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This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Thursday, May 06, 2004 One of the most troubling aspects of the Bush administration (to use an adjective Bush loves to apply to John Kerry) is the way every subject has been recast with religious or moral overtones. He is certainly not the first politician to claim that God was on his side, but I don't think this kind of good/evil dichotomy has ever colored politics and social concerns to the extreme lengths that it does now. If I don't have much time for blogging right now, I do have time to think, and during the hours of driving this week, I've done a lot of thinking about why this bothers me so much. After all, even if it were a desirable goal, there is no way to remove the influence of religious belief from decision-making. People speak from their convictions, as they should, and those convictions include beliefs about moral and religious issues. Nor is it possible to separate decisions into religious and secular ones. One way or another, they always overlap. So why shouldn't Bush and his supporters bring their beliefs to political issues? What's wrong is that religious belief has nothing to do with the Bush administration's positions. Religion is not being honored here; it's being used. It's being used to distract the American public. By using language with religious emotional triggers, Bush creates a reaction in people that has nothing to do with the facts of the particular situation. His repeated use of the word "evil" is a prime example. How many people said, "Wait a minute! What does 'evil' actually mean, and in what context was such and such a country or leader guilty of it?" Most people either accepted his remarks without thinking, or dismissed them as just another Bush exaggeration. In either case, the use of a word with specifically religious connotations circumvented honest discussion of a political problem. It's being used to divide the American public for political gain. "Divide and conquer" is an old, old story. What better way to marginalize the opposition than to suggest they are not just mistaken, but immoral? Not just different, but wrong? Not just the "opposition," but traitorous, un-American and un-Christian? Religion is being used to silence opposing views. Framing a discussion in moral terms forces the participants to use "either/or" terminology. It implies that there are only two points of view about an issue, where in truth there may be many more than that. In this oversimplified analysis, important facets of a situation may be ignored if they don't fit neatly into one of the opposing arguments. Religion is being used to avoid accountability. By appealing to his religious beliefs, George W. Bush implies that we should just trust him. He prays every day, he says. He reads the Bible. God tells him what to do. By implication, anyone who disagrees with him argues not just with Bush, but with God. Given his unwillingness to be held accountable for recent mistakes in judgment, for him to demand that we trust him to know what God wants goes beyond arrogance to hubris. It's being used to blur the distinction between Godliness and nationalism. Bush's use of religious language to bolster political decisions gives patriotism a specifically Christian character, and at the same time, casts a veil of moral respectability over anything done in the name of one's country. Think Americans won't fall for "the end justifies the means"? Just read the news accounts of the prison abuses in Iraq. Better yet, read the text of the Army's own report, published in full on MSNBC. Even better than that, go look at the pictures on The Memory Hole's website (if you can stand to look at them!). Is this what we sent our young people to Iraq to do? Why do they think that behavior is acceptable? Because of the example set for them by their leaders, who—among other actions—phrased political motives in religious language. General William Boykins' statement that the US is fighting a "spiritual enemy" in Iraq is one small example of how Bush's friends and allies equate religious concepts with nationalism. Religious language and metaphor encourages the use of exhortation instead of explanation. Sidney Blumenthal, writing in The Guardian Unlimited, said, "The idea of proof has shifted from fact to fervour." I wrote on March 7th of last year:I'd like some answers, then. Where is the money coming from to pay for war (sans neo-Reaganomics, please)? How long will our troops have to stay in Iraq (bearing in mind that we're still in the Balkans)? How will buying off Turkey, should that prove possible, affect our relationships with other countries who would like similar handouts? How will Russia interpret and act upon the unspoken threat of action against anyone else we don't like? Nobody knows for sure? That's just about what I thought. So we're back to who can yell the loudest and who controls the most power, and that, as it ever has been, is the poorest way under the sun to make a decision. When religious language is introduced into a military or political argument, it shifts the focus away from facts and toward opinion. It lends false credence to one of the contenders by suggesting they occupy some kind of moral high ground. It allows one side to silence the other by disparaging the other's reasons for opposition. And it changes the ground on which the two sides are engaged: they are no longer discussing facts, but are reduced to name-calling. Living by one's spiritual and moral convictions is laudable, but in my opinion, anyone who thinks President Bush is acting out of religious conviction is being short-changed, blindsided, and yes, duped. A truly spiritual leader would be appalled at the idea of using his beliefs for political purposes in the way Bush has done. posted by Liz @ 10:06 PM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. 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One of the most troubling aspects of the Bush administration (to use an adjective Bush loves to apply to John Kerry) is the way every subject has been recast with religious or moral overtones. He is certainly not the first politician to claim that God was on his side, but I don't think this kind of good/evil dichotomy has ever colored politics and social concerns to the extreme lengths that it does now. If I don't have much time for blogging right now, I do have time to think, and during the hours of driving this week, I've done a lot of thinking about why this bothers me so much. After all, even if it were a desirable goal, there is no way to remove the influence of religious belief from decision-making. People speak from their convictions, as they should, and those convictions include beliefs about moral and religious issues. Nor is it possible to separate decisions into religious and secular ones. One way or another, they always overlap. So why shouldn't Bush and his supporters bring their beliefs to political issues? What's wrong is that religious belief has nothing to do with the Bush administration's positions. Religion is not being honored here; it's being used. It's being used to distract the American public. By using language with religious emotional triggers, Bush creates a reaction in people that has nothing to do with the facts of the particular situation. His repeated use of the word "evil" is a prime example. How many people said, "Wait a minute! What does 'evil' actually mean, and in what context was such and such a country or leader guilty of it?" Most people either accepted his remarks without thinking, or dismissed them as just another Bush exaggeration. In either case, the use of a word with specifically religious connotations circumvented honest discussion of a political problem. It's being used to divide the American public for political gain. "Divide and conquer" is an old, old story. What better way to marginalize the opposition than to suggest they are not just mistaken, but immoral? Not just different, but wrong? Not just the "opposition," but traitorous, un-American and un-Christian? Religion is being used to silence opposing views. Framing a discussion in moral terms forces the participants to use "either/or" terminology. It implies that there are only two points of view about an issue, where in truth there may be many more than that. In this oversimplified analysis, important facets of a situation may be ignored if they don't fit neatly into one of the opposing arguments. Religion is being used to avoid accountability. By appealing to his religious beliefs, George W. Bush implies that we should just trust him. He prays every day, he says. He reads the Bible. God tells him what to do. By implication, anyone who disagrees with him argues not just with Bush, but with God. Given his unwillingness to be held accountable for recent mistakes in judgment, for him to demand that we trust him to know what God wants goes beyond arrogance to hubris. It's being used to blur the distinction between Godliness and nationalism. Bush's use of religious language to bolster political decisions gives patriotism a specifically Christian character, and at the same time, casts a veil of moral respectability over anything done in the name of one's country. Think Americans won't fall for "the end justifies the means"? Just read the news accounts of the prison abuses in Iraq. Better yet, read the text of the Army's own report, published in full on MSNBC. Even better than that, go look at the pictures on The Memory Hole's website (if you can stand to look at them!). Is this what we sent our young people to Iraq to do? Why do they think that behavior is acceptable? Because of the example set for them by their leaders, who—among other actions—phrased political motives in religious language. General William Boykins' statement that the US is fighting a "spiritual enemy" in Iraq is one small example of how Bush's friends and allies equate religious concepts with nationalism. Religious language and metaphor encourages the use of exhortation instead of explanation. Sidney Blumenthal, writing in The Guardian Unlimited, said, "The idea of proof has shifted from fact to fervour." I wrote on March 7th of last year:I'd like some answers, then. Where is the money coming from to pay for war (sans neo-Reaganomics, please)? How long will our troops have to stay in Iraq (bearing in mind that we're still in the Balkans)? How will buying off Turkey, should that prove possible, affect our relationships with other countries who would like similar handouts? How will Russia interpret and act upon the unspoken threat of action against anyone else we don't like? Nobody knows for sure? That's just about what I thought. So we're back to who can yell the loudest and who controls the most power, and that, as it ever has been, is the poorest way under the sun to make a decision. When religious language is introduced into a military or political argument, it shifts the focus away from facts and toward opinion. It lends false credence to one of the contenders by suggesting they occupy some kind of moral high ground. It allows one side to silence the other by disparaging the other's reasons for opposition. And it changes the ground on which the two sides are engaged: they are no longer discussing facts, but are reduced to name-calling. Living by one's spiritual and moral convictions is laudable, but in my opinion, anyone who thinks President Bush is acting out of religious conviction is being short-changed, blindsided, and yes, duped. A truly spiritual leader would be appalled at the idea of using his beliefs for political purposes in the way Bush has done.
I'd like some answers, then. Where is the money coming from to pay for war (sans neo-Reaganomics, please)? How long will our troops have to stay in Iraq (bearing in mind that we're still in the Balkans)? How will buying off Turkey, should that prove possible, affect our relationships with other countries who would like similar handouts? How will Russia interpret and act upon the unspoken threat of action against anyone else we don't like? Nobody knows for sure? That's just about what I thought. So we're back to who can yell the loudest and who controls the most power, and that, as it ever has been, is the poorest way under the sun to make a decision.
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
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PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
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