As a veteran of the Culture Wars, or, perhaps more appropriately, as someone who was raised inside of the Religious Right and was taught at an early age that the rest of society was "out to get us" and was pushing an agenda that was Not Right, I think I have a certain perspective on the insular nature of American Christians ... especially White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
It's not healthy.
By way of example, I would point you to a conversation I had recently along with several of my friends with an individual who honestly believes in the Birther Conspiracy. What's more, it is this individual's sincere belief that the news media is completely untrustworthy, except for certain stalwarts of Rupert Murdoch's empire, and these are 100% reliable insofar as they agree with the beliefs that this individual espouses.
How does one get to such an insular "Us vs. Them" mentality where one is able to so easily and readily demonize one's opposition and where straw men and the opposition are one and the same? It's easy if you've never been friends with the opposition.
Same thing goes for Us vs. Those Gay People. I would place a sizeable wager that the vast majority of the Religious Right has never even met a gay persion, much less befriended one and had a long-standing interpersonal relationship. Likewise for just about any other subset of the Left.
I'm not saying this to excuse the Left... far from it. And people like Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher are every bit as insiduous on the Left as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are on the right.
The point is this: even the most caricatured individual on the opposite side of the aisle has a mother who probably loved him/her and probably several other people who concur. And by meeting with that someone, breaking bread and honestly getting to know him or her as a person rather than as a set of despised values, one loses the ability to demonize. Further, without the insane screaming and caricature that comes with demonizing the other side, one gets the advantage of a rational discourse with the opposing side and can (hopefully) avoid straw men altogether.
And perhaps even more radically, an important life lesson to me from someone on the other side is this: if you can reduce a complex or long-held disagreement between sizeable parties to a cut-and-dry solution that doesn't appear to brook any rational argument, you don't understand the opposition's viewpoint at all.
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at September 16, 2009 10:00 PM | TrackBackUnfortunately for you, if you're not with us you're against us, so apparently you're a horrible demon, too.
Clearly, this is not my philosophy, but I would suggest that this is the sort of response you're going to get from the person you describe.
For my part, I distrust the entire news media without prejudice. ;)
Posted by: Toad at September 17, 2009 04:15 PMIn a slightly more serious bent: I think this is a path of least resistance for the fierce believer in the black-and-white answer to everything who doesn't mind (or actually enjoys) verbal debate. It gives them a way to approach complicated issues in a simple way; you don't have to think about how much they might be right, when if they're at least a little wrong they're borne of Satan.
Posted by: Toad at September 17, 2009 07:35 PMI'm just not sure how one could enjoy debate when everyone who doesn't agree with you is evil and therefore wrong. It puzzles me, mostly because there's really not much thinking that goes on in such a scenario... but then again, maybe that's precisely why I don't understand the joy in it.
Posted by: Vengeful Cynic at September 18, 2009 05:40 PM