[Bill,
October 26, 2008]
Don't stand in crowds and punch the air
If you don't believe in God, you'll believe in anything, Chesterton used to say. That's one reason why Americans are currently being played by a dangerous demagogue. David Warren joins the Cassandras here:
Remember, Cassandra was right. The historical illiteracy, the lack of understanding of how propaganda works, the susceptibility of sentimental people to fascism — no matter what happens, these characteristics remain in copious amounts in about half our population right now. It's downright scary.
I said at least 15 years ago that teens who grew up thrusting their hands in crowds at rock concerts would one day be sufficiently softened up rationally and critically to do the same things at political rallies. And that day has arrived. Yes, Obama is by far the worst offender, but I'm starting to hear it on the right, too.
Regardless if we hold off the deluge this time around, the threat is still there. The Germans worshipped music, too.
In my world, you don't humour a politician who presents "Change," "Unity," and especially, "Hope," as hypnotic mantras, with the power of enchantment over very large crowds. And you especially don't humour such a politician at a time when both country and world are unstable, and hard decisions will have to be made.
Deeper than this: Obama has presented himself from the start as a messianic, "transformational" leader — and thus played deceitfully with ideas that belong to religion and not politics. That he has done this so successfully is a mark of the degree to which the U.S. itself, like the rest of the western world, has lost its purchase on the Christian religion. Powerful religious impulses have been spilt, secularized.
In this climate, people tend to be maniacally opposed to the sin to which they are not tempted: to giving Christ control over the things that are Caesar's. But they are blind to the sin to which they are hugely tempted: giving Caesar control over the things that are Christ's.
"Faith, hope, and charity" are Christ's things. They apply, properly, outside time — to a "futurity" that is not of this world. They must not be applied to any earthly utopia. A Caesar who appropriates otherworldly virtues, is riding upon very dangerous illusions. Follow him into dreamland, and you'll be lucky to wake up.
Remember, Cassandra was right. The historical illiteracy, the lack of understanding of how propaganda works, the susceptibility of sentimental people to fascism — no matter what happens, these characteristics remain in copious amounts in about half our population right now. It's downright scary.
I said at least 15 years ago that teens who grew up thrusting their hands in crowds at rock concerts would one day be sufficiently softened up rationally and critically to do the same things at political rallies. And that day has arrived. Yes, Obama is by far the worst offender, but I'm starting to hear it on the right, too.
Regardless if we hold off the deluge this time around, the threat is still there. The Germans worshipped music, too.