The Dust Settles
Apologies for the more serious tone here. Maybe I have been hanging out with Mader too long. Anyway, the following is a rant, just without esoteric references.
It's a week after the election and many have had their chance to analyze the results. Many have decided that the reason for the Republican victory is simple: people in the middle of the country are stupid. They are homophobic and warmongering zealots who lack the enlightened worldview necessary to choose an adequate leader.
Madonna, one of our country's great political and sociological thinkers, pointed out that "[The United States has] people who don't want to think, and who just want to guard what is theirs, and they're selfish and limited in their thinking and they're very fearful in their choices." (She is screaming to be relevant again.)
All this talk about being enlightened has caused me to wonder what exactly "enlightened" means.
Does it mean that death is wrong for murderers and rapists that have wasted their chance at life, but it is ok for embryos that have never had a chance? Or is it more enlightened to say that death is wrong no matter what? Does it mean that religious zealotry is wrong when applied to the defense of a state that was created as a haven for a persecuted people but it is ok when it involves trying to wipe out an entire people group? (See Christopher Hitchens for a truly enlightened view of the dangers of religous zealotry.)
The problem is not that half the country is uneducated and unenlightened. The problem is that half the country is tired of being called these things. They have read the same books and newspapers, they just interpret them differently. That doesn't mean they are dumb, it means that they provide "intellectual diversity." I thought diversity was one of our societal goals.
I may not agree with what you have to say, but I'm not about to insult you or claim that you are ignorant just because I disagree. But for too long, that has been the predominant tactic in political discourse. What last week showed us is that calling someone stupid is not going to win them to your side. If anything, it will push them farther away (Iowa basically flipped the bird).
This brings me to what I really wanted to talk about. It has become incredibly fashionable to spew invectives upon the Judeo-Christian tradition as of late. Judaism is automatically linked with Zionism and Christianity instantly translates as bigotry. If this were any other religious tradition, it would renounced before the insults were finished. Can you imagine a celebrity getting away with mocking Islam or Buddhism or calling believers of those faiths idiots? It makes even less sense when you consider that Jews and Christians fall all over the political spectrum. If all Chrisitans are homophobes, does that mean that Jimmy Carter is a homophobe? You know what, Jimmy Carter is a bad example.
If these insults were hurled at a race or gender, those doing the hurling would lose their jobs and be branded as ignorant fools. But when directed at the largest religious tradition in the country, it is okay. It seems persecution is allowed when it is directed at the majority.
It's a week after the election and many have had their chance to analyze the results. Many have decided that the reason for the Republican victory is simple: people in the middle of the country are stupid. They are homophobic and warmongering zealots who lack the enlightened worldview necessary to choose an adequate leader.
Madonna, one of our country's great political and sociological thinkers, pointed out that "[The United States has] people who don't want to think, and who just want to guard what is theirs, and they're selfish and limited in their thinking and they're very fearful in their choices." (She is screaming to be relevant again.)
All this talk about being enlightened has caused me to wonder what exactly "enlightened" means.
Does it mean that death is wrong for murderers and rapists that have wasted their chance at life, but it is ok for embryos that have never had a chance? Or is it more enlightened to say that death is wrong no matter what? Does it mean that religious zealotry is wrong when applied to the defense of a state that was created as a haven for a persecuted people but it is ok when it involves trying to wipe out an entire people group? (See Christopher Hitchens for a truly enlightened view of the dangers of religous zealotry.)
The problem is not that half the country is uneducated and unenlightened. The problem is that half the country is tired of being called these things. They have read the same books and newspapers, they just interpret them differently. That doesn't mean they are dumb, it means that they provide "intellectual diversity." I thought diversity was one of our societal goals.
I may not agree with what you have to say, but I'm not about to insult you or claim that you are ignorant just because I disagree. But for too long, that has been the predominant tactic in political discourse. What last week showed us is that calling someone stupid is not going to win them to your side. If anything, it will push them farther away (Iowa basically flipped the bird).
This brings me to what I really wanted to talk about. It has become incredibly fashionable to spew invectives upon the Judeo-Christian tradition as of late. Judaism is automatically linked with Zionism and Christianity instantly translates as bigotry. If this were any other religious tradition, it would renounced before the insults were finished. Can you imagine a celebrity getting away with mocking Islam or Buddhism or calling believers of those faiths idiots? It makes even less sense when you consider that Jews and Christians fall all over the political spectrum. If all Chrisitans are homophobes, does that mean that Jimmy Carter is a homophobe? You know what, Jimmy Carter is a bad example.
If these insults were hurled at a race or gender, those doing the hurling would lose their jobs and be branded as ignorant fools. But when directed at the largest religious tradition in the country, it is okay. It seems persecution is allowed when it is directed at the majority.
posted by The Humble Best at 1:10 PM
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