Martha Paskoff at The American Prospect wonders if the recent voting habits of 24 million American Idol fans topples the conventional wisdom on why young Americans don’t vote. In brief, American media should be more like Simon Cowell. At length, Paskoff writes:
Another popular theory holds that young Americans are turned off by the negative tone of political campaigns. But American Idol proves that it’s the quality of the negativity, not the negativity itself, that matters. In fact, negativity was one of the show’s main selling points — as judge Simon Cowell’s comments became more caustic, the program’s audience grew larger — but the show largely stuck to substantive negativity rather than opting for mere nastiness. That substantive negativity may have been somewhat overshadowed by Cowell’s biting tone and fellow judge Paula Abdul’s vapid comments, but the show contained an ample amount of real criticism that helped the contestants improve each week — and encouraged viewers to vote off the performers who couldn’t measure up. Think how much better off the American democratic process would be if the media offered candidates honest, hard-hitting criticism rather than focusing on superficial issues, such as candidates’ personal relationships, the color of their shirts or how much they pay for haircuts. Too often the candidates themselves seem eager to play along with this distracting game. But if the media forced candidates to take real positions on issues and articulate proposals, young voters might feel more enthusiastic about choosing among them.
In other words, pundits like Matt Bai are killing the political process. American Idol is an unlikely place to learn lessons about (re)forming civil society, but as we used to say in the preaching trade, you have to hit them where they live.
The Happy Tutor has graciously provided us with twenty free aphorisms, in the key of Nietzsche. Like all wisdom literature, you do not read it; it reads you.
Matt Bai’s piece on Howard Dean is harmfully cynical. He presents a false dilemna: the unelectable liberal voice of rage versus the electable wishy-washy Washington insider. This is a disservice to all candidates, but especially to Howard Dean. If I believed Dean was just another Brown or Kucinich, I would not support him. Dean combines the strenths of both, the liberal protest candidate and the practical centrist, and with none of the baggage.
Bai’s rhetoric must be stopped immediately. If this cynical “political analysis” takes root and becomes the conventional wisdom on Sunday talk shows and editorial pages, no Democrat will be able to win. The nominee will be presented as the “compromise choice,” and the “best they could come up with.” Underlying it all will be the premise the the nominee is not standing up for what he believes in, that he “tricked” his party into the nomination. There will be a suspicion that he has a secret (more liberal) agenda in his back pocket, And given that choice, voters will go with the devil they know.
Matt Bai must be called out. His piece is cynical, demeaning, and insulting–to Dean, to other candidates, to Democrats, and ultimately to all American voters. We will not be sheep led to the slaughter, especially not by someone parading their cynicism as in-depth analysis.
Light gathers moths
as saints swell churches.
The light blown out,
what moths remain
make doctrines of the dark,
and rest their wings
in ashes.
(By Gene Fendt)
The newest trend in god-talk I’ve heard of calls itself “radical orthodoxy.” The tagline is deliberately provacative, an apparent oxymoron that demands more attention.
In many ways, radical orthoxy builds itself upon the edifice of another recent mini-movement, “postliberalism.” Proposed by George Lindbeck and several of his Yale colleagues, postliberalism positions itself as the resolution to the battle between classical liberalism–which imagines truth is something that can be written down into propositions–and modern romanticism–which imagines that the experience of truth can never be reduced to mere words. When in the hands of reductionists, classical liberalism devolves into legalistic rationalism and romanticism into easy sentiment.
Postliberalism offers the alternative of the cultural-linguistic approach. Here the life of faith is imagined as a language or culture that you must either grow up in or be assimilated into. Creeds simply lay out the grammar of any particular faith culture. If you and I speak different faith languages, perhaps some of our speech hits at identical realities, perhaps some of it does not. Although Lindbeck doesn’t take it this far, the question of universalism/inclusivism/pluralism is left delightfully unanswered. Theories about the commensurability of faith languages may help, but the question can only be finally resolved through ground level investigations of another’s faith language, a conversation between neighbors.
Radical orthodoxy is gleeful about the dissolution of truth claims into relativistic tribalisms. It takes Lindbeck’s cultural-linguistic approach and builds defensive walls around it. If “truth” is just a matter of standpoints, then you can’t criticize what I see from my standpoint. Therefore, I can be as reactively orthodox in my god-talk as I like, and you can’t do anything about it.
Click to continue reading “‘Radical’ orthodoxy”
For readers interested in recent theological trends, three major movements in post-Vietnam god-talk stand out as worthy of attention: liberation theology, political theology and process theology.
“Liberation theology” started out as a sympathetic reinterpretation of Christianity from a marxist standpoint. Founded by Latin American theologians like Gustavo Gutierrez and the Boff brothers, liberation theology flowed from one central premise: God’s “preferential option” for the poor. The movement quickly moved beyond its early marxist trappings when it found sure footing in biblical narratives (there’s mythology again) and in Catholic social teaching. Liberation theologians sought to practice what they preached and stood in solidarity with the poor, living among them and incorporating their perspectives into their academic god-talk. Some liberation theologians were assasinated. However, the movement spread and reinvented itself in other cultural contexts, with their own notions of who “the poor” are. Examples include feminist theology, black theology, womanist theology, mujerista theology, gay theology, and minjung theology. The different movements, while sometimes critical of one another, are in basic harmony in their approach and commitments.
Click to continue reading “Recent movements in god-talk”
