In his book, the Specters of Marx, philosopher Jacques Derrida discusses the Hamlet's ghost and the idea of this 'specter' as a phenomenon of identity and temporality.

In terms of temporality, Derrida describes the ghost of Hamlet's father as both a reference to the past and the future. The king is dead; his version of the world is past; the events he embodies have occurred. However, by appearing and augmenting his appearance with the expression of an injunction to his son, he not only inhabits the present, but references the future that will come after Hamlet has recognized the ghost and listened. Disturbed by the apparition and its message, Hamlet observes that the 'time is out of joint,' something which he has been enjoined to 'put right.' Thus, in his father's injunction lies not only Hamlet's fate, but also the expression of identity inherent in his personal response to the injunction and in its power to redefine his context.

Derrida uses this specific, individual, tragic situation to draw a general analogy to the state of cultures 'haunted' by ghosts and specters of the past and future, specters that have the power to impose identity upon cultures and individuals or which may be used by cultures and individuals to form their own identities and fates. As the title of his book suggests, the ghost under discussion is Marx.

For Europe, the relationship between ghost of Marx and European past and present is clearly visible in the Marxist principles incorporated in most European governments, even where privatization and free market principles are prevalent trends. According to Derrida, the present and future of Marxism, and thus the response of this ghost's injunction, will involve the rejection of some Marxist principles and the transformation of others. In the end, however, Europe is still defined, in this respect, by its response to the injunction.

In light of the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the simultaneous disintegration of the Eastern European governments, the discussion of the influence of Marx might seem generally less relevant to U.S. culture at this moment, especially with reference to the current escalation of Christian activism. However, if one looks beyond the general discrediting of Marx that was occasioned the U.S. upon the political demise of the 'failed Marxist experiments' in Europe and Eurasia, Marx can still be recognized in some of the ghosts haunting the U.S.

To examine the connection, we need to look at several individual statements made by Derrida in the first chapter of his book:

..communism was essentially distinguished from other labor movements by its international character…(38)

In the middle of the last century, an alliance was constituted against this specter, to drive off the evil…In the Manifesto, the alliance of the worried conspirators assembles, more or less secretly, a nobility and a clergy—in the old castle of Europe, for an unbelievable expedition against what will have been haunting the night of these masters. At twilight, before or after a night of bad dreams, at the presumed end of history, it is a 'holy hunt against this specter…"(40)

Perhaps people are no longer afraid of Marxists, but they are still afraid of certain non-Marxists who have not renounced Marx's inheritance, crypto-Marxists…that the anxious experts of anti-communism are not trained to unmask. (50)[1]

The key ideas brought together here are the 'international,' thus intercultural, and geopolitical aspect of Marxist principles; the tradition of an 'alliance of the Holy' to combat it; and, in the post-European-Communist era, the fear of 'crypto-Marxists'—all elements for which it is easy to find analogies or examples in our current context. The fear of the international can easily be detected in the U.S. unwillingness to take part in almost any truly international initiatives whether these be to reduce ozone damaging gases, limit nuclear weapons or create international tribunals in which the U.S. might merely become 'just another member.' NATO, the longest standing Holy Alliance called together to combat Communism, may be in a weakened state, but is busily being replaced by 'alliances of the willing' or other new constellations designed to combat Marxist or other 'unholy' forces. The crypto-Marxists, perhaps the most interesting concept, can be seen not only in those remnants of political movement that are not Marxist, but which may still retain isolated Marxist values or characteristics which have been deemed equally threatening to the Holy Alliance, perhaps religious or cultural or economic concepts of a non-Christian, non-European origin.

In this respect, a relation to the ghosts of Marx or, more appropriately, the 'Anti-Marx' may be seen in many of the U.S. responses to its international and domestic conflicts or problems.

To go back to Hamlet and his father's ghost—we too have inherited a time 'out of joint' and have something to 'set right.' Standing before us are our ghosts, a representation of the past that is leaving and the future coming toward us. The injunction of ours ghosts is a call to identity and to a relationship to what has come before us; it is a force pushing us toward the future.

In the U.S., I doubt that many average citizens would now acknowledge the ghost of Marx and Anti-Marx but would be more focused on what Derrida calls the 'gospel' of 'liberal democracy.' As described in the book, this 'evangelical' political faith seems to form the basis from which Western democracy has pronounced the death of Marxism and the promise of world 'liberal democracy,' a pronouncement that might seem nothing more than a cry of victory, if it were not for the evangelist message attached to the cry.

The character of belief and faith (as opposed to rational, critical relationship to political theory and events) may be detected in the manner that the obvious failures of the 'Marxist experiment,' are taken as proof of the lie of that ideology, while the obvious failures of the 'liberal democracy' around the globe are taken as single instances of human weakness or imperfections, rather than a flaw in the ideal form. When the Soviet Union falls, it is confirmation of the already suspected evil inherent in the thought of Communism. On the other hand, when what starts out as a Western-supported 'liberal democracy' turns out to be a totalitarian regime, when the democratic free-market leads to extreme poverty and wealth and the polarization of diverse views, it is the particular player not the concept that is found lacking. It is in this sense that the demise of the Communist block not only has allowed the U.S. to dismiss with finality any of the many 'promises' of Marx but has also taken away the only 'critical eye' focused on the failures of the West, allowing an increased belief in a concretely imperfect but theoretically ideal 'liberal democracy' and very little need for self-criticism.

So how does the fall of Marxism relate to the current Christian activism in the U.S.? This connection reveals itself if we look at the new opponent of the Holy Alliance—which may be vaguely represented as 'problems with Islam' or precisely termed as 'terrorism.' Though Marxism may be deemed dead, the structure of opposition is still in tact, within a long established national identity and in the everyday view of 'blocks' in global politics. If this is true, we may see the new opponent as merely inhabiting Marx's old place in the mechanism of opposition, with one addition: rather than representing a demonized 'ideological' opponent, the new opponent has a concrete religious identity; and it is this religious identity that is now being pitted against an 'evangelism' inherent in the steadfast belief in the promise of  'liberal democracy for the world.' In this light, the Christian activism within the U.S. may be seen as a negative response to the (allegedly demised) Anti-Marx, as a positive response to the 'promise' of liberal democracy, and, finally, as a new 'political faith' which combines the two.

Recognizing the mixture of religious belief and political conviction, transformed to belief, as seen in the fear and the 'promise' described above, it may easier to understand the automatism in the current negative Christian-militant response to the tradition of secular humanism within the U.S.  Is anything related to the non-Christian also related to the perceived enemy, merely by association? It may only be with such recognition that we will be able to understand the automatic response with which activist groups combat the fear of the international or the post-Marxist 'devils' with the 'enforcement' of religion, thus moving Christians from a positive relationship to their belief and a constructive desire to see it reflected within cultural institutions (along with other belief) toward a confused vision of the Christian liberal democracy. Only a dissociation of religion with politics will it be possible to regard the world map without imposing 'oppositional block' or to allow the separation of religious questions from those of economy or power relations.

Looking for a moment at the word automatism, I realize it is probably necessary to define this term in terms of concrete events. Here are three:

Shortly after being named to the federal appellate court, Janice Rogers Brown--speaking of general conflict between secular humanists and 'believers' in the U.S., one in which Brown identifies with the 'believer' and expresses a desire to reintegrate the Church into the State--told a group of Catholic professionals at lunch:

There seems to have been no time since the Civil War that this country was so bitterly divided. It's not a shooting war, but it is a war.[2]

How literally does Brown mean this? Is this call to arms melodrama or potential tragedy? With the media as our 'mediator,' this is difficult to say. What is more important to the present discussion, however, is whether there is a specter hovering behind the shoulder of Janice Rogers Brown and, if so, in what sense might it be Marx? This specter may be seen in the discussion around Judge Brown's appointment, as well as in her words.

The conflict between Democrats and Republicans to name Judge Brown, the Republican annoyance at 'having to be bothered' with minority opposition—this specific conflict has resulted in a Republican desire to change a law designed as a check and balance. Laws protecting the right of the minority to obstruct decisions about which they feel very strongly are designed not to allow the minority to rule.  Any laws or rules benefiting the opposition are designed to limit the power of one dominating group—i.e., the current Republican monopoly on the Presidency, the House and the Senate—in such a way that one particular moment in the present does not over-determine a long-term future. Up to now, such oppositional obstruction has been criticized or led to temporary conflict; however, as in the case of other constitutional rights or traditions, there is something automatic or compulsive about the desire of the current government to change permanent law as a response to individual, acute situations.

In the sense that Judge Brown must be seen as a symbol, meaning more than her person, and that her statement may be seen to reveal what she symbolizes—a call or injunction to a segment of the U.S. that sees at her shoulder some 'father's ghost.'

Before appearing to overstate this case, let's go back to the question of the extent to which this is melodrama, or to what extent tragedy in the state of brooding? 'The soup is cooked hotter' than it is eaten, the Germans say, and Brown's words could merely be indicative of what has been heard before from religious, conservative quarters.

But then there's this:

Polls demonstrate that more Americans would vote against someone just for being an atheist than for any other reason. Given this, we nonbelievers must place the smallest possible number of political obstacles in the way of our working together to achieve a modern civilization in which public policy is untarnished by religious dogma.[3]

And even more concrete, the move to make obligatory the incorporation of a Christian view of evolution into the biology instruction of public schools:

A Pennsylvania school district Friday defended its decision to discount Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and teach what critics say is a version of creationism.

The district, the Dover Area School District in south-central Pennsylvania, is believed to be the first in the country to approve the teaching of a new theory called intelligent design, the National Center for Science Education said.

Proponents of the theory argue that the complexity of nature is such that it could not have occurred by chance, as Darwin held, and so must have been created by some all-powerful force.[4]

While U.S. citizens may vote on the basis of religious identification with candidates, the identification of this as a reason, more than any other, to vote against someone, demonstrates the extent to which many define competence and moral or ethical quality on the basis of a religious label. By the same token, while the introduction of the possibility of 'intelligent design' would be a liberalizing tendency if introduced in a Sunday School class, the obligatory instruction of it within the framework of biology instruction within public schools—without the benefit of an interdisciplinary title or reorganization of the subject matter of biology and culture—may be legitimately suspected to be an attempt to redefine natural science as a category of religious instruction.

Given this potential desire to infiltrate the cultural institutions not only with God, but with an evangelist purpose, and given the mixing of Christian principles with international political goals and visions, I believe it is at least in part a specter of Marx, who is calling to action and being called into action in these events—not his ghost, but the remnant of the reaction against his calling. Further, in these events I see a re-forming of the 'Holy alliance' which at all costs wants to ban the 'nonMarxist' voices that may still heed the Marxian injunction, not a call to revive the corrupted manifestation of Communism or Marxism in the political concrete, but a call to values that encourage an international bond, beneath religious prohibitions to bonding, to human connections that are not directly attached to dogmatic belonging.

This anti-specter has become its own haunting; and explicit and implicit posed by Shakespeare and reformulated by Derrida are central: Is it a 'good ghost'? Is it a truthful ghost?  And what new disjuncture will arise in the future if we use the commands of this ghost to 'set things right'?