It's been a long week, watching President Obama hide behind a wall of children to unveil his solution to the shooting at Sandy Hook, and I find myself in the same place today as I have found myself since about 1998 in matters in the public square: convinced of my position in the argument, and ashamed of almost everyone who shares it with me.
"It reminds me a lot of what happened in the South in the 1960's in the Civil Rights Movement. Good people stayed in their houses and didn't speak up when there was carnage in the streets, and the total violation of the rights of African Americans as they marched in Selma, and they let Bull Connor, and the redneck elements of the South, and the Klan take over their culture in effect, and become the face of it."
Which is 100% right, of course, except for the astonishing key matter: Bull Connor, the redneck elements of the South, and the Klan were all politically-affiliated with the Democratic party! It's a fabulous tale of what went wrong -- except for what actually went wrong, and who owned it. And notice this: with a very breezy invocation of the KKK, he calls all the voices currently in the discussion who oppose him violent and evil.
The moral of the story here, as Brokaw tells it, is that good people need to speak up because people like Bull Connor and the rednecks are becoming the face of a culture as it relates to gun control. But see here -- if we take his list of contributors to a "violent society," two are bastions of liberal politics. Is he really making a moral equivocation of the Mental Health community and the Video Game industry to Bull Connor?
While he, and his friends on TOS, consider such a thing, let's the rest of us consider what an easy-to-digest story that is: gun violence is the fault of people who are the moral equivalent of the KKK, and the only trouble will be if "good people" remain silent. It simply comes out and is accepted as fact -- when he's sitting across the table from Al Sharpton -- as if there's nothing left to say.
Let's be really obvious about this: on the Right -- on the conservative side of our culture -- we have ZERO stories which are this compelling. In part, I think, it is because we are scrupulously honest and we hold story-telling in contempt either as a childish endeavor, or as a rogue's game. But we had better rethink that if we really care about our culture -- because at the end of the day, Culture is a Story we tell ourselves, and we believe it in some respect in order to make it come true.
Today TOS believes their story more deeply and more reflectively than we do, and we have nothing to say when they barf out their shabby accusations which any reasonable person would laugh at. We may have all the acts on our side, but they have all the stories.
We need to begin to turn that around.
The first retort to that, of course, is that if everyone is wrong except me, I need to do some soul searching. Fair enough: I will continue to search my soul for the reasons why I can't seek to turn every disagreement into a mud-throwing contest, and for why I can't imagine why anyone thinks the government is a better way to run things than local people -- spouses and parents who are also employees, employers and stake-holders in the local economy. It's in my Outlook as a scheduled weekly meeting, so I will do my part diligently.
But look: the position I will here cast as "the other side" (or TOS) does an unbelievable job of framing this side (my side) of the discussion as somehow the side of the vile. In theology, conservative and doctrinally-minded Christians are framed as pharisees when TOS is feeling lazy, or as open bigots and miserly wretches when they are feeling especially frisky -- yet it is the conservative denominations and churches giving all the money, funding all the good works, and actually preaching a message of forgiveness for repentance to the lost. On the political side, well, just watch this:
"It reminds me a lot of what happened in the South in the 1960's in the Civil Rights Movement. Good people stayed in their houses and didn't speak up when there was carnage in the streets, and the total violation of the rights of African Americans as they marched in Selma, and they let Bull Connor, and the redneck elements of the South, and the Klan take over their culture in effect, and become the face of it."
Which is 100% right, of course, except for the astonishing key matter: Bull Connor, the redneck elements of the South, and the Klan were all politically-affiliated with the Democratic party! It's a fabulous tale of what went wrong -- except for what actually went wrong, and who owned it. And notice this: with a very breezy invocation of the KKK, he calls all the voices currently in the discussion who oppose him violent and evil.
The moral of the story here, as Brokaw tells it, is that good people need to speak up because people like Bull Connor and the rednecks are becoming the face of a culture as it relates to gun control. But see here -- if we take his list of contributors to a "violent society," two are bastions of liberal politics. Is he really making a moral equivocation of the Mental Health community and the Video Game industry to Bull Connor?
While he, and his friends on TOS, consider such a thing, let's the rest of us consider what an easy-to-digest story that is: gun violence is the fault of people who are the moral equivalent of the KKK, and the only trouble will be if "good people" remain silent. It simply comes out and is accepted as fact -- when he's sitting across the table from Al Sharpton -- as if there's nothing left to say.
Let's be really obvious about this: on the Right -- on the conservative side of our culture -- we have ZERO stories which are this compelling. In part, I think, it is because we are scrupulously honest and we hold story-telling in contempt either as a childish endeavor, or as a rogue's game. But we had better rethink that if we really care about our culture -- because at the end of the day, Culture is a Story we tell ourselves, and we believe it in some respect in order to make it come true.
Today TOS believes their story more deeply and more reflectively than we do, and we have nothing to say when they barf out their shabby accusations which any reasonable person would laugh at. We may have all the acts on our side, but they have all the stories.
We need to begin to turn that around.
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1 comments:
You reminded me why I like you in the first place, Herr Turk.
We have a way of failing to flesh things out. We believe that the Word became flesh, but the word never really becomes flesh. And an idea can't save the world.
Someday, we'll blog again, friend. Someday.
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