Agitation
The anxiety is understandable. But don't stretch things too far out of proportion: in fact, the differences between today's Christian right and the movements led by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini are greater than the similarities.
posted by paul bowman @ 8:00 AM
6 Comments:
I read the linked item, too, and was caught off-guard: Hedges' previous book, War Is A Force That Gives Meaning To Our Lives was one of the most beneficially thought-provoking non-fiction books I've read in the last five years. I was surprised that, by this reviewer's lights, Hedges was seemingly so flippant and polarizing in his rhetoric.
This interview gives Hedges a chance to explain where he's coming from, and I think he raises some worthy questions that evangelicals in particular need to re-consider and provide some articulate answers to ("Whither Democracy?" basically). If evangelicals were to take democratic principles seriously, the entire culture war might possibly change to something more mutually beneficial to everyone - say, a "culture dialogue", perhaps?
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I see I've tarred "evangelicals" with a large brush - shame on me. There are, of course, evangelicals who have a nuanced apprehension of democracy and its discontents. And they aren't usually the ones being given air-time, because you can't boil down what they believe into a phrase that burns the ears. It kind of puts me in mind of Noam Chomsky's assertions about the media: in television or radio, an intelligent person isn't given the opportunity to explain their proposals to intelligent listeners, so you have to seek out ways to work around the constraints. If the "culture war" is being fought on television and radio, along with a few newspapers (the fronts of choice), then we've probably all just lost.
Sorry for this — following is my reply from above, with a little morning editing applied. Really should never try to write late at night.
Wow — the Salon interview makes at least as interesting reading as the LATimes review, without a doubt. There's a lot that might be said about the perspective Hedges represents, as he comes across here. I'd say — in very short — that I think his picture is badly distorted at several levels of break-down, and that he obscures for that reason what could be said to be the real bases of those legitimate concerns that figure in & (ostensibly) drive his presentation of it. But I don't get at any specific problem with his thinking with such a broad comment, of course; and to do so usefully would take some work — at least for me. Would be interested in teasing some of this out further with you, at any rate — if occasion allows?
Backing up a step, though: I ought to try to bring in here somehow my sense that I'm seeing the 'culture war' phenomenon with very different eyes than I did even only a few years ago. It's less & less a worrisome thing for me, even as it appears to continue to achieve new levels of heat. I'm sometimes greatly amused, sometimes greatly irritated, by the popular-audience extremes represented by, among others, preacher-author types like Dobson & co. on one side and by, among others, print & broadcast journalists like Hedges on the other. But at the same time, I'm aware there's a great deal more going on in public arena — a lot of genuinely good, clear-headed, sometimes new insight on fundamental controversies. In part because of that, and in part because the opposing voices/forces generally seem (in the broad view) so evenly matched, neither the amusement nor the irritation tends to preoccupy. One can pay attention to the clearer heads and be fully engaged; the role of the demagogic screamers & utopian dreamers can be kept somewhat in perspective.
In the broad view — again — my sense is that there's actually quite a diversity & richness of dialogue where we are now in history — and if in some respects it amounts to a 'war', this is in large measure a reflection of what's vital & fruitful about it in other respects. I doubt you can have the vitality & fruitfulness of dialogue without also having concurrently & maybe overlapping, in various ways, the 'war': because human failing, growth, and variation & variability all have to play out in what gives rise to them. Whether or not we account for this vitality & fruitfulness under the rubric of democracy & 'open society' is possibly quite another question in the end: not an insignificant question, but a somewhat relative and in any case different one. As it is, democratic principle is undoubtedly under strain all the time, in virtue of the various compromises & corruptions that elements of all sides in conflict allow themselves; and yet for now, at least, democracy & openness appear to me, far from being exhausted by the strain, rather to demonstrate more convincingly resiliency & excellent adaptation to the historical situation, in light of it.
Well, 'evangelical' is a broad-brush term, isn't it? I don't think there's any harm done. : )
I think you're right, at least in part, about the voices we most benefit from hearing not getting air time. But 'air time' implies certain things about the way one can be heard, and the voices we may most benefit from hearing may not be trying to obtain it, much. Maybe that's always been true. But my feeling is that if we want to we can also always find the clearer-headed representation of ideas in development, past & future, in an environment where 'air time' is the dominant medium. There are journals & the less media-friendly book publishing, there are public convening & interchange in settings where it pays no one to bring a TV camera, there is (I think) yet a good deal of thoughtful private conversation. At this level dialogue may not be well promoted, but that doesn't mean it isn't lively or without effect — and anyway promotion, so to speak, is precisely the step where we invariably get ourselves into trouble.
I'm interested to hear what you think of (among other points in question) Hedges's notion that democracy only flourishes where there's what he calls, very vaguely, 'stability'.
"Stability" is a vague term, but I suppose "Democracy" is, too. My own temperament is probably predisposed toward Consensus, or some similarly benign form of Anarchy. I would have thought that in all his international dealings Hedges would have seen Consensus in action. And maybe he has: it can be a painfully slow way of getting things done, particularly to a Westerner. And it's really not a model that the United States and Canada can afford to adopt right now - too many wheels would grind to a halt.
Still, my wife would assert that she's seen communities within profoundly unstable states that practise healthier governance because they stick rigidly to a Consensus model. These tribes tend to be small and stand-offish, but they also avoid the sort of catastrophic downfall that can come with grand ideas of massive change/reform.
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