Chilling Out About Theocracy

Probably the most annoying tick you see frequently from liberals is what I can only describe as a kind of hysteria about efforts to mobilize Christian sentiments in order to advance conservative political goals. Rather than simply noting that the religious right is composed of people whose policy agenda liberals mostly disagree with on the merits and who, therefore, liberals wish had less political influence the tendency is to paint an alarmist portrait of the looming menace of theocracy. Everyone, genuinely, needs to take a deep breath and put this all in perspective. The good news is that two recent book reviews -- one by Peter Steinfels in The American Prospect and one by Paul Baumann in The Washington Monthly try to bring some calm to the table.

All to the good. I wonder, though, has anyone seen anything like that coming from the pages of National Review or The Weekly Standard? Obviously, lots of over-the-top rhetoric goes in the other direction, too, as secular liberals get accused of all manner of absurd sins. I feel like I never, ever see conservative intellectuals trying to bring a sense of proportion and calm to the table about that. Which, really, is too bad. There's a fairly constant pressure on the progressive pundits of the world to do our best to become more intellectually dishonest and less willing to take on our own side's quirks and sacred cows. The thinking -- and I don't think the thinking is mistaken -- is that liberal politics has been hampered by a sense that a lot of the spokespeople for "our side" have been playing with one arm tied behind our backs and need to learn to play by the right's rules and that party discipline needs to be applied to liberal writers. That, for obvious reasons, is an outcome I'd sort of prefer to avoid, but, again, I can't say that I think the analysis is mistaken.

Comments

I agree that conservatives don't often call out their own horrific arguments. (In fairness to them, I think many of the pundits don't realize how bad the arguments are. I mean...the Corner?) I'm sure there is pressure on Dem-leaning pundits to shut-up on various weak arguments, and I think it would be a bad thing if Dem pundits behaved as Corner pundits do. But I generally don't see Dem pundits get called out for attacking bad Dem arguments except when it seems to be all or most of what they do. That is, except when they're Kausists.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 13, 2006 5:21 PM

It appears, Matt, that you're saying it's not bad for interest groups to pressure the government to impose their ideological preferences on others, but that it is bad for interest groups to pressure pundits like yourself to advocate those preferences. Is that about right?

Posted by dj moonbat | September 13, 2006 5:27 PM

Well, I believe I essentially agree with Matt, and I don't think it's quite that simple. I won't claim to speak for him, but here's my interpretation of what I've seen him say on the subject.

A) The government will be pressured by interest groups to legislate from a theological perspective. This is regrettable, but the government was designed with this exact knowledge, and it has a number of apparati to minimize the effects. The system is imperfect, but it's pretty good.

B) Pundits will be pressured to do various things in bad faith, which is also regrettable.

Sound reasonable?

Posted by Mike Meginnis | September 13, 2006 5:32 PM

Nonsense. Matt just starts to feel hemmed in by liberals' societal expectations, because he lives to be a contrarian but pays his bills by being a progressive.

Posted by dj moonbat | September 13, 2006 5:38 PM

dj moonbat is pretty funny. Perceptive and funny.

Anyway, I don't subscribe to Nat Review, and my Weekly Standard goes woefully unread. However, I do read blogs. A lot (OK, too much). And an example of a conservative blogger telling other conservatives to calm down on the over-the-top rhetoric (which is, I think, what Matthew is asking for examples of) can be found here.

Posted by Al | September 13, 2006 5:44 PM

Derbyshire occasionally takes swipes at religious hyperventilating on the right - see this review of Party of Death for example.

Posted by MattXIV | September 13, 2006 5:47 PM

Give me a break Matt. There is no place with as much internecine squabbling as the conservative movement.

Posted by Mark Adams | September 13, 2006 5:57 PM

I don’t think it's true that liberals need to be intellectually dishonest in order to compete with conservatives. And even if it were true, it would still be the wrong strategy to follow, because intellectual dishonesty has consequences.

When a political movement isn’t willing to scrutinize itself, it inevitably becomes more and more disconnected from reality, and more attached to its own simplistic dogmas. A movement like this might be able to gain political power, but it won’t be very effective in using it. This is exactly what’s happened to today’s conservative movement. It’s not a model liberals should aspire to.

Posted by RC | September 13, 2006 5:58 PM

Maybe these guys are angling to be nominated for a Yglesias Award.

Posted by Steve | September 13, 2006 6:03 PM

When a political movement isn’t willing to scrutinize itself, it inevitably becomes more and more disconnected from reality, and more attached to its own simplistic dogmas.

If we weren't, in fact, facing a bunch of Xtians who try to get evolution bumped from the schools, I could start worrying a little more about whether people on my own side of the aisle are too accepting of sacred cows (like evolution). But modern conservatism is a serious threat to a pretty damned cool country that took a long time to get where it is, and I think modern liberalism would do well to concentrate on beating conservatism before moving on to self-critique.

Posted by dj moonbat | September 13, 2006 6:03 PM

Self-critique can be politically smart too. If fact, the most successful Democratic politician of our generation (Bill Clinton) used it quite successfully. And his policies tended to be successful as well.

Posted by RC | September 13, 2006 6:58 PM

Self-critique can be politically smart too. If fact, the most successful Democratic politician of our generation (Bill Clinton) used it quite successfully

But as the technology guys are always asking, "Can it scale?"

It worked for Bill because there were points to be scored by selling out liberals. It worked for Lieberman for the same reason. But everybody can't win that way, only the lucky few who are the earliest and biggest sellouts; it's like Amway.

Posted by dj moonbat | September 13, 2006 7:05 PM

Thank-you Matthew Yglesias!

Misuse of the term "theocracy" is one of my top peeves when reading progressive blogs. The US in 1960 was not, in the understanding of any non-activist voter, a theocracy; claiming that attempts to return to the social/sexual/religious policies prevailing in 1960 will make the US a theocracy makes you sound crazy.

Posted by SamChevre | September 13, 2006 7:05 PM

The American Prospect review was so bad that I am seriously considering cancelling my subscription.

Posted by Patrick | September 13, 2006 7:18 PM

There's a HUGE difference between Clinton and Lieberman. Clinton never sold out liberals the way Lieberman did with his 'we criticize the commander in chief at our nation's peril' comment. Instead he took a smart and pragmatic approach to acheiving liberal goals.

Posted by RC | September 13, 2006 7:20 PM

If you want to believe Clinton didn't sell out liberals to get where he did, that's your business.

Posted by dj moonbat | September 13, 2006 7:38 PM

"Misuse of the term "theocracy" is one of my top peeves when reading progressive blogs. The US in 1960 was not, in the understanding of any non-activist voter, a theocracy; claiming that attempts to return to the social/sexual/religious policies prevailing in 1960 will make the US a theocracy makes you sound crazy."

There really are unabashed theocrats, in the true meaning of the term, playing prominent roles in the Republican party. consider, for example, the role played by the Rev. Moon (and his paper, the Washington times). See aklso the CDominionists, and consider how prominent right wing figures like Fallwell, Dobson, and Robertson adopt their ideas and language.

Posted by rea | September 13, 2006 8:10 PM

I dunno, Matt.

I'm from Georgia and I've gotta tell ya the Roundheads down here are on the march. Religiosity was pretty awful in the public schools, so much that I had two biology teachers that weren't shy about their creationist views. My health teacher claimed God hated Gays and AIDS evidenced the end times. Oh, and then there was the "bible taught as literature" in English classes, which was just a prayer circle where your fervor was graded... I could drag on just about school, but that was a while ago. The crap that flies now is worse.

Must have been nice to grow up in NYC. Don't let your limited and regional perspective blind you to ascendent theocracy. It's difficult to argue the merits of your position when you've been branded a heretic.

Posted by Jase | September 13, 2006 8:28 PM

Matt -- one of the article that you link to gave two examples of a conservative magazine taking a contrarian position:

The danger of theocracy might look a little different if, alongside right-wing partisans and theological crazies, these writers had paid a little attention to this leading journal [Christianity Today] that in recent months has published articles like “Five Reasons Why Torture Is Always Wrong” and “The ACLU Is Not Evil.”

Posted by Anono | September 13, 2006 10:44 PM

"Misuse of the term "theocracy" is one of my top peeves when reading progressive blogs. The US in 1960 was not, in the understanding of any non-activist voter, a theocracy; claiming that attempts to return to the social/sexual/religious policies prevailing in 1960 will make the US a theocracy makes you sound crazy."

The history here is exactly right. But the conclusion is exactly wrong.

The difference between 1960 and now is the respect for education, whether institutional or by self. What the theocrats have accomplished is a substitution move in which they have interposed themselves as worldview disseminators, to the loss of the highly educated, and the many who by default thought for themselves. To their credit the theocrats have successfully inculcated a herd of as many as 30M adherents that University education, and by extension thinking for yourself, is untrustworthy. One would imagine that this campaign would be focused on such unworthy disciplines as philosophy, but I can tell you from close personal experience it also occurs within seemingly solid "conservative" disciplines such as engineering.

You have to come out to my suburbs to see the disaster for what it is. It is not restricted to the South; this shit is all in the mega-edge-cities nationwide. I betcha there's a beauty of a megachurch within Kevin Drum spittin distance.

The review in the Prospect is a disaster. For one thing, Christianity Today is hopelessly too liberal for the suburbs, for another, Steinfels' dismissal of the complaints against Christian "crisis pregnancy centers" is completely bogus-> go to pandagon for the gory details.

Damn. I thought after the big one (war) and several smaller ones (e.g., now MY links to Sawicky on economics) people like me were thankfully obsolete.

Young master has still some things to learn.

Posted by Russell L. Carter | September 13, 2006 11:36 PM

I think Matt makes a good point. The anti-Christian paranoia demostrated by Rosie O'Donnell's recent claim that radical Christianity poses an equal danger to America as radical Islam is enough to make even an aspiritual anti-Iraq War supporter like myself cringe. By calling American soldiers terrorists and baby killers because innocent lives have been taken in Iraq and Afghanistan, she does immeasurable harm to the more realistic notion that the Christian Right poses a danger to American civil liberties. The Right will undoubtably now marginalize anyone who tries to keep religion out of the public sphere as a Rosie O'Donnell-type whackjob.

Posted by Just Karl | September 14, 2006 12:24 AM

My two cents is to go with what I sense from your post is your gut feeling on this all. (After reading you for a while, I go along with your reality-based self-description. :-))

As countless Pew polls have shown, this country is religious. The same polls also show a majority saying both the religious right goes too far and "liberals" go too far in sociopolitical matters. BUT who do you think many of those people going to give the benefit of the doubt to when both of those groups both start practicing scorched-earth angry ranting shrill politics? Their god-fearing evangelical grandma who whupped them when they looked at Playboy but gave them hugs when no one else would, or that latte-sipping liberal blogger in NYC? (Or the liberal pornographer that furnishes much of their current entertainment?) The religious right and their friends can get away with a lot more than liberals can, it's just "reality."

Of course, none of this matters when you're trying to energize "bases." But if liberals play the religious right political techniques too hard in instances when they are trying to win over the big "middle," they're always going to be the losers. Them acting crazy trumps religious people acting crazy every time, as a big big negative. It's not "fair" that liberals can't act the same way and be successful, but it's "reality." That includes on blogs that i.d. as "Democratic" open to reading by the public.

Your post reminded of the week on TPMCafe when the Book Club was doing Michelle Goldberg’s "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism." That was a horror--I couldn't bear looking at many of the comments & discussions. I could just visualize moderate and swing lurkers having their paranoid preconceptions about "liberals" being reinforced in droves. First time I got an inkling about what the McCarthy period really must have felt like living through it.

Posted by artappraiser | September 14, 2006 3:06 AM

Re: attempts to return to the social/sexual/religious policies prevailing in 1960 will make the US a theocracy makes you sound crazy.

Problem is the culture has moved on way, way beyond the place it was at in 1960. The neo-prudes can only return us there by totalitarian means since we have no intention of going back there willingly any more than we would deny women the vote or re-enslave Blacks.
And yes, the neo-prudes could try to persuade us gently to go back, and I have no problem with them preaching their beliefs, but that isn't what they are trying to do. They are trying to legislate those beliefs on an unwilling country.

Posted by Jon Frazier | September 14, 2006 6:33 AM

What bugs me is that I often get the sense that there are a lot of liberals out there who don't actually understand religion very well, and don't often make the attempt. Its much easier to dismiss religuous peoples as a bunch or rubes and move on.

Thats unforunate, I think. I'm probably particularly sensitive to this because I study this stuff for a living, (well I don't know if Grad school counts as a living...) but it would help if people had a better historical sense of whats going on. There are a lot of ways in which the christian conservative movement is a disconnect from the evangelical traditon. At the very least, there are competing strands of the tradition that eschewed political involvement.

Posted by Gabe | September 14, 2006 9:42 AM

There are a lot of ways in which the christian conservative movement is a disconnect from the evangelical traditon. At the very least, there are competing strands of the tradition that eschewed political involvement.

I had an assembly of god education and I've really, really, tried using alternative exegesis and such talking to evangelicals and the killer is dispensationalism (which is what unites the current evangelical movement not dominionism). They are dangerous people not because they want to overturn the government but because they want to run the government in such a way as to make their millenial fantasies come true by formenting war in the middle east.

Posted by Ed Marshall | September 14, 2006 1:01 PM

The religious right is far more radical today than it was in 1960, and has much better access to mass media. In 1960, there were no active attempts to bring creationism into the schools, and no one outside the far fringe was arguing that we needn't worry about the future consequences of our actions because the rapture will be occurring soon. Separation of church and state was held in high regard - no one was calling it a fallacy as Tom DeLay and other Republicans have recently.

That argument about 1960 works on sexual matters only, but those are a small part of the picture. I really think the sexual horse is out of the barn - it's the other lunacies that worrry me.

Posted by Virginia Dutch | September 14, 2006 1:41 PM

Virginia,

The argument about 1960 is only peripherally about sexual matters; it's the "separation of church and state" matters that I think are more consequential.

In 1960, creation was the theory of origins taught in many schools; many schools opened with prayer, as they had since the early 1800s; being "of good character" was a requirement for employment in most school systems. Fundamentally, schools followed the traditional American model of separation of church and state. All that changed with Abingdon vs Shempp and the "Lemon test", which instituted a model much closer to the "secularism" (laicite) of the French legal tradition. It's that loss--not the sexual issues--that primarily animate most of the ongoing fight, by the Christian Right, to regain their traditional freedoms.

Posted by SamChevre | September 15, 2006 3:47 PM