Looking For A Villain
My father, who reads this blog occasionally but doesn't approve of just about everything I write, says that one of my problems is that I spend way too much time looking for villains. He might be right. I guess I know deep down that the Bush Administration isn't evil, it's mostly just incompetent. Well okay, Cheney is evil, but the rest are just incompetent. And oil companies that rake in record profits while charging people $3.00 a gallon so that they can drive to work? They're not capital-E "Evil", they're just entities created by law that are designed for one purpose only, namely to make money for their investors. If that means that everyone else on earth gets screwed, that simply doesn't enter into the equation. There's no malevolent conspiracy, it's just corporations doing what corporations are designed to do, particularly when there is a lack of proper government oversight.
So I suppose I have to own up to my father's criticism. But I also think that it's worth pointing out that I'm far from the only one who has a tendency to see villains behind every tree.
Take for example the second annual installment of the latest iteration of the War On Christmas. If you haven't heard that such a War has been declared don't worry, it hasn't. But there are a handful of people who have decided that it is beneficial for you to think that it has because your believing this helps them push their own agenda.
People like Jerry Falwell. Ever the spiritual father of peace and harmony, he has decided that it's time to take the fight to the infidel buy suing the bastards. Through his "Friend Or Foe Christmas Campaign", he's going to wage holy litigation against anyone who would spread what he and his organization see as misinformation about the public celebration of the holiday. Just like Jesus would do. I guess when it comes to celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace, you're either with us or against us.
Or how about the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who launched a boycott of that subversive anti-American organization Wal-Mart. Why? Because a woman who complained to Wal-Mart customer service that "Wal-Mart . . . was replacing 'Merry Christmas' with 'Happy Holidays'" received an e-mail response from someone named Kirby ("Kirby?") which explained that various traditions associate with Christmas have their roots in non-Christian cultures. Horrible, right? But what really seemed to get the League's goat was the fact that clicking on "Christmas" on Wal-Mart's website brings you to what they call a "Holiday" page. So from one semi-anonymous e-mail and one click on Wal-Mart's web page that mentioned a "Holiday", the League comes to the obvious conclusion that "Wal-Mart Bans Christmas" and called for a boycott. Two days later they claimed "Wal-Mart Caves" and called off the boycott. And all Western Civilization breathed a sigh of relief.
My favorite is John Gibson, the Fair and Balanced Fox News personality who just published the book "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought", in which he spins a sort of conspiracy theory wherein "[t]he wagers of this war on Christmas are a cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers [obviously not the same lawyers as the 700+ that Falwell has hired--Sully] cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians -- not just Jewish people." I guess he can't be called anti-Semitic if he's also paranoid about liberal, guilt-wracked Christians, right?
Much as I hate to have to point out the obvious (or side with Wal-Mart--blech!), there is no War on Christmas, either literal or metaphorical. This phony war isn't going on today, just like it wasn't going on in the late 1950's when the John Birch society argued that "Reds" and the United Nations were plotting to "weaken the pillar of religion in our country" with "the drive to take Christ out of Christmas", and just like there was no such war in the 1920's when Henry Ford railed about "Jewish Opposition to Christmas" in his infamous work "The International Jew."
Sorry to pull the always-comforting rug of victimhood out from under those who are eager to declare a jihad to save a holiday that isn't actually threatened, but no one is "banning" anything, nor is anyone being denied the right to celebrate anything. What Falwell, Gibson and others hawking this phony war are doing is taking a handful of anecdotes, exaggerations and silly examples of petty restrictions from people who are usually making misguided attempts at being pluralistic (perish the thought!) and turning it into the work of a shadowy cabal for whom banning Christmas is just the first step in their diabolical plan to force Red State boys to marry other men.
What this made-up "war" is actually all about is the need of the Religious Right for powerful enemies, even when none exist. Movements like theirs can't exist without enemies. It isn't enough for them that Christianity is the majority religion in this country, or that they have a stranglehold on the Federal government and most state governments, or that for every example of supposed "oppression" of Christmas we could probably find ten examples of government promotion of the holiday despite the questionable constitutionality of such things. No, apparently they need the emotional validation of victim status as well.
See, it just wouldn't do for them to state the truth, which is "It isn't enough that I and those who share my beliefs celebrate this sacred holiday--I must have my religion validated by the government, all the corporate institutions that I encounter on a daily basis, and anyone else upon whom I can force myself." They can't acknowledge this because not only does this sound tyrannical and un-American, but it also speaks to a certain weakness of spirituality; after all, if your faith actually means something to you then it's not going to matter one iota whether or not the pimply teen at the Wal-Mart checkout stand says "Happy Holidays" as you leave the store. So the leaders of the Religious Right (and those who rely on them to provide support for their policies) have created and fed a powerful meme based on the illusion that Christians in America are an oppressed minority instead of a powerful cultural and political force that enjoys virtually unlimited freedom of worship. Making yourself the victim in your own mind is a useful way to help justify aggressively forcing your will on others. As Michelle Goldberg wrote in Salon.com, "The war on Christmas trope lets the right pretend to be playing defense when it's really on the offensive -- against the ACLU, separation of church and state, and pluralism, to name just a few targets."
If Christmas is a meaningful holiday to you, then I hope you enjoy it this year. And I hope that the season means more to you than the opportunity to advance a cultural agenda.
So I suppose I have to own up to my father's criticism. But I also think that it's worth pointing out that I'm far from the only one who has a tendency to see villains behind every tree.
Take for example the second annual installment of the latest iteration of the War On Christmas. If you haven't heard that such a War has been declared don't worry, it hasn't. But there are a handful of people who have decided that it is beneficial for you to think that it has because your believing this helps them push their own agenda.
People like Jerry Falwell. Ever the spiritual father of peace and harmony, he has decided that it's time to take the fight to the infidel buy suing the bastards. Through his "Friend Or Foe Christmas Campaign", he's going to wage holy litigation against anyone who would spread what he and his organization see as misinformation about the public celebration of the holiday. Just like Jesus would do. I guess when it comes to celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace, you're either with us or against us.
Or how about the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who launched a boycott of that subversive anti-American organization Wal-Mart. Why? Because a woman who complained to Wal-Mart customer service that "Wal-Mart . . . was replacing 'Merry Christmas' with 'Happy Holidays'" received an e-mail response from someone named Kirby ("Kirby?") which explained that various traditions associate with Christmas have their roots in non-Christian cultures. Horrible, right? But what really seemed to get the League's goat was the fact that clicking on "Christmas" on Wal-Mart's website brings you to what they call a "Holiday" page. So from one semi-anonymous e-mail and one click on Wal-Mart's web page that mentioned a "Holiday", the League comes to the obvious conclusion that "Wal-Mart Bans Christmas" and called for a boycott. Two days later they claimed "Wal-Mart Caves" and called off the boycott. And all Western Civilization breathed a sigh of relief.
My favorite is John Gibson, the Fair and Balanced Fox News personality who just published the book "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought", in which he spins a sort of conspiracy theory wherein "[t]he wagers of this war on Christmas are a cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers [obviously not the same lawyers as the 700+ that Falwell has hired--Sully] cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians -- not just Jewish people." I guess he can't be called anti-Semitic if he's also paranoid about liberal, guilt-wracked Christians, right?
Much as I hate to have to point out the obvious (or side with Wal-Mart--blech!), there is no War on Christmas, either literal or metaphorical. This phony war isn't going on today, just like it wasn't going on in the late 1950's when the John Birch society argued that "Reds" and the United Nations were plotting to "weaken the pillar of religion in our country" with "the drive to take Christ out of Christmas", and just like there was no such war in the 1920's when Henry Ford railed about "Jewish Opposition to Christmas" in his infamous work "The International Jew."
Sorry to pull the always-comforting rug of victimhood out from under those who are eager to declare a jihad to save a holiday that isn't actually threatened, but no one is "banning" anything, nor is anyone being denied the right to celebrate anything. What Falwell, Gibson and others hawking this phony war are doing is taking a handful of anecdotes, exaggerations and silly examples of petty restrictions from people who are usually making misguided attempts at being pluralistic (perish the thought!) and turning it into the work of a shadowy cabal for whom banning Christmas is just the first step in their diabolical plan to force Red State boys to marry other men.
What this made-up "war" is actually all about is the need of the Religious Right for powerful enemies, even when none exist. Movements like theirs can't exist without enemies. It isn't enough for them that Christianity is the majority religion in this country, or that they have a stranglehold on the Federal government and most state governments, or that for every example of supposed "oppression" of Christmas we could probably find ten examples of government promotion of the holiday despite the questionable constitutionality of such things. No, apparently they need the emotional validation of victim status as well.
See, it just wouldn't do for them to state the truth, which is "It isn't enough that I and those who share my beliefs celebrate this sacred holiday--I must have my religion validated by the government, all the corporate institutions that I encounter on a daily basis, and anyone else upon whom I can force myself." They can't acknowledge this because not only does this sound tyrannical and un-American, but it also speaks to a certain weakness of spirituality; after all, if your faith actually means something to you then it's not going to matter one iota whether or not the pimply teen at the Wal-Mart checkout stand says "Happy Holidays" as you leave the store. So the leaders of the Religious Right (and those who rely on them to provide support for their policies) have created and fed a powerful meme based on the illusion that Christians in America are an oppressed minority instead of a powerful cultural and political force that enjoys virtually unlimited freedom of worship. Making yourself the victim in your own mind is a useful way to help justify aggressively forcing your will on others. As Michelle Goldberg wrote in Salon.com, "The war on Christmas trope lets the right pretend to be playing defense when it's really on the offensive -- against the ACLU, separation of church and state, and pluralism, to name just a few targets."
If Christmas is a meaningful holiday to you, then I hope you enjoy it this year. And I hope that the season means more to you than the opportunity to advance a cultural agenda.
posted by Yukon Sully | 8:24 AM
2 Comments:
a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theorists.....
hey yukon, what do you think of the fcc more or less forcing howard stern to turn to satellite radio? can you imagine dad's horror when he hears that show on his sirius receiver for the first time? "hey! this doesn't sound like mother angelica!"
I don't think there's a conspiracy among those promoting the "war", I just think they're very opportunistic. Like the oil companies, exploting situations like this seems to just be in their individual nature.
Howard Stern? I think he and satellite radio were made for each other. His show will be much funnier without having to walk amorphous lines of "decency", and anyone who wants to hear it knows where to find it. It's too bad that you'll have to pay for it, but in the end I'm okay with that, just like I'm okay with having to pay to see new episodes of The Sopranos.
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