical legal studies emphasizes the importance of narrative  over logic to understanding the law. Hence, among its biggest critics have been the Chicago “law and economics” school, who think that law is simply a tool for economic efficiency. Whatever who or what Jesus was, he was not a lawyer or a politician; he was a storyteller, not a rule maker. Finally, achieving that insight is another form of taking up our cross. Self-knowledge is painful. Everyone over a certain age learns this every time they look in the mirror. Learning the truth about ourselves will either send us back into denial, or make us examine some inconvenient truths about ourselves, individually and collectively. This is not a creepy idea, but it may be scary. It is scary to both right and left, because it rejects both the left’s fascination with individual rights at the expense of community and the right’s insistence on maintaining current power structures. It’s no wonder that politicians want to keep it out of the classroom.