Frankie’s gone to Hollywood (Patreon)

On the authority of aura, and substitutes for justice

The death of Pope Francis has prompted the usual slew of eulogies from world leaders. Here’s a typical statement, as satirised by Branko Milanovic on X: “I am so sorry at the passing of the Pope Francis whose teachings on poverty, inequality, climate change, war in Gaza, war in Ukraine, billionaires, financial sector, Davos etc. I have totally ignored, but I still learned a lot from him.” Indeed. But is the pointing to the presence of hypocrisy the best we can do here?

Greg Grandin writes of the late pope, in his new history of the Americas, that Bergoglio, Pope Francis’ pre-pontifical name, grew up in Peronist Argentina, as the poor were beginning to demand entrance into the political arena, living through his country’s industrial expansion, its dictatorship, then neoliberalism’s corrupt sell-off of industries, and the country’s economic collapse at the start of the new millennium. As a consequence, Bergoglio felt that, “No one can accept the premises of neoliberalism and consider themselves Christian.” Neoliberalism corrupts democracy by denying the fullness and interdependency of humans by splitting what is whole asunder.

Later, he’d describe hypercapitalism as a system that “devours everything that stands in the way of increased profits, all that is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market.”

There are suspicions, though, concerning Bergoglio’s conduct during the Argentinian dictatorship and its dirty war in the 70s. The main charge against Bergoglio involves the kidnapping of two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were taken by Navy officers in May 1976 and held under inhumane conditions for the missionary work they conducted in the country's slums. The claim is that Bergoglio withdrew his order's protection from the two priests, effectively giving the military a green light for their abduction.

But surely the issue isn’t whether Bergoglio’s record as a “good leftist” is sound. After all, as anthropologist and friend of the podcast Roger Lancaster argues, Francis should rather be put in the context of Christian humanism. When Francis was doing or saying things cast as progressive or socialist, most of the time “he was he was not being ‘radical’ or innovative” but merely “going back to the gospels”. Although some pronouncements owed more to recent inspiration (“contemporary ideas about the ecological crisis and instrumental rationality"), in “tilting against a ‘deified market,’ Francis expressed ideas about the order of social relations that predate capitalism and are older than modernity.”

The question then is whether this should be inspiration to the Left, and consequently how we should judge the Left’s embrace of the Pope – or at least this past Pope.

Roger is correct in suggesting the following juxtaposition: “Francis…ministered to the poor at a time when the working class had been routed, defeated, driven from the stage of world history.” Moreover, we can acknowledge the historical facts: Christian ideals fed into secular socialism, and this intertwining recurred, all the way through to the later 20th century (see for example the work of the Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui, who provided an “analysis of the elective affinities…between revolutionary mysticism and Christian faith”).

Does this imply that the Left should be more open to religion? And indeed that the resources for a revolutionary humanism (or even just radical democracy) are to be found in “romantic” anti-capitalism? At a time of growing anti-rationalism, that would seem to be a concession to the forces capitalist (de-)development itself puts in motion. Moralist conceptions of politics and a heightened sense of limits (ecological, social, etc) come in its stead.

In any case, more from Roger Lancaster on romantic anti-capitalism, and the interweaving of conservatism and revolution, particularly in Latin America, can be found in episode /402/.In The Young Pope, Jude Law plays a shockingly aloof pontiff – ultraconservative, traditionalist, still seemingly in rebellion against his hippie parents who abandoned him. We discussed this portrayal, and others of the Pope, in our episode on Conclave. It’s fitting because we are all, like Law’s Pope, the children of the 1960s and the long tail of the New Left – the confluence of counter-cultural ideals and marketisation that has transformed institutions and human subjectivity. Even the (national-populist) Right now repeats worn-out counter-cultural tropes of transgression. At the same time, there is a growing rebellion against it. Neo-traditionalists evoke a search for stable ground, for some transcendent sense of meaning, and – at least in its Catholic variant – an institutionalised form of faith that rests on unquestioned authority. Jude Law’s young Pope exemplifies this quest, trying to concoct such authority through mystique and distance. Is this why there is some evidence that Zoomers are returning to religion (in the US anyway)?

Is this off-the-peg mix-and-match “spirituality” or are they going full Catholic? It’s unclear so far, but it would make sense if young people were searching for something different, rather than just a more boring version of mainstream/progressive culture (like mainline Protestants with rainbow flags).

Leftists meanwhile want a progressive – even liberationist – Pope, but is that what is needed? The desire for a high-profile spokespeople for Left causes, like fighting poverty, injustice, oppression and war, is more indicative of Left weakness. Would we not be better off with an aloof, authoritarian, traditionalist daddy – a worthy father to struggle against? Would this not better serve secularism (and by consequence anti-clericalism, and by extension, popular sovereignty)?

But it may be that this discussion is rather like non-US citizens engaging in US politics as if they were American. We aren’t Catholic. And even if we were, we’re certainly not electors of the Pope. (That’s rather the point of the whole theocratic thing). So let’s "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's". And so we should concern ourselves with Caesars, with those usurpers of earthly, popular authority.Unfortunately, political leaders today often think demonstrating “authority” is done through anti-democratic acts, sovereign decrees and the like. The deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García to a Salvadorian terrorism confinement center is part of one of the most dystopian developments of recent years, amidst much competition. There is a history of US coups and death squads across Latin America and in El Salvador in particular. In part, the growing force of organised criminal agents is testament to the failure of capitalist development, and to said US imperialism in a more direct sense. This has created the ground for someone like Nayib Bukele to rise to power in El Salvador – and for his policy of throwing huge swathes of the population in jail to garner popularity in the country. See the bottom of this newsletter for more on this.

For the US to export long-time residents to foreign jails is a step beyond – and for all that it is one of these demonstrations of “authority”, it also comes with a typical abnegation and declaration of powerlessness attached. Probably more shocking still is to look at it from the other side: for a developing country to depend on exporting not just raw materials, itself an index of underdevelopment, but to “sell” prison space to rich countries.

Here's what’s coming up in May

At the end of last year, the results of the first round election in Romania were annulled after a far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu, won – supposedly due to online misinformation campaigns. We check in on Romania as it goes to the polls.

We will also have Alex Gendler on to discuss how to defend humanity from the nihilism of individual powerlessness and the disembodied fantasies of the powerful; Pawel Kaczmarski on whether artistic/cultural products can teach us about agency – or if the market always wins out; and the social media avatar known as Christopher Lasch’s Angry Ghost asks “what now for the PMC?” (that’s the professional-managerial class – count yourself lucky if you don’t know.)

Finally, in the Reading Club we examine post-nationalism in post-Yugoslavia. See the syllabus here, with links to readings.

For a nicer version of this newsletter, including videos: https://bungacast.substack.com/p/frankies-gone-to-hollywood