My site has been going down intermittently, and here at home we seem to be battling a fatiguing bug in the household. Will be back in biz tonight, hopefully.
Meanwhile, another little excerpt from Why We Hate Us:
Balkanization…is just part of the landscape. On very basic civic and political values, there is a vast common ground hidden by a few stands of towering pines. The exceptions always get the attention; the negative often wins campaigns. Moderate, independent and eclectic citizens may be the vast, silent majority, but there is indeed a market for extremes. A doctor in Canton, Ohio, once asked me if I thought there could ever be something called “The Moderate Channel.” Instantly he caught himself and said, “No, that would never sell, would it?”
August 7th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
If I’m understanding the argument being made, then I think this post is much more on target. I’m a bit of a pollyanna,an optomist and I just don’t buy the premise.
We don’t hate us. The media is constantly telling us we’re a nation divided, blue vs. red and all that and I look around me and I don’t see it. I live in New York City, I’m surrounded by liberals, I generally like them except when the conversation turns to social or political issues, at which time they inexplicably transmogrify into whiny children, but by and large, the divisions do not run deep with a vast majority. Most liberals are somewhat embarrassed about the ’60’s even while admiring the idealism. Everytime I start to dismiss them as being hopelessly partisan, they vote for a Republican or act in some way to let it be known that they have some conservative ideals. I’m forced to realize I was letting my assumptions and intellectual shortcuts assign them a status they don’t deserve.
Of course there are some towering pines (the ones I have experience with are all liberal so I can’t comment on the conservatives who fit the bill). I chalk those up to a somewhat childish idealism. They really want to push back against the “power”, to stand up for the poor and destitute, oppose the oppressor. The problem is, there aren’t any oppressors in their lives, the abuses we suffer are relatively minor. So they invent oppression by greatly exaggerating the abuses around them in an attempt to create the conditions for the heroic persona they imagine for themselves.
There is an old quote I am unable to find the source for. It’s one of my favorites. It says “there have been more wars fought over the number of buttons on the bishop’s cassock then over the basic nature of god.” It was a reformation/counter-reformation era quote. It says something about human nature. For instance, as modern conveniences make our lives easier, we don’t complain less, we just complain about pettier things. And the more petty the complaint, the louder the complaining–hoping to make up in volume and adjectives what is missing in nouns and verbs. So the modern rabble rouser makes rediculous claims about the evil Bush regime because it’s all he has to work with. He has to load up on overwrought descriptive terms because the meat of the complaint won’t do the work on its own.
I also blame education. As I get older I see in more and more areas how the failure of education to teach basic reasoning and enough facts to get some perspective is interfering with public discourse. Any time I hear some say “worst ever”, “most ever”, etc. etc., it’s obvious the speaker is ignorant of history. It’s not nearly the most or worst anything. Every person who has compared Bush to Hitler deserves to spend the rest of their lives apologizing to Hitler’s victims for belittling their suffering. But it is precisely because, as tyrants go, Bush doesn’t give them much to work with that they use such grand terms in describing him. But, again, the towering pines. Most of us are just fine. I’ve never heard anyone compare Bush to Hitler outside of the internet and art school.
Another thing I learn as I get older is the incredible resiliency of the BS indicator of the average American. Most people have a remarkable ability to see through the noise and the junk of our modern media and realize what matters. There may be instances of the towering pines latching onto a gear and throwing off the machine, but in the long run, the rank and file will keep it running more or less smoothly.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Oh good lord! I just spent 30 minutes typing what I thought was a solid and meaningful comment that I was quite proud of when done. Then I hit submit and it disappeared. Gone. Poof! That’ll teach me to not highlight and copy before submitting, as I know I should.
Here’s the 30 second version: I disagree with the premise. We don’t hate us. Those few towering pines make it seem so from time to time because they get all the press, but they pose no long term danger. We’re fine. We just have to resist the temptation to simplify and pigeonhole the people around us, assuming they are more partisan, close minded, etc. then they really are.
[Sorry Tim, you were in my SPAM filter for some reason. Your initial post was recovered, too. - admin]
August 7th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Sadly, just as the world turned against him 40 years ago, it seems that the contemporary world has missed the 30th anniversary of death of Pope Paul VI, August 6, 1978. (I cheated and backdated the posting at my site.)
I found this interesting video on Pope Paul at YouTube (in Italiano). I didn’t realize that Pope Paul had done so much. Growing up, it seemed that, although he was pope, he was mostly old and quietly confined to the Vatican.
Pope Benedict spoke highly of Pope Paul at the Angelus on Sunday –
Now, dear friends, I ask you to join me in a devout and filial commemoration of the Servant of God, Pope Paul VI, the 30th anniversary of whose death we shall be celebrating in a few days. Indeed, he gave up his spirit to God on the evening of 6 August 1978, the evening of the Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, a mystery of divine light that always exercised a remarkable fascination upon his soul.
As Supreme Pastor of the Church, Paul VI guided the People of God to contemplation of the Face of Christ, the Redeemer of man and Lord of history. And it was precisely this loving orientation of his mind and heart toward Christ that served as a cornerstone of the Second Vatican Council, a fundamental attitude that my venerable Predecessor John Paul II inherited and relaunched during the great Jubilee of the Year 2000. At the centre of everything, always and only Christ: at the centre of the Sacred Scriptures and of Tradition, in the heart of the Church, of the world and of the entire universe.
Divine Providence summoned Giovanni Battista Montini from the See of Milan to that of Rome during the most sensitive moment of the Council - when there was a risk that Blessed John XXIII’s intuition might not materialize. How can we fail to thank the Lord for his fruitful and courageous pastoral action? As our gaze on the past grows gradually broader and more aware, Paul VI’s merit in presiding over the Council Sessions, in bringing it successfully to conclusion and in governing the eventful post-conciliar period appears ever greater, I should say almost superhuman. We can truly say, with the Apostle Paul, that the grace of God in him “was not in vain” (cf. 1 Cor 15: 10): it made the most of his outstanding gifts of intelligence and passionate love for the Church and for humankind. As we thank God for the gift of this great Pope, let us commit ourselves to treasure his teachings.