Paradise Lost

Conversation between Bobby and me:

B:

1. There’s a hegemonic culture (including its myths) in the U.S. Many Americans are, naturally, deeply attached to it. Their identity and station are comprehensible only through it.

Me:

And it’s deeply tied not only their sense of identity but to their religion. Much of America’s problem goes back to the Puritan roots of our political culture.  “We are the one and only true religion and all other religions must be suppressed. We are God’s new chosen people and since God makes no errors…”

To put it another way,

🎶We are the champions

We are the champions

No time for losers

'Cause we are the champions of the World🎶

Instead of ‘in God we trust’ maybe our national motto should be ‘no time for losers’.

B: 

2. A premise of Progressivism is that this hegemony is unjust. Social justice means prioritizing Americans on the perceived margins in order to reduce those margins, even at the expense of the existing cultural milieu. 

Me: This is seen as an attack on their religion. In their minds, it’s not just enough to be free to practice their religion, they must be free to force it on everyone else. That is why the Puritans came to America. They actually had almost total religious freedom in Holland. The only freedom they were denied in that nation, to which they had emigrated to escape suppression in England, was the right to suppress other religions. So they came to America to acquire the religious freedom to deny everyone else religious freedom.

What we are now experiencing have been called culture wars but they really aren’t. They are religious wars. Just like the great European wars of religion, they think they are operating in the name of God.

“We're on a mission from God.” — Elwood Blues

Remember, the Puritans were also millennialists. Christ is coming any moment, but not until we prepare the Way. Today’s conservatives are ultra religious and they are preparing the Way for Jesus. Thus, the world can finally end. Yay!

B:  

3. Cultural rivals are not seeking peaceful coexistence but domination. Culture is persistently being renegotiated. But, conservatives believe (have been convinced) that the liberal counterparties are not jockeying in good faith. The current Progressive agenda can only be realized by way of destroying the very hegemony that situates conservative in social life. There was no bargain to strike. 

Me: Your point is absolutely correct. Conservatives are creating a forced choice-false dichotomy. In their minds it is a complete zero sum game, winner take all situation. Like the Puritans, it’s not enough that they are free to practice their religion as they wish; they must ensure that no one else can practice a different religion.  Why? Because everyone else is a servant of Satan. Do you want Satan to win?

This is a holy crusade and they are fighting for the very survival of God against Satan. Which is a bit strange considering that God is all powerful and Satan is absolutely certain to lose, no matter what. 

One of the reasons they are so contemptuous of democracy is because they have never believed in democracy; not for a single moment. Christ is the king. He is the true king. His rule is absolute and genuinely divine. Not only the law but even what is moral or immoral, right or wrong, depends on whatever he says it is. Nothing is forbidden, nothing is justified,  except insofar as he declares.

B: 

4. This means that politicians and Americans maintaining the cultural bargaining game were, at best, practicing appeasement. Chamberlains all. Capitulators to existential risk. 

Me: Except even worse, because they are not appeasing Hitler, they are appeasing Lucifer.

B:  

5. If you are in a bargaining coalition and a counterparty coalition aims don’t entail any shared bargaining space, then end negotiation altogether. It pressures your own coalition to follow because they would lose more leverage without you.

Me: You can’t compromise with evil and claim to be a moral person. This is a case of an absolute. They would insist it is not a false dichotomy but a holy, God blessed dichotomy.

B:  

6. Trump rejected the premise to bargain with culture antagonists. Mock, berate, antagonize, self-glorify, mythologize. Be "grab 'em by the pussy Jesus billionaire el Duce." He's the only one who 'gets' it. The hordes are at the gates. 

Me:  And of course he’s the Chosen One. We are the Chosen People and he is the One Chosen to lead the Chosen People. His followers seem to be confused as to whether Trump is Moses or Jesus or maybe a combination of both.  In any event, he adds the extra wonderful appeal of saying it’s OK to be a disgusting, crude, violent, racist, bully. Be just as disgusting as you’ve ever wanted to be.  It is no longer rude.  It’s not even merely acceptable. It is praiseworthy!

B:  I suspect that conservative media has played a crucial part in successfully inflating the threat with the 'bad faith actors' narrative. 

Me: Thank you, Ronald Reagan, for getting rid of the Fairness Act which formerly kept political reporting in America fair and balanced. (And by that I mean actually fair and genuinely balanced.) Say, have I ever mentioned you just how much I believe that all the horrors we are facing today can be traced directly back to the incompetence and prejudice of Ronald Reagan?

I think I may have mentioned it once or twice.

Putting another way, I agree with everything you said, I just see it through a lens of religious extremism. I am convinced that all of our problems can be summed up as identical to much of the problem Israel faces. What do we do with the ultra religious?