I have not read David Kuo's book, Tempting Faith, an account of his experience as a social conservative in the Bush administration, but by all accounts the book is at least partly an expression of Kuo's shock that evangelicals are being used by national Republican Party leaders to gain and keep power.
Well, first of all, the only shocking thing is that anyone would be shocked by this. Anyone who has been around the political block knows that politics is not the place to go if you're looking for pure motives. Many in the Republican Party fought the evangelicals within their own party for years, but then the smart ones began realizing that it was stupid to fight them and much more expedient to use them to for their own political purposes.
The role of social conservatives in the Republican Party in many ways resembles the role of Blacks in the Democratic Party: they are alternatively valued and exploited, and there are people in the party who share their convictions and those who don't. Any competent social conservative leader knows this. The question social conservative leaders must ask is, given that they are being used, do the benefits of working with the party still outweigh the costs?
Is the Republican Party not only in the position of using social conservatives, but of being used by them?
The trouble social conservatives face is that that too many Republican leaders fall into one of two categories: those who don't share the convictions of social conservatives but pretend that they do, and those who do share the convictions of social conservatives and pretend that they don't. The history of the relationship between Republicans and social conservatives is a litany of demagoguery and dissembling, pandering and pusillanimity--peppered with myriad cases of genuine political courage and conservative statesmanship.
In any case, the only alternative for social conservatives is to judge their political leaders on their actions, pure and simple. Here at least there is some hope. If they concentrate on the motives of their political allies, they are in for little other than disappointment.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Herald-Leader pushes gay agenda again (...yawn).
The Lexington Herald-Leader yesterday ran an article titled, "Gay voters wary about Newberry," the upshot of which is that conservative voters should be wary about Newberry. Newberry's responses to question about "gay issues" were lackluster at best and disappointingly sycophantic at worst.
But the really interesting thing about the article was the lack of any compelling reason it should have run at all--particularly in a prominent place on the front page. Not that the Herald-Leader needs any particular provocation to run articles glorifying the gay lifestyle and portraying anyone who isn't enthusiastic about it as a neanderthal of the lowest order. It's no big secret the Herald regularly uses its news pages to push gay issues, primarily through stories that have no apparent news value which are given prominent placement.
But one interesting fact is that the day after the article (which basically assured readers Newberry was harmless on the issue) was published, the Herald-Leader endorsed Newberry over his opponent Teresa Isaac. Could the Herald have been using the article to justify an endorsement they had already decided to make in light of Isaac's incompetent tenure as Mayor? That would certainly explain the timing of the story.
Anyone willing to take odds on the Herald-Leader running a story on their front page assuring their readers that political candidates are solid on family issues?
I didn't think so.
But the really interesting thing about the article was the lack of any compelling reason it should have run at all--particularly in a prominent place on the front page. Not that the Herald-Leader needs any particular provocation to run articles glorifying the gay lifestyle and portraying anyone who isn't enthusiastic about it as a neanderthal of the lowest order. It's no big secret the Herald regularly uses its news pages to push gay issues, primarily through stories that have no apparent news value which are given prominent placement.
But one interesting fact is that the day after the article (which basically assured readers Newberry was harmless on the issue) was published, the Herald-Leader endorsed Newberry over his opponent Teresa Isaac. Could the Herald have been using the article to justify an endorsement they had already decided to make in light of Isaac's incompetent tenure as Mayor? That would certainly explain the timing of the story.
Anyone willing to take odds on the Herald-Leader running a story on their front page assuring their readers that political candidates are solid on family issues?
I didn't think so.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Who is losing the ability to think critically?
At Richard Dawkin's website, they have a post by Ben Hope attacking Patrick Henry College, a conservative Virginia school catering to conservative evangelicals and home school graduates.
Commenting on a documentary he had seen charting the lives of several Patrick Henry students, Hope says:
Sounds like like a bunch of ignorant cult members alright. But, wait a minute...
In 2005, the Oxford debate team failed to win moot court competition in England. The team they lost to? Patrick Henry College. The Patrick Henry students (you know, the ones are "losing the ability to think critically") defeated the Oxford team before a panel of distinguished British judges. Then, in 2006, the Oxford team flew to the U.S. to avenge their loss, only to lose again to the Patrick Henry team before an equally distinguished panel of American judges.
No wonder the Patrick Henry students in the documentary were smiling.
Dawkins, remember, is Charles Simyoni Professor of the Public Understanding at Oxford. So if Patrick Henry is a factory for producing mind-numbed robots, and it schooled Oxford's debate team for two years in a row, where does that leave the university that Dawkins teaches at?
Commenting on a documentary he had seen charting the lives of several Patrick Henry students, Hope says:
It was like watching an episode of Star Trek. You know, one of those where the crew has been taken over by a mysterious alien mind-virus. In this case, the symptoms are losing the ability to think critically, coupled with an uncontrollable urge to smile absolutely all the time, except when swaying open-palmed and shut-eyed at the sound of particularly naff, happy-clappy songs.
Sounds like like a bunch of ignorant cult members alright. But, wait a minute...
In 2005, the Oxford debate team failed to win moot court competition in England. The team they lost to? Patrick Henry College. The Patrick Henry students (you know, the ones are "losing the ability to think critically") defeated the Oxford team before a panel of distinguished British judges. Then, in 2006, the Oxford team flew to the U.S. to avenge their loss, only to lose again to the Patrick Henry team before an equally distinguished panel of American judges.
No wonder the Patrick Henry students in the documentary were smiling.
Dawkins, remember, is Charles Simyoni Professor of the Public Understanding at Oxford. So if Patrick Henry is a factory for producing mind-numbed robots, and it schooled Oxford's debate team for two years in a row, where does that leave the university that Dawkins teaches at?
Friday, October 27, 2006
Pay a visit to the Crunchy Cons
Rod Dreher is the author of Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party). I haven't read it yet, although after finishing the subtitle, I feel like I have!
Dreher is a former editor with National Review Magazine who is now editor of the Sunday commentary section of The Dallas Morning News. He is what I call a "Wendell Berry conservative" (a designation I lay claim to as well). If his book is as good as his blog (as I understand it is), then it is good indeed.
He blogged my last post today over at Crunchy Cons. Check out his site, it's excellent.
Dreher is a former editor with National Review Magazine who is now editor of the Sunday commentary section of The Dallas Morning News. He is what I call a "Wendell Berry conservative" (a designation I lay claim to as well). If his book is as good as his blog (as I understand it is), then it is good indeed.
He blogged my last post today over at Crunchy Cons. Check out his site, it's excellent.
If Republicans lose this fall, whose fault will it be?
Much of the talk surrounding this year's midterm elections is about whether this election constitutes a major political realignment. Ten years ago, the country went conservative and Republican. Is it now going liberal and Democrat?In the 1994 midterm elections, Republicans took control of Congress, largely based on the success of the “Contract with America,” a set of populist conservative political proposals that won widespread support among Americans. Now, some 12 years later, many pundits seem to think that Americans are poised to turn in another direction.
Are Americans disenchanted with conservatism?
If you were to ask this question of many liberal Democrats, the answer would undoubtedly be, “Yes.” And if Democrats take the field on November 8th, there will undoubtedly be those among them who will attribute the victory to a rejection of conservative rule.
But there are good reasons to reject this claim, should it come. First, the Democrats have not themselves set forth any coherent set of political principles by which they are asking voters to be judged. In other words, there is no liberal “Contract with America.” There is opposition to the Iraq war, and questions about the competence of Republicans to lead, but there is no set of positive political prescriptions they are asking voters to approve by voting Democrat, and there are legitimate questions about whether the Iraq war is the consequence of conservative policy.
The second reason to reject any claim that a Democratic victory is a victory for liberalism has to do with Republicans themselves. If voters reject Republicans at the polls, will it have been because they don’t like their conservative policies?
The answer to this question requires an answer to two other questions. First, has the Republican reign in Washington been a conservative one in the first place? The second is this: Have Republicans set forth any set of principles during this election that we can say would be rejected in a Democratic win?
If Democrats take congress on November 8th, will it have been a defeat for conservatism, or simply a defeat for the Republican Party? Will it have been because Americans are disenchanted with conservatism or simply because they are disenchanted with Republicans who claim, but may not actually act like, conservatives?
Serious conservatives need to ask themselves these questions partly because, if Republicans are sent home this fall, recriminations will come—and they will be aimed at those who Republicans think abandoned them at the polls. If a Republican defeat comes, conservatives—particularly social conservatives—will be held responsible.
The smell of blame is already in the air.
If Republicans should lose control of Congress, which now seems possible, if not likely, it should be clear to everyone, especially conservatives, why it happened. Leaders in the Republican Party need to be fully aware of why so many conservatives would not show up at the polls—and be holding their noses when they do.
How should conservatives assess the success of Republican rule in Washington since the Contract with America brought them to power? Is there a set of conservative criteria by which we can judge the success or failure of Republican dominance in Washington over the last decade?
I submit that there is, and that there are specific questions conservatives should ask themselves about foreign and domestic policy that can shed light on whether the national Republican Party, as a nominally conservative party, has failed or succeeded:
Has government become bigger or smaller? Is it more or less intrusive? Republicans will point to welfare reform legislation, probably the most significant and effective piece of conservative legislation passed in the 20th century. Disaffected conservatives, however, will point to Republican sponsored legislation implementing a costly new prescription drug entitlement as an act Lyndon Johnson would have envied. Many conservatives ask why, since Bush took office, the size of government has increase by a frightening 25 percent, and why so-called conservative Republicans cannot seem to find a voice to articulate the case against minimum wage laws. And note that the greatest success in terms of rolling back government power (welfare reform) came during the Clinton, not the Bush, administration.
Do American children stand a better or worse chance of being adequately educated? There are some good aspects to the No Child Left Behind Act, passed at the behest of President Bush. But why was it that many influential conservative groups opposed the legislation when it passed—and Ted Kennedy supported it? Many of these groups still see the bill as an egregious example of legislation that dramatically expanded a department of government (the Education Department) that many Republican leaders had vowed to downsize, and did little to practically affect what happens in the nation’s public schools. Some conservatives also want to know why, after the passage of No Child Left Behind, the administration put forth no further effort on important educational initiatives such as school choice?
Are our basic freedoms more or less secure? Liberals aren’t the only ones who have problems with the “Patriot Act,” as well as recent legislation giving the President the power to suspend habeas corpus at a whim . The questions many conservatives are asking themselves is whether the best way to protect individual freedoms is to pass laws that place limitations on those very freedoms. There are also questions as to the effectiveness of many of the policies implemented since 9/11. It is not good when your erstwhile supporters are going to the polls with images of an old lady with a walker being frisked at the airport while the next passenger, sporting a robe and turban, is whisked on through.
Has the issue of immigration been adequately dealt with? Why was it that an immigration bill took 12 years to get through Congress? And will a 700-mile fence along a border much longer than that solve the problem—if it is built at all (the bill provides the money to build the fence, but doesn’t actually require that it be built).
Are policies now more or less favorable to the traditional family? Social conservatives put Republicans in power. Have they been fully taken into account when it comes to the Republican policy agenda? Republican supporters will point to the fact that the Supreme Court has shifted significantly to the right--no mean achievement. But there are those who want to know how long it is going to take to revisit the disastrous Roe vs. Wade decision, and why, when Republicans control both the Presidency and the Congress, there appears to be no hope of passing a Constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage.
Is America more or less respected in the world? Although both Republicans and Democrats voted for the Iraq War when preparations were being made to go in, there were voices on the right warning against it. They included the likes of Pat Buchanan, whose book A Republic, Not an Empire, stated the conservative case against interventionist foreign policy with rare eloquence. But the neoconservative-dominated foreign policy establishment in Washington dismissed Buchanan’s warnings, and has lived to regret it. Now the war is the biggest drag on Republican aspirations to maintain their Congressional majority. Buchanan warned that adventurous military expeditions like that in Iraq would drain the nation’s financial coffers and hurt our prestige overseas. He was right on both counts.
Has the power of the federal judiciary over matters of policy been strengthened or weakened? This is the one area in which Republicans can claim relatively unadulterated success. Bush’s two appointments to the Supreme Court—John Roberts and Samuel Alito—are models of what conservative justices should be. In fact, many conservative voted for Bush during his second term solely because they knew the importance of replacing retiring justices with men or women who would interpret the law, not manufacture it.
But if you set the appointment of conservative judges aside, are there enough Republican successes to inspire any real enthusiasm among conservatives this election season? Should we somehow have expected more?
When liberals take office, they use their power to further their agenda with admirable aggressiveness. But to many of their conservative supporters, it seems as if Republicans have neither the courage nor the ability to articulate the case for conservative principles—nor to aggressively implement them when they get the chance. Republicans need to remind themselves what they believe in and why, and then they need to find the backbone to stand up for it.
There is no evidence that this election is about either the approval of liberal policies, since none have been proposed, or the rejection of conservative ones, since there are legitimate questions as to how aggressively they have been attempted. Americans are not disenchanted with conservatism; but many conservatives are disenchanted with the Republican Party.
If the Democrats win in November, it may well be less the result of the ascendancy of a rejuvenated liberalism than the revenge of a disenchanted conservatism.
© Martin Cothran 2006. All rights reserved. These comments are the personal opinions of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official opinion of any other persons or organizations.
Are Americans disenchanted with conservatism?
If you were to ask this question of many liberal Democrats, the answer would undoubtedly be, “Yes.” And if Democrats take the field on November 8th, there will undoubtedly be those among them who will attribute the victory to a rejection of conservative rule.
But there are good reasons to reject this claim, should it come. First, the Democrats have not themselves set forth any coherent set of political principles by which they are asking voters to be judged. In other words, there is no liberal “Contract with America.” There is opposition to the Iraq war, and questions about the competence of Republicans to lead, but there is no set of positive political prescriptions they are asking voters to approve by voting Democrat, and there are legitimate questions about whether the Iraq war is the consequence of conservative policy.
The second reason to reject any claim that a Democratic victory is a victory for liberalism has to do with Republicans themselves. If voters reject Republicans at the polls, will it have been because they don’t like their conservative policies?
The answer to this question requires an answer to two other questions. First, has the Republican reign in Washington been a conservative one in the first place? The second is this: Have Republicans set forth any set of principles during this election that we can say would be rejected in a Democratic win?
If Democrats take congress on November 8th, will it have been a defeat for conservatism, or simply a defeat for the Republican Party? Will it have been because Americans are disenchanted with conservatism or simply because they are disenchanted with Republicans who claim, but may not actually act like, conservatives?
Serious conservatives need to ask themselves these questions partly because, if Republicans are sent home this fall, recriminations will come—and they will be aimed at those who Republicans think abandoned them at the polls. If a Republican defeat comes, conservatives—particularly social conservatives—will be held responsible.
The smell of blame is already in the air.
If Republicans should lose control of Congress, which now seems possible, if not likely, it should be clear to everyone, especially conservatives, why it happened. Leaders in the Republican Party need to be fully aware of why so many conservatives would not show up at the polls—and be holding their noses when they do.
How should conservatives assess the success of Republican rule in Washington since the Contract with America brought them to power? Is there a set of conservative criteria by which we can judge the success or failure of Republican dominance in Washington over the last decade?
I submit that there is, and that there are specific questions conservatives should ask themselves about foreign and domestic policy that can shed light on whether the national Republican Party, as a nominally conservative party, has failed or succeeded:
Has government become bigger or smaller? Is it more or less intrusive? Republicans will point to welfare reform legislation, probably the most significant and effective piece of conservative legislation passed in the 20th century. Disaffected conservatives, however, will point to Republican sponsored legislation implementing a costly new prescription drug entitlement as an act Lyndon Johnson would have envied. Many conservatives ask why, since Bush took office, the size of government has increase by a frightening 25 percent, and why so-called conservative Republicans cannot seem to find a voice to articulate the case against minimum wage laws. And note that the greatest success in terms of rolling back government power (welfare reform) came during the Clinton, not the Bush, administration.
Do American children stand a better or worse chance of being adequately educated? There are some good aspects to the No Child Left Behind Act, passed at the behest of President Bush. But why was it that many influential conservative groups opposed the legislation when it passed—and Ted Kennedy supported it? Many of these groups still see the bill as an egregious example of legislation that dramatically expanded a department of government (the Education Department) that many Republican leaders had vowed to downsize, and did little to practically affect what happens in the nation’s public schools. Some conservatives also want to know why, after the passage of No Child Left Behind, the administration put forth no further effort on important educational initiatives such as school choice?
Are our basic freedoms more or less secure? Liberals aren’t the only ones who have problems with the “Patriot Act,” as well as recent legislation giving the President the power to suspend habeas corpus at a whim . The questions many conservatives are asking themselves is whether the best way to protect individual freedoms is to pass laws that place limitations on those very freedoms. There are also questions as to the effectiveness of many of the policies implemented since 9/11. It is not good when your erstwhile supporters are going to the polls with images of an old lady with a walker being frisked at the airport while the next passenger, sporting a robe and turban, is whisked on through.
Has the issue of immigration been adequately dealt with? Why was it that an immigration bill took 12 years to get through Congress? And will a 700-mile fence along a border much longer than that solve the problem—if it is built at all (the bill provides the money to build the fence, but doesn’t actually require that it be built).
Are policies now more or less favorable to the traditional family? Social conservatives put Republicans in power. Have they been fully taken into account when it comes to the Republican policy agenda? Republican supporters will point to the fact that the Supreme Court has shifted significantly to the right--no mean achievement. But there are those who want to know how long it is going to take to revisit the disastrous Roe vs. Wade decision, and why, when Republicans control both the Presidency and the Congress, there appears to be no hope of passing a Constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage.
Is America more or less respected in the world? Although both Republicans and Democrats voted for the Iraq War when preparations were being made to go in, there were voices on the right warning against it. They included the likes of Pat Buchanan, whose book A Republic, Not an Empire, stated the conservative case against interventionist foreign policy with rare eloquence. But the neoconservative-dominated foreign policy establishment in Washington dismissed Buchanan’s warnings, and has lived to regret it. Now the war is the biggest drag on Republican aspirations to maintain their Congressional majority. Buchanan warned that adventurous military expeditions like that in Iraq would drain the nation’s financial coffers and hurt our prestige overseas. He was right on both counts.
Has the power of the federal judiciary over matters of policy been strengthened or weakened? This is the one area in which Republicans can claim relatively unadulterated success. Bush’s two appointments to the Supreme Court—John Roberts and Samuel Alito—are models of what conservative justices should be. In fact, many conservative voted for Bush during his second term solely because they knew the importance of replacing retiring justices with men or women who would interpret the law, not manufacture it.
But if you set the appointment of conservative judges aside, are there enough Republican successes to inspire any real enthusiasm among conservatives this election season? Should we somehow have expected more?
When liberals take office, they use their power to further their agenda with admirable aggressiveness. But to many of their conservative supporters, it seems as if Republicans have neither the courage nor the ability to articulate the case for conservative principles—nor to aggressively implement them when they get the chance. Republicans need to remind themselves what they believe in and why, and then they need to find the backbone to stand up for it.
There is no evidence that this election is about either the approval of liberal policies, since none have been proposed, or the rejection of conservative ones, since there are legitimate questions as to how aggressively they have been attempted. Americans are not disenchanted with conservatism; but many conservatives are disenchanted with the Republican Party.
If the Democrats win in November, it may well be less the result of the ascendancy of a rejuvenated liberalism than the revenge of a disenchanted conservatism.
© Martin Cothran 2006. All rights reserved. These comments are the personal opinions of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official opinion of any other persons or organizations.
Post on Dawkins discussed at Dembski's blog
My post on why Richard Dawkin's book, "The God Delusion," weakens the case for Intelligent Design was discussed over at William Dembski's blog, Uncommon Descent, in a post written by Denise O'Leary. It's an interesting post.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Wall vs. Wall
As David Adams points out, Mexico's president-elect Felipe Calderon compares the 700-mile wall on the U.S. border with his country with the Berlin Wall. He has apparently forgotten that the Berlin Wall was built to keep people in, while the U.S. border wall is to keep people out.
If he doesn't like the wall, he ought to implement policies in his own country that will encourage people not to flee from it--like maybe dismantling socialism.
If he doesn't like the wall, he ought to implement policies in his own country that will encourage people not to flee from it--like maybe dismantling socialism.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Educrats at play
I remember a number of years ago when Time Magazine announced that having babies had come back into fashion. Until then, I had not been aware that such things were subject to trends, and wondered what it said about our culture that we thought of perfectly natural functions as somehow equivalent in significance to the hemlines on women's skirts.
I was reminded of this when I read Gene Edward Veith's post today at his blog "Cranach" concerning the news that grammar is now "in" again. Once again, I had to ask myself, are there not some things that should just be accepted in the common course of experience, rather than subject to the whims of some kind of craze?
Ooops. Bad question to ask when it comes to education policy.
Fact is the Paris fashion industry (if they still dictate clothing design like they used to) has nothing on the education establishment, where newest fads and gimmicks drive what gets taught in the nation's public schools.
According to Veith, The National Council of Teachers of English has reversed "it's long opposition to grammar drills, which the group had condemned in 1985 as 'a deterrent to the improvement of students' speaking and writing.'"
That's right. The group that poses as the board of bishops for the teaching of English in America was opposed to grammar drills. That in itself should cause us to cover ourselves in sackloth and ashes and ask forgiveness for allowing such a group to exist in the first place.
Do people really believe this? That drilling kinds in grammar is bad for them? Unfortunately, the answer is "Yes". In Kentucky several years ago, the educational establishment found a convenient way to enforce this. Under the state's assessment system, teachers were supposed to collect a sample of the students work and include it in a "portfolio." Each school's student portfolios were then gathered together and graded by state education bureaucrats. The school's portfolio score was then used, along with other test scores to dole out rewards and punishments.
Portfolios have been a craze in education for a number of years now, and in Kentucky they were used in a high stakes testing environment.
Since any paper a student wrote could conceivably be included in the students final portfolio, any paper was considered to be, broadly speaking, a part of a "test." And since it was considered a part of the test, teachers were not allowed, in any way, to indicate the correct answers to students. Because of this, it was actually considered a breach of ethics for teachers to tell show students the right way to spell or grammatically construct a sentence when they were helping them write papers. Such activity was considered no different than telling a child which bubble to fill in on a standardized test.
But the question is why the education establishment is changing its mind on the dangers of grammar. Veith remarks on how this change is being rationalized: "'To diagram a sentence is to deconstruct it.' Sentence diagramming, when seen correctly, is not going back to a traditional approach to education that produced good writers. Rather, it is really postmodernist, and so it's OK."
And you wondered what was wrong with our schools.
I was reminded of this when I read Gene Edward Veith's post today at his blog "Cranach" concerning the news that grammar is now "in" again. Once again, I had to ask myself, are there not some things that should just be accepted in the common course of experience, rather than subject to the whims of some kind of craze?
Ooops. Bad question to ask when it comes to education policy.
Fact is the Paris fashion industry (if they still dictate clothing design like they used to) has nothing on the education establishment, where newest fads and gimmicks drive what gets taught in the nation's public schools.
According to Veith, The National Council of Teachers of English has reversed "it's long opposition to grammar drills, which the group had condemned in 1985 as 'a deterrent to the improvement of students' speaking and writing.'"
That's right. The group that poses as the board of bishops for the teaching of English in America was opposed to grammar drills. That in itself should cause us to cover ourselves in sackloth and ashes and ask forgiveness for allowing such a group to exist in the first place.
Do people really believe this? That drilling kinds in grammar is bad for them? Unfortunately, the answer is "Yes". In Kentucky several years ago, the educational establishment found a convenient way to enforce this. Under the state's assessment system, teachers were supposed to collect a sample of the students work and include it in a "portfolio." Each school's student portfolios were then gathered together and graded by state education bureaucrats. The school's portfolio score was then used, along with other test scores to dole out rewards and punishments.
Portfolios have been a craze in education for a number of years now, and in Kentucky they were used in a high stakes testing environment.
Since any paper a student wrote could conceivably be included in the students final portfolio, any paper was considered to be, broadly speaking, a part of a "test." And since it was considered a part of the test, teachers were not allowed, in any way, to indicate the correct answers to students. Because of this, it was actually considered a breach of ethics for teachers to tell show students the right way to spell or grammatically construct a sentence when they were helping them write papers. Such activity was considered no different than telling a child which bubble to fill in on a standardized test.
But the question is why the education establishment is changing its mind on the dangers of grammar. Veith remarks on how this change is being rationalized: "'To diagram a sentence is to deconstruct it.' Sentence diagramming, when seen correctly, is not going back to a traditional approach to education that produced good writers. Rather, it is really postmodernist, and so it's OK."
And you wondered what was wrong with our schools.
Monday, October 23, 2006
My nominations for modern Christian satirists
The folks over at Worldviews, the World Magazine blog, make the observation that political satire is tres chic these days, citing such luminaries as Stephen Colbert and Ann Coulter. They then ask whether anyone has examples of contemporary Christian literature that "lampoons" the current state of the world.
Well, I suppose it depends on your definition of "contemporary", but I would think that many of the novels of G. K. Chesterton (circa. 1874-1936) would have to count, as well as much of his non-fiction, particularly books like Heretics and Orthodoxy, and many of his newspaper columns. And certainly Walker Percy's novels, particularly Love in the Ruins, and The Thanatos Syndrome, which are wildly clever send-ups of the pathologies of modern life and thought, would have to be considered.
And while we're talking about Christian satire, a web search turns up the very interesting post at "John Mark Ministries" on the subject of Christian satire.
Well, I suppose it depends on your definition of "contemporary", but I would think that many of the novels of G. K. Chesterton (circa. 1874-1936) would have to count, as well as much of his non-fiction, particularly books like Heretics and Orthodoxy, and many of his newspaper columns. And certainly Walker Percy's novels, particularly Love in the Ruins, and The Thanatos Syndrome, which are wildly clever send-ups of the pathologies of modern life and thought, would have to be considered.
And while we're talking about Christian satire, a web search turns up the very interesting post at "John Mark Ministries" on the subject of Christian satire.
Another modern art outrage
G. K. Chesterton once said that all art involves "drawing aline somewhere." Some art critics are wanting to draw the line somewhere this side ofa a new exhibition at the Chapter Art Centre in Cardiff, England, where, according to the Daily Mail, a new exhibition that features, well, nothing. Artist Simon Pope says visitors to the empty exhibit hall are to use the opportunity to remember exhibitions at another museum. "You are asked to summon up these remote spaces - through memory, body, speech and movement - so that they exist at two locations simultaneously, both here and there."
Hmmm.
Pope says the exhibition is to foster a greater awareness of psychosis by putting visitors in the frame of mind of someone suffering from "reduplicative paramnesia," a "rare delusional belief that a place or location has been duplicated, existing in more than one place simultaneously, or that it has been 'relocated' to another site."
This has not a few visitors accusing Pope of engaging in a practical joke. Maybe they should put stops on the checks they used to pay to enter the exhibit and ask the museum to "imagine" that the checks are good.
And museums wonder why it's so hard to find funding.
Hmmm.
Pope says the exhibition is to foster a greater awareness of psychosis by putting visitors in the frame of mind of someone suffering from "reduplicative paramnesia," a "rare delusional belief that a place or location has been duplicated, existing in more than one place simultaneously, or that it has been 'relocated' to another site."
This has not a few visitors accusing Pope of engaging in a practical joke. Maybe they should put stops on the checks they used to pay to enter the exhibit and ask the museum to "imagine" that the checks are good.
And museums wonder why it's so hard to find funding.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Wait! There's one more booklist!
Well, discussions of book lists are sweeping evangelicaldom, and, like almost every other craze that hits it, it is being taken too far (and is this post just making the problem worse? Well, probably so). Christianity Today started it, with its list of the "50 Books that Influenced Evangelicals." Then came the lists of "50 Books that Should Have Influenced Evangelicals." Then the "50 books that You Should Leave on the Shelf."
Now evangelical publishing has come in for a lot of criticism for its trendiness and insipidity--almost all of it well deserved. But there's no better criticism than ridicule, and so you have to appreciate the folks over at Purgatorio, who have constructed the greatest evangelical booklist of them all: 50 Potential Christian Bestsellers.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Now evangelical publishing has come in for a lot of criticism for its trendiness and insipidity--almost all of it well deserved. But there's no better criticism than ridicule, and so you have to appreciate the folks over at Purgatorio, who have constructed the greatest evangelical booklist of them all: 50 Potential Christian Bestsellers.
Here are a few of my favorites:
- I’m Totally Depraved, You’re Totally Depraved
- 40 or so Days more-or-less of Purpose
- Steal This Book- Then Repent, Bring it Back, and Confess
- Pretty Good People in the Hands of an Ambivalent God
- Y3K - Countdown to Armageddon
- Raptured By Mistake - Book I of the “I Should Have Been Left Behind” series
- For Men and Women Only - A Straightforward Guide to Stuff You Already Know
- I Kissed Bundling Goodbye
- Noing God: Tales from the Bible on How to Refuse God and Live to Tell About it
- What on Earth Am I Here For and Why On Earth Do I Keep Asking Myself these Questions?
- The Openness of God: How 5 Theologians Go to Heaven only to find it ‘Closed for the Season’
- Reimagining Jesus Until I Like What I See
- Capitulating: Unveiling the Mystery of Keeping Your Wife from Getting Mad at You When You Want to Run Around and Do “Wild at Heart” Kind of Guy Stuff
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Taking Dawkins seriously
Apparently a link to my post on the debate between crusading atheist Richard Dawkins and Catholic journalist David Quinn was displayed over at http://www.ravingatheist.com (a web address that should explain itself).
I suppose it would be good web manners to return the favor and direct readers over to their site where you can find the transcript of the Dawkins/Quinn debate. They can't be all bad over at The Raving Atheist: a G. K. Chesterton quote is prominently displayed on their home page. I'm sure G.K.C. would have found it amusing that he would be approvingly quoted in an atheist publication.
The result of the post has been quite a few hits on this blog, several, apparently, from cheerleaders for Dawkins. I thought Quinn clearly bested Dawkins, and I explained why in a comment on the earlier post. That doesn't mean atheism has been vanquished; it just means he didn't acquite himself well on that particular occasion. The cheerleaders don't see it that way, but then again, it's not the job of cheerleaders to engage in substantive critiques of their own side. They're just there to wave the pom-poms.
I thought, on the other hand, that Dawkins was smooth and competant in the exchange with Stephen Colbert. Colbert was funnier, but that's his job. Dawkins job is to be persuasive, which in that interview, I think he was.
I posted the links to the debate not because I think Dawkins is to be dismissed; quite the contrary. I posted the link precisely because Dawkins cannot be dismissed and any Christian who does so needs to have his head examined.
I think Dawkins is the most dangerous living opponent of Christianity. He is smart, articulate, and--to many people--convincing. That doesn't mean he's right; it just means he's persuasive. So when someone does as well as Quinn did against someone as formidible as Dawkins, it's an event.
It is because he is so capable at defending his position that his new book, The God Delusion, is such a great disappointment, and it is a great disappointment because Dawkins himself has failed to fully appreciate the strength and persuasiveness of the arguments he attacks. It is his fatal flaw.
I will have more to say on that in a review of the book that will be posted here next week.
I suppose it would be good web manners to return the favor and direct readers over to their site where you can find the transcript of the Dawkins/Quinn debate. They can't be all bad over at The Raving Atheist: a G. K. Chesterton quote is prominently displayed on their home page. I'm sure G.K.C. would have found it amusing that he would be approvingly quoted in an atheist publication.
The result of the post has been quite a few hits on this blog, several, apparently, from cheerleaders for Dawkins. I thought Quinn clearly bested Dawkins, and I explained why in a comment on the earlier post. That doesn't mean atheism has been vanquished; it just means he didn't acquite himself well on that particular occasion. The cheerleaders don't see it that way, but then again, it's not the job of cheerleaders to engage in substantive critiques of their own side. They're just there to wave the pom-poms.
I thought, on the other hand, that Dawkins was smooth and competant in the exchange with Stephen Colbert. Colbert was funnier, but that's his job. Dawkins job is to be persuasive, which in that interview, I think he was.
I posted the links to the debate not because I think Dawkins is to be dismissed; quite the contrary. I posted the link precisely because Dawkins cannot be dismissed and any Christian who does so needs to have his head examined.
I think Dawkins is the most dangerous living opponent of Christianity. He is smart, articulate, and--to many people--convincing. That doesn't mean he's right; it just means he's persuasive. So when someone does as well as Quinn did against someone as formidible as Dawkins, it's an event.
It is because he is so capable at defending his position that his new book, The God Delusion, is such a great disappointment, and it is a great disappointment because Dawkins himself has failed to fully appreciate the strength and persuasiveness of the arguments he attacks. It is his fatal flaw.
I will have more to say on that in a review of the book that will be posted here next week.
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