Our Culture War on Greed
A couple of years ago, a cable channel was launching re-runs of Dallas under the tagline “J.R.: The Original Bling.” This almost quaint attempt at marketing crossover struck me as a sad statement about the once extreme culture of selfishness and materialism that has become mainstreamed today. While culture wars rage over sexual politics, child rearing and the teaching of evolution, there is one thing that the urban Blues (Jay-Z) and the country Reds (J.R.) can agree on, "greed," in the famous words of Gordon Gecko, "is good."
I believe that America is facing a culture crisis. Our national soul has been infected with a virus of selfishness. This selfishness takes on many forms, most commonly greed, extreme materialism, and instant gratification. But it is not the obvious individual cases (Tyco’s Kozlowski, Bush’s Executive Privelege, internet pornography) that cause our national ills but rather the fact that they each are outgrowths of a culture that has lost its commitment to the common good. The abandonment of the common good is the central thread in our failed politics.
The sickness was certainly present in some of the post-great society liberal hangover of “do it if it feels good,” but its real blossoming began in the conservative values of the 1980s. Gecko’s “greed is good” logic reflected a moral claim not of apathy (i.e. you have no moral obligation to others) but rather the more seductive idea that the best way to help others was to look out ruthlessly for yourself. Like the devil in C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, the goal is never to convince people to accept evil but rather convince them that a vice, like greed, is in fact a virtue. It is not a coincidence that these “Dallas” values are now dominant in post-political hip hop and some corporate boardrooms. Milton begets Gecko begets Ken Lay and 50 Cent. To win on our issues, we must also fight to reclaim our traditional values.
Greed: When CEO salaries started to spike in the mid-90s, there was a cover story in Business Week that analyzed why. Their conclusion was that nothing had changed except our values. CEO’s could have paid themselves exorbitant rates before with the same rationale – if profits increased by $200 million, don’t I deserve a $50 million bonus (though that logic rarely seems to work in reverse). The point was that most CEOs would not have considered paying themselves. This was partly because they were more likely to live in the same communities as their workers and partly because there was a traditional value of fairness that the right’s 1980s denigrated as naïve.
Excessive Materialism: Here we have easy targets – bling, Hummers, toddler birthday parties with giant gift bags. What I hear more often from parents is the stress about the arms race for toys– the need to get your kid more and more things, often with particular brands, to keep up with other kids. Our culture too often connects good parenting with providing material objects. I will be right in line to go after predatory lending practices, but we also must admit that sometimes we are buying things we do not need. This was captured in an hysterical SNL ad for the get-out-of-debt booklet called “Don’t Buy Things You Cannot Afford.” As progressives we are right to be indignant about corporate practices that screw people, but that cannot be the end of the debate.
Instant Gratification: From obesity to infidelity, our culture is not one that encourages a great deal of deferred gratification. I believe this runs deeper than we think:
(1) Torture: Torture, I believe, is blasphemy against the image of God in another person, and violates the core vision of human dignity on which our Nation is founded. But it is not just a President or Attorney General but our culture that enables this. It is partly that some leaders seem to have learned intelligence gathering from watching TV rather than from the field. But more deeply, I think it is about our fixation on the now. We essentialize the ticking time-bomb scenario and forget the thousands of hours we waste on false positives from false confessions given under duress. In fact preemptive strike and bomb-based security strategies are a form of instant gratification – it is easier for President Bush to bomb Iraq than to do the hardwork of making us independent from oil or even raising the resources necessary to fight the war effectively. There is a laziness and a cowardice to this kind of leadership and I believe it is both cause and effect of this culture of instant gratification in our personal lives.
(2) Internet Porn: Censorship may not be a viable or appropriate solution, but do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us? Study after study shows that porn tends to depict women in violently subjugated positions, and can shift norms of sexual expectations. Get a group of liberals in a room and there is little they will not pass judgment on, but when we start to talk about this in our politics, the conversation starts and ends with “So what are you going to do, censor it? Repress people sexually?” This is an irresponsibly false choice. Part of the conviction politics I outlined earlier this week is about calling things as we see it.
Tax kickbacks to the wealthy and defaulting on pension breach America’s traditional values of economic fairness and opportunity. But we must look beyond the individual issues or even the promise of better material conditions. The most popular line of 20th century politics remains President Kennedy’s call to service. I don't believe that we will win the argument for economic fairness just by telling working and middle class people what we deserve (though we do). We will win it by winning the underlying moral argument that a culture of the common good is morally superior to a culture of selfishness in our politicians, our corporations and our communities.
America may have entered the equivalent of Rome’s bread and circus period, but I believe we can reverse this cultural decline by restoring a culture of the common good. This is nothing more complicated than a personal and political commitment to watch your neighbor’s back. This best way to look out for yourself is to make sure your neighbor is doing alright. For nearly three decades, Americans have tried the right’s go-it-alone philosophy in our economy, our health care, and our foreign policy. It has left many of us feeling alone and less secure. Tomorrow I'll talk about my work with one community that is trying to effect this change, the religious left.
Comments (205)
Well, now you've lost me.
Look, if Jay-Z wants to wear bling or if somebody wants to look at porn, it's none of your business. Besides, it's pretty clear that religion has done far more damage to society than porn has, so don't even start with people from the religious left who, when it comes to porn, movies and video games can be as prudish as people on the religious right.
I want unfettered freedom of expression and unfettered access to other people's expression. I don't want my politicians in the way of that.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
November 1, 2007 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
This may be the one thing that should resonate from your candidacy. America has never been about fairness and opportunity. It has always been about "getting mine" until the stock market crash and the Great Depression threatened the entire political system. There was no social safety net, just the individual commitment to watch out for your neighbor. The conservatives that have had a hissy for the past forty years over the "welfare state" have never had a problem accepting the largesse of politicians in shifting their costs to the taxpayer.
All the things you decry in this missive are individual choices. You just don't like the choice that some have made:
Greed- Isn't that one of the deadly sins?
Excessive Materialism- Isn't that just another face of gluttony?
Instant Gratification- The sin of envy comes to mind
Torture- Well, lumping Bush into the fray also brings sloth into the discussion of wrath, but please stop spreading the ticking-bomb meme in the discussion. Nothing can be further from reality to believe that the 24hr scenario would be dissuaded by torture. In fact, if the bomber was that motivated to do it to begin with, do you not think that they would be heartened to hold out for that time just to know that the bomb had gone off?
Internet Porn- Well, lust has been around long before the Puritans, and again, it's an individual decision, like all the Puritans that would routinely relieve their sexual urges with farm animals. Or the bible thumping conservative preachers that hurry out from bible services to gay prostitute's "services"
So let me wrap up with the one thing that wasn't mentioned so far:
No thanks. Good public policy is not "morally superior"- it's either good public policy or not.
And it comes awful close to "Pride".
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
November 1, 2007 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Porn is another unregulated industry. Bring back a culture of civic patriotism, and perhaps there may develop an effective pornography artists union as an integral part of a culture we can all be proud of.
November 1, 2007 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Notrol,
Might we take a discussion of the common good further if we discussed it terms of ethics rather than morality?
November 1, 2007 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another prude who wants to foist his own kinkiness on us! I am particularly interested in this:
but I believe we can reverse this cultural decline by restoring a culture of the common good.
Pal, you wouldn't know "the common good" if it bit you on the ass.
And I have a feeling it will.
My "good" is in fine hands, my own. If internet porn disturbs you, don't watch it. I don't. I'm sure you can give it up if you try.
You know what you are, Tom? You are a crypto-conservative. But that's all right, fella, just come out and be your authouritarian self, you'll feel better, and you could do better for yourself by being what you are, a judgemental authouritarian.
It's "destroying something sacred"
Shove it, clown!
November 1, 2007 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The religious left"
Oh jesus, that's gonna be a hoot! Mebbe Jesus can save America after all?
November 1, 2007 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tom Perriello
Can we do all this, and raise our effectiveness exponentially, by restoring the public sphere? As you have outlined so well, the common good has taken a big hit since the onset of the Reagan Revolution. I believe the historical record provides ample evidence that our increasingly insular culture has alot to thank for the willful destruction of the public sphere in the guise of phony virtues like "lower taxes," "government off our backs," demonization of "the nanny state," and a false idolization of "rugged individualism." Even the word "public" has been assigned connotations of dreaded communism in movement conservative rhetoric. Consider the struggle to maintain policies that advance public education, public lands, public airwaves, public health. Even our military is increasingly dependent upon private security contractors like CACI International, Custer Battles LLC and Blackwater USA.
November 1, 2007 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was with you when you wrote about the problems that excessive greed is causing our society. I agree with that entirely. I'm disappointed that you can't recognize that opposition to all tax paying, and support for all tax cuts is the major way that greed is harming our country.
When you start moralizing about porn you lose me. Porn is, to start with, largely in the eye of the beholder. What was universally accepted as porn in our country just 50 years ago, is now seen as acceptable expression of sexuality. Who knows what the future will bring?
So, lets just limit this discussion to the real problem - "tax cuts = good. tax hikes = bad. This philosophy must eventually lead to a "bankrupt" government, with no revenue at all.
Hoppy in Sacramento
November 1, 2007 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
...do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us?
Yes, I honestly believe that it is not.
I'd be very interested if you could provide links to any of what you say is "study after study" supporting these conclusions. One of the most high-profile investigations into this, the Meese Commission back in the 80s, which was anything but unbiased and was trying to prove that pornography was harmful, couldn't manage a conclusion stronger than saying that violent pornography can make violence more likely. (At which point any reputable researcher would have investigated whether pornography had anything to do with it, or whether the violence was the real factor.)
You want to keep pornography out of the hands of children? You want to work on ways to prevent porn spam and pop-ups so that people who don't choose to see it don't have it pushed on them? Great, go for it.
But to put forward that everyone agrees that it must be eliminated, if only we knew how, and furthermore, to put it alongside torture as an example? That crosses way over from conviction to sanctimony.
I don't believe we have a "cultural decline," and I've had more than enough from conservatives who use it as an excuse to have government enforce their "values." We do need to have candidates who speak openly and forcefully of the common good, and of the ability of government to serve the common good, ideas which have been deliberately undermined by conservatives. What we don't need is our own Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
November 1, 2007 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, now you've lost me, destor23. I've seen your comments on here and I almost always universally agree with your politics. A few times I have noticed a hostility toward religion, but I let it pass, as we on the religious left actually believe in tolerance.
What I don't understand is how you were with Tom when he talked about courage and conviction and morality and dignity and fairness and peace and justice...but when he mentions the source of those values-- his faith-- you bail.
Of course Tom isn't going to look to pass laws against conspicuous consumption (unless you count progressive taxation) or to enforce morality (unless you count immigration reform to avoid exploitation or measures to protect children from sexual predators or to end State sanctioned torture) but I think his call to the common good is EXACTLY what we are missing in politics today.
If you have read Reich's latest book, he talks about how we as consumers have sold out we as citizens. I'm energized by Tom's message, and if we had more people like him running all over the nation, there might not be so much apathy among the voting public.
November 1, 2007 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zionista,
I'm all about the "common good", whatever that really is. It seems such a malleable concept though, that when viewed through different prisms it splits out different frequencies of light.
Morally, when Virgil Goode gets into bed with Mitch Wade, they are fighting terrorism and strengthening America. The "common good" will benefit by well paying jobs in his district that will recycle the money throughout those counties, lifting many boats.
Ethically, in the same scenario, the "common good" is served when Mitch is in his prison cell and the taxpayer funded bit of conniving corporate welfare is stopped.
So, which prism produces spectrum that illuminates the "common good"?
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
November 1, 2007 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
When someone says that there is some kind of a "common good" we can look out for I grasp my moral, political, and financial wallet real tight, cause I know he wants to take something from me for the "common good"
Tell me you are gonna take it from somebody else, and tell me who, and tell me you are gonna give it to me, and you got a shot.
Tell me I need to give something up, and why, and who gets it, and I'll consider it. It may have to be done.
But start talking about the "common good" especially our moral "common good" and all I hear is "Watch out"!
November 1, 2007 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mooser. The tone is really not necessary. I'd ask that you treat our guests with at least a modicum of respect.
November 1, 2007 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you think someone is "taking something from you?" Does a kid in grade school really "take something from you" when he gets a lousy free lunch? Does it really hurt you financially when Grandma uses her medicare? Half of all discretionary spending in the budget of the United States goes for the "common defense" and I never hear the wingnuts bitch about that.
November 1, 2007 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
"winning the underlying moral argument that a culture of the common good is morally superior"
I suspect 1) you assume the meaning of all these words - "culture", "common good" "morally superior" - is clear and taht your understanding of them is shared and 2) if you are religious, you may feel the level of generality they inhabit is appropriate.
I just don't think in a country of 300 million diverse people (diverse not just in the politically correct sense but in their thinking), the meanings of these generalizations are as shared as they would need to be to have a coherent debate, let alone consensus. Many principles that conflict with your ideas would be considered by their proponents to be "common good" - free market, strong first amendment, etc. You may disagree with their interpretation of "common good" which is fine, but a dispute about what is the common good makes it impossible to claim you are going to advance matters merely by saying "let's argue for the common good." That only works for the people who already agree with you as to what the common good is, and what gain is there in preaching to the converted?
Also at some point, I suspect you are going to start making a transition from "culture" to "legislation" and, if so, at that point, I think a) the character as "moral argument" will be lost because it will cease to be something people will be asked to subscribe to and become something they will be forced to do, and b) significant constitutional obstacles will crop up and c) any consensus you might put together will be stressed.
I actually might agree with a number of individual policies you might throw out. It's just that the past 25 years have seared into my brain the conviction that we must strictly adhere to the constitutional principle of separation of state/policy from church/religion, whether it is being advanced by the left or right.
And Orwell taught us all to look behind generalized slogans in political debate.
November 1, 2007 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bev, when kids in school don't get a free lunch, that is taking something from me. When any person, for any reason, is denied civil rights, that is taking something from me. When our country cannot find the heart or money to support the elderly, the disabled, or act with compassion and generousity to the orphan, that is taking something from me.
Most of all, when those who profit from the infrastructure and hard work of people are allowed to rip and run, that takes something from me. Does that help?
Pretending there is some "common good" to which all Americans subscribe is, from my life's observation, a crock. For 20 or more years I have seen the interests of a very few, who already had more than most, touted as the "common good".
The phrase has lost its meaning, I think that is why he uses it. There are a lot of "common goods". So let's define what we are talking about, and who takes and who gives. You know, the "common good" is a lot like "free trade", but maybe, I'll grant, not as perverted as "freedom"
November 1, 2007 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whoops, I apoligise for the snarky tone and I will tone it down henceforth. Just got a little worked up, which is due entirely to my own defeciencies and frustrations.
Thanks for the polite reminder. I shall adhere more closely too the standard of decorum here, which is by no means unreasonable.
November 1, 2007 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that does help. I see what you mean and I agree with you.
November 1, 2007 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is why I have not felt threatened, repulsed, incensed or inclined the few times I have experienced sexual interest from a gay man.
The problem comes when they stop showing interest. I know I'm not the same blithe, lithe and lissome guy I was twenty years (hell twenty minutes) ago, but one hopes the highly touted compassion and sensitivity said to be possesed in almost unlimited quantities by gay people would come into play, but noooo, now that I put my teeth in before dinner and my head says "MO" and there's more pot in my belly than in my stash, I might as well be invisible. Thanks, guys!
"That photograph doesn't do you justice? It's mercy you want, not justice!
November 1, 2007 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks so much for responding Bev. I appreciate it.
November 1, 2007 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you should contemplate some of what you've wrote in this post from an elliptic angle.
You'll get no argument from me whatsoever regarding an American governmental imprimatur upon torture. In an earlier post at TPMCafe, you mentioned having an integral role in the successful indictment of former Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, on International charges of inhumanity. It could not have been an task fulfilled without paying an emotional price, given the obstacles and having to be confronted with the factual minutiae in far too many acts of obscene depravity. That alone speaks well of your own personal character.
There is nothing under the sun or the moon; in heaven or in hell which could ever justify the use of human torture. In America, even the devil deserves his day in a courtroom that adheres to due process of law, and the government must secure a conviction against him, before he may be hung. On this there will be no negotiation. Governmental approved torture is an evil that if left manifest will devour the very Dreamtime America. To see so many Republican Politicians admit to being Bauery Boys is repugnant, and it is antithetical to this Nation's Foundations.
Your point of view on pornography is in my mind a bit out of kilter though. Not all porn depicts acts of forceful subjugation, and I cannot fathom how porn that does is marketable. There is nothing righteous or erotic about the use of involuntary sodomy with a blunt instrument, be it used as an interrogatory methodology or a means of sexual gratification. In both instances, it is a theft of human liberty. Still, your blaming the "if it feels good, do it" mentality is far off the proper targeting. It is generally not hedonists that force their will upon others; few of them could derive pleasure from being the cause of another's severe discomfort. It is unlikely that they would experience acts of sexually degrading others as "feeling good". This is caused by psychological repression born out of a fear to honestly explore one's inner nature. It is caused by persons who buried their inner desires, believing them to be abominable temptations spawned from the darkness, and these innate desires are left to fester, resulting in the spoilage of their humanity. I am unabashedly and wholeheartedly a heterosexual. I cannot discern what proportion of this is due to environment or biology, but by well before the beginning of my adolescence, it was locked into stone. Understanding this is why I have no problem with accepting that others may have preferences in sexual partners that are different from mine. It is why I have not felt threatened, repulsed, incensed or inclined the few times I have experienced sexual interest from a gay man. If you are honestly attempting to properly assess blame for degrading pornography's appeal in American society, you're looking the wrong way. It is instead to be found flowing from the equivocators of torture, and from the members of society, who are Secretive Potty Peepers.
Your own affixing of blame wrongfully, has caused you to miss the real evil from pornography. The evil is not in its reality, but its lack of reality. The evil is within the willingness of so many people to simply give up, and accept a media of lossy compression schemes, and limiting color palettes numbering in a power of 2, as something being close to real. To a large degree, the motivations that have caused many to acquiesce in the face of torture are the same forces which has led to this willingness to accept a surrogacy of two-dimensionality, instead of the real deal:
A will to lowered expectations.
November 1, 2007 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're quite welcome.
November 1, 2007 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the great comments and vehement critiques. Some I can clarify and on others we may agree to disagree. Let me first deal with everything except the porn example and then throw together some responses on that:
I am happy to recast the entire argument to be about ethics rather than morality, but I consider that a distinction without a major difference. The definition of ethics I just looked up online said “a theory or a system of moral values.” Some of us may differ on this, but I think one of the most important functions of politics as a public space (res publica) is to be a conversation about what we value as a country. The problem in our country is that only one side has been using those words. They are the problem, not the words or the ideas. But I am fine casting it as ethics.
Second, there is a big difference in my mind between having a public conversation about ethics and supporting government regulations or criminalization based on that judgment. I rant about CEO salaries, and for good reason, but there are only limited options for imposing that moral judgment about fairness through the government. I would not use the force of the state (i.e. legitimated violence) to prevent someone from buying a Hummer, but I have ethical concerns about how non-commercial use of gas guzzlers makes our country less safe. Each individual has the right to shop at Wal-Mart, and that can coexist with having a conversation about what kind of economy that supports.
There are at least three levels of action I could recommend. First is criminalization for something that is morally/ethically non-negotiable, such as torture. The second would be something we might disincentivize or encourage (savings, good health, energy efficiency). Third would be things that one might decry but nothing more (e.g. infidelity).
I agree with you hoppycalif2 about taxes. What infuriates me the most is not that the elites get these tax boondoggles but that they actually feel like they are doing everyone else a favor for accepting them. If you believe trickle down works well, then the CEO’s tax cut is like an indirect gift to the poor. That is a very scary place for a country to reach.
But I think we do need to look beyond the economic and beyond the macro. Like many, I think, when I say that unilateral preemptive strikes are wrong I mean something more than just that such tactics will make us less safe (though they will). It is that they are morally wrong.
In the end, I consider it a strength of politics to talk about where we are going as a country, because those same values end up being reflected in our policies. If a politician decries CEO salaries, he may not be able to bring them down, but he understands the problem of economic fairness. One reason voters care about values is because we cannot know what issue will arise, but if I trust someone’s values (e.g. sticking up for the little guy, opposing torture, protecing the environment – all moral principles), I am more confident that he will back you in the end.
More on porn in a bit.
November 1, 2007 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, if I stop looking at porn, and take care of my mother and father-in-law as they grow older, and don't cheat the people who work for me, the US will stop making war on Iraq, and stop outsourcing jobs and infrastructure to authouritarian countries, cause they appreciate how much I revere the "common good"?
Tell me, does the "common good" demand that Bush, Cheney, et al face an international law court, or does the "common good" mean not letting foreigners get their hands on our leaders so they can railroad them?
There is no easier phrase to misuse, and frankly, I suspect anyone who would use it at this point of obfuscation, at the very least.
November 1, 2007 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I rant about CEO salaries, and for good reason, but there are only limited options for imposing that moral judgment about fairness through the government.
Just keep moving to the right, Tom, you'll get there.
The corporation, or any other business arrangement is regulated by the state. We can do whatever we want, if it is for the "common good". Wow, that "common good just went by the wayside when we even dared aproach the idea of maybe making capital subject to that "common good".
Tom, you really need to figure out who you are politically. As far as I can see, you are a compassionate conservative.
November 1, 2007 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey! Leave the poor guy alone.
He's running in a district three quarters of whose voters are religious fruitcakes who think Democrats are sodomizing Satanists. As a Democratic candidate, he's got to find some way of telling them that yeah you're right, they are, but I'm not. How else is he s'posed to show 'em he's come to Jesus?
November 1, 2007 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please understand this, re your statement:
What I don't understand is how you were with Tom when he talked about courage and conviction and morality and dignity and fairness and peace and justice...but when he mentions the source of those values-- his faith-- you bail.
Some people cite their faith as a source of courage and conviction and morality and dignity and fairness and peace and justice. In my view, faith gets in the way of those very things, because the thoughtfulness and decisions that one makes to arrive at those goals are removed by an acceptance of someone else's dogma.
Morality, honesty and justice beome intrinsic and valued when those goals have been thought out and actually DECIDED; also they are more sincere when rewards (eternal life) are removed from them. I know how hard it is for religious people to really believe that people can actually want to be good without the fear of eternal hell-fire, but I can only say that being the kind of person you believe you should be is your own reward.
It strikes me that there are many people who do horrible things and justify it by scriptures; those who do bad things and justify it because they just don't care also exist. One is as bad as the other, in my humble opinion.
People who do good things --> well, who cares why they do them? It makes the world a better place, and again -- doing good should be it own reward, so no ideology should get the credit.
That said, I also find some good things in Tom's message, although it is a little more heavy-handed than I thought when he first started posting. I want to hear more before I really decide if he is someone I want to support here in Virginia.
Jan
November 1, 2007 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no culture war on greed. It's a convenient aside in 20% of Hollywood gossip shows. There is a sustained war on pleasure, enjoyment, and elevating the human condition beyond the sniveling servants of God preferred by E-vengelicals, who are themselves dripping with ill-gotten and excessive riches.
November 1, 2007 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another quick response to Mt57, I agree with both your points about pluralism and seperation of church and state. But whether we use the word morality, ethics, values or nothing at all, we are having a conversation about the same thing. Our fear of using the words because they feel religious to some does not change the fact that we are having a conversation about right and wrong when we talk about Iraq, torture, taxes, healthcare etc.
What I like about the common good is not that everyone has the same definition of it but that this is a good set of terms for the debate. I think a politics that asks only "Am I better off than I was four years ago?" is an enemic one compared to "are all of us better off, particulalry the most vulnerable."
My perspective on the role of values and the common good has been shaped by my comparative experience from working on justice and politics in a dozen countries (Sierra Leone, Darfur, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chile, India etc). I consider it more the norm to see politics as a converation about values and priorities. for some people, those values are shaped by their faith, for others their secular values, for others the bottom line (which, despite claims of neoliberals that the market is somehow norm-neutral, that is its own values judgement).
As for politicians talking about faith, if that is something important to them, then I want them to tell me that and then vote according to what I know. If their values are shaped by a set of life experiences, I want to know about those. To me, knowing what will shape a poliicians decisions is distinct from whether the state, with its use of legitimate violence, should be totally indpt of religion.
November 1, 2007 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Regarding this:
...do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us?
What do you consider is sacred within us?
How can porn, internet or otherwise destroy it?
Do you think that there are other things, like poverty, illiteracy, war, religious zealotry, and hatred that are more destructive to our humanity than watching people have sex (which after all, is normal)?
I am 59 years old. When I was 20, the guy who lived downstairs from me asked me to give some films to a friend of his. They guy wasn't due for 2 days, and I knew how to run a projecter. My roommate and I watched the poorest quality porn for 2 days! It was funny and weird, and I watched every single frame! So what? I had very little experience, and I learned a little bit about life. The people in the films were all older than me, and I was the same person afterwards that I was at the beginning. That is my experience with porn. Anyone else? Oh, yeah. I had another experience when I was in Nurse Practitioner School and they showed us Misty Beethoven to help us not be nervous about examining people of the opposite sex.
Any questions, children?
Jan
November 1, 2007 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
deleted
November 1, 2007 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Add another voice of concern about the pornography position.
No, I do not believe the ready availability of porn, internet or not, is destroying something sacred within us.
In the last few days, I had reason to wonder again about the obsession of a number of Americans with the evil done by pornography. On a mailing list for medical professionals dealing with trauma, a Canadian pediatric specialist was on her way to present on childhood injuries. While there may have been coincidental genital injuries, the theme was not sexual injuries. She had professional identification, the conference program identifying her presentation, but those were insufficient to prevent having her PowerPoints confiscated.
In like manner, I was developing a security policy for a hospital, and had to go around and around with some of the administrators. They were upset that hospital resources were being used to view genitalia and breasts -- by gynecologists, urologists, and surgeons specializing in breast cancer and breast reconstruction. Said administrators really freaked out when the mental health people said they had legitimate need to be able to see what a patient obsessed about, whether sexual, violent, or political.
Ummm...and why were these studies finding women in violently subjugated positions in male homosexual pornography? There's quite a bit of that around.
Further, I'd need to know your definition of "violently subjugated", in the context of what devotees call, seriously, "safe, sane, and consensual" erotic domination and submission. The violent is also a bit unclear, since there clearly is consensual erotic pain. A substantial number of mental health professionals consider the DSM-IV diagnoses of sadism and masochism to reflect situations of severity such that one is unable to have a sex life at all without it.
Now, I've seen a certain amount of porn that involved violently subjugated men, who, depending on the theme, were subjugated by men or women. If the theme were consensual submission, believe it or not, there are sane citizens of the United States that enjoy one or the other of those roles, or even switch from one to the other. It doesn't do much for me, but I know quite a few people that do enjoy it.
Perhaps you might want to consider the words of another Virginian, and see if this is an issue you really want to pursue. Do you recognize "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every from of tyranny over the mind of man"?
Whether it's Orwell's Thought Police or those who want to regulate what they consider pornographic, I see both as tyranny over adult minds.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 1, 2007 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
And it is your ability to accept the inevitability of your aging with a bit of humour that sets you far apart from the Contemporary Conservative.
October has been a very rough month for the significant single issue GOP subgroup: Rabidly Homophobic.
The RNC proves they remain arrogantly and utterly disconnected from reality with their brand new offering at their online store: A Pink Elephants Line of RNC Branded Merchandise. I can only dream of being this funny. Truth can indeed be stranger than fiction.
November 1, 2007 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
A compassionate conservative is a contradiction in terms, just as enlightened liberal is a tautology.
November 1, 2007 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Notrol,
An ethical context, definitely. Ethics are dependent upon objective standards (ie, when one is victimized it is wrong or bad) while morality is dependent upon subjective standards (ie, when victimless acts or ideas are wrong or bad).
November 1, 2007 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tom and group--
I can't say that I am a "regular" here at TPM, but I haven't seen much of this Mooser fellow until today, and all he has done is show up and say that if you use words like "common good," you must be an evil Republican.
Seriously, I fear for our country if phrases like the common good, morality and, (gasp!) freedom have been so warped by the right that anyone who tries to enter politics sounding like a 21st Century Bobby Kennedy is questioned this aggressively.
Lets keep our eyes on the ball, people.
November 1, 2007 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't mean to sound pessimistic but all greed, in all it's forms, is as much a part of America as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. You get rid of greed and you get rid of us. I'm not arguing against that mind you, I'm just pointing it out. What I sometimes find puzzling is how so many people will accredit religion as being one of the core founding principles on which our country was formed and yet completely overlook our long and storied history of self serving and flagrant greed. Hell it's far closer to the motivations that drove us to found this land (as we drove it's inhabitants off it and to virtual extinction) than anything so rosy as "I want to worship my god in my way". I mean how can you commit what amounts to genocide and then play the religion wild card? But alas, we as a culture have had a very hard time coming to terms with the darker aspects of our past. They can not be altered but that does not mean they need to be ignored or forgotten either.
I'm all for changing things for the better but then you have to start banging your head against the wall trying to figure out just exactly what better is and who's better we should use as a guide. Certainly all of us can quickly generate a list of problems that need addressing and things that should change which would require little more than people trying and caring. But that's just it, they don't. And I'm no Nostradamus but I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that they won't either. At least not anytime soon. And when they do I'd be willing to bet that the real reason behind their actions is...yep, self interests. Maybe this is simply human nature and not an exclusive American trait or commodity. But we have refined it into some high octane moonshine have we not?
You see, there are some good people and some bad people and then the legions in between. And it's all those "in between" folks that drive everyone batty. They do so because they are sometimes good and sometimes bad. And usually the deciding factor as to which direction they go on any given day tends to revolve around their own self interests. Which is, in the end, just another manifestation of greed is it not? And coincidently, it's those same in between folks that tend to shout the loudest about someone else doing something bad.
And so we're left in an endless chicken and the egg circular argument about who's good and who's not and who's to decide. All I know for certain is that there is ultimately no way to "make" anyone good or bad, they have to decide that for themselves. And I do think it's pretty obvious to tell the difference. This is true on an individual level and then cumulatively on a national (cultural) level. We just noeed to stop BSing each other and ourselves.
November 1, 2007 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I couldn't agree more, CVille. True self worth comes from within. The doing of something has to come from ones true nature or it's worth is tainted. It's also true that if we are to survive as a nation and for that matter as a species we must find a way to find worth in each other because of who we are not who or whether we worship.
November 1, 2007 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. David Greenstone in his "Lincoln Persuasion" writes that "Lincoln's greatness lay in his ability to combine conscientious moralism with political practicality; to resynthesis the two poles of liberalism by bringing Americans to believe that the purpose of the union was to foster the impulse to do good and be better."
And in Lincoln's own words; "this is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial burdens from their shoulders; to clear the paths for laudable pursuit for all; to afford to all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life."
I don't believe it can be any better stated or clearer than that.
November 1, 2007 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me say something about moral priorities. I spent the first 3 days as a guest blogger speaking almost entirely about the Iraq War, torture, and the possibility of war in Iran. The emphasis of my posts on conviction politics was that Dems too often fall back into the safe space of the "it's been mismanaged" or “not our business” critique rather than making the case for what was wrong about this war from the start – that unilateral preemptive war is fundamentally unethical.
Even with this post, I spent the bulk of this post talking about an ethical critique that applies primarily to our economy, health care, wages, and torture. Then I mentioned the explosion of internet porn as an exaple. Yet several of the posts seem to suggest that I am so obsessed with banning people from seeing porn (a position I did not take) that I am ignoring these other issues. That kind of response, frankly, seems utterly out of step with what I have presented. I obviously knew the porn example would provoke a response, but I find it disconcerting that hundreds more words have been spent responding to that than to the points about economic fairness and a just end in Iraq, a plan we spent months talking to Iraqis and security experts to develop. One of the things that bothers me about our national debate on values is that we end up spending more time talking about sex than war and justice. It is not that we should never talk about sex publicly but that we should be able to do without it immediately trumping other issues of greater urgency.
I am also trying to make a deeper point, which may not have been clear. I do believe there is a connection between our cultural values and the policies that emerge on war, wages, and the environment. This was my point about Dr. King’s prophetic speech on Vietnam. He went well beyond that single war to talk about a culture of militarism, racism, and excessive materialism that enabled it. I believe that the have conservatives won, and continue to win, the moral case for greed and for security through unilateral force in part because we don't even want to have the conversation. If talking about what is truly good means opening the possibility that someone may question our personal choices, we resent it.
I believe our problems go deeper than the war in Iraq, and the build up to war in Iran is a perfect example. If we keep talking about isolated problems ( Iraq ) instead of the values that enable them (militarism, exceptionalism, instant gratification), we will always be fighting as underdogs when the next debate arrives.
November 1, 2007 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Love the Lincoln quotes, BevD. Thanks.
November 1, 2007 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Lincoln was a great, moral man. And it should not be forgotten that he ended that speech to Congress from which you quoted with these words, "And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts."
God help Tom if he were to say something like that around the Mooser.
November 1, 2007 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zionista,
Herein lies my problem with a politician with a religious-based moral/ethical agenda.
If this country is really the freedom-loving-democracy that it purports, then that type of statement in the hands of a policy maker is counter-productive.
You and I will probably not be in the position of making those policies, but Tom Perriello might be. If he finds himself there (and I hope he does as opposed to Virgil Goode) my question to C'VilleDem in a previous post echoes even louder- what distinctions can be drawn between two "moral" candidates in the minds of southern Virginia voters?
There are more conservative, "moral" voters in rural southern Virginia than progressive "moral" voters...so what will Mr. Perriello have to offer them? That the "common good" is the right thing to do? They already know that, because Mr. Goode has defined the "common good" already in his terms. What are his (Mr. Goode's) terms? Read Mooser's posts. What are they (Virginians) going to have to give up for someone else to get.
I feel real bad about this whole attempt to change the culture of southern Virginia- partly because I fear that it will move progressives even further to the right than they are now, and probably because that's what it will take to get another "D" in the "Win" side of the win/lose column.
So are we really further ahead morally or ethically by capturing another flag?
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
November 1, 2007 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
To pick a nit, it was a preventive, not preemptive war. Preemption, with good reason an attack is imminent, is generally accepted to be within the laws of land warfare, and would be defensible under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Preventive war involves a completely different ethical and theoretical basis.
I would like to hear your definition of militarism. So many people use it in different ways, I would rather not guess.
For the record, I was consistently opposed to the operation in Iraq, which, precisely, is a campaign in a broader war, when the saber-rattling got obvious. I have consistently opposed, in substantial detail, a military action against Iran. I am not, however, opposed to all military actions. It is not clear where you stand on such; that's one reason I explicitly ask what you mean by militarism.
Has it occurred to you that you might not have disagreement on some of the other issues? I am intensely interested in healthcare, and both guest blog about it and deal with it professionally. There seemed no particular reason to discuss it in this thread. I discuss it in other threads, where there are quite specific policy discussions. If there were specific proposals here, I missed them.
In like manner, I just posted, at Wikipedia, the last major (I hope) article of a rather extensive series on intelligence. I find that there is too little real information easily available on the topic.
Do you think ending the war in Iraq has not been discussed at TPMcafe, just a little, here and there? Your bringing it up is a bit of dog bites man. Something with a flavor of not just censorship, but deciding on others' morality (i.e., whatever is, or is not, sacred in me is my own damn business) is more man bites dog. Going down the subjugated women route comes across as heterocentrist and disapproving of consensual variants on sex.
You may certainly may believe that. More and more, however, I'm getting a very uncomfortable feeling that you want to impose your particular set of cultural values on others.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 1, 2007 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're quite welcome, and may I recommend and endorse Greenstone's book?
November 1, 2007 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
JOG,
Well, now you've lost me, JOG. Where did Tom mention his faith? I missed it. Do you have a quote on that?
November 1, 2007 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Second, there is a big difference in my mind between having a public conversation about ethics and supporting government regulations or criminalization based on that judgment. I rant about CEO salaries, and for good reason, but there are only limited options for imposing that moral judgment about fairness through the government. I would not use the force of the state (i.e. legitimated violence) to prevent someone from buying a Hummer, but I have ethical concerns about how non-commercial use of gas guzzlers makes our country less safe. Each individual has the right to shop at Wal-Mart, and that can coexist with having a conversation about what kind of economy that supports.
I have a lot of sympathy with your moral vision, but I'm dismayed by your reluctance to use the force of law to achieve these ends. We can regulate corporate salaries, and we can outlaw fuel-wasting metal monstrosities.
The conservative attitude toward government and political economy that has re-colonized the American mind during the past few decades is that restraints on socially destructive individualism may be accomplished through internalized moral codes, informal norms, private charity and ministerial exhortation, but that it is inherently evil and awful to build these restraints into law. As far as the law goes, conservatives say, we must all be "free to choose". A company's directors must be "free to choose" to build mountains of money out of the labors of their inferiors and give that money to themselves.
Well, I'm not a conservative. I believe we are collectively entitled to deliberate about the kind of society we want to create, choose our future, and work through activist legislation to build it. Left to our own individual devices, even the best of us tend to look out for number one and engage in behaviors that are destructive of the harmony and unity of a rational society. Like Odysseus tying himself to the mast, if we want the benefits of a well-organized society, we need to write rules for that society and then compel ourselves to obey them.
I have more sympathy than many of the other commenters with your concerns about moral and cultural decadence. But America is a huge and diverse society. There are too many different cultural, moral and religious traditions to count. It's deluded to think that we can accomplish progressive social change by simply exhorting sufficient numbers of people to excavate down to some primordial personal layer of bedrock "American values". There is no Norman Rockwell America waiting to be reborn. Nor is there going to be another Great Awakening.
Moral exhortation won't hurt. Indeed, it can help quite a bit if cultural and religious leaders start preaching a new social gospel. But at some point we need to actualize this progressive vision by writing much of it into the explicit, formal rules we create to govern and regulate our behavior. Let's not wait until the dawning of some new moral-cultural millennium, where all the heavy lifting is accomplished by individual virtue.
Telling a company's directors that they can't pay their top bosses a bazillion times more than they pay their lowliest employees is no different than telling them they can't spew polluting shit into the atmosphere through their smokestacks. Telling a man he can't drive a gas-guzzling mountain of metal is no different than telling him he can't excavate a wetland to build a tennis court. You can reach some people through an appeal to conscience or compassion. But outside the fantasies of anarchists, just and wise social orders do not come about through private morality alone. Greed and self-interest are persistent facts of human nature, and those who acquire access to great wealth generally don't voluntarily relinquish it even when confronted by an army of God's ministers. You need to organize the power of government to wrest it from their cold, greedy fingers.
November 1, 2007 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
He didn't lose you. You did.
No doubt you want to be unfettered, but not all expression leaves others free after you're done expressing yourself. And to the extent expression does damage to others, it can be regulated. That is the constitutional law we have now. "Unfettered" shows that you should read up on speech cases in the Supreme Court Reporter.
Porn erodes relationship morals and therefore meaningful relationships. We've heard folks lie about its harmlessness long enough. Meaningful relationships involve love and dependable commitment in service to one another. Porn erodes that, and other causes will be found for pretextual blame to cover the shame of the real cause of a fizzled relationship.
Since sex apparently is the crack cocaine of material sales, I wouldn't expect ad dependent media to report that porn is poisonous, because it is the basis for exploiting a dopamine-rewarded behavior to influence buying behavior.
What to do about the damaging media? That's a different topic. I think a culture sea-change makes sense. It's all we have if laws can't apply.
November 1, 2007 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't get it. I've never, never looked at porn on the internet, or much of anyplace else, either. (I always have nightmares after about being chased, dragged down and devoured by parts of the female anatomy. It's scary)
And yet we are in Iraq.
Or maybe I was too greedy?
Our national soul has been infected with a virus of selfishness.
Speak for yourself, Tom. My soul is fine. I'm sure that goes for the others who comment here, too.
But it is not the obvious individual cases (Tyco’s Kozlowski, Bush’s Executive Privelege, internet pornography) that cause our national ills but rather the fact that they each are outgrowths of a culture that has lost its commitment to the common good.
Damn it, and I thought I was gonna get away with it! Yeah you got me on that Enron thing, too. I knew I shouldn't have taken the last cookie!
How can I ever repent for my low, low character which got us into this mess?
November 1, 2007 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
"Common good" and "general welfare" sound very similar to me. So what's wrong with promoting the Constitution? Has the Constitution of the United States lost its meaning? Certainly Americans can agree on some government programs that serve the general welfare. Fire protection, education, public health--the purpose of government is to provide these elements, and more, that serve the common good.
That's what Tom will ask us to do, so let's shut up about whether there is a common good or not--there is--and look at how it can be best be defined, and whether it ought to be provided by the public or private sectors.
ecotourism
WeGoEco.com
November 1, 2007 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, he represents more of what Virginians care about, and your perspective is the fringe. It's also inaccurate and filled with overgeneralization about people with faith.
November 1, 2007 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
You sure seem offended by his free speech, his freedom of religion, and his belief that morality in relationships impacts the quality of those relationships. Or are you one of those who would ban ethics from philosophy and morals from ethics?
You also seem most offended by the idea that anything could be sacred. In fact, I believe that sacredness may be what provokes your rages the most. You can't stand the word, can you. It triggers a guilty rage, it seems.
And that is the point of arguing the healthiness of social morals, and finding common ground in them.
November 1, 2007 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't think he called for censorship...In any case, our cultural decline is largely because of partisans who continually foist their extremist immorality or amorality on others through politics. It just so happens you spout the leftist party line on these matters and quote the 80s Meese Commission report as a counter-example to an assertion made in 2007?
November 1, 2007 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
We probably are in near universal agreement. But here's my problem with religion when it comes to cultural matters -- religion is the party that's on the attack. Somebody who makes porn just wants to sell porn to people. The institutions of religion don't concern them. Somebody who views porn just wants to get off. Religion is not their issue. But religious groups made porn an issue for government. That has to be stopped. Religious people shouldn't be using government to coerce other people's behavior. They can use rhetoric, sure. But not government.
So, I'm not hostile to religion, per se. Believe whatevcr you need to believe.
But don't seek to impose those beliefs. You personally are probably not the sort to do so. But one group's moral beliefs shouldn't effect another's.
I'm sure Tom's not for outright censorship. But using the pulpit of government to stoke social sanction isn't right either. And, remember that the government can discriminately tax certain forms of expression without censoring them.
I know I seem hostile to religion. But I hope you understand that some of that hostility is in self defense. I don't go into churches telling people how to act. Why do they come out of churches with such suggestions and demands?
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
November 1, 2007 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Part of my answer would depend on whether you consider ethics and morals synonymous, and, if not, how you define them. I understand morals to be defined by some external source, where ethics are the individual choices made as appropriate action for specific situations.
Sacred? I simply find it an imprecise word, all too often used condescendingly by those who believe they have the One True Whatever, and typically, but not always, are from some (but not all) Abrahamic traditions. Several terms come to mind that can include what I understand a religious, of a deistic religion, person would consider a sacred experience. Few Buddhists would call enlightenment sacred; there's a deistic implication in the word. If you called it transcendental, self-actualizing, or peak experience, we might have grounds for agreeing. Martin Buber's idea of the I-thou relationship is not restricted to being a relation to a deity. The title of Rudolf Otto's Experience of the Holy is a little misleading, as his concept, the numinous: "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self" is not inconsistent with earth-oriented traditions, quite a bit of Buddhism, animism, and quite a few things that don't qualify as Abrahamic.
Even within religions, even within Abrahamic religions, there is considerable difference on what a sacred experience might be. There are those that believe they have a direct,conscious experience of the deity. Others believe that by faith, they will be rightly guided, perhaps through sacred writings. There's an interesting similarity between Islam and the idea of being "born again", as a submission to the deity.
So no, "sacred" doesn't give me a guilty rage. Depending on the way it is used, it may be along the lines of "believe as I do or you are wrong". That annoys me, unless someone shows me their dedicated phone line to the Big Guy.
How you go from the idea of a highly individual numinous or transcendental experience, to the idea of "social morals", which seem to be prescriptive for a society, baffle me -- the two ideas seem disjoint, unless, of course, that morality goes back to the External Reference That Declares It's Right, just like the Testaments, the Koran, the Apocrypha, the Book of Mormon, or the Gardnerian references. (How many Gardnerian witches does it take to change a light bulb? "We can't tell you, for that is a secret of the third order (quick, look in the book and find out")
What about religions without a strong written reference? What do they use for reference?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 1, 2007 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Religious fruitcakes." A phrase meant to marginalize religious people and make them lesser citizens because you disagree with them.
November 1, 2007 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Give us the truth, not more cheerleading slogans for partisanship.
November 1, 2007 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Studies more recent than the 80s show productivity, jobs and families lost to the net addiction of pornography.
So regarding your first sentence, if you do the former you can actually manage the latter.
What good you do in your backyard has a cumulative effect with others' good. That's the "common good" assumption, that there are things in common we can do that are good.
November 1, 2007 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I too, much prefer "general welfare" if only for that precious "welfare". Which we need a hell of a lot more of.
Look, Tom, I may have taken the last cookie, but that isn't the "culture of selfishness" which got us into this mess.
Do you have the courage to tell us the names of the people involved in the real "culture of selfishness", and what you would do to get some of what's ours back to us?
Could you also tell us who, and how, people will be held accountable for the War On Iraq?
Somehow, I just can't feel that it was my selfishness which got us into this mess, and I resent the implication that it was the selfishness of any of us who aren't sucking up defense earmarks and bribing senators and making up fraudulent intelligence reports which did it.
Most of all, please don't try to twist right-wing frames, into left-wing. It doesn't work.
November 1, 2007 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unedited: "Wow... that's kind of a prude response."
My edit: Sorry, that was my initial reaction. I should have done better than hurling names, though.
Seriously, though... my view on something like porn, or any outsider art, is that the effects don't matter. People should have the right to express themselves and the right to consume whatever expressions they want. I don't like the idea of people having their behavior limited just because, hypothetically, somebody lost a marriage or job or whatever over it.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
November 1, 2007 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Howard, a cultural movement to persuade unity toward eschewing porn is not a tyranny over the mind of men, but a private collective effort to find something sacred in the individual in the collective moral context. Relationships are sacred, and porn undermines them.
November 1, 2007 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Poverty, illiteracy, war, and hatred are destructive to humanity. That doesn't mean net porn or other types are not. I think porn motivates men to dislike their spouses' bodies and deem them uninteresting by comparison. It's an immoral virtual visitation of strangers into committed relationships.
And religious zealotry depends on what a religion ties someone to. If it is actually Jesus Christ their religion ties them to, then there is only good there. If one's religion ties them to greed or avarice, then there is no good or God there, just greed.
If a person is zealous to be like Christ, neither is that destructive, unless he/she does not actually imitate Christ and does some evil instead.
November 1, 2007 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the crux here is what is limiting the behavior.
Is it government, or as Tom's been talking about, an elective cultural movement?
November 1, 2007 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow..I'm almost speechless here.
Everyone else has made the points, so I will just say that when I read the initial post, I thought it was made by a centrist Republican (at best).
I think (hope) you are saying that we must sacrifice nationally and have a true stake in our foreign and domestic policy, but if that is the case, you are really going about it the wrong way.
The problem is not that we have lost our "soul" as a nation. The problem is that there are too many people defining what that "soul" is, on both sides.
Porn is not the problem. Bling is not the problem. 50 Cent is not the problem. And if you really think these things are, you are the problem.
November 1, 2007 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a fault line in liberalism that's probably not going to go away. I agree that American culture is being corrupted by materialism. I think the relentless idiocy of American enthusiasm for brand names and celebrity news is related to enthusiasm for pornography, body-image and diet problems, failure to save money, and susceptibility to corporate interests and corporate construction of political and social reality. I don't think the US is unique in facing these problems; brand worship, apoliticism, and enthusiasm for pornography are all exploding in East Asian societies too, where they are moderated by the influence of family ties but exacerbated by traditionally apolitical cultures. And then there's Europe, which is complicated to think about. But the US's problems of corporate/commercial brand worship are uniquely severe and tied to anti-intellectualism in a way they are not elsewhere.
The relationship of these problems to faith seems complex. As the East Asian example shows, ostentatious evangelical faith may be related to a culture of greed, brand-worship and sexual excess as a sort of symbiotic opposite;