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But recent attacks on John Kerry have surpassed even my expectations. There's no mystery why. Mr. Kerry isn't just a Democrat who might win: his life story challenges Mr. Bush's attempts to confuse tough-guy poses with heroism, and bombast with patriotism.
One of the wonders of recent American politics has been the ability of Mr. Bush and his supporters to wrap their partisanship in the flag. Through innuendo and direct attacks by surrogates, men who assiduously avoided service in Vietnam, like Dick Cheney (five deferments), John Ashcroft (seven deferments) and George Bush (a comfy spot in the National Guard, and a mysterious gap in his records), have questioned the patriotism of men who risked their lives and suffered for their country: John McCain, Max Cleland and now John Kerry. How have they been able to get away with it? The answer is that we have been living in what Roger Ebert calls "an age of Rambo patriotism." As the carnage and moral ambiguities of Vietnam faded from memory, many started to believe in the comforting clichés of action movies, in which the tough-talking hero is always virtuous and the hand-wringing types who see complexities and urge the hero to think before acting are always wrong, if not villains. |
A bit of personal history here. Growing up, I would definitely have considered myself a Republican. I was part of the "libertarian" wing of the party - someone who thinks the purpose of organized civil society is the protection of personal liberty. And although neither party was perfect, I felt the GOP best supported my vision of how our country should be governed. A strong defense, support of free trade, a greater reliance on states rights... All that appealed to me.
But the more I paid attention, the less it seemed Republicans actually put those values into practice. Sure, they talked a good game, but in the end they rarely played by their own rules. And so throughout the 90's I gradually moved in a direction some would call "left".
True, my thinking on a wide variety of issues has shifted over time (I think, therefore I am). For example, I now believe strongly that the government can at times serve as a positive force of good in people's lives. That is an issue where I have clearly moved left.
But the change has not been all mine. The "center" of the Republican party has shifted as well. And it has moved to a place I simply cannot follow.
Krugman absolutely nails one of the shifts that has appalled me the most. When did patriotism become an unquestioning love for your country? Isn't a true patriot someone who stands up for their beliefs, who struggles and fights and questions and criticizes? When did skepticism doubt become treason? And what would Boston's "Sons of Liberty" have to say about all this?
And so the question is... why? What caused this shift? I would argue that in large part this shift is due to the rise of the "religious right" within the GOP. As with all "fundamentalist" religious movements, believers see the world in black vs. white, us vs. them. Of course any political party or organization has a natural tendency to fall into an us vs. them mentality. That's simply unavoidable. What changes things, what moves it from a healthy appreciation of similarities and differences to a toxic division is the religious element.
I have no problem with people who believe their world view is "the" world view, that their way is God's way. I've seen first hand how religious beliefs can completely transform people, and when it happens its a beautiful thing. But there is a difference, a critical difference, between public and private life. What works for us as individuals does not necessarily work for us as a society. That idea is at the core of what has made the American experiment so wildly successful. Freedom to believe and to dissent is literally the foundation of this nation. We owe it our very existence. And once upon a time, the GOP understood and believed that. But sadly, that no longer seems to be the case.
I've quoted from Karen Armstrong before, and I'll do it again here. For those of you who haven't yet taken my advice and read "The Battle for God", here's one short part taken from the Introduction:
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In the premodern world, both mythos and logos were regarded as indispensable. Each would be impoverished without the other. Yet the two were essentially distinct, and it was held to be dangerous to confuse mythical and rational discourse. They had separate jobs to do. Myth was not reasonable; its narratives were not supposed to be demonstrated empirically. It provided the context of meaning that made our practical activities worthwhile. You were not supposed to make mythos the basis of a pragmatic policy. If you did so, the results could be disastrous, because what worked well in the inner world of the psyche was not readily applicable to the affairs of the external world.
When, for example, Pope Urban II summoned the First Crusade in 1095, his plan belonged to the realm of logos. He wanted the knights of Europe to stop fighting one another and tearing the fabric of Western Christendom apart, and to expend their energies instead in a war in the Middle East and so extend the power of his church. But when this military expedition became entangled with folk mythology, biblical lore, and apocalyptic fantasies, the result was catastrophic, practically, militarily, and morally. Throughout the long crusading project, it remained true that whenever logos was ascendant, the Crusaders prospered. They performed well on the battlefield, created viable colonies in the Middle East, and learned to relate more positively with the local population. When, however, Crusaders started making a mythical or mystical vision the basis of their policies, they were usually defeated and committed terrible atrocities. Logos had its limitations too. It could not assuage human pain or sorrow. Rational arguments could make no sense of tragedy. Logos could not answer questions about the ultimate value of human life. A scientist could make things work more efficiently and discover wonderful new facts about the physical universe, but he could not explain the meaning of life. That was the preserve of myth and cult. By the eighteenth century, however, the people of Europe and America had achieved such astonishing success in science and technology that they began to think that logos was the only means to truth and began to discount mythos as false and superstitious. It is also true that the new world they were creating contradicted the dynamic of the old mythical spirituality. Our religious experience in the modern world has changed, and because an increasing number of people regard scientific rationalism alone as true, they have often tried to turn the mythos of their faith into logos. Fundamentalists have also made this attempt. This confusion has led to more problems. |
Reread the end of that last paragraph:
"Our religious experience in the modern world has changed, and because an increasing number of people regard scientific rationalism alone as true, they have often tried to turn the mythos of their faith into logos."
This is it exactly. The POLITICAL ascent of Evangelical Christianity is the transformation of mythos into logos. And just as before the consequences have been disastrous.
Out of time for now... I'll come back to this idea over the coming weeks.
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