Religion, Oppression, and the True Cause of Intolerance

Abstract: This is the second installment of my commentary on The Grapes of Wrath. I touch on the question of where intolerance truly springs from, and the proper way of overcoming it. Religion is brought into the discussion as an application of the conclusion reached.

Written: April 20th, 2015.

Pages: 151-152.

People need people. Because of this, individuals bind together into something greater than themselves. This has always been the case, and it certainly was while America was in the throes of the Great Depression. In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck suggests that revolution against oppression is an inevitable consequence of the need of people to cling together, rather than remain alone. He uses voice and allusion to create his argument.

The first-person voice of the passage supports the contention that people form communities, and consequently find themselves empowered to revolt against the cause of their shared suffering. For example, it is “I [who] lost my land” (Steinbeck 151), and it is “I [who] am alone” (151). These passages immediately create an identity between the reader and the I of the narrative. The reader feels that it is they themselves who are alone, and from this spring feelings of sympathy for the actual lonely, suffering farmer. Moreover, when “two men squat on their hams” (151) and share their stories, the “I who lost my land” becomes the, “We who lost our land” (151; emphasis mine). It is through their mutual suffering that people from all walks of life identify with one another and interlock to form something bigger than one person could ever amount to. Further, You signals that not all are within the sphere of We, but only those who are mutually suffering. “‘You’ are forever cut off from the ‘we’” (152) because only You possess “the quality of owning” (152). The You, then, are those who oppress the We. Furthermore, the growing community is “the anlage [beginning] of the thing you fear” (151; emphasis mine), a reference to “revolution” (151). In short, the necessary sequence of events is (i) oppression, (ii) identification between the oppressed, (iii) a growing community of We who suffer, and (iv) a revolution against You who oppress Us.

What is implicit in Steinbeck’s use of voice is made explicit by his use of allusion. Indeed, “[Thomas] Paine” (152) was not the cause of the Civil War or even a contributing factor it***, and “[Thomas] Jefferson” likewise did not cause the American Revolution when he wrote The Declaration of Independence. Both men, rather, were “results” (152) of the real cause: community. The community of black slaves and white sympathizers led to the Civil War, and eighty years earlier the community of American colonists caused them to revolt against England. Community lends itself to revolution because it creates an “us and them” mentality, a fundamental distinction between those on the inside and those on the outside. But the irony is this: it is those on the outside who create the groups that rise up against them. Mutual oppression creates a shared characteristic among the oppressed, something that identifies them as parts of the same whole. This holds regardless of what other differences may exist between them; the important thing is that which makes them alike. Revolution, then, results from the realization on the part of the oppressed that (i) they share something between themselves, and (ii) there is power in numbers. If there were no oppression, there would be no community. If there were no community, there would be no revolution. In short, no oppression means no revolution.

In conclusion, allusions to revolutionaries of the past and deliberate usage of the first-person voice imply two things. First, the need of people to cling to those who understand their pain creates communities. Second, from community springs revolution against those not in the community. This proposal, if true, puts the proper perspective on the Crusades, Protestant-Catholic conflict in Ireland, and all instances of religious intolerance. For my part, the blame for the bloody religious wars of history ought not be put on religion itself. These wars, rather, are one of many different expressions of an “in-group, out-group” mentality that holds for religious and non-religious persons alike. This mentality is the real cause of prejudice, whether it be against a particular gender, race, income level, sexual orientation, or religion. In short, religion is a one pathway through which a deeper cause of intolerance acts. The real cause is a proclivity to hate those deemed different. To solve this problem, the solution is not to eradicate religion, but to raise our children with the belief that all people, no matter how similar or different they are to us, have equal value. We ought to instill in them the belief that those on the outside are really no different than those on the inside. Indeed, the very distinction between Us and Them is a self-imposed construct that does not truly exist. Realizing this is the first step towards tolerance, and then, love.

***I'm not sure why I thought Thomas Paine wrote during the Civil War, but rest assured, I know he did not. He wrote Common Sense and The American Crisis to inspire early American colonists to revolt against England, not to forward the cause of abolitionists, who were active decades later. Nevertheless, the central point I make above remains.