AVATAR REALLY IS POETIC DECK-STACKING IN SCIENTIFIC DRAG
I’m flattered, but not surprised, that Conor’s carefully considered broadside against we critics of Avatar, below, counts me among the characteristically persuasive but touches none of my specific lines of argument. I feel some chagrin, however, in imagining that readers of the Scene will think I really believe Avatar to be “a simplistic denunciation of capitalism and humankind generally,” especially because I’m ‘secure in my worldview’ — which, in other, far-flung precincts of the internet, can only be translated as “he’s a shallow, self-satisfied ass, incapable of personal or even concept-based reflection.”
My critique had a lot less to do with capitalism than with science and poetry, so let me double down on that angle to secure its legacy in blog meme history. In fact, let me go so far as to suggest that the word ‘capitalism’ did not appear in my analysis of Avatar because it plays no essential role in the mythopoetry of the film. As I suggested, as I see it, the central conflict is between science enslaved to will — incarnate in militarized violence, and science enslaved to whim — incarnate in love. Please, let’s not make the mistake of thinking that any technologically advanced civilization with a rapacious interest in natural resources and a willingness to kill to acquire them is, therefore, capitalist. Conor is right that the corporation in the film isn’t “meant to stand in for all corporations,” especially insofar as it doesn’t even need to be a corporation for the meaning behind the plot to roll out in identical fashion. To chalk Cameron up to a mere anticapitalist is to bark up the same wrong tree as those who imagine conflicts over oil would end with the end of oil companies. No, Messers and Madams Green: capitalism is just a red herring.
Just so, I don’t think it’s even well advised to go chasing after Cameron’s ‘negative’ portrayal of humans. We all already know well enough how bad humans can be, and Avatar is hardly the most selectively negative showcase of human being to hit the big screen. (Casino, a film that actually is a bitter indictment of capitalism, is worse.) Cameron isn’t trying to debunk a particular false idol — money — but show us the one true path to our salvation. And to understand that, we need to change the conversation from what he denigrates to what he holds up for awe and worship.
That would appear to be the Na’vi. Conor writes:
In Avatar, we’re shown a foreign world where creatures and nature are similar enough to our world that we understand them, different enough that they can help us reflect on ourselves and our planet as never before, and rendered so spectacularly that as much as any movie I’ve ever seen, we’re able to conduct this mental exercise by really feeling that the creatures and habitat we’re viewing are authentically there and different.
How tremendously coincidental that the Na’vi are just exotic enough to be erotically and intellectually attractive (though not TOO much, as that sex scene attests), yet just humanoid enough to be — yes, erotically and intellectually attractive, etc. It’s the ultimate diversity training wet dream. Call it xenotopia — the fantasy realm in which the alien Other is, by some divine stroke of luck, discovered to thrive at the perfectly optimized nexus of difference and identity with the Self. Cameron ex machina. The deck is quite deliberately — and, I’d say, ridiculously — stacked to produce the rational-and-emotional response Cameron desires: a profound attraction to the Na’vi, accompanied by profound admiration, which is actually a means to the end of redeeming our attraction to, and admiration of, our human selves! (I owe much of this insight to one Lauren Bans, courtesy of PEG and Tyler Cowen.)
Yes, it’s humanity that Cameron holds up even higher than the Na’vi for our awe and our worship — idealized, yes, but not in any way deeper or more powerful than any poetry can manage. The Na’vi, remember, aren’t real — they’re a poetic creation, like any of the wondrous and captivating beings that Homer devised to sing of Odysseus, his representative man. Cameron goes far beyond Homer, however, by pouring the old wine of poetry into the new bottles of the latest science:
“The audacity of Cameron’s movie is to make believe that the artificial world of computer-generated graphics offers a truer realm of nature than our own.”
When poetry reaches the inherent limit of its ability to inspire us, along comes science to convert poetry into something that looks so much like reality that we stand transfixed — slack-jawed, open-eyed, and wide-open receptive to that humble poetic magic. Avatar is the world’s most expensive cheap trick. Cheap, but effective! Yes, as Conor claims, “Avatar is a film whose purpose is allowing humanity to reflect on its circumstances and fallen nature in a novel way.” But it’s precisely the newfangledness of the means that makes possible our subservient complicity in the oldfangled end.
That end isn’t simply enjoying poetry. The stakes are much higher than entertainment. And no, it isn’t simply ‘allowing ourselves to be inspired.’ In an age so casually nihilist as ours, it only makes sense to worship entertainment as the one thing, just maybe, that can turn us back into credulous children with big hearts and soggy hankies. But the only way that can really work on a soul-deep level is for the entertainment to accomplish something more than what we mean so superficially by inspiration. I don’t mean some kind of spiritual conversion or cathartic experience. I mean something that might be just as pedestrian or fleeting as inspiration, but of a different, and higher, order: not poetic at all, but philosophical.
And that’s the real trick of Avatar, I suppose. The poetry itself is a means to an end — and the end is a philosophy, the central claim of which is that our humanity, as shown by the supposed inevitability of open-ended scientific and technological progress, can only be redeemed by freeing our rational minds from our irrational wills and enslaving them to the whims of love. Now, some people far down in the weeds of political theory might have a lot to say about whether this message is actually what poetry is in its nature and philosophy, in its nature, is not, but I don’t think I’m prepared to assent to that, no matter how secure my worldview. Pantheism, no matter how poetic, at long last is not poetry.
Now we are speculating on what Cameron unconsciously intended. That is the arena of the mytho-poetic. And I think this is a pretty good reading, but I don’t think it cheapens the film. No one is saying that this film is great poetry, so it was already fairly cheap to begin with. And the idea that humans are capable of tranceding their base natures by opening their hearts to love (which could be read as a symbol for “god” [or the Ellah]) is a pretty well worn theme (see the new testiment). But it is as a good as “avirice destroys the sacred.”
I think a better approach to this film rather than the poetic or the political is through the visual. Movies are essentially sound and light. What did this movie mean when considered through both, all movies and this movie’s, strong suit: as a visual, kenetic experience? I mean, it is not the 4th highest grossing movie of all time becasue of the political or poetical.
— cw · Jan 6, 07:21 PM · #
I just threw up in my mouth a little. I have this feeling that your friends or dissertation committee or somebody should have taken you aside by now to explain that you’re an unbearable pretentious ass … but I guess they haven’t
— paul h. · Jan 6, 07:44 PM · #
A stimulative day here at the Scene.
Altogether now: love what?
Are we redeemed by loving our capacity to love? By loving thy neighbor, or Jesus, or Brazilian badonkadonks? Or does redemption depend on loving something vague and transcendent, like connectedness or mystery or the music of the spheres?
Since I am perhaps the most comfortable in my worldview, I will admit that I enjoy your pretenses and occasional opacity. Your posts allow me to procrastinate twice as long as the average other.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 6, 07:52 PM · #
Ah, lieutenant poulos joins the sneer brigade.
I already wrote the contra ages ago.
The reason you don’t like Avatar, James cher, is that you are a First Culture Intellectual attempting to review a Third Culture movie.
There is an unbridgeable culture gap.
— matoko_chan · Jan 6, 07:54 PM · #
And in typical first culture intellectal fashion, you completely miss the point.
Avatar is many things…and one thing is a vehicle for eastern mythos….what you describe in your intellectually crippled fashion as pantheism. Star Wars was a vector for western mythos…..Avatar is a carrier for eastern memes like the balance of life, the Oneness of being, wahdat al wujud in my adopted religion.
In the 21st century we are discovering via SBH (social brain hypothesis) that these memes might actually be scientific facts.
So mytho-poetry becomes science.
— matoko_chan · Jan 6, 08:18 PM · #
All that, and a Clue reference!?
— Keljeck · Jan 6, 08:49 PM · #
Since I am perhaps the most comfortable in my worldview
And kudos for that.
— Freddie · Jan 6, 09:03 PM · #
Freddie, thanks!
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 6, 09:52 PM · #
“he’s a shallow, self-satisfied ass, incapable of personal or even concept-based reflection.”
And I don’t think you’re an ass….you are just…umm…..crippled….bound somehow.
Like when you referenced Nietzche on evolution to me.
Nietzche is a first culture intellectual…he has nothing to tell me about evolution.
Evolution is…. splendid, glorious, magnificent, blinding! garbed just in its raw science and mathematics.
You should try to see the beauty, James.
— matoko_chan · Jan 6, 10:08 PM · #
James is right that I didn’t grapple with his post, and for that I apologize — I intended to when I began drafting that post, and by the time I finished it I’d run out of steam so much that I forgot to circle back to everyone I cited at the beginning. But I think he misunderstands my line about being secure in one’s world view — I intended to note only that the best reviews of Avatar weren’t so insecure that they descended into Big Hollywood style “why does James Cameron hate the United States Army that protects us” posts.
Having read this follow-up, which I’m glad to have provoked, even if I regret having given short shrift to James’ original effort, I’ll have to ponder and return, which is a good thing indeed.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jan 6, 10:12 PM · #
No need Conor…..chet solved the conumdrum on your thread….conservatives hate Avatar because it is really about RACE!
hahahaha
— matoko_chan · Jan 6, 10:58 PM · #
You can get the same old thing anywhere; you can get James here. Me, I much prefer James. But the point is, unique voices are rare, and while I wouldn’t ever say being unique is enough on its own, it’s a rare and valuable commodity.
— Freddie · Jan 6, 11:44 PM · #
Star Wars was a vector for western mythos
Not so matoko_chan. Several Asians have told me how much the whole Jedi master/paduan learner thing is pure Eastern monastic, like Zen, and the whole Force thing is Tao. Light side/dark side is Yin and Yang.
Not saying it’s the whole story, just that it resonates powerfully there too.
— Keid A · Jan 7, 12:19 AM · #
Oh yah…I was thinkin’ more of the knights, squires, swords and sorcery, but that is correct also….still, the balance of life is a stronger theme in Avatar and quite alien (lol) to western culture.
I think wuxia and kungfu movies have colonized western philosophy to some extent.
— matoko_chan · Jan 7, 12:33 AM · #
FWIW, since Islam is a form of Abrahamic religion and was also influenced by Aristotlean thought, I have always considered it to be one of the Western religions.
The reason you feel the Sufi mystical tradition to be non-Western, may be because you are not familiar with classical Gnosticism?.
— Keid A · Jan 7, 01:09 AM · #
I visit the combox for the first time in months, and look who’s here! There’s the next in a long series of predictable tools, telling James that we don’t need no fancy-pants writin’ round here (your friends need to pull you aside and explain that the “threw up in my mouth” line is played out) and over there, it’s matoko_chan explaining that Eastern Mytho-Poetry™ will eventually be proven right by Science©. That’s right up there with “I love Dollhouse and hate bioluddites.”
You can go home again!
— Matt Frost · Jan 7, 02:36 AM · #
I take it all back Matt.
The epiphany here is that conservatives simply hate Avatar because it is about race.
And they can’t talk about race, so they talk about mytho-poeisis, anti-capitalism, anti-military, anti-american memetics instead.
— matoko_chan · Jan 7, 02:26 PM · #
I think the film touches on issues that are deeper than racism but unfortunately it subsumes them into the general preoccupation with race.
Like for instance: Is the difference between species really no different than the difference between races?
FWIW I don’t think so. Despite what you say, matoko_chan, the Navi are different to us in some really profound ways. Between humans, racism is fraudulent intellectually, as Chet has said, because the differences between races are all superficial, and (probably) mostly cultural.
There is controversy here for students of human genetic diversity. But the general point is still true that the differences between individuals are greater than any differences there might be between human populations.
But the Navi are really different in ways that are irreconcilable except by becoming a genetic avatar. They are borg-like. They have a collective mind. We don’t. We have at best, collective institutions. We may one day choose to wire ourselves together like the Navi, but that is by no means inevitable for Man.
There are other possible futures for Man, where we spread out across the galaxy, and become deeply individual and isolated from each other by vast distances. I’m not sure the Navi could chose a future like that. Yet the reality of the galaxy might make that desirable/inevitable for Man.
Seen from this perspective, their dependence on the tree is actually a source of profound limitation for the Navi. We can be individual agents, they can’t. The Navi are enhanced by the collective of the tree, but they are also in a sense slaves to it.
If we ever really encounter a species like the Navi, I would advise leaving it well alone. There is wisdom in our design as individuals. Evolution has made us autonomous and capable of operating in considerable isolation.
This capacity for individual autonomous action is an advantage we should not lightly throw away – Especially in a galaxy like ours with light years between the stars.
— Keid A · Jan 7, 04:04 PM · #
I think James’ critique has more going for it than his critics give him credit for – but it works better as cultural criticism than movie criticism.
I think James’ does a better job of getting the “message” of the movie than other conservative critics. I’d still quibble – I think “enslaving them to the whims of love” is both saying too much (‘enslaving’ is inaccurate and unfair) and too little (ignoring the “message” of the value of living a balanced life in harmony with the universe), and I think he’s still giving too short shrift to the “what if” nature of the movie – but he is not far wrong.
Now, clearly James doesn’t approve of this particular message, and that’s all well and good. I myself tend to recoil at the more extreme versions of this particular vision – not so much because I think it isn’t in many ways a good ideal, but because it ignores human nature – but personally I think our current culture would be much better off if we moved in that direction. But as cultural criticism from James’ perspective – it’s a fair critique.
But James knows that it isn’t a legitimate critique of the movie on an artistic level. So the next level of his critique is that the movie stacks the deck in favor of that vision. And that sure as heck is true, and James correctly points out many of the ways that the deck is stacked.
But the same critique can me made about 99% of Hollywood blockbusters, 90% of everything Hollywood puts out, and well over 50% even of movies that most people (including likely James) would agree are artistically successful. Heck, look at Citizen Kane. Talk about stacking the deck.
Am I saying that Avatar can be compared on any level with Citizen Kane? Of course not. On the contrary, I think it’s doubly absurd to criticize a Hollywood blockbuster for engaging in the same kind of “fault” that not only most Hollywood movies, but the best movies every made, partake of.
— Larry M · Jan 7, 06:54 PM · #
In fact, I’d argue that in a way James’ critique of the movie is at one level as high an endorsement of the artistic success (probably unintended)of the movie as I’ve seen. The movie, I think he is conceding, is very successful at achieving it’s artistic goals. James’ might not like this goals, or thinks that that success is too cheaply bought, but I’m not sure that that is valid artistic criticism.
Let’s put it this way – can be all agree that Triumph of the Will, whatever its faults, was artistically successful? As opponents of fascism, we rightly find that disturbing. But I think even James would be hard pressed to equate the message of Avatar, as misguided as he may think it is, with national socialism.
— Larry M · Jan 7, 07:06 PM · #
Here are some reviews from liberals that hate Avatar.
It is interesting that liberals SAY they dislike avatar because it is racist, immature, white guilt, culturally fantastic…..
Conservatives SAY they dislike Avatar because it is anti-capitalist, anti-military, anti-american, and anti-montheistic (is that correct James?)…
I think….conservatives hate Avatar because it is about race…and liberals hate Avatar because it is about god.
So both sides sublimate their big taboos into crits about other things.
Conservatives can’t talk about race, and liberals can’t talk about god.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jan 7, 07:10 PM · #
Dear lord. It really saddens me that such a fine blog as this would be plagued by such a sorry bunch of mean-spirited comments. This post (and this blog) deserve better.
Lovely post, James. Really, perhaps my second favorite take on the movie right after Lauren Bans’s hilarious review.
The reason I didn’t like the movie was more straightforward, I admit. It wasn’t emotionally engaging. I was never brought to the brink.
— E.D. Kain · Jan 7, 07:33 PM · #
I have to say that I think that matoko_chan is off base in her belief that conservative distaste for the movie is about race. In fact, I think James probably gets closer to the heart of it. Though layered on top of that, for some conservative critices (not James, and not the other critics around here) I think there is a sense in which the “surface” critique of the militeristic/corporatist humans hits a little too close to home. James and some other conservatives are smart enough to realize that that (a) isn’t the core message, (b) reads something into the film maker’s intent that just isn’t there, and © isn’t really something that you want to be … seen as supporting.
Or, to put it another way, seeing the movie as a critique of capitalism or U.S. militarism says much more about the mind set of the critic than it does about the movie.
— Larry M · Jan 7, 08:52 PM · #
Nope…that wasn’t a “lovely post.”
It was a sneer.
Like every other conservative review I’ve read, including yours, E.D.
“it didnt engage”
“it romanticized pantheism”
“it bashed capitalism”
“it bashed our military”
Avatar is a PG-13 SCIFI MOVIE….for 13 year olds and people that can remember what being 13 is like.
Sneering at Avatar has become an entire conservative blogging genre…..im just curious as to why….
i think its race….conservatives hate Avatar because partly it is about race.
— matoko_chan · Jan 7, 08:55 PM · #
Larry go read KVS in the other thread…he has a meltdown at the suggestion that there is a racial component to Avatar.
Poulos finishes with a sneer.
Pantheism, no matter how poetic, at long last is not poetry.
But why not?
Isn’t the genius of great filmmaking making myths real…suspending belief?
Creating an alternative reality that we are invested in?
So the blur between poetry and science in Avatar…is a bad thing?
sapentia poetica one of my favorite things.
Is conservative antipathy to Avatar so strong that you can’t appreciate the mytho-poeisis?
— matoko_chan · Jan 7, 09:11 PM · #
My review complained about the depth of the film, matoko, not that it critiqued capitalism but that it did so in a very superficial way. I’m not sure I mentioned (or care) about pantheism. But whether or not it was engaging seems fairly apolitical – as in, not just every “conservative” who bashed the film, but uhm, everybody who bashed the film. Sure, it was a sci-fi movie and sure it was PG-13, but does that mean it has to be poorly written with no emotional depth?
I don’t think so. I think that’s a cop-out. Indeed, many liberals I know who watched the film agree that it was shallow and somewhat condescending.
— E.D. Kain · Jan 7, 09:13 PM · #
Excellent point. Engaging you and Chet in a combox is indeed a kind of meltdown. Mi dispiace, folks.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 7, 09:24 PM · #
The real problem, folks, which even “matoko-chan” (and his 13 year old inner self) can’t ignore, is that Cameron’s movie is just plain stupid:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43429
— Arminius · Jan 7, 09:43 PM · #
That’s weird, I had a response to Keid but it seems to have been removed.
— Chet · Jan 7, 09:58 PM · #
I confess, I’m at a loss to understand how someone could watch them soar around floating mountains on pterodactyls and not be emotionally engaged.
— Chet · Jan 7, 10:00 PM · #
M-C,
The fact that their disagreement with you is arguably somewhat heated doesn’t make you right.
As for “Is conservative antipathy to Avatar so strong that you can’t appreciate the mytho-poeisis?”, well, I’d say you have a point there, but at least James is criticizing something that’s really in the movie, as opposed to some conservative critics. Given James’ cultural priors, I wouldn’t necessarily expect him to appreciate the “mytho-poeisis.” At least he’s pretty honest about it. Heck, “Red Dawn” leaves me cold, because of MY priors, but I can see why it appeals to a certain brand of rah-rah nationalist “patriot.”
(Not that I think that Red Dawn is as artisticly successful as Avatar, though one has to concede that both do a very good job of achieving their artistic goals, and do so through a TON of deck stacking. Avatar is objectively better because of its visual achievment, its greater originality (in plot, not in theme) as well as the broader imaginative goals. For me, it is also subjectively better because the theme is more congenial to me. I can see how conservatives see the opposite.
Mr. Kain,
The problem with your critique is that the movie didn’t critique capitalism in any way, superficially or not. (One might argue that it does criticize corporations, though even that is incidental at best – is The Shining an indictment of writers because Jack is one?)
As for “poorly written with no emotional depth,” that’s certainly a valid critique if true. Its also a subjective one, and one which seems to disproportionately be held by conservative critics (at least in terms of the emotional depth – the writing … is what it is. Quite servicible for a Hollywoood blockbuster, and ultimately irrelevant given other strengths of the movie).
There are liberal critics of the movie as well. I tend to think that there critiques (which tend to be mostly different than the conservative critiques) are equally invalid, and equally revealing about the preoccupations of the critics.
— Larry M · Jan 7, 10:29 PM · #
Larry M,
Read the review I linked to above and tell me with a straight face that the plot is “original” or that the writing is anything but stupid. I mean really, really stupid.
Here is another (shorter) critique that has fun with just how stupid the plot is:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/100105&sportCat=nfl
[scroll down to the section titled “Outer-Space Cartoon Says Americans Are the Bad Guys”]
I mean, I’m a fanboy who really wanted to see this movie and hoped it would be amazing — now I’m just waiting for “DayBreakers”, and “Legion” and “Clash of the Titans”.
— Arminius · Jan 7, 11:43 PM · #
Arminius,
Originality – I said “plot,” not theme. And let’s be honest here, we’re talking about Hollywood – originality is strictlly relative – my comment was relative to Red Dawn – and I think you would have to concede that it was more original than that movie.
“stupid” plot – the plot had holes. I’ve said that before. I’d defy you to find many (any?) Hollywood blockbusters that didn’t. Did those holes detract from the overall movie experience? Clearly not for most people. Curiously, or not so curiously, the people for whom the plot holes were problematic were (mostly) the same people who were emotionally unmoved by the movie. I’d certainly concede that if one doesn’t find a movie emotionally involving and/or exciting, plot holes tend to stand out more starkly.
That said, see above where I concede that the writing is mediocre. Again, I don’t think that this is really a fair way to judge this kind of movie. It hardly outweighs the film’s other strengths. The original Star Wars was hardly well written.* Heck, Avatar is “ THE GREAT GATSBY” compared to Star Wars.
*Regarding Star Wars, the prequels weren’t (much) worse written than the “middle” trilogy. They failed artistically for other reasons. These kind of films rarely succeed or fail based upon how good the writing is.
— LarryM · Jan 8, 12:02 AM · #
Given James’ cultural priors, I wouldn’t necessarily expect him to appreciate the “mytho-poeisis.” At least he’s pretty honest about it.
ahh….partisanship. i see. James objects to science in the service of poetry…but that is the future.
well then….Avatar is part of a cultural tend then….that i like to call cultural glaciation.
American conservative culture (First Culture) is being “glaciated” by ….umm….Third Culture memes…the fusion of science and philosophy/poetry.
wahdat al wujud or…“pantheism”
— matoko_chan · Jan 8, 12:46 AM · #
Pantheism is not theism though matoko_chan.
I have heard pantheism described as mystical atheism, and I think that’s a good description of it.
Many atheists are mystical atheists, e.g. Dawkins, and therefore they are really or almost pantheists.
The reason, very simplified, is if you say, Everthing is god, then that equation is really a tautology.
You might as well say everything is everything or A=A.
Or even:
Everything is. Existence exists. And I feel warm and fuzzy about it.
To which I would say,
Oh? warm and fuzzy all the time?
Pantheism seems….. uninformative?
— Keid A · Jan 8, 01:29 AM · #
And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with lean brow and sunken eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who offers to ship with the Phaedon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware of such an one, I say; your whales must be seen before they can be killed; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer . . .
“Why, thou monkey,” said a harpooner to one of these lads, “we’ve been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are as scarce as hen’s teeth whenever thou art up here.” Perhaps they were, or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space, like Cranmer’s sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.
There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gentle rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise forever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists.
— Kate Marie · Jan 8, 01:48 AM · #
True Kate Marie, the ultimate hope of the pantheist is to disolve and become one with the cosmos at death.
Which is another way of saying, death is death and I’m trying to feel warm and fuzzy about it.
— Keid A · Jan 8, 02:16 AM · #
reading assignment for tonight kids: http://theamericanscene.com/2010/01/06/avatar-offers-us-a-unique-world-where-we-can-reflect-on-the-inescapable-conflicts-man-always-has-and-always-will-face#c027303
spoiler alert for avatar 2: jack was actually an avatar of a black man who needed to infiltrate white drug traffickers (why couldn’t you smart asses on here think that human avatars would have been much easier than alien avatars given the dna similarities, and therefore tried first???)
— t2 · Jan 9, 01:11 AM · #
E.D……I dont know what to say except that I think you’re a total poseur at this point.
You missed the dual tree symbology and Grace Augustines name?
wow….just wow..
Cameron’s goal was to make us fall in love with Avatar.
Our love becomes the vector for the other things he wants to tell us.
You can disagree with his message….but you can’t say it isnt there.
“My review complained about the depth of the film, matoko, not that it critiqued capitalism but that it did so in a very superficial way.”
wallah…Avatar doesn’t crit capitalism….it crits white christian conservatism.
the message you are so studiously ignore is it is a rejection of the idea that any culture has the right, biblically authorized duty, or might-privilege to impose its values and needs on another…a pure rejection of white evangelical xianity as exemplified by “democracy promotion” and the Iraq War.
Its Camerons movie….he gets to say that.
But it is dishonest to pretend not to see it or misdirect onto capitalism.
— matoko_chan · Jan 9, 05:10 PM · #
a rejection of the idea that any culture has the right, biblically authorized duty, or might-privilege to impose its values and needs on another
I don’t see how that’s just the WEC position. It has been the position of all empires, kingdoms, nations, throughout the history of the world.
Since the Earth was pretty extensively colonised by Man, not long after the end of the last ice age – ever since then, the only way for empires to grow has been at the expense of their neighbours.
So get a good historical atlas of the world, watch the empires grow and shrink, and reflect on the fact that they (almost) always grow by conquest. The few exceptions like voluntary confederations and dynastic marriages being rare exceptions.
Sure, the WEC were in the ascendant for the last few centuries. But that has been reversing since WWII.
I for one, have no doubt at all, that empires, or at the very least hegemonaic “spheres of influence”, will continue to expand and shrink – though maybe with other dominant players in the next iteration.
Like it or not Man is a Darwinian agent. And war, power struggles, etc. are “in the blood”. I don’t believe it well be possible to change this. Ever.
While we live, we fight and struggle. Only the long-dead are stable and constant.
I am not arguing for the primacy of any one group. But I am arguing for the absolute inevitability of war and conquest. Only the players change with time.
— Keid A · Jan 10, 01:23 PM · #
Spock don’t be obtuse.
I’m jus’ saying why CONSERVATIVES hate Avatar.
It is a rejection of WEC conservatism, white christian conservatism, which is the ONLY current brand there is.
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 03:39 PM · #
also, too.
I think I have successfully fisked Poulos’ whiny sneer. The mytho-poeisis of Pandora is simply outstanding.
He is just pissy because xian mythos gets an asswhupping.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 03:57 PM · #
Dying thread, but when two people on opposite sides of the debate both add absurd posts, well, you gotta respond.
Keid, there’s only two problems with your argument (an argument that is often deployed as a justification for our nation’s indefensible foriegn policy, though it isn’t clear that you are deploying it as such). The first is that there ARE circumstances (partly in terms of the realities of modern asymetrical warfare, and partly in terms of increasing economic interdependance) which are making aggressive warfare increasingly unprofitable. It is for that reason, not the absurd idea that the bullying hegemogism of the United states somehow deters other nations from going to war with each other, that explains the fact that fewer wars are being fought in the last few decades. (I’m as cynical as you about human nature and, more to the point, about human states; to the extent that aggressive warfare becomes profitable again, its incidence will increase. But in the present day, war is thankfully not a profitable enterprise.) Ulimately that means not only that the only even colorable justification for our policies is bogus, but our policies aren’t even beneficial for the United States in the long run.
Secondly, and again I’m not sure this applies to this specific deployment of the argument, but to the extent it is deployed as a defense of U.S. policy, the argument reduces to the claim that the U.S. should engage in mass murder and rapine because that’s what all the cool kids (nations) are doing. Rather repellant IMO.
M-C,
Sigh. You’re as bad or worse than your conservative opponents. Where do you get that the movie has anything to do with specifically critiquing “WEC conservatism?” It does, as we discuss upthread, put forth a distictly non-western ideal for living, one that does conflict with the cultural assumptions of “WEC conservatism” as you designate it. But it’s at variance not just with those cultural assumptions, but with culural assumptions shared generally throughout the west. Now, of course at some level Christianity is wrapped up historically with western culture, but in terms of the present day, the movie is as much a critique of western secular humanism as a critique of “WEC conservatism” (an inexact term in any event). Maybe moreso.
And to the extent that you believe that the United State’s current abhorent role in the world is uniquely a product of “WEC conservatism” – well, I think you could gain a bit from studying post war U.S. and world history.
Maybe you should also take some time to read Daniel Larison. It’s interesting that a very conservative, deeply Christain person such as Daniel is the most articulate spokesman going for the noninterventionist position. But he is.
— LarryM · Jan 10, 05:26 PM · #
Oh, and M-C, where do you “Fisk” James, successfully or otherwise? I must have missed it.
James concedes the power of the movie in promoting its vision. He doesn’t like the vision, which is his prerogative, and he thinks that it’s cheeply bought, which is at some level true (in the sense that there is indeed a lot of deck stacking going on). Where he goes wrong is in thinking that those points amount to artistic, as opposed to cultural, criticism. And in re-reading his post, I’m not even sure he is unaware of that fact. I think you are largely talking past his argument.
— LarryM · Jan 10, 05:34 PM · #
Look at the title of the post. Is James wrong? No, I think the appropriate response isn’t so much “you’re wrong,” but “so what?”
— LarryM · Jan 10, 05:36 PM · #
LarryM
I am not an American and I haven’t the slightest partizan interest in trying to justify US Policy.
I watch the rise and fall of nations for two reasons:
1. So I can keep out of the path of their incessant wars.
2. So I can make smarter investments, since war impacts business.
— Keid A · Jan 10, 05:47 PM · #
Poulos says “pantheism is not poetry.”
I fisked that… the mytho-poeisis of the Pandoran world is splendid.
also, too…wec conservatism is the only kind of conservatism there is anymore.
All american conservatives are white christians….can you deny that?
evangelism is isomorphic with missionariism and colonialism…all Big White Christian Bwana meddling.
Don’t be coy, Larry.
It is not just because of our liking for the Pandorans that we cheer when the military—engaged in a mission that is specifically linked to Iraq by Quaritch’s “shock and awe” language—gets its collective arse kicked. Quaritch is specifically seen as demonic in that he tempts Jake with the restoration of his legs. The battle in which he is defeated, and the fight in which he is killed, are also set pieces full of money shots; this is an American film in which we cheer the defeat of a U.S.-style military machine by armed insurgents. The progressive intelligentsia should remember how deeply the film is hated by the Christian and neo-conservative right in America.
and please….Larison hasn’t even seen the movie.
don’t go there.
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 05:55 PM · #
And Larry….my point to Poulos that he is a First Culture intellectual and Avatar is a Third Culture movie is part of a long running argument that dates from the demise of Culture 11, that elegant decarian Math.
James seems to feel that using science and technology is cheap deckstacking to unfairly push Camerons star memes.
But in third culture philosophy, science and technology are integral parts of mytho-poetics.
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 06:06 PM · #
Big White Christian Bwana meddling
Honestly matoko_chan do you really believe the US would be in the Middle East if not for oil and industrial civilization’s precarious dependancy on it ?
Read that linked article, m_c. – Dick Cheyney and George W Bush were oil-men from wayback. You think they didn’t know what was at stake in Iraq? – What is still at stake?
— Keid A · Jan 10, 06:09 PM · #
The tradition of Big White Christian Bwana meddling is not just about oil, Spock.
It is also about ideology and land.
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 07:24 PM · #
M-C,
Well I could spend several paragraphs on where I think you are wrong & where you misunderstand what I’m saying (e.g., w/r/t Larison – I wasn’t referring to his take on the movie, but his non-interventionism generally).
But let me focus on the most wrongheaded thing you say: “All american conservatives are white christians….can you deny that?.” On a literal level, it’s .. well, not true, but fairly close to the truth. On a deeper level, your point is so laughably wrong it isn’t funny.
You’re playing a game of bait & switch here, and a pretty obvious one at that. Most Dems, and most liberals, are self identified Christians – most Americans are. Chritianity in the contemporary U.S. means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
I’m assuming that the “E” in “WEC” is evangelical. Very few of the people who control the conservative movement are evangelicals. (Side point here – many, many African Americans are members of evangelical faiths).) Most leaders of movement conservatism are ostensibly Christian, but so what? It hardly informs their policy positions (Keid oversimplifies the point, but he is essentilly correct – Iraq had a lot to do with oil, and nothing to do with Christianity) The powers that be in the conservative movement spend plenty of time pandering to the Christain right, and precious little time pushing their substantive agenda, which is mostly cultural. They laugh at them behind their backs. I’m as unhappy as you at the few bones they have thrown to the Christian right, but they haven’t succeeded in slowing, let alone reversing, the cultural shifts in this nation that the religious right deplores.
Bush himself seems to have a sincere (if paper thin) veneer of evangelical christianity, but look at the rest of the team of war criminals (not that the Dems are much better). Do you honestly think that Cheney, for example, is motivated by any sort of religious beliefs, evangelical, fundementalist, or otherwise?*
There is some reason to believe that the inmates are starting to take over the asylum, so to speak, but if one looks at the actually existing conservative movement – the Christian right provides foot soldiers, votes, and rhetoric, but in terms of policy, not so much.
Which isn’t to deny that they can be particularly enthusiastic cheer leaders of the worst excesses of our foriegn policy, but sadly they are far from alone. As the current administration is proving once again. Again, I think you need a history lesson here. Were the liberal cold warriors – Kennedy, Truman, etc. – evangelical Christians? Hardly.
*The UMC is ostensibly evangelical (which of course literally simply means they favor evangelizing – it doesn’t necessarily imply any other aspect of the religious right agenda), but is a mainstream protestant denomination hardly in the forefront of the Christian right. Among other things, they have been ordaining women since 1956. Moreover, and very much to the point in the current discussion, their teachings on war are probably more anti-war than is the typical liberal (most of whom seem to support a sort of kinder, gentler imperialism). Finally, it’s pretty clear that Cheney’s aborant political beliefs have nothing to do with his ostensible religious beliefs. Of course, Bush is also a member of the UMC; he emphasizes his religion more than Cheney, and the evangelical nature of his belief, but even assuming sincerity on his part, those beliefs, as stated above, appear paper thin. If anything, I would argue that the seond term pull back from the worst excesses of Cheneyism is more consistant with Bush’s faith than the horrors of his first erm.
— LarryM · Jan 10, 07:24 PM · #
matoko_chan
It is also about ideology and land.
You mean the neocon democratization project? Maybe the low-IQ base believed that fantasy. I recall commenting years ago on Ghosts, that I was very sceptical that was viable. – Memory like a sieve you have.
— Keid A · Jan 10, 07:56 PM · #
And really its embarrassing the extent to which some people on the left don’t seem to undertsand the doctrinal complexities of Christianity in the U.S. today. I’m as secular as they come, and culturally of the “left,” but it doesn’t take a huge amount of study to see how uninformed many left critiques of the religious right are. Obviously I can’t educate them in a blog post, but there days it doesn’t take a lot to dispel ignorance on the point. http://lmgtfy.com/
But just to blow the minds of some people here – Obama is the member of an evangelical faith, one that happens to be in “full communion” with the ELCA. Which is itself in full communion with the UMC. Bush, Cheney and Omaba are pretty much brothers in faith – at least in terms of the ostensible beliefs of their denominations.
Now, I guess someone with a disportionate dislike for contemporary Chritianity might blame Obama’s own … broad conception of Americ’as role in the world, and his easy acceptance of the use of military force to acheive such ends … as somehow motivated by his faith. But I think all of us, left, right, religious, and secular – can see the absurdity of such an argument.
— LarryM · Jan 10, 08:01 PM · #
“And really its embarrassing the extent to which some people on the left don’t seem to undertsand the doctrinal complexities of Christianity in the U.S. today.”
let me fix that for you.
And really its embarrassing the extent to which some people on the right don’t seem to understand the demographic makeup of the current instantiation of conservatism as white evangelical christian conservatism. The GOP has devolved into a theological party, held in babylonian captivity to white evangelical christian doctrines and a zombie culture of white protestantism.
The only doctrinal complexities I see are the gaping chasm between white evangelical christians and the rest of the country.
And yes, I do understand that Sarah Palin is a pre-trib millenialist and Joel Osteen is a prosperity gospeller and Glenn Beck is a mormon that pimps Skousen’s insane conspiracy theories.
so what?
They are all WECs.
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 08:31 PM · #
and you completely misunderstand me if you think i have a disportionate dislike for contemporary Chritianity….i have nothing against christians.
I despise evangelical christians.
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 08:38 PM · #
Larry do understand the meaning of white christian evangelism?
WECs believe that they own the one truth and have the biblically sanctioned right…..nay….duty to impose that truth on everyone they can through proselytization (missionariism), legislation (DOMA and anti-SSM laws), and force of arms (Iraq war and “democracy promotion”).
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 08:48 PM · #
matoko_chan, I’m a conservative…. and even I don’t believe politicians run the country. You’ve seen the bailouts of the last year or two, and all the crony capitalism?
Obama elected. What has changed? You see change? This is as good as it gets matoko_chan.
Believing in fairies is one thing….. I can understand fairies. There’s some evidence for fairies.
— Keid A · Jan 10, 08:52 PM · #
a third culture review of a third culture movie.
hmmm..I guess I’m surprised Jonah doesnt get the pantheism/SBH linkage.
oh well, can’t have everything.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 09:04 PM · #
M-C,
Invinciple ignorance, I see. It’s bad enough when people on the left blame everything bad about modern conservatism on “fundementalism.” That’s wrong, but an understandable error. But blaming it on “evangelicalism” is worse, and shows an awe inspiring ignorance that I have rarely seen (and given how much time I spend reading blog comments, that’s saying something).
The people who actually MAKE THE DECISIONS in modern movement conservatism are by and large mainstream protestants (and some Catholics) who are hardly motivated by their religious beliefs. Maybe we will a future where the Palins and Becks and Skousens of the world have some real power over policy. I doubt that that will come to pass, but if it does feel free to critique it to your heart’s content. But in the mean time, if you honestly believe that the Bushes and Cheneys and McCains of this world take those people any more seriously than you or I do – except as people that they need to con into voting for them – then you are in flat earth territory.
As for your comments about evangelical Christians – its obvious you don’t even know what the term means. Obama is the member of an evangelical Christian faith. Jimmy Carter is an evangelical Christian. Tony Campolo is an evengelical Christain. Many (most?) African Americans are members of evangelical denominations.
And many members of the religious right are not evangelicals – Catholics, Mormans, etc. Moreover, fundementalists and evangelicals, though they overlap, are far from identical.
The highest ranking member of the religious right in the Bush administration was (a) not an evangelical, and (b) in his own inadequate way, one of the few opponents of some of the most extreme war crimes (& other misdeeds).
Frankly, M-C, barely literate morons like you are just as big a threat to our nation’s future than the crazies that you refer to on the fringes of the religious right. Maybe more so.
— LarryM · Jan 10, 09:15 PM · #
The proselytation thing.
Matoko, the thing about modern religions is that they are constructs. Imaginary creations of professional clerics and theologians.
They are not like ancient pagan religions that grew up through millennia of natural selection in tribal societies.
Ancient religions had spreading power because they aided the tribes’ survival.
Modern religions were/are deliberate inventions.
They spread, if they spread, either because they have viral memetic power – They proselyte – or because they attach themselves to a powerful institution like the state and support the state’s power structures. Divine right of kings, etc. Then they spread because of the coercive power of the state they support. Through conquest and imperialism.
All modern religions spread either because they proselyte or because they are imperialistic or both. If they are not one or both of these things then they remain minor sects and heresies at best – like Sufism – on the fringes of the real world religions.
— Keid A · Jan 10, 09:35 PM · #
the first one that resorts to insults loses, Larry.
WEC is not a religion……it is a political-religious demographic.
look at the candidates.
Pawlenty— WEC
Palin—WEC
Huckabee— WEC
Romney— mormon
You say the WEC don’t control the party?
lol
20% of the electorate is WEC….republican affiliation?
20%.
— matoko_chan · Jan 10, 10:40 PM · #
M-C,
You’re one to talk about insults – I think we both agree that insults are just fine when merited. They are in your case, though it’s kind of like shooting fish in a barrel.
Interesting that you’ve named 4 politicians who have never held (and IMO never will) hold national office – and you couldn’t even find a 4th evangelical (i.e., Romney being a Mormon)! Oh, and as for Palin, being the lying chameleon that she is, her religion is hard to pin down, but it isn’t clear that she is an evangelical. OTOH, how about:
Cheney – AMC
Bush – AMC
McCain – non-evangelical Baptist
Giuliani – Catholic
Gingrich – Catholic
Brownback – Catholic
Barbour – Presbyterian
I could go on an on. Of course, there are also the neocons; their influence has been exaggerated, but they were MUCH more influential (in terms of foriegn policy) than the religious right. And they … don’t tend to be evangelicals.
And yes as I said the AMC is ostensibly evangelical, but mainstream protestant and culturally center or even mildly left as Christian denominations in the U.S. go. (Ordain women, anti-war teachings, anti capital punishment, squishy on abortion (compared to the Catholic church), etc.)
Now, are these and other Republican politicians dependant upon evangelical support. You bet. That does mean they have any real power, or that they are well represented in the leadership.
And of course you studiously ignore everything else I wrote that contradicts your world view. Plenty of evangelical liberals, and plenty on non-white evangelicals.
— LarryM · Jan 10, 11:37 PM · #
relly…where did i call you names?
Once again WEC is a religio-political demographic— not a religion. mormons and catholics can be included in the superset of WECs…they proselytize, and use their congregants as PACs to drive legislation, like the catholic church in maine funding anti-SSM efforts and the mormon church funding anti-prop 8.
This crop of white christian conservative candidates are all WEC, all creationists, all anti-abortion.
That is the power of the base……that dictates candidates.
— matoko_chan · Jan 11, 06:38 AM · #
Try this…..not all evangelicals are WECs, but all WECs are evangelicals.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jan 11, 06:41 AM · #
matoko_chan, I think it’s because you are so focused on religion yourself that you only see the religious dimension of the GOP as so dominant and influential.
But see who were the most partizan funding sources in the last Bush campaign.
Pay close attention to the amounts too.
— Keid A · Jan 11, 12:54 PM · #
M-C,
You didn’t call ME names – you resort to name calling generally – not that there is anything wrong with that IMO. Civility should be reserved for those who earn it. Maybe you think that “like minded” people should be civil towards each other. I don’t (and in in many ways we aren’t like minded). I am civil as heck to those who merit it, of whatever political persuasion. And an asshole to those who merit THAT.
But whatever. You keep saying the same basic thing, without evidence, and ignoring the evidence against your position, albeit in this case with a couple of tiny qualifiers, but none of that makes any of it true. (Not to mention the fact that you are now using the term evangelical in a manner that hasd no relation to the accepted meaning of the word, and apparently means (to you) something like “having religious views which I find icky.” And even on THOSE terms your argument doesn’t hold up, for the reasons set forth above.)
Keid of course has the clearer eyed picture. The irony is that, if M-C was correct, we would have nothing to worry about. A party where the lunatic fringe had real power wouldn’t (over the long haul) win anything at the national level – not only wouldn’t they get enough votes from moderates and independants, but, more to the point, the money spigot would dry up. You think the military industrial complex, or the resource extraction industry, wants a nut like Palin in the oval office? They would probably prefer Barabara Boxer – and CERTAINLY would prefer President establishment, err, Obama.
Now, the crazies do face a window of opportunity in the next few years, given economic conditions and the very real infatuation of the base over Palin. But (a) it would be a very short lived ascent (albeit perhaps very damaging), (b) the people who currently control the Republican/movement conservative establishment (who by and large don’t give a shit about religion, except tot he extent that they can use it to gain and keep power) are every bit as opposed to such an eventuallity as you or I, and, most importantly, © IT HASN’T HAPPENED YET. And on balance, it probably won’t happen.
Typo note: obviously, I meant UMC, not AMC, in the post above.
Last 3 republican presidents: 1 of 3 were evangelical – even counting Bush Jr. as evangelical. Of course Obama’s denomination is every bit as “evengelical” as the UMC, but even counting Obama as non-evangelical, for the last 3 dems, 2 of 3 were evangelical. Funny, huh?
— LarryM · Jan 11, 06:25 PM · #
You are still ignoring my definition of WEC….it is not a religion, it is a political demographic.
Evangelicals believe they own the one truth and are divinely authorized to spread it.
WECs believe the divine authorization includes legislation (prop 8) and holy war— Bush, Chirac and gog/magog
— matoko_chan · Jan 11, 08:19 PM · #
“Evangelicals believe they own the one truth and are divinely authorized to spread it.”
If that’s meant literally, it doesn’t apply to Bush, Cheney, McCain, or most of the people who really have POWER in the movement. Not that I’m defending them; if they really felt that way, their many war crimes might be understandable (though still not defensible). It probably does apply literally to a significant portion of their base … but so what?
If you mean that figuratively, it applies to most of our political class – left right and center.
— LarryM · Jan 11, 09:17 PM · #
My reaction to that Chirac comment was very sceptical matoko_chan.
Bush might have tried all sorts of salesmanship on Chirac to get him to support the war, but it’s pure hucksterism IMHO.
And Chirac, being a Catholic-secular French guy, would have found it bizarre, like Europeans find much of US religiosity bizarre.
If he had understood the French better, he should have invoked the spirit of Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours, LOL.
— Keid A · Jan 11, 09:40 PM · #
I guess the reason that I find this kind of stuff so annoying is that it obscures the real problem with the Republicans/movement conservatism (and the Dems to a large extent also). Follow the money. It’s all about entrenching priviledge & rent seeking. The cultural stuff is just how the Republicans get votes from a certain demographic.
Now, one can draw different conclusions from this basic insight – right (ironicaly, some members of the tea party movement would even mostly agree), left (Nader et. al.), and otherwise (some libertarians) – but the basic insight is pretty much undeniable. Myself, I’m not a joiner and don’t label myself – I guess if I had to call myself anything it would be a left libertarian, but even that is not a perfect description by any means.
— LarryM · Jan 12, 04:12 PM · #
Look…..I don’t know how to make this clear to you….the WEC base has the GOP by the nads.
They can’t nominate a candidate that isnt WEC.
Look what the WECs did in NY-23 with Hoffman.
Look at Palin dissing CPAC to “cocktease” the tea party patriots as Hitch so elegantly put it.
The GOP leadership thought they were riding the populist tiger…..turns out…that ain’t so.
The tiger is riding them, and it may just turn and gobble them up.
— matoko_chan · Jan 12, 04:28 PM · #
M-C,
It’s CRYSTAL clear what you are saying. Please take the time to actually read what I wrote – I understand PERFECTLY the massively flawed argument which you make. I just think you are delusional. Repeating over and over again the same few points which are either irrelevant or just plain wrong, in the face of overwelming evidence to the contrary, does not an argument make.
And clearly I’VE been overly polite to you – as well as wasting my time with someone who is either too thicked headed – or just plain not smart enough – or both – to question her delusional belief system.
The bottom line, M-C, is that I suspect that you have driven hundreds of people rightward in their thinking, if only because they dread being associated with you.
And who knows? There is SOME reason to believe that your clearly mistaken beliefs may even end up being prophetic going forward. Though the only way that that would result in anything other than a rump Republican party pulling, say, 20%, maybe 30%, of the national vote, would be if it coincided with massive disenchantment with the Dems due to the economy. And that could really happen (though likely the Dems could overcome a horrible economy if they face Palinism triumphant. NY-23 writ large). But hysteria from the likes of you isn’t likely to reduce the chance of that happening – if anything, the contrary is true.
— LarryM · Jan 12, 06:10 PM · #
M-C,
At the risk of beating a dead horse, what you are doing is taking something that is going on now, taking it to its logical extreme, and projecting it backwards in time. Yes, there is a danger that the lunatic fringe will take over the Republican party (as opposed to merely being an electoral base that must be pandered to). But it hasn’t happened yet. One failed house race does not a trend make.
Let me ask you again – are you saying that McCain is an evangelical? Frankly, that’s every bit as absurd as anything that the birthers have come up with. But you say “They can’t nominate a candidate that isnt WEC,” so I guess you believe McCain is an evangelical. Half wit.
I’m sure the religious right (and the tea partiers, a distinct though overlapping movement) would love to have the power you ascribe to them. And goodness knows you can point to a few isolated successes, albeit generally leading to failure in the general election. But that’s a very different thing than your thesis. The bailout of the financial sector did occur – on a Republican watch – abortion is still freely available – the left is still winning the culture wars – and so on, and so on. And your kind of hysteria obscures the stuff we should be worried about – including the bipartisan foriegn policy consensus, the badness of which dwarfs any of the domestic accomplishements (or desires) of the religious right.
“Look at Palin dissing CPAC to “cocktease” the tea party patriots”
I’m not even sure what this is supposed to prove. I mean, if Palin were president, this might mean something, but she is a failed candidate for vice president who most likely couldn’t get elected dog catcher at this point.
— Larry M · Jan 12, 08:17 PM · #
THE CANDIDATES RIGHT NOW ARE ALL WECs.
and watch…right now Palin is all the GOP has. Petraeus turned them down like 20x, Pawlenty is invisible, Huck just had a Willie Horton moment, and Romney is a MORMON.
In 2008, when McCain ran, WEC was 50% of the GOP.
Now WEC is at least 90%.
— matoko_chan · Jan 13, 12:28 AM · #
“In 2008, when McCain ran, WEC was 50% of the GOP.
Now WEC is at least 90%.”
So either the number of evangelicals have almost doubled over the past year (wow, I guess they are successfully evangelicizing!) or the republican party has lost almost half its members. Or … you’re wrong.
Though if you are trying to parody the religious right’s tunnel vision, lack of critical thinking, and faith based world view, you are doing a darn fine job!
— LarryM · Jan 13, 01:39 AM · #
“conservatives” in the electorate. 40%
republicans in the electorate. 20%
Roughly half the electorate has conservative tendandacies. But black conservatives and hispanic conservatives are generally democratic.
blacks for Obama 97%
hispqnics for Obama 68%
non-hispanic caucasion in the GOP. 98%
christians in the GOP. 99%
These are statistical facts. The GOP is losing party affiliation ….the voters leaving the party to become independents are nonWECs.
— matoko_chan · Jan 13, 01:12 PM · #