WHAT ROUGH BEAST? America sits of the edge

Have another cup of coffee Tart.

I believe I did provide an apt and telling criticism of the content of Didon's article.

As for the messenger vs the message bit, Blatham cited the authority of three evidently prominent contemporary writers. The fact (sad or otherwise) is that I don't know much about any of them. I acknowledged that fact and gave (it seems to me) a very good reason for it, and for a degree of general skepticism about contemporary analysis that claims to be profoundly insightful about the motives of living people. In short I am not persuaded that Didon can separate fact from fiction, though I acknowledge her work, viewed as fiction, can be entertaining.

It seems to me that no one has substantially addressed the reservations I expressed, all of you apparently hiding behind the assumed authority of this contemporary writer. Seems a bit mediaeval to me.

0 Replies

Tartarin,

I remember in the fifties at the "Bible" church I attended as a latency age child, there were communist plots behind just about everything in our culture, according to my sunday school teachers and the minister. I remember raving lectures by Billy James Hargis who saw a communist plot and sexual deviance behind just about everything (and he talked for hours, making the children in the crowd profoundly restless.) I remember that he seemed very upset about something and I understood that it had something to do with communists in the colleges (SMU was the "red bed of communism") and movies were communist plots to pollute the minds of our citizens, especially the young people, so no movies for us. And, indeed, modern art was an abomination to God, a subversive plot to destroy our confidence in the God's ordered universe. You get the picture, I won't go on.

Quote:

Billy James Hargis, now in his 70's, built a career howling against the usual things that irritate the umbrageous right; sex, permissiveness, drugs, communism. A flat faced Oklahoman with the porcine eyes of a prison guard, he went from nowhere to top billing on 140 tv and 500 radio stations. He founded a Christian college and a newspaper which attained a circulation of 200,000. He got rich, of course, but as the bible tells us, money isn't everything.

In the mid-seventies, two students from his Bible College testified that the Reverend had officiated at their wedding ceremony, gone along on the honeymoon, and took his turn with the bride. And then with the groom. Then it came out that Hargis had been bringing college choir boys to his farm. Exhorting them with the biblical passage about David's friendship with Jonathan, and threatening them with blacklisting if they talked, Billy took them into his bed and did his devilish business with them. (The name of the choir was the "All American Kids.")

Confronted with these accusations, Hargis admitted it all, blaming it on "Genes and chromosomes." That confused his critics for a moment. Billy James had never been the kind of guy to trot in scientific arguments, so he stepped things up. He withdrew his confession and bounded back to the college. He claimed that the Lord had forgiven him, and, just in case He hadn't, held on to the mailing lists. He blamed his barnyard buggery on "Liberal subversion" and "The forces of Satan out to silence anti-communism." Before you laugh, bear in mind that this sort of Christian logic has elected more than a few American politicians.

http://www.postfun.com/pfp/features/97/oct/hargis.html

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/Hargis/Hargisbio.html

Quote:

I went down to the church that night with my mother and my sister. The building was filled to capacity with others who wanted to know what God had to say. Brother Tom turned out to be a tall, white-haired man who told jokes and made you wish you lived in Oklahoma and he was your grandfather. But his message wasn't from God. It was from Billy James Hargis, who knew for a fact that God wanted Barry Goldwater elected President of the United States.

God was worried, so it seemed, and had personally appointed Billy James to carry His banner of righteousness throughout the land. (Of course, if the town was too small, Brother Tom filled in.) We listened to a tape recording for about an hour. Billy James pointed out that America had been taken over by communists and that Eisenhower had led the pink pack. He almost lost the audience right there. The people in Sublette, Kansas, may be conservative, but they are Republican, after all. When Brother Tom turned off the tape and began his part of the show he played down the Ike bit. He did mention that Billy James had it straight from God that the blacks and Jews in this country were getting uppity.

http://www.songtalk.com/scrapbook.html

I memorized Bible verses every week and on Friday I went to the home of my "hearer" to whom I quoted my memorized verses. This activity was organized for me and many other young people by The Bible Memory Association, whose mission was to encourage memorization of the Bible so that when the Communists came and took over our government, we would all have the Bible in our heads and God's word would survive because I had it stored safely in my brain. (Imagine my fantasies about what these Communists would do to me, having the Bible in my brain and all.) A few years later, the founder N.A. Woychuk, was discovered to be abusing prescription pain killers and using the association's credit cards to pay for prostitutes. He's not around anymore.

But just because Woychuk is not around anymore does not mean his mission has disappeared. The new bible memory program Memlok takes great pains to disassociate itself from the old BMA. Memlok is the program used for home schooling of children these days.

Maybe we should all start memorizing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights :wink:

0 Replies

Well Lola, given all that I can sympathize with your viewpoint. However please consider that your experience is typical of only a certain slice of religious experience. For me it was of a God who intended above all that we would avoid cruelty and greed directed at others, who made the distinction between the things that were Caesar's and the things that were His, and whose understanding of human nature and mercy are boundless. Human nature was viewed as basically good, albeit flawed. We were certainly warned about 'the sins of the flesh', but the underlying presumption was that the improper or untimely indulgence of a natural appetite was not nearly as bad as the perversion of our natures through the abuse of others. Forgiveness and renewal were readily available and unlimited. (This was incidently a combination that provided a truly exquisite sauce to the drama of adolescent sex.)

0 Replies

Yes, my experience as a child were more like george's, mine within a tradition of liberal Mennonitism. Education was valued very highly, and the hubris of certainty frowned upon. As this population was mainly agrarian, it also tended to be very communitarian (charity/sharing was laudable and greed despicable). As an anabaptist tradition, civil governments were granted no special authority or trust - their value was established by their words and actions. This version of christianity was partially the consequence of that branch of Mennonitism, but equally a consequence of my grandparents, two very remarkable and loving individuals. True, we weren't allowed to grow pubic hair until 15, but one can't expect everything.

0 Replies

george

Yes, Keillor is the Lake Wobegone guy.

You know...I don't think you are at home in this modern world. I confess I often feel the same way, and I'm sure Lola and Tartarin have had similar sentiments from time to time. But I'm going to argue that you are being a bit chickenshit too. One can open up Tolstoy or Stendahl and be guaranteed a good journey, but I think had you lived contemporaneously to them, you'd not have read them, being concerned they might be merely 'fashionable', and thus deceive you or embarrass you if you 'bought in' to their work and ideas. You are comfortable with tradition, george. I'll wager that one of your homes sports an ionic column out front (with a flag holder).

0 Replies

That's a wonderful account, Lola!

My upbringing spelled god with a small "g" and regarded church-going as a sign of personal (moral) underdevelopment . That must seem harsh, but I agree with it, at least in part -- certainly the moral part of it. My parents both came from Quaker backgrounds, which accounts for dislike of the institution which I inherited. With maturity came respect for non-Pendle Hill Quakers, for Mennonites (having had contact with them in PA and having seen the staggeringly self-denying good works they do), and Catholics (no explanation).

I probably said this before somewhere, but I was astounded this summer, during the visit of an old friend I hadn't seen in years who's an Episcopal priest, that she's getting out of the church having come to the same point of view. Go figure.

George -- there is of course a distinction between the fundies and the other Christians. Approximately the same as between Wonder Bread and Pepperidge Farm? Something like that?

0 Replies

Lola's account is very wonderfully related, isn't it. One of the fondnesses shared by we brave few on this thread is towards the well-turned phrase - we all like writing.

An example of local variation in views of faith groups other than one's own...in my little farming town (about 10,000 when I was young) we didn't hear anything about Jews. I wouldn't have known one to see one. The proof of that was that one of my best friends was a Jew, another neighboring family were Jewish, and we had no idea any of them were.

Catholics, on the other hand, were downright weird. I distinctly recall, on the way home from a little league game, peering through a small catholic church window and seeing a very brightly colored and large female idol carved from wood.

My biggest beef with this latter group is that any rigorous scholarship in the area of Western theology will demonstrate pretty clearly that Satan arrived here on earth by smuggling himself in the underwear of Catholics.

And Tart....very very funny with the bread analogy

0 Replies

Quote:

My biggest beef with this latter group is that any rigorous scholarship in the area of Western theology will demonstrate pretty clearly that Satan arrived here on earth by smuggling himself in the underwear of Catholics.

Hmmm...now I shalll have to rename my best friend... Wink

0 Replies

hobit

I'd suggest you refer to it henceforth as your 'John Augustine'

0 Replies

Well, I didn't mention Jews because the Jews I knew (including a couple in the family) were non-observant. And because I didn't know what a Jew was until high school, I just knew who I liked and who I didn't. But by the time I was in high school and had experience with religion and prejudice (my, how they seem to go hand in hand) many of the people at the top of the list of who I wanted to be like, be with, have fun with, live life with were people with a wider perspective and interesting intellectual backgrounds. Many of them turned out to be non-observant Jews. I still think of the influence of my mother's first cousin, a distinguished psychiatrist and writer, who had a wide perspective, intellectual acumen, tremendous and often acerbic humor. He took no guff from anyone, was afraid of no question, no new idea.

You know, the ability of those adults who function really well -- and without a crutch -- in a secular world is what grabs my attention and admiration. They have to have a combination of strong ego in check, self-discipline, and -- at best -- a lack of self-absorption. My view of American Protestantism and American culture in general is that they militate against these qualities, and instead encourage dependency and narrow-mindedness -- and tremendous self-regard. (Feel good; don't think.)

0 Replies

Lola said,

Quote:

GW, Tom DeLay, John Ashcroft (our Attorney General, no less) and likely Karl Rove (as well as many others in Congress and those waiting in the wings to be appointed judges if GW is reelected) have an obsessive compulsive need for easy, grossly over simplified solutions to highly complicated world problems. A true believer is much more dangerous than a shrew politician. (Isn't it difficult to think of GW as shrew.?)
And...
This is very much less a mystery that many believe. The method used was easy. The gaps in the Republican party for local leadership have made it possible for these fanatically dedicated fundamentalists to suceed beyond anyone's wildest expectations.

If those in power have an obsessive compulsive need for easy, grossly over simplified solutions, they also are very capable of using extremely complicated, long-range tactics to get what they want-which is what they've been doing since George I. (And please don't insult shrews by comparing them with dubya!) :wink:

Your last paragraph goes a long way in arguing that fundamentalists are dangerous and making alarming headway in the political system. As I've said many times before, I AM frightened of their increasing power and don't deny their ambitions are coming closer to being reality. What bothers me is seeing the polarization and concentration of hatred toward "the other side," as the elections draw nearer. Sometimes that hatred backfires.

Haven't you seen otherwise thoughtful people become defensive and unreasonable when their position is vilified, no matter how vile it might be? That is when they their objectivity fails, as they defend much more strongly that which has been attacked. I think that Democrats will lose any headway they have made if they become even more antagonistic.

Isn't it time to help the right save some face and encourage them to come to their own conclusions by painting the picture with fewer gargoyles? Instead, show the danger using objective, well-documented and subdued means--the polarization will lessen and real, productive discussion can take place. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think this is unrealistic. This could also be the reason for Tartarin's disappointment in her Republican friends:

Quote:

There are Republicans, of course, and probably a goodly number, who are dismayed and disgusted by Bush, but the ones I know seem to have decided to sit this one out, are being wusses, people who are very generous with their time at community level but are (apparently) too comfortable to feel any urgent responsibility for the future of the country. I say that realizing that I thought better of them. But the truth is, they're backing off. I get the impression that they are retreating, simply won't vote unless there's an alternative to Bush.

One other thing, using Joan Didion's quotes about dubya's drinking expeditions would only appear petty to the right and wouldn't be taken seriously. Her quote:

Quote:

In either case, committed fundamentalist Christian or pursuer of the fundamentalist Christian vote, the politician will be called upon to consign the country to the same absolutist scenarios.

is very relevant and could be put to effective use by making it clear to moderate Republicans that they are in danger of losing the very basic freedoms they value, if they don't wake up and realize how far the neocons have come by encouraging fundamentalists in their quest for political power.

I don't have the certainty the rest of you do about how to proceed with this election and what needs to be emphasized and what needs to be discussed while acknowledging the right's position and showing them the danger inherent in letting the religious right become a power in D.C. or locally. I do think that we tend to preach to the choir without getting down to the hard work of defining how best to bring about the election of a good Democrat.

0 Replies

Quote:

I think that Democrats will lose any headway they have made if they become even more antagonistic.

Dianne

I'm not sure that is true. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it isn't either.

Part of what we are trying to do here is to understand the dynamics of the present situation. It seems to me close to a certainty that one of these dynamics is the significant increase in the political power of the 'religious right' within the Republican Party. And American Protestantism is a very odd creature indeed.

What we say here won't effect many votes, so that really isn't an issue I don't think. But we can use this wonderful resource to share information and ideas and thus gain some clarity on the issues.

If the question relates to 'how ought the Democratic Party and it's presidential nominee to frame issues in the next election?'...it's uncertain that framing the issues rather severely might not be exactly what they should do. The battle ground has already greatly been defined, in a very severe manner, by the right (all the binary opposites which show up here, for example...the Coulter take on the world). There is a very good reason that the boys around Bush keep repeating 'RESOLUTE'...their marketing expertise has shown them that a broad base of voters want to hear from Authority...want to place their trust in anyone who says "X is it and that is all there is to say".

And the thing is, the Dems have a traditional value-set and constituency which has something to say, and with integrity...eg, vast inequalities are a moral wrong and a recipe for social upheaval.

0 Replies

blatham wrote:

george

You know...I don't think you are at home in this modern world. I confess I often feel the same way, and I'm sure Lola and Tartarin have had similar sentiments from time to time. But I'm going to argue that you are being a bit chickenshit too. One can open up Tolstoy or Stendahl and be guaranteed a good journey, but I think had you lived contemporaneously to them, you'd not have read them, being concerned they might be merely 'fashionable', and thus deceive you or embarrass you if you 'bought in' to their work and ideas. You are comfortable with tradition, george. I'll wager that one of your homes sports an ionic column out front (with a flag holder).

You may have a point there. I do like tradition, (however, no icon or flag holder). Had I lived in the 19th century I might well have missed Stendahl, not (I hope) because of any perceived shame in enjoying the contemporary, but rather because of the difficulty in separating the contemporary wheat from the chaff. The filter of a century or so does well at picking out those expressions with enduring value to the human situation from those which merely illustrate the contemporary scene. So much to understand: so little time. Overall I think it a good rule.

Tartarin,

I do indeed like Pepperidge Farm bread. Though I like the coarse yeasty Italian bread from a certain bakery in Bethesda even better. What kind do you like?

0 Replies

[quote="blatham
....
And the thing is, the Dems have a traditional value-set and constituency which has something to say, and with integrity...eg, vast inequalities are a moral wrong and a recipe for social upheaval.[/quote]

I think it might be more accurate to say constituencies (plural) with many, often discordant things to say.

With respect to "vast inequalities" a recent issue of the "Economist" (no ardent fan of the Republican administration) provided statistics on the income (and living standard) distributions throughout the developed world. The article noted that although the disparity between the top and bottom quartiles in the u.s. was greater than in other countries, all groups in the USA did better than their opposite numbers in ALL other developed countries, including even 'happy' Sweden. In particular this includes the bottom deciles, who are better off here than than those in other countries, including Sweden. Further the article noted the far greater economic mobility of people in the United States, compared to other countries - people here tend to occupy the lower portions of the distribution for shorter periods here than in other countries. Same goes for the top end - most of the privileged few earned it (or stole it) themselves. The "vast inequality" is one of several Democrat fictions that have cost them the support of many people here.

0 Replies

Quote:

because of the difficulty in separating the contemporary wheat from the chaff.

Yes, time constraints are a problem for all of us, I'm sure. There really is too much to learn and we learn to husband our resources to best accomodate our particular intellectual passions. But modern voices, some of them, are of the creamy sort (to use another agrarian metaphor) and speak to our time in specifics which Tolstoy cannot. One is happy that folks read Hugo during his lifetime (by the way, that was 'ionic'...along with doric and corinthian making up the styles of columns used by greek architects).

0 Replies

We of the low-carb tribe eschew bread. When I'm naughty, though, I eat Ciabatta from a local bakery.

As for your deciles, George, I hope you'll dump the Economist, wipe off your glasses, and get out and see some of the country sometime, not remain one of A2K's resident conservative economystified. Those bottom deciles are having a tough time. As with Timber's cant, I am deeply suspicious of those who couch other people's serious difficulties in terms of comparisons with other unseen people in difficulty or with pie charts. Let's just deal with the matter at hand, and that's a lousy loss of jobs that indicates trouble but doesn't even take into account those who didn't have jobs or who are no longer bothering to look; those who eat two scant meals a day; those who choose between a meal and medicine; and those who've given up on the whole damn deal.

Just to show how some Christian churches are as cozy as George is with the prevailing capitalist lingo, the ("cute") saying of the day at the church across from Walgreen's is "People with small principles will garner small interest."

0 Replies

george

Take a peek... http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/national/02HUNG.html

Why is that the secular humanists are the ones here who keep bringing up the moral elements to these questions of social policy? Bill Bennett gambled how much away in Vegas? Cheney makes how much a year?

0 Replies

george wrote:

Quote:

However please consider that your experience is typical of only a certain slice of religious experience.

Yes, but george, do you know how big the slice is? It's not small. I haven't looked for current numbers, but I'll see if I can find some. I'm curious myself. It's true, maybe my perspective is distorted by where I live currently and the way in which I was raised. But I'll tell you, that I cherished the day, as a child, when I would escape the insanity. I believed it was just my family and a few others. But I have been dismayed, horrified really that my fantasy was, in fact, incorrect.

On the subject of Jews. The only Jewish family I knew growing up was the family in the house next door. We lived on a street which has now been designated an historical district for all the fine big homes there. The neighbor next door was a widowed older woman, Jewish and intelligent, kind really. Her grand son came to visit her every week end because her daughter was divorced and she (the daughter) was a local TV personality, and was busy. The grandson, was my favorite playmate. We were mischievous, both of us. We were born that way. And my friend and I ran around the neighborhood playing naughty tricks that got us into trouble on a regular basis, if not with the neighbors, with my parents. But the fundies loved my friend the jewish boy. They saw him as a soul to be saved. And they tried. He, for his part, was curious about the Christians, and so accompanied me to some of the church functions. We were naughty there as well. Laughing

0 Replies

Yes, Diane and Blatham -- the matter of Democratic aggressiveness (or "antagonism") is interesting. My tendency, at this point, is to believe that speaking out strongly is the right way to go, and think that accounts for much of the success of Dean and Clark.

0 Replies

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14486

Really nice exchange in the above -- the first four of posts from Perc and Farmerman, at least.

0 Replies

WHAT ROUGH BEAST? America sits of the edge

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know