Culture Warriors category archive
Mammonfacturing Tradition 0
From the Bangor Daily News comes Stephen Carter’s short history of American Christmas. A nugget; follow the link for the rest.
Our current struggles over the holiday should not be viewed as the inevitable waning of the sacred and the triumph of the secular. It’s more accurate to say that the secularization of Christmas that so many claim to hate represents a return to the old days.
Trumpling Women 0
Writing at the Bangor Daily News, Alex Steed, father of a daughter, has a suggestion for Donald Trump’s supporters:
Follow the link to find out why he said that.
And, in related news . . . .
“The Truth Is What People Think” . . . 0
. . . or, perhaps more precisely, what people want to think.
Badtux, who has been on quite a roll the past week or so, mediates on Americans’ susceptibility to “fake news” (AKA “lies”). Here’s a bit:
What this points out, I think, is that for a lot of Americans, truth is not something you seek out. Truth is not a hypothesis that is constantly tested against reality to validate that it’s true. Truth is an absolute, handed down by an authority figure.
Do please read the rest.
Reconcilable Differences 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Douglas G. Kenrick remembers how, when he attended Catholic Schools, the nuns would respond when he wondered how a merciful, loving God could allow misery and pestilence. Now he wonders how persons who loudly claim to worship a merciful, loving God could have supported Donald Trump and, in a larger context, what social function religious beliefs may play in the polity.
Here’s just a bit. Follow the link for the rest.
According to the Pew Institute, 58% of Protestants, 60% of White Catholics, 61% of Mormons, and fully 81% of born again Evangelical Christians voted for Trump. I just checked online, and found a very recent list Donald Trump’s cabinet picks so far. If I were back in St. Joseph’s today, I would ask the nuns how an all loving, all powerful, all merciful, and all powerful God could have allowed Christians to elect a man who has chosen:
- a CIA director who calls those who use torture: “heroes, not pawns in some liberal game played by the ACLU,”
- a treasury secretary nicknamed “the foreclosure king,”
- an attorney general who said he thought the members of the Ku Klux Klan were: “OK, until I found out they smoked pot,”
- a secretary of defense known for his warlike hawkishness (nicknamed “Mad Dog” Mattis),
- a secretary of labor who is a “staunch opponent” of the minimum wage
- a director of the Environmental Protection Agency who actively opposes environmental protections,
- a Secretary of Commerce who has been “dubbed a “vulture” and “king of bankruptcy” because of his knack for extracting a profit from failing businesses,”
- a chief strategist of whom the Guardian says: “His web site was a clearinghouse for hate speech of all kinds including white nationalism, anti-semitism, immigrant-hatred and misogyny.”
I guess the nuns might reassure me that “God works in mysterious ways, and we simply need to have faith in His infinite wisdom.”
It’s Not Just the “Appeal,” It’s Also the “Appealee” 0
As I was waking up, the germ of a blog post started to grow in the back of my mind, one about the fundamental flaw in the reasoning that blames Democrats for not adequately appealing to persons who voted for Donald Trump. I was musing about how to frame an argument that such “analyses” overlook the tactics that Republicans used to attract those votes: venal appeals to selfishness, hatred, and bigotry. I question that persons welcoming such appeals would be receptive to anything the Democrats might offer.
When I got to my RSS feed reader, I found that Badtux had written the post for me. Here’s how he starts:
Not to mention that it would have been futile in the first place. Even if the Democrats had reached out to bigots, the Republican Party appears to have a lock on the bigot vote at present . . . .
Thanks to Badtux for making my day a little easier.
Victory Lap 0
The celebrations continue.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Maureen Costello, who runs the organization’s Teaching Tolerance program in schools. She noted that the group had coined the term “the Trump effect” earlier this year because it believed that divisive rhetoric concerning immigrants and race in the presidential campaign was getting picked up and mimicked by schoolchildren.
This should surprise no one.
More at the link.
It’s about the Privilege 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., does not mince words about the core of Donald Trump’s victory. He recognizes that it’s not what the corporate media are saying it is. A snippet:
It isn’t the economy. It isn’t poverty or trade. It is the coming America in which white people no longer bear the stamp of demographic primacy, in which they will be reduced from lead actor to ensemble member.
Read the rest.
Reality Bites 0
DougJ has a theory as to why persons frequently say they just want the campaign to be over: because it hurts to be reminded of the reality of today’s Republican Party.
Toll of the Tarheel Potty Police, Reprise 0
Heh.
The Roanoke Times has endorsed N. C. Governor McCrory for a second term because, as they say in the editorial, he’s been good for the economy–Virginia’s economy (follow the link for the full article).
Honest to Pete, you can’t make this stuff up.
Via Joe My God.
Trumpling the Women 0
At the Boston Review, Kate Manne explores the relationship between sexism and misogyny as manifested in Donald Trump and his supporters. She argues that misogyny can be thought of as the enforcement mechanism for sexism: sexism is believing that women belong “in their place,” which is inherently inferior to and servile to men, while misogyny is a means of putting and keeping them there if they dare step foot beyond their prescribed bounds.
It is a long and thoughtful piece that warrants your attention. Here’s a bit.
But his misogyny is, for better or worse, strictly limited. This is because of a striking and alarming limitation of Trump generally: he seems to lack a superego, or even the ability to mimic one. This explains both his remarkable shamelessness and the non-moralistic quality of his misogyny. It isn’t moralistic because Trump isn’t either. His normative words are simplistic and aesthetic terms of praise: “best,” “beautiful,” “great,” and “winning,” are some of his favorites. When he tries to engage in moral talk, he becomes uncharacteristically flummoxed.
Deplorable and Proud Of It, By Gum 0
Voter intimidation was what it was all about, was it not?
And, in more news of the deplorables . . .
The stupid. It burns.