Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410180028
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALAN SORENSEN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
I looked for signs of wild-eyed fanaticism and consuming hatred. I waited for the name-calling to begin - indignant denunciation of our editorials' pro-socialist, pro-homosexual, pro-feminist, pro-secular-humanist proclivities.
But these two, just back from a Christian Coalition convention in Washington, did not speak in tongues or handle snakes. They did not menacingly refer to their right to bear assault weapons. Their eyes did not glare like burning coals. Their voices did not thunder against the newspaper's insults to Christianity, morality and Oliver North.
In fact, these agents of the Religious Right were a pair of soft-spoken grandmothers from Bedford, politically involved because they're worried about what's happening to our country and our community.
We had a nice chat.
They took exception, certainly, to an editorial we had published comparing North's candidacy to that of Marion Barry in Washington. The ladies had shown a copy of the editorial to former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett, whom they met at the Christian Coalition convention. They reported he was shocked by its argument.
Our discussion, however, was perfectly amicable. The grandmothers (that's what they called themselves) had fortified themselves with facts gleaned from a William F. Buckley column, which one of them pulled from her purse. Buckley contradicted our assertions about North, they said.
We exchanged information. We agreed to disagree. One of the women, before leaving, talked a bit about her family.
I like recalling the conversation because it seems so out of temper with the times. A glance at our letters to the editor - or an hour with talk radio - suffices to indicate how vitriolic political discourse has become. And stuff said about the media is nothing compared to what's thrown at the president.
You know it's nasty out there when Jerry Falwell, not content with calling Bill Clinton a draft-dodging, womanizing liberal, tries to implicate him in murder as well. "People are dead in Arkansas," intones professional Clinton-hater Larry Nichols on Falwell's video. "There were boys on the railroad track. There were countless and countless people that mysteriously died that, as it turned out, had some connection to Bill Clinton. I believe this is going on today." Say what?
Conspiracy theories are the staple of hate peddlers and paranoid extremists. They enjoy a long tradition in American politics, but they do not encourage reasonable, fair-minded discussion.
Once, you could destroy someone's career by calling him a communist. Nowadays you can dismiss a proposal by calling it a name - "outcome-based education," "socialized health care," etc. It's enough even to note that the Clintons support something.
The point isn't to further the conversation, but to end it. In the politics of exclusion and resentment, people holding differing views aren't merely wrong; they are radical demons intent on destroying traditional values.
Why is rhetoric getting so extreme, so polarizing? Take your pick. People are frustrated by institutional unresponsiveness. They wanted their government to diet; instead, it kept growing. Someone must pay.
People feel threatened by the acceleration of change, or by the possibility of losing something they have. Families run harder just to stay in place; eroding economic security is stressing them out.
And in a country whose prospects no longer seem unlimited, one person's gain is another's expense. Since government is in the goodie-redistribution business, it is naturally held in low esteem. So low that Virginians might elect a Senator not to improve Congress but to spite it.
Meanwhile, the search for virtue and meaning takes a back seat in a media-saturated culture that glorifies conflict, hedonism and violence.
I don't know. Maybe one thing behind all the surly rhetoric is our growing anonymity. My colleague Betty Strother tells of the time she was driving behind someone whose driving wasn't to her liking. She fumed and cursed in what she thought was the privacy of her car. But, of course, someone who knew her saw her, was surprised, and asked her about it later.
In big cities, on the highway, or confronted with an angering news item, people may curse and say things as if they are alone in a world of strangers. We form our sense of self and world these days less in contact and conversation with people who know us than in reflection of omnipresent media images.
I dare not use the word "malaise." But, clearly, a proliferation of things in our lives can't prevent a decline in the quality of our lives. The result may be a kind of free-floating, inchoate fury.
The irony is that such an impasse cries out not so much for loathing of press and politicians, as for a shared reacquaintance with first principles, with the values that sustain us. Many of which are derived, of course, from religion.
I'm not one who believes religion and politics should not mix. They have to. The trick is to mix them while remaining true to the traditions that have made religion in America a source of liberty. Free from the coercion and corrupting compromises of state establishment, religion can retain moral authority to challenge the powers that be. Put Pat Robertson in charge of the country, and the country will go to hell.
I have to admire the Religious Right in some respects: its commitment to grass-roots political organizing, its patience for the long haul rather than the next election, its refusal to ignore or trivialize moral decline. Its followers certainly have every right to promote political values drawn from their faith.
What scares me is the failure to appreciate that tolerance and pluralism are themselves traditional values. These values have protected religion as well as the state. And they have provided a framework for the sort of reasonable discussion that makes peaceful change and democratic government possible.
In his book, "Before the Shooting Begins," University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter observes that "culture wars always precede shooting wars." We need to sit down and talk with each other before it's too late.
by CNB