A jaundiced look at the world we live in.
The ancient Greeks used to warn of the dangers of extremism, and advocate for the “golden mean.” Our contemporary circumstances point to the value of that warning.
I posted yesterday about the hateful responses to Elie Weisel’s objection to equating healthcare reform with Nazi death-camps. But the examples extend much farther: the demonizing of Muslims, the insistence by fundamentalist Christians that this is a “Christian Nation” in which others reside only by sufference.
Elie Weisel is a Holocaust survivor who has written moving books and articles about the Nazis, and their effort to exterminate the Jews. He has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize. Recently, he objected to the use of pictures displaying Nazi atrocities on signs carried by “teabaggers” protesting healthcare reform–making the (obvious and reasonable) point that equating an effort to extend health care to intentional genocide serves only to trivialize what happened during the holocaust.
The response by the extremist faction of the Republican party? According to Politico and several other sites, Weisel’s objection unleashed a torrent of abuse and anti-semitism. Here are just a few:
Everyone knows that Obama is George Soros sock puppet. Wasn’t Soros Jewish once upon a time? May the Schwartz be with you.
The jews need to clam up and accept the fact that they are in a Chritian country.
This hollowcost thing is totally overblown by the jewish.
Eli Wiesel should just go back to Indonesia. I don’t see him condemnig the terrorist shooter at Fort Hood.
Elie is a whiner. She should stop her whining. You didn’t not complane when the libs were calling Bush Hitler.
You know what? The fact is that at a time in history, The Rosthchild family controlled practically everything.
In the wake of Obama’s victory last November, we saw an unsettling and deeply troubling display of racism. As the response to Weisel demonstrates, the bigotry is not limited to African-Americans. It encompasses Jews, and immigrants–especially Mexican immigrants. In the wake of the tragedy at Fort Hood, the rightwing blogs have been filled with vitriol aimed at Muslims, including calls to expel all Muslims (even citizens!) from the country. (It does no good to ask these protectors of American purity why there aren’t similar calls when similar acts are perpetrated by Christians–recognition of hypocrisy isn’t their strong suit.)
It really pains me to say this, because I was an active and committed Republican for 35 years, but the party has been completely taken over by this base of angry, largely uneducated, haters. The reasonable Republicans I’ve worked with and known are leaving in droves, loathe to be associated with the teabaggers and know-nothings who are calling the shots.
The GOP made a Faustian bargain. For years, party elders courted the radical Christian Right, and gladly benefitted from their votes, volunteers and money, calculating that they could continue a relationship that was almost entirely one-way. Throw the rubes a legislative bone now and then, employ the rhetoric they wanted to hear, but otherwise ignore them. Those Republicans are now reaping the results of that cynical calculus. The GOP can’t win elections with just the votes of these irrational, angry activists and thugs. But if these people continue to be the face of what was once the Grand Old Party, they can’t win the votes of the vast majority of Americans who are people of good will.
If there is a moral to this sad story, it’s “beware of the beast you feed.”
In 1964, Richard Hofstader wrote The Paranoid Style in American Politics. As I was re-reading his survey of American political history, this caught my eye:
“The anti-Masonic movement was a product not merely of natural enthusiasm but also of the vicissitudes of party politics. It was joined and used by a great many men who did not fully share its original anti-Masonic feelings. It attracted the support of several reputable statesmen who had only mild sympathy with its fundamental bias, but who as politicians could not afford to ignore it. Still, it was a folk movement of considerable power, and the rural enthusiasts who provided its real impetus believed in it wholeheartedly.”
Just substitute “tea bag” for “anti-masonic” and you have an apt description of our time.
I have been meaning to post on this very issue, but Doug Masson has said precisely what I intended to say, and better, so I’m just going to say “amen.”
I will only add that a similar argument is made when the subject is poverty, and policies to address the structural elements in the economy that make it difficult for families to move into the middle class. There are strong echoes of Calvinism in the dismissive belief that, if someone is poor, it must be due to laziness, lack of drive, or other moral defect. As Calvin taught, if God loved you–if you were among the “saved”–then you wouldn’t be poor.
To me, one of the most frustrating aspects of contemporary public debate is something I call the “true believer” syndrome. The true believer can be on the political right or left; the distinguishing characteristic is a smug certainty that he or she is in possession of Truth (note capital T), and only the most unenlightened, hypocritical or downright evil person could possibly disagree.
On the right, true believers tend to be either biblical literalists or free-market fundamentalists. On the left, a disproportionate number are self-proclaimed (self-satisfied) environmentalists. What makes the environmentalists particularly annoying—at least to me—is that I generally agree with their basic message. It’s the aura of superior virtue that is off-putting.
I thought about this the other day, during a meeting of IUPUI’s “Common Theme” committee. The campus Common Theme program began a couple of years ago; much like the “One Book, One Community” project adopted by many cities, the Common Theme takes one book annually as its centerpiece. A year-long discussion of the themes raised by that book will include speakers, panel discussions, student projects and other programs. It’s an effort to encourage a more thoughtful and informed discussion of an important issue—and it is well worth doing.
This year, the Common Theme book is Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. McKibben is evidently a rock star of sorts in the environmental movement, and he will be on campus November 9th to kick off the year’s programming. I read the book, and found much of its argument—although certainly not all of it—persuasive.
I also found it annoying, thanks to the book’s moralistic tone.
A cover blurb from the Boston Globe might best convey what I mean: “A hopeful manifesto…an inspiring book that shows us not only the way we need to live, but also the way we should want to.” And indeed, throughout the book, there is the implicit message that if you are somehow so benighted as to disagree with one or more of McKibben’s prescriptions for a virtuous life, should you somehow, inexplicably fail to agree that this is the way you should want to live, you are to be scorned or at least pitied.
This is particularly irksome because—while there is much of value in the book—some of those prescriptions are just plain dumb. Others aren’t going to happen. (Small towns in America are not going to begin issuing their own currency. If you want to know what that has to do with sustainability, or saving the environment, you’ll have to read the book.)
Ideally, those of us participating in the Common Theme discussions will use these opportunities to separate the wheat from the chaff, to focus on the very real environmental challenges we face, to understand connections we hadn’t recognized, and to figure out how to make the changes that will inevitably be required. And ideally, we can participate in those discussions without being treated to the sort of elitism and moral snobbery that too often characterize these discussions.
Ideally, True Believers would stop being their own worst enemies.
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