Science Junkie-December 18, 2011
Damn, I forgot the “under God” part. Seriously. I wrote it
that way without even thinking about the latest (1954) addition to the Pledge
of Allegiance – that historically contentious, often coercive,
semi-secular American ritual. Almost since its inception in 1892, the
government-sponsored (sometimes required) public recitation of the Pledge has
been criticized and
legally challenged on several rational and persuasive grounds. If we’re
going to be stuck with a pledge – and personally I don’t like it, with or
without the God reference – it would be a more respectful and culturally
mature practice if it didn’t promote a particular form of religion. Separation
of church and state just seems like such an enlightened and prudent idea,
seeing that it protects everyone’s right to believe and worship, or not, as
they choose. What could be more quintessentially American, more in the spirit
of “with liberty and justice for all”?
(Never one to pass up an opportunity for irony, I am obliged
to point out that the Pledge was written by a Christian socialist and Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy.)
Now on with the latest rambling rant. . . . The Pledge is
just one relatively minor, albeit revealing, flashpoint in the pervasive and
incessant culture wars that have almost come to define this country of late. So
I’ll say it one more time: the U.S. is irredeemably and dangerously polarized,
at least for the foreseeable future (and I fear depolarization cannot be
accomplished peacefully.) Every day the very idea of a United States is belied
in the print and broadcast media, on the internet, in our national and state
legislatures, in churches, and in too many schools.
There are cultural and political fault lines everywhere; but
the big one – the San Andreas of our fractured landscape – is right
versus left, conservative versus liberal. It can also be characterized as
ideologically-driven denialists versus the reality-based community. There I go,
defending reality again. Who would have thought that reality – along with
its intimate partner, science – would need defending in the 21st-Century
United States? But you know it does, unless you’ve been ignoring all the
right-wing religious and political rhetoric.
Actually, I want to put liberal in quotes due to the unmistakable rightward lurch that has both expanded and
demonized the term over the past 30 years. What used to be moderate is now
labeled liberal, usually derisively when used by those on the right. The
lockstep Republican base is now so extreme that former conservative icons would
be considered “too liberal” today unless they pandered to the deluded
ideologues who hold the Republican Party in a death grip. I’m talking about
transparent pandering as practiced by the current crop of Republican
presidential candidates, with the seeming exception of Ron Paul.
Speaking of Congressman Paul, it should be noted that he
sponsored the Sanctity of Life Act, which would define human life as beginning at conception. (I can’t be alone in
thinking that the only possible rationale for such an absurd position has to be
religious. And don’t you agree that any and all laws based solely on religion,
without a compelling secular justification, should be ipso facto
unconstitutional?) It seems oddly inconsistent that Paul, who bills himself as
such a consistent, libertarian proponent of individual freedom, would take the
lead in trying to criminalize the act of removing a clump of cells from a
woman’s fallopian tube or uterus. His excuse that he inadvertently witnessed
the brutality of a “partial-birth abortion” fails to make a distinction between
a zygote and a nearly full-term fetus. Such blatant contradictions are typical
of right-wing ideologues: they don’t try to justify their positions with logic
and evidence but merely offer plausible emotional reasons to satisfy the
incurious but dogmatic political base.
Now I don’t mean to say that all the Republican candidates
are adopting extreme right-wing positions in their speeches and debates only
for political advantage. That would be giving Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry,
for example, far too much credit. It’s clear they really believe much of the
bizarre ideological nonsense they’re promoting. But in any case I’m not going
to focus on the political and economic issues that are making most of the
headlines. That assignment is being handled admirably by others here at
TPJmagazine. What I want to discuss are some very fundamental differences
between people who identify as conservatives versus those who place themselves
somewhere on the moderate-to-liberal spectrum. In the process I will reference
and quote a couple of remarkable, recent articles: the first has the
provocative title, Promising new research
hints at possible treatment for Conservative Personality Disorder. It is an entertaining and informative tour
de force written this past February by a gifted, progressive New York City
blogger who writes under the pseudonym, Iris Vander Pluym. The second article,
titled New Confederacy Rising: Testing,
once again, whether this nation can long endure, was published at In
These Times on October 5 and rerun at AlterNet,
my favorite political website, on December 8. The author is Theo Anderson.
Anyway, I’m thinking I now have an assigned topic – Compare and Contrast Liberals and
Conservatives – that I can roll with through most of 2012. And unless
someone gives me a good reason not to, I plan to include moderates along with
liberals on the grounds that it is not possible to be a moderate conservative
these days, or maybe not an independent moderate, because half way between
Republican and Democrat is still extreme conservatism. So except for
low-information voters, it’s nearly impossible to be a moderate, much less an
informed, thoughtful moderate. Also, I doubt that there’s any meaningful role
for moderates in the shrinking tent of the Republican/Tea Party (what Steve
Jonas calls the GOTP).
That leaves us with that strange breed known as
Independents, who might better be labeled “Indifferents,” or “Shruggies,” to
appropriate a term first used, to my knowledge, by Dr.
Val Jones at the Science-Based
Medicine blog. On second thought, a lot of Independents are best classified
as low-information
voters who perk up, but never catch up, during major election years. That
makes it ironic, and frightening, that people who spend about five minutes
deciding which candidates are most attractive often hold the
balance of power in elections. There are, of course, other groups that will
deserve attention from time to time.
Like most of my friends and perhaps a majority of Democrats,
I’m politically left of center, but not what most people would describe as far
left. Regardless of what the right says, we are not socialists; we don’t
actively oppose well-regulated capitalism. But we do recognize and oppose
corporate and big-money domination as a serious threat to fundamental
democratic values. We all support an evolving social safety net and the
importance of strong and effective Federal government. And yes, we certainly
believe in fiscal responsibility. Where did the idea come from that the economy
is better under Republican administrations? Republicans, I’m sure. But show me
the data, and I’ll listen.
In my previous column I confessed to being addicted to reality
– hence the pen name, Science
Junkie. In essence, I am compelled to acknowledge good evidence as likely
being true and to make appropriate course adjustments whether or not the
evidence supports my current beliefs. From a political-values standpoint I identify
more with European
social democracy than with any political movement in this country. But I am
always prepared to modify my beliefs based on sound and reliable evidence.
Anything less would be arrogant, wouldn’t it?
So next time I’ll begin to take a close look at the major
differences between conservatives and liberals, citing research data where
possible, to try to determine why the U.S. seems so hopelessly polarized. But
to conclude on a more hopeful note, a podcaster I respect recently suggested
that even fundamentalist and evangelical Americans are more secular than they
think they are. And on those rare occasions when I watch network TV, I’m
actually encouraged by all the crass and tacky superficial materialism that
dominates our favorite prime-time, mass-entertainment medium. Call it hopeful
ambivalence: the millions of people who watch that inane, vulgar programming
can’t really be foot soldiers in the the repressive right-wing religious and
political army. Can they?
In the meantime, I wish you all the happiest of holidays.