Want an indication of the direction the Democratic leadership is planning to take the party? Listen to Howard Dean’s recent comments on the Democratic Party and spirituality, as made to an interviewer from the Christian Broadcasting Network:
“We’ve got a culture that’s still heading in the wrong direction. You know, one of the things that I think one of the misconceptions of the Democratic Party is that we’re Godless and we don’t have any values. The truth is that we have a tremendous amount in common with the Christian community, and in particular with the evangelical Christian community. One of the biggest things that Democrats worry about is the materialism of our culture, what’s on television that our kids are seeing, and the lack of spirituality. That’s something we have in common.”
Pardon me, Chairman Dean? The Democratic Party now stands for against the “lack of spirituality” in American culture?
Not this Democrat.
It is not the proper role of a political party to promote a religious agenda. It certainly is not an appropriate role for elected officials to preach to citizens about the dangers of their “lack of spirituality”. It’s a personal decision if someone wants to embrace or reject spirituality, and it disappoints me profoundly that the leader of the Democratic Party is now suggesting that politics ought to be used to promote spirituality and reject secular culture.
Is this what the grassroots activists of Democracy for America worked for?
I am sick of watching the national Democratic Party betray the progressive values I believe in. Let the leadership try to make the Democratic Party America’s second right wing party, dragging the Democrats in the direction of the Republican way of doing things, using religion as a political tool, shrugging their shoulders at attacks on liberty, and stifling voters’ choice by eliminating primary opposition for the party’s chosen candidates. They won’t have my support.
They will have my opposition, from within the Democratic Party, to root them out.
I think you are confusing religion and spirituality. Religion is the organized church and the major faiths in society. Religion imposes its beliefs and values on the members of the religion and others. Spirituality is a personal relationship that an individual has with himself, his community, and his god (if any). The two can be perfectly entwined with each other or completely separate. I think that much of modern religion lacks spirituality in that it is very intolerant of dissent or opposing views. The purpose of many religious organizations is to assert power and authority over people: members and non-members. A spiritual person has found balance in his life and tolerance of others and their views. A spiritual person will reach out to others who need help regardless of their personal views. I find that many progressive values come from very spiritual roots. Personal liberty, caring for people in need, building strong communities, and caring for the environment are just a few of the values that can arise from spirituality.
Jettison the non-believers? No, that’s not what Dean is saying. Dean himself is not personally religious. Dean is saying that the opposite of spirituality is materialism.
You don’t have to make any personal decisions or embrace anything, JClifford, you’re already there, moreso than I am.
Moderate evangelicals have already recognized the tension between the interests of big business and what serves the cause of justice. But they are chased away from from the Democratic Party because of the perception that “they hate religion”.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/187/story_18742_1.html
For too long the Republicans have controlled the meaning of spirituality, conflating it with ‘religious’ and ‘conservative’. Don’t buy into their worldview. Spiritualism means caring about the environment, poverty, human rights, and education.
The Republicans talk a lot but their actions reveal their real values including: torture, spy on your own citizenry, run up the deficit so that the remaining lower classes will be paying for it for generations, lie about everything and keep your actions as secret as possible in this poor excuse for what’s left of a once democratic government.
Alan, Dean is religious. He’s said so.
What Dean is doing is saying that lack of spirituality is a problem. I disagree, and I don’t care how you define spirituality – it’s not the business of a political party to go preaching to people about their personal systems of belief.
I reject the idea that spirituality is merely “a personal relationship that an individual has with himself”. Neither does spirituality mean “caring about the environment, poverty, human rights, and education.” Those are political ideals, not spiritual ones.
Spirituality is separate matter from morality and ethics. Spirituality is a broad category of belief about reality that includes religion and is based upon the basic assumption that there is a supernatural sphere of influence.
There are many good Americans who are nonbelievers when it comes to the supernatural. They reject spirituality, and Howard Dean gave them a kick in the teeth with this statement.
Dean knew exactly what he was saying, and who he was speaking to – the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson’s organization. It was a crass move. Dean had best stop taking his left side for granted.
I agree with jclifford. Mark and Alan create a definition of spirituality that is synonymous with “nice” and “thoughtful.” The crucial distinction in the definition of spirituality is the notion of “Spirit,” which is a supernatural force.
This is one of the problems with Dean. The guy shoots off his mouth without thinking about what it means. Shooting from the hip can be effective if you’ve thought things through first, and it often becomes clear that Dean hasn’t.
Dean wasn’t just speaking for himself, he was speaking for a political party. And he said that that party “worries about” a “lack of spirituality.”
“Religion” and “spirituality” are words with broad ranges of meaning that overlap to a large degree. A number of people consider themselves “spiritual but not religious,” usually meaning they believe in some spiritual principles but don’t subscribe to organized, institutional religion. That’s all well and good.
But what about those who consider themselves neither religious nor spiritual? We have been told by the Democratic party leadership that we are a source of “worry” to them.
If this had been language that excluded any other group and identified them as a source of worry for a political party, all hell would have broken loose:
The Democratic party worries about a lack of whiteness in America?
The Democratic party worries about a lack of maleness in America?
The Democratic party worries about a lack of straightness in America?
I could go on, but you get the idea. By exclusion, Dean picked out non-spiritual Americans and identified them as the source of a problem in America. Is this the way the Democratic party intends to start treating whole groups of people?
My info about Dean comes from an insider to his 2004 New Hampshire campaign. If you parse carefully what he says publicly, it is not easy to tell what he thinks. His wife is Jewish, and his children are being raised Jewish. He certainly comes out strongly for inclusiveness, including marriage rights for gays.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/137/story_13791_1.html#dean
Some say the ‘shooting from the hip’ image was created by the DNC and Hooley people who also had the Kerry image contract.
Dean’s statement above does not single out any person, much less “non-spiritual Americans.” The statement refers to ‘lack of spirituality’ as opposed to ‘materialism of our culture’ If he did say such a thing, please provide the quotation.
jClifford, Jim, and Ralph have adopted a dogmatic, traditionalist definition of spirituality, saying it must include a narrowly defined ‘supernatural sphere of influence.’ This is the classic ‘straw man’ fallacy. They create their own fantasy of some viewpoint and then argue against it, without bothering to understand the real viewpoint. Rather convenient, that people who consider themselves to be ‘non-spiritual’ think they know exactly how to define spirituality for someone else. If you want to see what religious thinkers are really saying, try reading some of their stuff directly, or even just look at the book reviews.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060670630/sr=8-4/qid=1148675502/ref=pd_bbs_4/102-9068806-0756942?%5Fencoding=UTF8
I think there are certain human experiences that everyone has in common. For instance someone sitting on a mountaintop might have a numinous experience. How they interpret that experience will depend on their religious background and worldview. A Hindu might experience Krishna, while jClifford, Jim or Ralph might experience environmental insights.
Their whole argument hinges on the idea that some kind of ‘secular’(materialistic?) viewpoint does not have any spiritual value. But listen to their voices from other pages of this forum:
or this:
Are these the really the words of people without spiritual values who have aligned themselves with materialism? I don’t think so. You guys are projecting.
When jClifford says he wants ‘to root them out’ maybe he is refering to those who recognize the spiritual nature of their values but have not yet left the Democratic party.
Alan, you call it “dogmatic” and “traditionalist”. I call it using a word according to what it actually means.
If the word “spirituality” is expanded to mean “caring about the environment” and “building strong communities”, then it becomes a nonsense babble word that means nothing at all. According to your broad definition, “I like pickles better than potato chips” would be a spiritual statement.
The word “spirituality” is defined as follows by the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:
“The state, quality, manner, or fact of being spiritual. 2. The clergy. 3. Something, such as property or revenue, that belongs to the church or to a cleric. Often used in the plural.”
What Howard Dean meant, while talking to the Christian Broadcasting Network about what the Democratic Party shares in common with Christian evangelicals, is very clear. You’re trying to muddy it up, Alan, but the implications are plain to see.
The definition of the word “spirituality” is firmly rooted in religion, and was used by Howard Dean so deeply in the context of the confluence of religion and politics. This effort of yours to suggest that “spirituality” refers to anything that people value just doesn’t match with the reality of the English language.
You don’t stop to consider what the actual meaning of “materialism” is either, Alan. You presume that it just refers to an affection for gaining material possessions, but it doesn’t. Materialism is a actually a philosophical position that posits that the material world is the root of existence, and there is no spiritual realm that is separate from it. Spirituality is likewise a philosophical position, and it counters materialism. Those who believe in spirituality believe either that the material world is an illusion, and that only spirit truly exists, or that there is a spiritual realm of reality that is separate from, and perhaps superior to, material reality.
I reject the concept of spirituality. I don’t believe in a realm of spirit. I am a materialist, but that doesn’t make me more greedy than the average religious person. I am a secular American, and I believe that our government, and our politics, should remain secular (meaning set apart from religious discussion – not necessarily anti-religious). Many, many other Americans agree with me, and the leader of the Democratic Party has told them to buzz off.
I think that’s a problem. Don’t you?
Your ideas about religion and spirituality are positively archaic.
Look again, jclifford, at your primary dictionary meaning of spirituality. Religion doesn’t even begin to enter the picture until you get to the secondary meanings. Or check the wiki definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality
And reread the other links I gave you.
On second thought, I don’t believe you’re going to read any of them, so I might as well paste part of it:
So yes, jclifford, you ARE deeply spiritual, although I’m sure the idea makes you quite uncomfortable. Besides which, I would suggest you are a good Christian. I also suspect you are the author of the religious pieces in the archives, which are deeply reflective and indicative of personal experimentation. And your spiritual values find an outlet in your politics. They are definately not the traditional Republican politics of big business and greed.
You did not quote where Dean tells atheist people to ‘buzz off’.
You do not say if you want to root out people who recognize spiritual values from the Democratic party.
Alan, if my ideas are archaic, then the English language is archaic. I’m citing the dictionary, and you’re citing Wikipedia.
You’re also making an incorrect suggestion about what the Wikipedia article says about spirituality. The part that you quoted above is not a definition of spirituality. Rather, the things you list are described in the article as some of the aspects of life that spirituality addresses. They are, the article says, “concepts that arise when people are asked to describe what spirituality means to them“. What spirituality means to people is not the same thing as what spirituality is.
It’s a big difference, Alan, and sloppy for you to overlook. You aren’t carefully reading the sources that you cite.
What you’ve done is confused what spirituality is with what some of the benefits its adherents believe that they get from it.
Essentially, you’re saying this:
1. Spirituality is not just a matter of belief in a spiritual realm, in formal religion or in personal religious beliefs.
2. Spirituality is ethics and morality.
This is like saying:
1. Coffee is not just a dark caffeinated beverage brewed from the coffee bean.
2. Coffee is energy and mental focus.
In both cases, the second point is a misstatement that comes from the lack of distinction between the defining characteristics of a thing and the impact that a thing has in the world. Consider the implications, and how they’ve led to your mistaken argument.
If you follow your skip in logical reasoning and apply it to coffee, one would have to conclude that meditation is a kind of coffee, because, after all, coffee is energy and mental focus, and meditation provides
You’re making this mistake when you say that I am spiritual, because I have a morals and ethics. Spirituality is morals and ethics, in your mind, but that’s as much of a mistake as concluding that coffee is energy and mental focus.
I am not spiritual. I’ve explained to you what spirituality and materialism are, in a profound and widely recognized philosophical and linguistic sense, and you refuse to acknowledge this because you want to include everybody in spirituality, when in fact, many people, myself included, reject spirituality.
Read carefully. You might want to read that beliefnet article you referred to, for example. You say that Howard Dean is not personally religious. The beliefnet article says that Howard Dean is a Congregationalist.
Other Howard Dean quotes from that very article, Alan:
“I think there was a religious aspect to my decision to support civil unions.”
“It doesn’t make me more religious or less religious than I was before, but it means that I’m willing to talk about it in different ways.”
“As I have gotten older I’ve thought about what it means to be a Christian and what the role of religion is in my life.”
“I am pretty religious. I pray every day but I’m from New England, so I just keep it to myself.”
“I think religion is important and spiritual values are very important, which is what this election is really about.”
HOW is this man not personally religious Alan?
Howard Dean is not an idiot. He’s a well-educated man. He knows very well what he’s saying, and how the audience of the Christian Broadcasting Network will receive it. Howard Dean is sending a message to the Religious Right that the Democratic Party is willing to reject secular voters and cooperate with the Republican Party’s agenda of demonizing them.
Demonizing – that means depicting us as demonic. It’s a spiritual thing.
Oh, give me a break, Alan. I can read wikipedia, too. The very second sentence of the entry for “spirituality” is:
Gee: contrasted against time and the world. Nature: “The material world and its phenomena.” (American Heritage Dictionary). Sounds kinda supernatural to me.
But maybe I’m just being rigid and traditionalist in thinking about what words actually mean. How bound to the temporal and worldly! Silly me.
Oooh, looks like I hit a nerve. Dictionaries and definitions flying all over the place, but nothing from the heart. And no answer to where exactly Dean tells atheists to buzz off or get demonized. I guess I’m not going to get any documentation on that one, probably becasue there isn’t any. And no answer about jclifford’s threat to root out someone (spiritual people?) from the Democratic party. So much for being inclusive.
Clearly Dean is trying to snatch some moderate religious voters–the kind with a social conscience–away from the religious right.
As far as Dean’s personal spirituality, jclifford, “I just keep it to myself” is probably the best anyone can make anything out of what he says.
And you guys are busted on the selective quotes too. Since I don’t trust either one of you to do anything but take selected sentences out of context, I’ll post the first four paragraphs of the wiki definition here.
As you can see, spirituality can include religion, but is much larger than that.
And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, that definition means that yes, you are quite spiritual, whether or not you have the insight to realize it. I’m sure however, you will find some way to disagree with this and paint yourself into the demon corner while whining all the while about being demonized.
And sorry, Jim, no supernatural for you. “Man’s ultimate nature” refers to character, not world. Temporal refers to earthly things or things that end, like our possessions or our lives. As opposed to the eternal, like hope and love and maybe even vigilence and freedom.
You guys have been drinking way too much caffeine. Time to unplug the coffee pot and have some nice soothing hot milk chocolate.
If you don’t trust us, then I don’t understand why a virtuous person like yourself doesn’t get the hell out of here and go someplace else, since you’re clearly spending time with untrustworthy liars and villains? Why waste your time here if you really believe the unkind words you repeatedly spout? You’re pretty interested in personal insult for someone so “spiritual.” Why are you so focused upon that? What is your need to make issues personal? I’m curious and would like to know what drives you to do that.
Alan, as I’m sure you know, language consists of definitions and usage, not “heart.” Hearts consist of muscle and nerve fibers. Unless you’re referring to something that transcends mere flesh…
Your very own quote of wikipedia contains multiple references to the supernatural nature of spirituality. I count ten.
If you don’t want us to whine about being demonized, please take the time and effort to keep this from, yet again, becoming another episode in the Alan engages in personal attacks game. Why do you feel the need to make these matters so personal?
Trust? Do I trust you? Hmmm. In the way that Falwell followers trust Falwell, no. I look to you for leadership, yes, but I also have a lifelong habit of questioning and skepticism, which I regard as healthy.
Perhaps I also read you for the spiritual value, that is, to be challenged to a vision that is larger than myself. Much of what you write I consider to be desirable but unrealistic, so perhaps I also hope to be persuaded by your vision.
I am puzzled by why anyone would consider my remarks to be either “personal” or “unkind.” That is certainly not my intention. But I do consider many of your remarks to be caustic. For example, you start post #11 with “Oh, give me a break..” Or in post #13 “as I’m sure you know” sounds sarcastic and condescending. Then there’s “You’re pretty interested in personal insult for someone so ‘spiritual,’” which sure sounds to me like you’re disparaging my religion, whatever you think it might be. But of course we are from different regions and different generations, so perhaps I am still learning to speak your language. But the language I hear from you says you are big-hearted (and I think you know what I mean here) but also play very rough.
You have still missed the point of the “supernatural.” While the supernatural can be part of spirituality, that is only part of the definition, and a definition that is used by the very orthodox. Spirituality does indeed go way beyond religion. Perhaps you do not see this in your part of the country, but I have lived much longer than you and I have seen it over and over. And I have seen spirituality play out into progressive politics without being heavy handed or disrespectful of someone else’s brand of religion or non-religion.
In fact the mere use of the word “spirituality” in some circles is code for a more open and inclusive worldview in which no one religion is regarded as exclusively “true”. The person who has this type of belief system is not going to beat you over the head with it like the fundamentalists or the campus Bible-thumpers, but if they see you are not “against religion” you will start to become more aware of them.
This is not just an intellectual exercise. Democrats are in the minority and need to form coalitions and learn to play nicely together. I think Dean is correct in that the Democrats need to make it clear they do not hate religion. From my own background, I do not read Dean’s remarks as disparaging in any way towards those of no religion, in fact I interpret them as being inclusive. And I really, really, really want Democrats to win this time.
If you are going to interpret my remarks as personal, perhaps it would be better not to engage in discussion at all.
Alan, I have cited a dictionary of the English language and well-established philosophical language to support the idea that the spirituality is rooted in the supernatural. You, to counter that claim, have stretched a single line in Wikipedia, ignoring what much of what the rest of the entry says, and distorting another part of the entry.
You’ve ignored that. Readers will think about it for themselves.
I have demonstrated the flawed logical structure in your argument.
You’ve ignored that. Readers will think about it for themselves.
Now, you’re trying to switch the argument away with the distraction of questions that I’m not daring to answer. Readers will see through that too, and I’ll dispatch those two questions quickly.
1. I never said I would root out spiritual people from the Democratic Party. I refer to the last two paragraphs of the article, and it’s quite clear there that I’m talking about working toward getting rid of people in the Democratic Party leadership who betray progressive values, use religion for political ends, and work to prevent primary elections.
You can read that as plainly as anyone else, Alan. You’re trying to create a distraction from the weakness of your argument by using explosive language.
2. It’s been clear from the start that I’m talking about Howard Dean’s message in his CBN interview to the Christian Right that his Democratic Party is in agreement with the Republican Party that lack of spirituality, which I’ve established is quite the same as lack of belief in the supernatural realm, is something to be worried about. The documentation is all in Dean’s statement.
Once again, Alan, you’re reading selectively. You’re picking out one quote from the BeliefNet source, and one that doesn’t really support your claim that Howard Dean is not personally religious.
I’ve already cited a quote from that same source that directly contradicts your claim, one that you have conveniently ignored. You claim that Howard Dean is not personally religion. Howard Dean, in the very source that you tried to cite as proof to support that point, is quoted as saying, “I am pretty religious.”
Given the choice between your words and Howard Dean’s words, I think readers will know who to believe about Howard Dean’s religious beliefs. They’ll believe Howard Dean.
Here’s the list of “spiritual traditions and communities” from that Wikipedia article – all of them including, as a central tenet, belief in the supernatural:
Ayyavazhi
Anthroposophy
Bahá’à Faith
Buddhism
Catholic Spirituality
Christian Science
Christianity (Holy Spirit, Pentecostalism)
Esoteric Christianity
Feminist spirituality
Gnosticism
Hinduism, Hare Krishna
Islam, Sufism
Jainism
Judaism, Kaballah
Neo-confucianism, Taoism
New Age, New Thought, Spiritualism, The Dances of Universal Peace
Paganism, Neopaganism, Modern Gallae
Restorationism
Rosicrucianism
Shamanism
Sikhism
Spiritism
Subud
Surat Shabda Yoga
Theosophy
Unitarian Universalism
And gee, Alan, the first paragraph of that Wikipedia entry now reads:
“Spirituality is, in a narrow sense, a concern with matters of the spirit. The spiritual, concerning as it does eternal verities regarding Man’s ultimate nature, is often contrasted with the temporal or the worldly. The central defining characteristic of spirituality is belief in a supernatural realm of existence, opposed to materialism, which posits that only the material world truly exists. As with some forms of religion, the emphasis of spirituality is on personal experience with that supernatural realm. It may be an expression for life perceived as higher, more complex or more integrated with one’s worldview, as contrasted with the merely sensual.”
It changed overnight!
You know why? Any Wikipedia entry can be changed by anybody at any time. I’ll could go back there and write “Spirituality is a kind of melon”.
For the definition of the word “spirituality”, I’ll rely on my Dictionary of the English Language, thanks.
jclifford,
I’m trying to figure out if you really have a point to make or if you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing. I’m trying to take what you say in good faith, but it’s getting harder and harder not to think that you’re just uncomfortable with any kind of spirtitualism and just want to convert people to your brand of atheism or ‘root them out’ if they don’t agree with your values.
My intention is not to choose a side and then beat people over the head with it, but to discover the truth, or at least a truth.
“I have cited a dictionary of the English language”
I have already explained this. Go back and read what I wrote. Unfortuanately, you are the only person with access to that dictionary, so we can’t see for ourselves what you are reading. My Webster says something completely different. But the first, and most common definition of spirituality you give from your own personal dictionary does NOT have a reference to religion, as I already explained.
“You, to counter that claim, have stretched a single line in Wikipedia,”
Go back and read what I wrote. jclifford, I pasted four entire consecutive paragraphs from wikipedia; Jim pasted one line and interpredted it out of context. And what’s this “to counter that claim” stuff? Is this some sort of game for you, like a high school debate class? I am not trying to counter anything, I am trying to add to understanding. As a self-avowed non-spiritual person, (although I can recognize your spiritual nature very clearly) how can you claim to understand anything about spirituality? The best you can hope for is to undertand and explain your own kind of non-spirituality. I also gave you some observations from my own personal experience and gave you a link to a book review by a spiritual but non-supernatural author. Spirituality in America is not a monolith but is fluid and changing, as you saw the wikipedia entry change overnight as people try to understand and explain the idea.
“Here’s the list of “spiritual traditions and communities†from that Wikipedia article – all of them including, as a central tenet, belief in the supernatural”
What proof do you have that all the traditions you list include belief in the ‘supernatural’? And why are you bringing them in? Do they have something to do with the DNC? With Howard Dean? How does this in some way prove Howard Dean is demonizing you, if that is what you are trying to ‘prove’.
“You’re picking out one quote from the BeliefNet source, and one that doesn’t really support your claim that Howard Dean is not personally religious.”
Read again what I wrote. I posted the beliefnet link so you could read the candidate’s own statements and draw your own conclusions. The second part of your statement is not “my claim” but came from someone else’s personal knowlege of the situation, as I have already explained. But think again. Bush and Cheney are both official members of a mainstream denomination that is also a historical peace church, and that demonimation has actually issued a press statement denying any endoresement of the administration war policy. Bush is also known to be anything but mainstream in his personal religion. So can anything be concluded from membership in a particular church? Also Dean was a member of another church previously until there was some conflict about a bicycle path? BICYCLE PATH? Nothing like purity and rigidity in dogma. So Dean says he is religious. What religion? His kids are being raised Jewish. Is he Jewish or Christian? Does he believe in literal interpretation of the Bible? What about life after death? Jesus? Does he believe in God? (This is your big point about ‘supernatural’, right? That you aoject to belief in a supreme being.) I find what Dean does not say to be much more interesting than what he does say. I also find his vagueness strangely comforting. But he also values privacy of his beliefs, and I think we need to respect that too.
“I’ll could go back there and write “Spirituality is a kind of melonâ€.”
When we were sophomores in high school we had a religious cult going around the peach. For about a week we wore peach pits around our necks as religious icons and greeted each other with the word “peach” There was some hand gesture too. Of course, it wasn’t acceptible to voice opposition to Vietnam at that time, some could not wear a peace button in front of their parents, and other students were suspended for wearing black armbands to school on moratorium day. If you want to view spirituality as a melon, I will defend your right to do so. If you want ME to view spirituality as a melon, then we have a problem and I will fight you tooth, nail, and hammer.
As far as the two points, 1)I’m with you on using religion for political ends, I think many in the GOP are tired of this too; also with you on the value of contested primaries. “Betraying progressive values” sounds a little like the Thought Police. Shouldn’t you have a dialogue first, or something? 2) From the beliefnet article on the religious right, and I thought it was a pretty good article, it seems clear that Dean is trying to show that Democrats do not hate religion. I really don’t read into Dean’s statement the things you read into it. It looks to me that Dean is not trying to exclude atheists from a religiously-defined party, but to make religious moderates feel welcome in a party perceived as pro-atheist.
It seems to me one of the functions of religion is to tell truth to power and stand against the everyone’s-doing-it kind of political corruption that seems so easy these days. The minute a church joins the political establishment they pollute themselves and are no longer able to act as a counterbalance to the abuse of power.
BTW, I thought the part in the beliefnet piece about the religious right opposing the teaching of Bible as literature was pretty interesting. Do you have an opinion about using the bible in this way in public schools?
Peach.
It’s pretty clear to me what jclifford is arguing. Let me restate it:
a) the supernatural is a central aspect of “spirituality”,
and
b) wikipedia is not an authoritative source.
What’s not clear about that?
Religion can only “tell truth to power” if it is telling truth. What is the religious standard for establishing truth?
Okay, that’s clear enough. In which case we don’t agree.
a)a supreme being can be part of spirituality, but this does not take into consideration:
-religons like Confuscianism and Taoism which are more like philosophies
-psychology-based definitions of a supreme being i.e.”there is a god-shaped hole inside of us” refering for the propensity for all cultures to have religion, no matter how isolated or remote.
-non-religious experiences like being in the sacred space of a pagan temple or sitting on a mountaintop feeling ‘at one with the world’, which are defined as spiritual by the person experiencing it
-contemporary Christian grassroots movements based on authors like Sprang that emphasize ‘the journey’ and ‘life after life’ rather than life after death or heaven-as-reward-for-obediance associated with orthodox dogma
b) people who have studied wikipedia say it is as accurate as something like encyclopedia britanica, which is to say it does have inaccuracies, but no more than other more traditional publications. I used it because it is readily accessible and because is dymanic and reflects changing language and culture. At least it has a way to track changes and discuss differences of opinion so you know why something was written the way it was. My Webster defines spirituality as “something that in ecclesiatical law belongs to the church or to a cleric as such”–not particularly illuminating for our purposes–and does not even list something like LOL, BTW, or “schlong.” Fortunately there is the wiki to help old farts like me prevent young punks like you from trying to run circles around us all day long.
The standard for truth is one–there is no separate ‘religious’ standard for truth. If you have to leave your brains at the door when you go into a church, you’re going into the wrong church. As I recall, there were four arguments against Iraq based on the traditional ‘valid’ reasons for going to war–the only one I can remember off the top of my head was the lack of an attack to defend oneself against–in other words a preemptive attack is aganst the traditional rules of warfare and the definition of a ‘justifiable war’.
For gambling, you can look at the social costs, that is the cost of increased police protection, increased bankrupcies, tax income lost from nearby restaurants that close from casino competition. You look at who pays–gambling is regressive–that is, a tax on the poor. Various studies show every dollar in tax revenue a municipality gets from gambling costs from $4 to $11 in social costs. That’s why riverboat gambling is always across the state border from a population center–so that the state that gets the casino tax revenue does not get stuck with the social costs of gambling.
Every issue is different, of course, but the “religious truth” is on the side of research, knowlege, science and justice, not on the side of greed and power.
But Alan, if you think WIkipedia is authoritative, then that hurts your argument. That article on spirituality disagrees with your claim that spirituality and belief in the supernatural are not necessarily connected. The Wikipedia article reads:
“The central defining characteristic of spirituality is belief in a supernatural realm of existence, opposed to materialism, which posits that only the material world truly exists. As with some forms of religion, the emphasis of spirituality is on personal experience with that supernatural realm.”
jclifford,
Did I really say that? Don’t put words in my mouth. Go back and read what I really said. Then go back and read the entire Wikipedia entry. You might learn something.
Then get out from behind your computer terminal and go to a park or a river or wherever you godless punks go for spiritual renewal. Just because you don’t recognize it doesn’t mean you don’t need it.
… making the issue personal yet again. I am so done with this.
Godless punks?
Alan, the fact that what you said was wrong doesn’t make me a punk.
I am godless, though, and happy to be so.
Okay, I apologize for the godless punk remark. I’ve probably cut you to the quick, and now you’ll have to go around with a cut quick. If I could post a bandaid for you I would do it. While you’re still licking your wounds and all demoralized and everything, let me at least say, if there has ever been any question, that I do have a lot of respect for who you both are and what you do. But I do not see that respect going both ways. From my standpoint it is you making the issue personal.
I’m tired of writing “go back and read what I actually said…” Does my keyboard create invisible ink? Or are you deliberately misunderstanding me becasue you are uncomfortable with me for some PERSONAL reason. If you want to disagree, indicate what specific statement you disagree with.
I think the key might be in Ralph’s post #6:
While I don’t agree that your ‘morality’ is not spiritual, I am also willing to leave you alone and let you define yourselves in your own way. I am comfortable both with your beliefs and with a lack of agreement.
But you don’t seem to be willing to leave me alone to define my own spirituality. What Falwell and Robertson are trying to do to me from the right, you are trying to do to me from the other end of the religious spectrum. Why are you so uncomfortable and why are you being so personal?
Alan,
Do you realize that you, too, have refused to acknowledge and respect other people’s self-definitions?
You want to identify yourself as spiritual and say spirituality is something other than religion. It might be a little clearer to other people if you opposed spirituality to “organized religion” or “dogmatic religion.” But however you want to express it, and whether or not I agree with your definitions, I respect your right to define yourself any way you want.
You have not extended that kind of respect to people who do not identify themselves as “spiritual.” You have said that they are wrong about their own spiritual orientation (or lack thereof), and that you are right. You say you know they really are spiritual, even though they say they are not–that’s disrespectful.
Let me ask you this: If we accept for the moment that “religion” and “spirituality” are different things, do you support the separation of church and state but not the separation of spirituality and state? How could we avoid the kinds of problems we would have with the first if we allowed the second instead?
I find it inconceivable that someone who could write the title “give me a blowjob or the terrorists win” over their byline would consider anything too personal to write on these pages.
And what about sex? Isn’t that spiritual? I think so. It isn’t always used in a spiritual way, but it’s the most spiritual thing I can think of.
I think Ralph has an excellent question, Alan.
Do you not oppose the separation of spirituality and state?
Also, do you think that it’s appropriate for leaders of political parties to be promoting spirituality?
If no one can agree on the definition of spirituality, I think we need a more concrete example in order to say what’s appropriate. Requiring prayer in public schools is clearly over the top. But what about a moment of silence on Memorial Day? Spiritual, respectful of the dead, and I say, inoffensive and appropriate. But what about a moment of silence in public schools? Here, I start to get uneasy.
But Dean is talking about values. First, I don’t think anyone thinks of Dean as being very dogmatic or trying to force his religious views down someone else’s throat. Nobody can even figure out what he really believes in. So when Dean talks about values it’s not the same as when Robertson talks about values. And Dean clearly talks about the Democratic party and the Christian community as two distinct groups. He is looking for common ground. Can’t you guys look for common ground? Do you even have any values and can you articulate them?
Second, Dean is making a contrast. He is using the word ‘spiritual’ as an opposite to ‘materialistic’. For someone who can only think of ‘spiritual’ in terms of dogmatic organized religion, maybe that’s too hard to understand. I don’t have a problem with it. What to you is the opposite of materialism? What word would you use to convey this concept to a religious audience?
I don’t think you can separate values from policy. If you do not inject values into the system from the public and the political process, policy will be decided by faceless bureacrats who can tell what the most cost-effective solutions would be, but are not qualified to make value judgments. Value judgments have to come from the public. If you let the bureaucrats control the process by default, you will have ideas like the Tiebolt community taking precedence over egalitarian ideals, becasue they can be justified by economic reasoning. Yes, it is time to put values and even spirituality into the political system. That’s the only way a humane and not a clockwork policy can ever be enacted. But the question is—which values.
You guys have some work to do. You need to get behind the basic direction of Dean’s remarks, but have the debate on your own terms with sematics you can live with.
Alan,
But I am a materialist, if not at a dogmatic level then at least at the level of a philosophy of existence that I find to be most reasonable.
American Heritage definition of materialism: “Philosophy. The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena.”
“Matter and physical phenomena” refer to natural explanations. The converse of materialism is supernatural.
And please, I don’t believe anyone here has even tried to define “spiritual” as “dogmatic organized religion.” We are not so stupid as to be ignorant of the difference between those two concepts.
Words sometimes mean different things. Words like “religion,” “spirituality,” and “values” have a very wide ranges of meaning. Not everybody understands these words the same way you do.
When I hear a fundamentalist preacher use words like “values” and “spirituality,” and how they should take a more prominent role in “public life,” I know damn well those are code words for tearing down the separation of church and state.
For a religious fundamentalist, there’s no real distinction between religion, spirituality, and values. They all come from God, as conceived in the context of organized religion. That’s what those words mean on CBN, and that’s where Dean was speaking.
So I really wonder when I hear the chariman of the Democratic party talk to a fundamentalist audience about “values,” then move on to suggesting that government should have a role in eliminating the “lack of spirituality” in America. He knows who he’s talking to, and what those words mean to his audience (well, he ought to know what he’s saying and what that means, but this is Dean, after all).
I see one huge problem with eliminating the separation of spirituality and state. There are plenty of people who identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” but I don’t know of anyone who identifies himself or herself as “religious but not spiritual.” If spirituality includes something beyond narrowly-defined dogmatic religion, all well and good. But spirituality also includes dogmatic religion, at least as far as believers in dogmatic religion are concerned. And that’s who Dean was addressing.
Given that, according to one common definition, spirituality includes religion, eliminating the separation of spirituality and state would provide a loophole for the people who are trying to destroy the separation of church and state–a loophole big enough to drive a truck through.
I’m kind of busy today, and the heat slowing me down too much, but I’ll try to give you some kind of response while I brew up some yerba mate to give me some energy to finish my projects.
More dictionaries and still more definitions, but none of them online where someone else can check them. You guys are starting to remind me of that guy who was pasting definitions all over the Bomjon piece but no one could figure out what his point was. There are several definitions of materialism, you have picked the one that refers to some arcane philosophy. I doubt if Dean was refering to that. When you say you are materialistic, I picture someone in an SUV with a bumper sticker that reads “whoever dies with the most toys wins.” I picture someone who is too busy making money to spend time with the kids. I definately don’t picture someone who is spiritual enough to notice how the nature of time itself is changed when a child picks up a cat, or who has the wizardry to transmit that abstract reflection to a stranger halfway across the country. Oh, I forgot, that’s not an example of values, or spirituality or family values. It’s, it’s ah, materialism? Baloney. If you don’t want to say your’e spiritual, fine, but come up with some other explanation for it.
Dean is not talking to the fundamentalists. They are already in their own little world. Dean is talking to the moderate people who do go to church, but are fed up with selling out moral principles to money interests and corporate greed.
You know quite well the fundies don’t care anything about god or expect to live themselves like they tell other people to live.
Yuk, this mate tastes like shit, but it’s supposed to be really good for you. Maybe I should be mixing it with juice.
The right wing, which cares not a fig for values, has been allowed to dominate the ‘values’ rhetoric for too long. When people like you refuse to discuss values, you give them that issue, and it doesn’t belong to them.
What about the word ‘heart’ as in Carlos Casteneda’s ‘path with heart’. I’ve seen Jim use the concept without really elaborating. Is a policy with ‘heart’ offensive? Or trigger all kinds of mysterious supposedly fundie code words.
Okay, the mate was bad but I still drank it. If you are going to criticize Dean, you should also be mature enough to come up with some idea of what he should be saying instead. Something that doesn’t include either the Democrats losing or the Democrats ‘hating religon.’ Either that, or drop the kids with someone and go drive around in your SUV’s.
Dean was talking to an interviewer from the Christian Broadcasting Network. He WAS talking to fundamentalist Christians.
You may somehow know that fundamentalist Christians don’t care about God.
You may think that the relationship of “materialist” theory to science and philosophy is “arcane.”
It may be very clear to you that religion and spirituality are completely different things.
That’s how YOU see the world. But that’s not how everybody sees things. Words mean what people make them mean, not just what YOU happen to think they should mean.
The word “values” isn’t necessarily religious. But fundamentalists have effectively stolen it. That’s the reality of the word’s religious and political meaning in America today. If you or Dean or anybody else want to redefine it, you can do that. But you have to actually go to the trouble of re-defining it.
Dean just dropped these words without any context. It looked like he might have been hinting around about religion when he spoke of “values” and “spirituality.” That’s what these words mean to the audience of CBN. But who can tell what he actually meant? Talk is cheap, and empty rambling about “values” is a safe, empty alternative to actually discussing the real job of elected officials–setting policy.
What SHOULD he have said? How about starting with specific values, and linking them to specific policies?
HONESTY: Tell the American people the truth about why they are going to war, what kind spying the government is doing, what’s happening to the environment, etc.
COMPETENCE: Hire experienced, competent people to head up agencies like the EPA, FDA, FEMA, etc.
INTEGRITY: Pass some campaign finance reform with real teeth. Crack down on corrupt lobbyists, close the loopholes they’re using. Take people who have the courage to blow the whistle on corrupt bosses, make sure they’re telling the truth, give them their boss’s job, and let them hire more people like them. Fill the ranks of the federal government with an army of Elliot Spitzers, Bunny Greenhouses, and Patrick Fitzgeralds.
COURAGE: Refuse to be intimidated by terrorists into adopting policies that are ineffective or counter-productive. Quit manipulating people through “evildoer” demonizing and color-coded scare tactics.
He could then finish up by saying “That’s what ‘values’ means to me. Does it mean something different to you?”
Much as I may disagree with fundamentalists on some things, I know damn well they want to see more of these principles at work in government every bit as much as I do. You bet we have shared values on the left and right. These are things everybody wants, whether or not they think they’re “spiritual” or come from God or whatever.
If the Democratic party makes a committment to genuinely stand up for these principles, honestly cleans house and becomes an organization grounded in a culture of honesty, competence, integrity, and courage, it will take control of the government and keep it until the Republicans clean house too. But that would frankly take a lot more gonads than just floating words that got the thumbs-up in market research, now wouldn’t it?
Easy access website: http://www.m-w.com
The definition I chose is the first one.
And if the Democrats lose because the Democrats refuse to endorse supernaturalism in government, then there’s a problem with this country that lies outside the Democratic party.
The first definition looks like some formal theory related to some Marxist theories; I don’t think that’s what Dean is talking about. The second meaning has to do with material–’crass or grasping’–I think that’s more like it. When you say ‘supernatural, it sounds like some kind of halloween ghosts, Casper and those guys, which I am totally in favor of.
If you remember Vietnam–as it played out culturally–the hawks tried to adopt the American flag totally as a pro-war symbol. Readers Digest even had a flag decal they included in one of their issues.
But the anti-war movement, knowing that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, did not turn their backs on patriotism just becasue it can be misused. Now the anti-war movement adopted the flag, someone wrote a protest song about what they did with their reader’s digest flag decal, and the film Easy Rider had Peter Fonda on his motorcycle with a flag on the back of his jean jacket. Locally this meant the police had a (backwards) American flag added to the doors of their squad cars. And my boyfriend–who contributed a series of articles to an underground newspaper that I would have been suspended if I had been caught with on school grounds–had an American flag on the back of HIS jean jacket. I was pleased to adopt an army jacket, again using their own symbols as counter-culture symbols, while riding behind boyfriend on his Harley.
I’n not saying to go all counter culture now, but yes, we used symbols of the time to take back patriotism as our own value.
If you look at the beliefnet article again, Ralph, you will see that the Dems don’t have to target the whole conservative Christian spectrum. They only have to peel off a small fraction of it: the religious voters who think their social agenda has been compromised by the conservative alliance with big business.
Sometimes people whose only religious experience is with a very authoritarian type of church, and I find this a lot with Catholics, think all religious people are only one certain way, becasue the only religion they have come in contact with is a very regimented type of religion. I suspect the religious people who would have listened to Dean’s interview would have been a pretty mixed crowd–from people like my neighbor I have clashed with who reads all the ‘taken up’ stuff, to various of my family members who will consider issues separately on their own merits, or can be swayed by the right argument at the right moment.
I don’t see any problem with Democrats’ “cheap empty rambling about values”–this is politics, after all. If the voters hear it often enough they will start to believe it without remembering how they came to believe it. Pretty soon when someone says ‘values’ everyone will think ‘Democrat’.
I like your roll call of values, although I might quibble with some details, or maybe the details are not clear. Whistleblowing, for example, you don’t hear about anymore. And what are the loopholes for corruption and who are the people you name? FEMA is obviously in trouble–two years ago it was one of the top agencies people wanted to work for, now senior people are retiring like mad, lots of senior people retiring in the CIA, other agencies I don’t know about.
You don’t hear about whistleblowing any more?
Sure you do:
Joseph Wilson, Erik Shinseki, Bunny Greenhouse, FBI agents speaking out about incompetence and corruption, EPA and NASA scientists speaking out against administration attempts to cover up hard facts about the environment, Enron employees warning that their company will collapse in a wave of accounting scandals. Honest prosecutors with the courage to fight corruption at the highest levels.
Maybe all these people are “whistle blowers” in the narrowest sense, but they have all risked their jobs standing up for truth, trying to do the right thing. We could identify thousands of people like that and start filling the government with them.
What are the loopholes for corruption?
Three thousand dollar lunches, golf trips to Scotland, paid for by lobbyists. “Soft money.” That’s a start.
Who are these corrupt people?
Google Abrahmoff, and start from there. They have a whole industry on K Street in Washington. That there is a culture of corruption is Washington is well known.
Lots of honest, competent people are resigning from a lot of federal agencies. The whole Department of Homeland Security is an ill-conceived lumbering pork-barrel monstrosity that can’t protect the American people. The EPA is doing the exact reverse of what it ought to be doing–working to allow the exploitation of American wilderness. Decent career military people are taking crap from incompetent civilian ideologues like Rumsfeld. Hell, park rangers are even quitting in disgust. Check into it.
It’s exactly the people who are quitting in disgust who should be staying, and the corrupt, incompetent political ideologues who should be going.
Say something basically meaningless but vaguely appealing over and over again, and people will start to think it without knowing why they do? That’s the Republican’s game, and it does seem to been somewhat effective.
But Democrats will never win by out-Republicaning the Republicans. And it would be stupid, stupid strategy to do so. Empty feel-good talk starts to wear thin after a while, especially when people realize you have royally screwed up on actual policy. That’s exactly where we are now in America, and that’s the source of the advantage Democrats have over Republicans–the fact that the Republican feel-good talk is nothing but hot air, and everything they have touched has turned to crap.
Uncontextualized rambling about “values” means nothing. IH mentioned that she took back symbols like the American flag. I’m not saying you can’t do that. What I am saying is that you can not take back a symbol if you invoke it without redefining it.
Fundamentalists know damn well what concrete policy changes they mean by “values”–criminalizing abortion, banning gay marriage, eliminating sex education, merging (their) church and state, etc.
But what policies is Dean referring to when he imitates the Republicans and talks about “values”? Hard to say, isn’t it?
Bush’s approval rating is at 29%. Why are Democrats trying to imitate him?
The Republican ‘culture of corruption’, if indeed it does exist, Ralph–and I tend to believe you–is not well known. When a Democrat has his congressional office searched, we find out he has already been convicted of some other bribery thing and the Democrats have not cleaned house. By the time any indictments come down in Hookergate, they will be against “FORMER Republican office-holders” and the Republicans will have taken immediate steps against it. Taking it at face value, it looks like it is the Dems that are tolerant of corruption and the Republicans root it out before it gets a toehold. A friend of mine who ran for office (dem) told me with a straight face that candidates must take money from the people they do work for in the legislature (but maybe the campaign contributions come in here), becasue there is so much work to do and they need to get paid for the extra effort of doing something special.
There was some new court ruling today that strengthened the position of public service employers who fire employees that speak against policies–I didn’t hear all of it, but I think it revolved around an internal memo. If it is internal it was ruled “not first amendment speech” but if the public service employee goes to the press it is protected speech.
I’m not sure ‘filling government with people who stand up for truth’ would matter. Most people will not risk their families’ income by doing something they see has no effect, or a negative effect in that particular office culture. ‘The right people’ is probably less important than the ‘right culture’ or the ‘right management’. IRS is one agency that did a lot of stuff to change internal culture.
Like it or not “political ideologues” are supposed to be at the top of agencies, in order to make them responsive to the people who voted for them. If they are “corrupt, incompetent political ideologues”, that’s the problem of the person appointing them for political paybacks. The bureaucrats don’t make policy, they only figure out how to make it work once the political types make the policy decisions.
Image was first a factor in the Kennedy-Nixon television debates. Kennedy did makeup and looked presidential, Nixon thought it was all a gimmick, and looked like he needed a shave. Like it or not, the slogans, symbols and image do matter. In 1968, when my parents let me stay up late to watch the democratic convention up to the last ballot when one candidate finally had enough votes, the republicans had their convention sewed up before the 10 o’clock news, and won the election. The dems have finally figured out how to use the media and have their fights in private. If a party can’t get together the organizational skills to make alliances and get it together off camera, are they really capable of taking on policy?
I’m afraid there are fundamentalists with much broader policy goals than the ones you name. Gay marriage may be a hot talking point, but they are also against extramarital sex, particularly showing unmarried couples on television. I sure know people who lived together before they got married. When they talk about being against abortion, they are really against birth control. They don’t view sexuality as a valid way for married people to get closer, it is only valid if it produces a conception. (or a defense contract) But there are also consevatives who will say there is a difference between saying “this is a moral way to live” and having twelve kids themselves, and changing the laws to require people who don’t believe in it to live that way. BTW, I don’t see anything of ‘value’ in this. The only thing it values is mindless rules over the human needs of real people.
Why not muddy the waters when it comes to ‘values’. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get people to think ‘culture of corruption’ every time Pat Robertson opened his mouth to say the word ‘values’?
from post #32:
Ineffective policies? evildoer demonizing?
First off, it isn’t just a Republican culture of corruption. Police found $90,000 cash in Jefferson’s freezer. He’s a Democrat. Granted, Abrahmnoff worked almost exclusively with Republicans, and he seems to have been one of the worst, if not THE worst corrupt lobbyist. Then again, do YOU have $90,000 cash in YOUR freezer?
People know damn well policicians in Washington are corrupt. If Democrats took a credible stance against it, they would win across the board. But apparently, Democrats want corruption to continue more than they want to win elections.
There is an alternative to setting policy based on ideological fantasies–set policy based on reality-based information. Base measures to counteract environmental damage on the findings of environmental scientists. Base security measures on the findings of agents and analysts in the FBI, CIA, etc. Base military policy on the knowledge and experience of experienced military officers. The Bush administration has systematically ignored and suppressed the work of people who dedicate their lives to systematically studying the real dangers faced by the United States.
The right culture comes from the right people. Maybe not everybody will risk their jobs, their family’s standard of living, to stand up for the truth. But people have. Right now the system punishes them, because it is corrupt. If the Democratic party could stand for setting up a system that rewards them, it would win big. If Dean and the Democrats had the gonads to really fight corruption, they would yank the Republican base right out from under the Republicans. You asked me what Dean SHOULD say, and that’s what I think.
Ineffective policies in the war on terror?
-Sending warlord proxies on donkeys to catch Bin Laden.
-Invading Iraq.
-Rebuilding and securing Afghanistan and Iraq on the cheap.
-The ineffective mess that is the Department of Homeland Security.
Evildoer demonizing?
-What the hell does “evildoer” tell me about America’s enemies in the war on terror? Nothing.
We face a wide spectrum of “enemies” in the war on terror–from people like Bin Laden and Zarqawi that there’s little question we have to use force against, all the way to the 55% of Iraqis who feel that attacks against American forces are justified. Some we are going to have to capture or kill, some we are going to have to negotiate with. Where do you draw the line, and how do you implement the military, legal, social, diplomatic and economic policies necessary to do what needs to be done?
Bush’s answer “Smoke ‘em out of their holes!”
That’s bullshit. It doesn’t even cut it as B-movie western dialogue, let alone sound foreign policy.
Americans aren’t stupid, but they’re loyal and optimistic to a fault. So when they heard the president say some reassuring things about fighting the terrorists, they were initially supportive. But after four years of spectacular failures from not catching Bin Laden to Iraq WMD to Katrina, Americans have gradually fallen away from Bush. He’s fallen from 88% approval to 29%. Has any other president ever fallen 59% in approval? It’s almost inconceivable. What changed? Bush’s policies haven’t changed, his rhetoric hasn’t changed.
This should tell the Democrats something. Empty rhetorical bullshit works sometimes, but without effective policy it eventually implodes. But of course the Democrats haven’t learned this lesson. They’re clamoring to hitch their wagon to empty bullshit rhetoric and implode along with it.
Why not muddy the waters? Because it’s not four years ago, and Americans aren’t hugrily sucking up meaningless feel-good crap any more. How about saying something that means something and makes sense.
Of course you have to do the research and understand policy first. But one of the last steps of the ‘Eight step path of policy analysis’ is the New York taxi driver test–can you explain the policy succinctly to an unsophisticated but outspoken voter with an active bullshit detector. If you can’t explain it with easy words, you’re in big trouble.
Think back to the phrase that elected Clinton: “it’s the economy, stupid.” What part of THAT did anyone not understand and agree with.
I disagree, IH. I’m not convinced eightfold schemas and “taxi driver-test” theory are anything but self-referential navel gazing.
Let”s look at 2008. Let’s try to craft a winning slogan on the “It’s the X, stupid” model. What is X?
It’s the environment, stupid?
It’s terrorism, stupid?
It’s the economy, stupid?
You tell me, what’s X in 2008? The second decade of the twenty-first century is going to be a three ring circus, at least. Let any one of those three things slide for another four or eight years, and America is seriously screwed.
The American people are not as stupid as politicians treat them. The Republicans make it look that way by playing their intelligence against their loyalty and patriotism, then presenting a bumbed down alternative wrapped in a bunch of empty feel-good rhetorical crap.
A taxi driver can hold three ideas in his head in the same time, and weigh them against each other, not just one. He will listen to a full minute of explanation, not just a seven-second sound bite. “It’s the X stupid” worked once. Ridiculuous jingoistic bullshit worked once. But if the Democrats aren’t going to develop policy based on more than empty slogans that got the thumbs-up in market research, they’re going to lose. Again.
Of course it’s navel gazing, Ralph, hence the reference to Buddhist doctrine, but it’s hardly self-referential. It really WAS the economy. And most people think of the economy as something difficult to explain and influence, much less understand. But even a ‘stupid’ person could understand that the economy was the problem. You could talk for a minute or an hour and it all came back to the economy. Clinton made good on it too, paying down the huge Republican national debt in his first term.
Environment? The way the issue has been playing out sounds like some kind of bubble-head UFO story. Glaciers melting, okay, but what does that prove? You might as well tell me you believe in God (or don’t believe in God.) Of course the question of god can’t be proved, but global warming mey well be provable some day if science can figure out how to ask the right questions. But today it’s not provable and is still in the new crackpot doomsday theory category. Now, if you want to make some arguement about air quality or water quality or national parks–well everyone wants Snoopy and Woodstock and all the little kids to be able to out in the park and toast their marshmallows, instead of giving our national heritage away to big business. So environmentalists are going to have to take the causes of global warming, if they can figure out what they are, and find some kind of back yard issue that people will care about that addresses the same thing. BTW, didn’t Bush’s EPA director resign way back when…even before Colin Powell resigned…what was that about again?
Terrorism? Sorry, the dems don’t have that issue. Is anti-war really the way to go? Is that giving the country away? Can we afford to take a chance? Bush started out the whole Iraqi policy by saying we aren’t going to do nation-building in Iraq, so what was the point of going there? Don’t tell me WMD, because even if you can convince me they thought there were WMD, that was secondary–after all, we GAVE them WMD–the CIA gave Saddam chemical weapons to fight Iran. Don’t we need a Marshall Plan for the country?
Economy–tied in with war. If you want to maintain a presence in Iraq, and I think you could argue we don’t want to leave a leadership vaccuum in Iraq with every terrorist in the world converged on the place–then the deficit will have to continue for a while. BTW, what is the plan for Iraq? do the iraqis have one?
The taxi driver is still wondering what to vote for, and none of those issues looks like you could boil it down into an explanation. Of course my explanations tend to see lots of shades of gray, so I’m not a very good person to ask if you want to see things in black and white. Maybe we just need to clean up after the last Bush the way Clinton cleaned up after the first Bush. And yes, we need to send a message to Jeb that it IS the last Bush.
Maybe fiscal responsibility is something the dems know how to do well. What about those defense contracts? Lots of silver shovel stuff? Has the GOP been spending the taxpayers’ money as if the rest of us are as rich as they are?