Recently, I ordered a poster from the UK that bears the words, "Keep Calm and Carry On." It was commissioned during WWII, to be posted everywhere in case the very real threat of invasion became a reality. I was drawn to the sentiment because I see it embodying life in a nutshell (according to the British anyway). It says, if the Germans should beach their landing craft along the south coast of England and advance inland by machine gunning everything in sight, then the best thing to do is just to keep calm and carry on.
The poster is a reproduction of one that, mercifully, never had to be put into circulation. Hitler got distracted with a little place of geography called Russia and called off Operation Sea Lion, which was the invasion of the British Isles. It was a while before the British learned this, so thousands of these posters were printed in anticipation. They must have ended up in a landfill somewhere since only one has showed up almost accidentally, found in a box of books purchased by a second-hand book store. It has been an immediate UK and international hit. It's pretty enough with its bright orange color with stiff-upper-lip white printing, but I think it's the universal appeal of the sentiment that attracts people--at least that's what got me to buy it.
The poster calls for patience and concentrating on daily life as a way to deal with adversity. It implicitly denounces those who might panic and since it bears a stylizing crown on the top, it suggests that this is official government policy. Since I doubt the Nazis would have been much interested in having people carry on with their lives, the poster is meant for those whose with lives turned completely upside down. Have patience, the words say, this too shall pass if we can hang on to what we can of our lives, subject of course to fighting the Nazis street by street as Winston Churchill promised when he said that England would never surrender.
I have the poster framed on my office wall and I look at it when I am tempted to over-react to the state of US politics and the media frenzy that has been stirred up. Just when I think we can sink no lower, I find the bar has been lowered yet again. The Republican campaign has long lost any connection to real issues. It has become a slug-fest of slogans. If this is Tuesday in Louisiana, by all means start in on contraception. Wednesday and New Hampshire? No problem: dig out don't tread on me flags and yell about freedom. Virginia on Friday: raise voices about abortion and punishing women for wanting one. Texas on Saturday? hit on illegals and health care--promise to make medical care available only to the rich and employed--if the poor die off in larger numbers, well that gets rid of a useless population; who cares about joblessness anyway--if people were any good, they'd be employed already.
Does anyone really mean what they say? I rather doubt it. Good sense has been drowned in the stampede to appear as narrow-minded and judgemental as possible. Meanwhile, the rich get richer with money they can never possibly spend in their lifetimes, the middle-class becomes poor, and the poor drop off the map.
Next week I go to the UK to visit family where I know I will be asked about this current political mess. "What's going on?" they're going to ask me. I haven't figured out yet quite what to say. If I explain that none of this matters because no one really believes that any of this is going to be acted upon after the election, I'll be met with blank looks. The British election cycle is over in a few weeks rather than the long, drawn-out bloodbath the nominating process has become. If I say it's all window dressing and entertainment, they'll wonder about how reliable we are with our nuclear capacity. Do we really think war is the only solution for people who disagree with us?
I know I won't try to explain the almost mania that has gripped the US--mainly because I don't understand it. I come from the school of steady as she goes, try for the best for everyone concerned, and keep any one group from dominating the others. I'm going to say instead that I'm trying to ignore most of it. There are very few people interested in having their minds changed. In fact, the dominant interest right now seems to be finding people of like mind who can reinforce one's prejudices.
I suppose this all will pass. These periods of insanity usually do when someone gets asked, "Have you no shame?" Then the noisy minority faction among us goes slinking away and the rest of the country tries to forget they ever existed. Until then, I guess all we can do is keep calm and carry on.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Whence Cometh Limbaugh?
For anyone outside the US, our latest brouhaha (outside of the presidential primaries which are rapidly becoming seemingly endless background noise) is the personal and venomous attack made by a radio "personality" called Rush Limbaugh on a woman who dared to try to testify before an all-male (go figure) panel on contraception. She tried to tell this panel of dessicated elders that hormones are prescribed for a variety of reasons beyond contraception, such as ovarian cysts, endomotriosis, and debilitating menstruation.
She was not allowed to testify before the all-knowing patriarchs determining women's bodily needs--but that wasn't the worst of it. The young woman, a law student, was subject to several days worth of rant from this "commentator" who, clearly and ignorantly confusing the morning after pill with the daily cycle of hormones, proceeded to call her a slut and a whore who was probably having sex every day (why else would she take a pill every day for 21 days?) and who was expecting that her medical insurance should cover its cost.
Commentary has been hot and heavy on the subject and Limbaugh's show has experienced an out-migration of advertisers (probably temporary as such is the way of the advertising world). There have even been attempts at humor: such as women legislators introducing bills to the effect that if women have to wait 24 hours and have invasive ultrasounds before terminating an unwanted pregnancy, men should have to have 24 hour waiting periods and psychological evaluations before they have vasectomies (which deny birth to thousands of potential children). Such are the follies among us.
I find more interesting the question of where all this hate and venom comes from. Could it be that an overweight, middle-aged man, with a string of failed marriages has allowed his personal animus to propose that the US go back to the stone age and that the women be stoned for annoying the men?
What his ranting reminds me of is the terrible hatred we saw on US TV when the first Black students were admitted to an all-White high school in Little Rock. It was uncomfortable for me to watch White faces, men and women both, screaming at the children going up the school stairs protected by armed guards. It seemed then that nothing would ever change. Now, all these years later, when these same people seen spitting and hissing on TV are contacted, they are embarrassed and ashamed. The world has changed.
I see a similarity between those ugly White protests and Limbaugh's over-the-top spewing of resentment and hatred. What they have in common is the passing of an era that was comfortable and familiar to the people who had felt themselves superior.
WWII began sounding the death knell for segregation. One by one the barriers fell or were kicked down. Segregation ended first in the military. Then it moved into the social realm during the Johnson administration. All along the way, it encountered resistance from whites because it was one of "knowns" that Whites were superior--except time and again it was proved that they weren't. And they didn't like it. What they had grown up believing was no longer true--their lives were no long secure and the things they had "known" and built their lives around were no longer acceptable.
Now, it's the women. How comfortable it must have been when women stayed home and existed to serve. They put everyone's needs before their own. Yet, even then, no matter how exalted "mother" might be in the household, she was a domestic servant regardless of whether she willingly accepted that role and tried to find pleasure in it. Anyone remember Marabel Morgan and "Fascinating Womanhood"?
But WWII changed womanhood too. The women discovered they could work and earn money for it. In fact, they could be independent and many of them liked the feeling. They started protesting and standing up for themselves. They stopped seeing the role of domestic goddess as their ultimate achievement. Many of them sought out education and started asking hard questions. So the revolution started and those who had been comfortable with the old ways, with women in their place, now had the harsh reality of generations of women who could not only compete but seemed to be taking over areas like professional schools that had been comfortably reserved for men. It was no longer easy to dismiss a woman as too "emotional" when she was staring you down in the board room.
In this regard, Rush Limbaugh is simply of his sex and of his generation. The world has changed around him, and he doesn't like it. He represents the angry generation of men who grew up with one idea about women and now find that the women no longer know their place in his understanding of it. But it's not just men. All those women who denied their own talents and saw their role as ministering to their families must be wondering too. Of course, they can't admit that doubt or it would be the same as saying their lives were wasted. They only thing they can do to resurrect their dignity and the rectitude of their choices is to vilify other women who chose another path.
Ah me. All this hurt and resentment and bitterness. The world has changed. The world is not going back to what it was. It is no longer a White world. It is no longer a male-dominated world. We might just as well get on with it and stop throwing stones.
She was not allowed to testify before the all-knowing patriarchs determining women's bodily needs--but that wasn't the worst of it. The young woman, a law student, was subject to several days worth of rant from this "commentator" who, clearly and ignorantly confusing the morning after pill with the daily cycle of hormones, proceeded to call her a slut and a whore who was probably having sex every day (why else would she take a pill every day for 21 days?) and who was expecting that her medical insurance should cover its cost.
Commentary has been hot and heavy on the subject and Limbaugh's show has experienced an out-migration of advertisers (probably temporary as such is the way of the advertising world). There have even been attempts at humor: such as women legislators introducing bills to the effect that if women have to wait 24 hours and have invasive ultrasounds before terminating an unwanted pregnancy, men should have to have 24 hour waiting periods and psychological evaluations before they have vasectomies (which deny birth to thousands of potential children). Such are the follies among us.
I find more interesting the question of where all this hate and venom comes from. Could it be that an overweight, middle-aged man, with a string of failed marriages has allowed his personal animus to propose that the US go back to the stone age and that the women be stoned for annoying the men?
What his ranting reminds me of is the terrible hatred we saw on US TV when the first Black students were admitted to an all-White high school in Little Rock. It was uncomfortable for me to watch White faces, men and women both, screaming at the children going up the school stairs protected by armed guards. It seemed then that nothing would ever change. Now, all these years later, when these same people seen spitting and hissing on TV are contacted, they are embarrassed and ashamed. The world has changed.
I see a similarity between those ugly White protests and Limbaugh's over-the-top spewing of resentment and hatred. What they have in common is the passing of an era that was comfortable and familiar to the people who had felt themselves superior.
WWII began sounding the death knell for segregation. One by one the barriers fell or were kicked down. Segregation ended first in the military. Then it moved into the social realm during the Johnson administration. All along the way, it encountered resistance from whites because it was one of "knowns" that Whites were superior--except time and again it was proved that they weren't. And they didn't like it. What they had grown up believing was no longer true--their lives were no long secure and the things they had "known" and built their lives around were no longer acceptable.
Now, it's the women. How comfortable it must have been when women stayed home and existed to serve. They put everyone's needs before their own. Yet, even then, no matter how exalted "mother" might be in the household, she was a domestic servant regardless of whether she willingly accepted that role and tried to find pleasure in it. Anyone remember Marabel Morgan and "Fascinating Womanhood"?
But WWII changed womanhood too. The women discovered they could work and earn money for it. In fact, they could be independent and many of them liked the feeling. They started protesting and standing up for themselves. They stopped seeing the role of domestic goddess as their ultimate achievement. Many of them sought out education and started asking hard questions. So the revolution started and those who had been comfortable with the old ways, with women in their place, now had the harsh reality of generations of women who could not only compete but seemed to be taking over areas like professional schools that had been comfortably reserved for men. It was no longer easy to dismiss a woman as too "emotional" when she was staring you down in the board room.
In this regard, Rush Limbaugh is simply of his sex and of his generation. The world has changed around him, and he doesn't like it. He represents the angry generation of men who grew up with one idea about women and now find that the women no longer know their place in his understanding of it. But it's not just men. All those women who denied their own talents and saw their role as ministering to their families must be wondering too. Of course, they can't admit that doubt or it would be the same as saying their lives were wasted. They only thing they can do to resurrect their dignity and the rectitude of their choices is to vilify other women who chose another path.
Ah me. All this hurt and resentment and bitterness. The world has changed. The world is not going back to what it was. It is no longer a White world. It is no longer a male-dominated world. We might just as well get on with it and stop throwing stones.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Why Organized Religion Needs to Go
My thoughts on religion are hardly a suprise to anyone who has read my previous blogs. I have had major reservations in the past but have been inclined to concede religion to those who feel they cannot live without it. Recent events have now convinced me that any good provided by the world's religions as they have evolved is far outweighed by the damage they inflict.
I've always believed that religions shut down human minds. Sometimes this can be helpful, as when Christianity provided social cohesion and something other than warrior values for the warring European tribes. The problem, however, was that instead of standing aside when its role was over, Christianity entrenched itself and became a corporation--enriching itself and crushing any opposition.
And that's what Christianity is now--a vast corporation employing thousands determined to make a living by making people fearful and then offering salvation for a price.
Christianity's corporate strategy has been to cherry pick rules and regulations from a supposed holy book that offers up two thousand year old solutions as if the world never changes. What does a nomadic, patriarchal, sheep-and-goat raising religion have to do with a world where we transplant hearts and travel in space? Even more pertinent, why are people in the Middle East killing one another over differing interpretations of teachings if not to preserve the power and income of supposedly "holy" men?
And the leaders are all men. Please note that. Old, dessicated, querrelous men. When the US Congress holds hearings on contraception that do not include women, they hark back to a fine tradition of men knowing what is best for women. Rush Limbaugh is also in that tradition. He sounds like a near-Eastern patriarch rousing the crowd to go stone a woman.
Women are involved intimately in the realities of life and they can spot bull. So they are a threat. Yet, they are also people that Jesus Christ specifically preached to and about.
Even if someone wants to argue that religion teaches basic, enduing principles, will someone then tell me why one religion is considered "better" than another and worth dying for (or being made to die for)? If these are enduring human principles, then it shouldn't matter which set of principles one chooses to follow and there should be little to choose among them. But it does matter, particularly to those who make their livings peddling some unproven set of blue prints for salvation.
Anyone reading the bible for themselves can see that Christian leaders deliberately misread and even misrepesent (for their own purposes) the teachings of the founder, cherrypicking his teachings to whatever suits the Church's interests in maintaining power and controlling minds.
Listen to Jesus Christ talking, before he went off on a megalomaniac side trip. I am the way, he says. The way. Not the end. He shows people how he looks at the world around them and creates parables from it. This is what they should do. Emulate him. Not adore him. When he seeks strength, he goes out onto a mountain to experience something larger than himself. He doesn't go the stones and bricks of human-made temples. In fact, he's trying to open the minds of his listeners, not close them for profit.
I'm reminded here of Joseph Campbell who, during an interview, talked about our image of god as being is the last obstacle. Of course it is. We've had contradictory images force fed to us since childhood--is this a kind, loving god who forgives, or a harsh judging god waiting to destroy us? Both visions are there in the bible. We can see this same dichotomy playing out in our politics: the extreme right is the vengeful god, condemning non-conformists to various circles in hell, while the extreme left tries to accept and forgive the human vices and even, gasp, such terrible things as illegal immigration.
You're not supposed to be "Christian" and inhumane at the same time--something Arizona seems to have mastered when they chain a woman in labor to a bed so she can't raise her arms or hold her newborn. Good going, Sheriff Joe.
No, the wars over religion are not done. But it's time they should be. And we can start by getting religion out from between us and the world, looking through our own eyes, recognizing religion for the corporation it is, denying all religion-generated fear of death, that most natural of our physical processes, and allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed and grateful for the beauty around us. This will bring us a lot closer to god, spirit, the universe--or whatever you choose to call it, than any canned sermon or pathetic bleating from some politico pandering to the most self-righteous among us.
I've always believed that religions shut down human minds. Sometimes this can be helpful, as when Christianity provided social cohesion and something other than warrior values for the warring European tribes. The problem, however, was that instead of standing aside when its role was over, Christianity entrenched itself and became a corporation--enriching itself and crushing any opposition.
And that's what Christianity is now--a vast corporation employing thousands determined to make a living by making people fearful and then offering salvation for a price.
Christianity's corporate strategy has been to cherry pick rules and regulations from a supposed holy book that offers up two thousand year old solutions as if the world never changes. What does a nomadic, patriarchal, sheep-and-goat raising religion have to do with a world where we transplant hearts and travel in space? Even more pertinent, why are people in the Middle East killing one another over differing interpretations of teachings if not to preserve the power and income of supposedly "holy" men?
And the leaders are all men. Please note that. Old, dessicated, querrelous men. When the US Congress holds hearings on contraception that do not include women, they hark back to a fine tradition of men knowing what is best for women. Rush Limbaugh is also in that tradition. He sounds like a near-Eastern patriarch rousing the crowd to go stone a woman.
Women are involved intimately in the realities of life and they can spot bull. So they are a threat. Yet, they are also people that Jesus Christ specifically preached to and about.
Even if someone wants to argue that religion teaches basic, enduing principles, will someone then tell me why one religion is considered "better" than another and worth dying for (or being made to die for)? If these are enduring human principles, then it shouldn't matter which set of principles one chooses to follow and there should be little to choose among them. But it does matter, particularly to those who make their livings peddling some unproven set of blue prints for salvation.
Anyone reading the bible for themselves can see that Christian leaders deliberately misread and even misrepesent (for their own purposes) the teachings of the founder, cherrypicking his teachings to whatever suits the Church's interests in maintaining power and controlling minds.
Listen to Jesus Christ talking, before he went off on a megalomaniac side trip. I am the way, he says. The way. Not the end. He shows people how he looks at the world around them and creates parables from it. This is what they should do. Emulate him. Not adore him. When he seeks strength, he goes out onto a mountain to experience something larger than himself. He doesn't go the stones and bricks of human-made temples. In fact, he's trying to open the minds of his listeners, not close them for profit.
I'm reminded here of Joseph Campbell who, during an interview, talked about our image of god as being is the last obstacle. Of course it is. We've had contradictory images force fed to us since childhood--is this a kind, loving god who forgives, or a harsh judging god waiting to destroy us? Both visions are there in the bible. We can see this same dichotomy playing out in our politics: the extreme right is the vengeful god, condemning non-conformists to various circles in hell, while the extreme left tries to accept and forgive the human vices and even, gasp, such terrible things as illegal immigration.
You're not supposed to be "Christian" and inhumane at the same time--something Arizona seems to have mastered when they chain a woman in labor to a bed so she can't raise her arms or hold her newborn. Good going, Sheriff Joe.
No, the wars over religion are not done. But it's time they should be. And we can start by getting religion out from between us and the world, looking through our own eyes, recognizing religion for the corporation it is, denying all religion-generated fear of death, that most natural of our physical processes, and allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed and grateful for the beauty around us. This will bring us a lot closer to god, spirit, the universe--or whatever you choose to call it, than any canned sermon or pathetic bleating from some politico pandering to the most self-righteous among us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)