Culture Warrior
As if the Christian radio and Quiverfull article didn't bring on enough anxiety I then proceed to watch the unsettling little documentary, Jesus Camp. Graeme had a little discussion of this disturbing film over on his blog but I didn't realize that much of it concerns the same area of Missouri I was just visiting and where we saw the film. (We made it back to Montana last night, thank the Lord) So there was that odd coincidence. Much has been made of this whole "culture war" meme with some commentators dismissing the notion as overblown and others pinpointing it as the epicenter of this terrain of civilizational conflict.Revolutionary Blogger reminds me in the last thread of the difficult problem of stereotyping and generalizing, and I wonder how necessary is the empirical for this discussion and how valid are "general" impressions and observations as a casual student of the human condition? Could I start going to some of these fundamentalist churches, visiting some of their websites, seeking them out for discussion in order to more accurately guage their impact and influence?
I know the French and Dutch and other "modern" european societies are experiencing this same tumultuous conflict, brought on in large part by reaction to Muslim immigration, but exacerbated by other contradictions of culture, politics and economy. The French Right exemplified by LaPenn (spelling?) is calling for a return to Catholic orthodoxy, priests facing the alter, speaking the old latin. Others around the world want to RETURN to a time rather than PROGRESS to the next stage. Islam, Hindus struggling with a caste system, Christians and the 50s, all in conflict over tradition, values and the frightening modern.
posted by troutsky @ 9:44 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I saw "Jesus camp".
My impression is that it is slightly dated. The Christian right's strength, I thought was exagerated. They are loud, but not that powerful.
It is a difficult thing to gauge, renegade.Born- agains hold some serious political power, at the Bush/Ashcroft level, and in certain corporate media sectors but within the clique of global capitalist elites I don't know that religion plays an important role.But it does provide cover for their agenda of privitization and enclosure of the public sphere.
The militantly Christian folks curried by the Bush administration are for votes only and called "nut cases" when not in the room. Politicians would be for the Black Panthers if they thought it would get them votes. Any morality beyond greed attributed to the neocons is ignoring their real agenda growing more obvious every day as they keep shipping middle class jobs overseas to increase the gulf between them and college graduates now flipping burgers 60 hours a week just to keep their unaffordable mcmansion graduation presents.
As to the terrain of civilizational conflict, I have a feeling it will not be about religion, or politics or even land. It will have to do with the uniting of indigenous people around the world drawing solidarity from the equally ignored, growing lower classes amongst the invading taker cultures to create an organization of peoples totaly independent of the elites' structures and autonomous to themselves, thereby removing the power they neocons dream on while riding our backs.
My reaction to Jesus camp;
The Creepiest Movie Ever!
I think the Christian right came out this last election. Some of the democrats running sounded more like conservative bible thumpers than the republicans did
I to sense the growing resistance of indigenous peoples to their marginalization, gregrangar.It will be a long struggle for US indigenous because of the terrible, damaged condition the tribes are in (mostly).It will be a long struggle for all of them after centuries of colonial exploitation and now neo-liberal enclosure.But thats what we're here for,struggle!
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