If any question why we died,Dreher, you'll note, says he was thirteen when Reagan was elected to his first term. So he's either lying about his age of lying about the hippies. I suspect it's the hippies. There may have been a few already-aging acid flashbackers putting daisies in rifles circa 1976, but most of them had hung up the bong for the cocaine spoon, the dashiki for the wide lapels, the sandals for the heels, and, by the time morning broke over the right coast of America, the pursuit of love was being everywhere exchanged for the pursuit of real estate profits. The mother symbol of Dreher's adolescence wasn't Joan Baez; it was Roxanne Pulitzer. During the Tet Offensive, Rod was exactly zero years old. While Hendrix played "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, someone read Dreher Good Night Moon.
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
-Rudyard Kipling
I had a heretical thought for a conservative--that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word--that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot--that they have to question authority.
On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn't the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely?
-Rod Dreher
Uh, no. It wasn't "the hippies" who tried to tell Rod Dreher that. It was EVERYTHING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED IN ALL RECORDED HUMAN HISTORY. But I can see how it's easy to mix that up with "the hippies."
-Jonathan Schwartz
Dreher, like most thirty- and forty-something conservatives of my acquaintance, got a tremendous hard-on for Reagan and went absolutely bonkers for Operation Just Cause. Reagan, of course, was an habitual prevaricator and a liar of the first order. Say what you will about the lies of George W. Bush, at least he never told an Israeli that he had personally filmed the liberation of German concentration camps when in fact he hadn't been in Europe . . . or the army at the time. Carter, for whom Dreher holds a bottomless disdain, was of course the American president who did the most to shove us into the morass of Middle Eastern politicking with his "Carter Doctrine," and Reagan continued the royal pooch-screwing by dealing weapons to Iran and Iraq and the same time, using Israel, everyone's favorite shining white Knight, as a hack-job intermediary.
Dreher hitched his car to the train of official mendacity and imperial officialdom, and scorned "blithely" the few people erecting warning signs along the tracks, thinking them pussies for refusing to masturbate at the spectacle of the gloriously un-American dead. It was only when the train went spectacularly off the tracks that he decided that maybe he should've paid attention, thus joining the likes of Andrew Sullivan and the rest of that tribe of self-pitying fools who insist on blaming the burden rather than the white man.
These are the sorts of people who buy into pyramid schemes. They'll give credence to anything as long as it's sold with a firm handshake, a soulful look in the eyes, and a series of assurances that anyone shouting about unworkability and unsustainability is afraid of success and afraid to take risks for benefits. As I've written before, theirs is the mindset of the failed investor, who always imagined himself prescient, who thought that prognostication is an economic virtue, when what was really needed was a judicious evaluation of present circumstances. Dreher et al. bought the Iraq lies because they thought they were going to ride the wave of the next big thing. They thought they'd sign up just eight more investors and get their reward. They liked the promise of extra steak knives and vegetable corers for free with just a few easy payments of $9.95.
"Why had we scorned them so blithely?" Because you're all a pack of goddamn morons, that's why.
13 comments:
Heck. I grew up during the Ford/Carter/Reagan era-in deepest red Indiana, and somehow I avoided falling for the Aw shucks charms of The Great Communicator. Since he is so easily swayed, why is Dreher a big shot who has any credibility at all?
It's hard for conservatives, though. It's a tough world out there, and they're afraid of everything in it that isn't white and sitting in the same church pew with them, and even some of THOSE guys make them nervous. If they actually thought about stuff they might manage to see at least some things clearly, but reality sucks and the more you actually think the more you have to accept this, and it's much much more fun to just feel good about things that, well, feel good. Which is where that phrase comes from.
So they like and support the other people who make them feel good and they dislike/hate/loathe/virulently despise/vehemently oppose anyone or anything that makes them afraid or uncomfortable in any way. And the things that make them afraid include anything they actually try to think about, and the thing that makes them most uncomfortable is the process of analytical thought to any degree at all.
And many of them have a great deal of money that either they or one of their ancestors swindled or stole from someone else, so they buy up a lot of media outlets and talk a lot of shit and suddenly they're a movement and a sociological phenomenon and a great many crafty free lunchers decide "Hey, I can get a really good gig that doesn't require any work and where I can take a lot of bribes if I just pander to these idiots' worse prejudices on TV".
And here we are.
If I sound like I'm describing a bunch of 8 year olds, well, yeah. That's the guiding principle of the conservative movement -- the 8 year old worldview. I don't like it, I hate it, I don't wanna think about it, make the bad man go away, daddy. Amplify that through endless think tanks, infinite talk radio hosts, and all the blather at Fox News, and, again.... here we are.
The power of not thinking is profound. But it's not their fault. They just want to feel good.
all true, Handsome, except the 8 year old comparison. I have a 7-year-old, and she is 10 times more perceptive and mature than these conservative idiots. But then, if I raised her to be a conservative true believer, she'd probably be a monster by now.
Bruce,
Yeah. I probably should have said 4 year old. My 7 year old is more rational than most conservatives, too.
granted, we consider the worldview childish, immature, etc.
doesn't that (coupled with the fact that these kinds of people haven't matured/developed emotionally in at least 30 some odd years) sorta inform us as to how to handle this segment of the population--which is sizeable, cf. prior presidential elections? i mean, do we, after all, eye with scorn children and the mentally retarded?
Max
They aren't actually children nor are they actually mentally retarded. They volitionally choose not to think. It's not acceptable. No rational human being has the right to abdicate their responsibility to think for themselves, and, yeah, we're all guilty of wanting to do that on occasion, but the entire conservative movement is based around the constant fulfilment of that impulse. There's no excuse for it.
Children and the physically dysfunctional cannot help what they are. Conservatives, despite our frequent bluster as regards them, are generally not stupid and rarely actually insane. They simply do not want to think, and they refuse to do it, and their petulant refusal to be rational (coupled with their endless enthusiasm for infinite rationalizations) is destroying the fucking planet.
Now, if we let children vote, and they put the Backstreet Boys in power, or if we let the mentally retarded vote, and there were enough of them voting as a bloc to put, I don't know, Forrest Gump in the White House, and the result of that was what we are seeing now, I suspect, hell YEAH, we would damn well start treating with scorn our children and/or our mentally retarded.
Or, at the very least, we would substantially reform our political system to take the vote away from these people.
i take your point, h.
but let me suggest that they're functionally identical. even if you disagree, assume as a gedanken experiment it true, (how) would that change the calculus?
i guess my overall view has evolved to this: we do live in a culture of victimhood. everyone thinks they've been victimized. everyone wants justice (for themselves, for others). the only thing that's worse, and what is in fact worse, is that each of the sides insists that it is the victim. which is to say, true or not, each of the sides also insists by way of strange twist of logic that no other sides can be victims.
but what's true? it could be urged that vast swathes of america have been victimized. (i suppose i borrow heavily from thomas frank, who hypothesizes that the democrats abandoned kansas, and thereby "red" america. and that what we've been witnessing is the backlash, however ill-conceived.)
now, it's really only an idea that i've been toying with, so i haven't any specific remedies. but my instincts tell me that viewing everyone as having been victimized, if in different ways, at least reframes the problem of a schizmatic american polity--possibly suggests we rethink things. though kinda sucks that it might require injecting a bit of paternalism/parentalism into the mix--at odds with ioz' usual mode--and not without noting a hint of reluctance on my own part that the wheels usually fall off of these kind of schemes when zealotry takes over.
along those lines, i've also been toying with what i'd like to call metachristianity (but really can't because it's sorta in use, though not widely)--which isn't really anything new, just sortuva supernature-free doctrine of what it means to "believe in" christ. (sortuva froshy linguistic deconstruction. you know, "i believe in me" vs. "i believe in santa claus.")
alas, i ramble. don't mind me.
Max,
I don't regard myself as a victim. Nor do I regard non-conservatives as 'victims'. I think we may be suckers and rubes, certainly we're losers (to date) but to be a victim is to be powerless other than through however one can manipulate others through pity and guilt. I am not that.
Conservatives, or, rather, the elite who take advantage of conservative childishness to get and keep power, are certainly predators, and all of us are certainly their intended prey. But prey can fight back.
As to the rest, um... I'm at work. I can't get into all that now. But... um... sure. Okay.
Maximo,
Interesting comment. I wonder if the culture of victimhood (about which I think you're correct) arises from a combination of first world entitlement plus the belief in the Big Daddy in the Sky? Perhaps the remedy to such victiimhood isn't paternalism/parentalism (which actually seems to be a cause), but the spreading of an atheist doctrine: We're all alone, together in a world in which shit happens.
oh hello, luv.
well, h. may be distorting what i actually think (though to be fair, i'm prolly to blame for being unclear--i.e., in my reply).
when i talk about the sides, i'm mostly talking about "ordinary" people, whatever that means.
it's more obvious when it comes to your typical red-stater. i think that when critiques of affirmative action, criticism of necrophilic religions, etc. resonate with certain segments of the population, it's not resonance for no reason. in these cases, people recognize themselves as victims.
it's less obvious in the case of liberals, who have their own version of righteousness. the role is more guardian of victims. the aspect i'd draw attention to is rather definitional, which is to say that the existence of such guardians presupposes victims, which in turn subtly reinforces a culture of victimhood. i don't find anything especially wrong with it, in concept/on principle/etc. (sorta retracing the post by ioz immediately preceding this one--which conversation i had just last night, in concept.) but i simply think maybe there's a blind spot when practiced.
i think, in general terms, what my instincts are pushing towards is sorta: 1. let's do right, but 2. as importantly, let's do right by everyone.
and of course, i don't mean that what i'm stumbling around demands paternalism. i just mean that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. cf. communism.
I'm distorting what you actually think?
I knew I had fuckin mind control powers.
Somebody get me Mrs. Cruise's unlisted phone number. I have a soul to save.
ok. you got me. or do you?
hint:
"believe in" : "believe in" :: "what i actually think" : "what i actually think"
Max,
I firmly believe in catch and release. Be free, little fishie, be free.
Post a Comment