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
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.
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