For Norman. :-)
Confession Time: Liberals Are Ruining America http://www.christandpopculture.com/elsewhere/confession-time-liberals-are-ruining-america/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=confession-time-liberals-are-ruining-america Confession Time: Liberals Are Ruining America | Christ and Pop Culture Christ and Pop Culture Where The Christian Faith Meets The Common Knowledge of Our Age Confession Time: Liberals Are Ruining America By Jason Morehead – June 15, 2012 Steve Almond is a professor who resigned from his position at Boston College back in 2006 to protest the school’s selection of Condoleezza Rice as commencement speaker. As a good liberal, he thought he was doing his good liberal duty in doing so, and when he went on Fox News to debate Sean Hannity over the issue. However, in recent years, he’s come to reassess the effects of his sacrifice, and the flaws of his liberalism in general. This, to be blunt, is the tragic flaw of the modern liberal. We choose to see ourselves as innocent victims of an escalating right-wing fanaticism. But too often we serve as willing accomplices to this escalation and to the resulting degradation of our civic discourse. We do this, without even meaning to, by consuming conservative folly as mass entertainment. […] Of course, not all right-wing pundits spew hate. But the ones who do are the ones we liberals dependably aggrandize. Consider the recent debate over whether employers must cover contraception in their health plans. The underlying question — should American women receive help in protecting themselves from unwanted pregnancies? — is part of a serious and necessary national conversation. Any hope of that conversation happening was dashed the moment Rush Limbaugh began his attacks on Sandra Fluke, the young contraceptive advocate. The left took enormous pleasure in seeing Limbaugh pilloried. To what end, though? Industry experts noted that his ratings actually went up during the flap. In effect, the firestorm helped Limbaugh do his job, at least in the short term. But the real problem isn’t Limbaugh. He’s just a businessman who is paid to reduce complex cultural issues to ad hominem assaults. The real problem is that liberals, both on an institutional and a personal level, have chosen to treat for-profit propaganda as news. In so doing, we have helped redefine liberalism as an essentially reactionary movement. Rather than initiating discussion, or advocating for more humane policy, we react to the most vile and nihilistic voices on the right. He then takes a step back and wonders why he gives in to this thinking. The first and most damning reason is that some part of me truly enjoys resenting conservatives. I know I shouldn’t, that I should strive for equanimity. But secretly I feel the same helplessness and rage that animates the extreme right wing of this country. I see a world dangerously out of balance — morally, economically, ecologically — and my natural impulse is to blame those figures who, in my view, embody the decadent ignorance of the age. They become convenient scapegoats. Rather than taking up the banner and the burden of the causes I believe in, or questioning my own consumptive habits, I’ve come to rely on private moments of indignation for moral vindication. I fume at the iniquity of Pundit A and laugh at the hypocrisy of Candidate B and feel absolved — without ever having left my couch. It’s a closed system of scorn and self-congratulation. […] The most insidious effect of our addiction to right-wing misanthropy has been the erosion of our more generous instincts. At least for me. I’ve come to regard all conservatives as extremists, a mob of useful idiots plied by profiteers, rather than a diverse spectrum of citizens, many of whom share my values, anxieties and goals. When I hear the crowd at a Republican presidential debate cheer for capital punishment, I write them off as sadists, rather than accepting them as citizens seeking a means of keeping themselves safe. Slagging conservatism has become my one acceptable form of bigotry. This, of course, isn’t just a “liberal” sin. It’s a human one. We all want to attack and shout down the Other, i.e., those who represent so clearly that which we stand against. But in doing so, we reduce our fellow human beings created in the Imago Dei to caricatures and straw men so that we can feel better, safer, and stronger in our own circles and special interests. Almond comes to a conclusion very similar to that of Julie Goldberg, that the (partial) solution to this problem is to ignore that which so clearly divides and separates and instead, take up the hard part of seeing past the straw men and special interests to what we really share in common. This is, I think, what he refers to when he writes: Liberals and moderates would no longer be able to mollify themselves by watching Jon Stewart mock conservative wack jobs. They would be forced to consider their own values and the sort of actions necessary to reify those values in the world. They might even consider breaching our artificially inflated partisan divide. This last measure, I realize, hasn’t worked for President Obama. But he’s up against a cohort of politicians underwritten by special interests. We citizens can’t use that excuse. We all have the same basic interests: to provide for our families, to worship as we see fit, to pursue happiness. We live in a country of unimaginable abundance. It shouldn’t be so hard to find common ground. This is easier said than done, no doubt, and those “same basic interests” that we share will inevitably contain divisive elements. But still, nothing that is necessary and worth doing is ever easy, especially when it forces us to move beyond our own prejudices and bigotries. No Comments Leave a Reply XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href=”” title=”“> <abbr title=”“> <acronym title=”“> <b> <blockquote cite=”“> <cite> <code> <del datetime=”“> <em> <i> <q cite=”“> <strike> <strong> Recent Posts Sacred Space: Mars Hill Church as Music Patron? “It is easy to figure out what to do if the venture is a failure. The problem comes in when the business becomes a victim of success.” Grace Notes: Paul Buchanan and The Blue Nile The Blue Nile have developed a loyal following precisely because they are as un-rock n’ roll as you can get. 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