April 05, 2003

You can't say that on

You can't say that on television!

Good and evil, I mean.

The other day I wrote a little thing about Old Europe's tendency to look to a sensationalist caricature of evangelical Christianity as way to elucidate a US foreign policy and a presidential manner that they find otherwise inexplicable. I basically concluded that it results partly from mere superciliousness and the pure enjoyment of ridiculing an "inferior" alien cultural phenomenon; but more fundamentally from a genuine discomfort with the very idea of moral absolutes like Good and Evil, a discomfort so distinct that anyone who breaks the taboo is automatically suspect as some kind of extremist weirdo. Even the clergy are extremely circumspect about treading on such treacherous ground (though it must be added this quality is shared by much of our own clergy as well.) When confronted with someone like Bush, who states plainly that he can recognize evil and "call it by its name" (and who, unlike many of their own moralists, really seems to mean it) such anxious onlookers are truly at a loss. They are only able to understand such behavior as a form of religious delusion, only able to describe it or render it intelligible in terms of a primitive, slightly ludicrous, madness. One man's sophistication is another man's intellectual corruption, I suppose.

I'm not sure where Great Britain, with its Gladstonian Prime Minister, fits into this Old Europe. I suppose the Anglosphere countries, even when quite old, are exempt by definition, though this attitude is found as often in Britain as anywhere else.

Anyway, I mention that because I just saw a special edition of the BBC's Newsnight which is a great illustration of it. The lead-in docu-clip was a snicker-inducingly somber, often ludicrous treatment of evangelical Christianity's influence in American politics, including dark hints that GWB himself might just be one of those millenarian rapture-happy fanatics whose policies are born of a desire to spark Armageddon and literally bring on the End of Days.

The panel afterwards was enlivened by history of religions professor Randall Balmer, who fell all over himself trying to agree with the premise, and redeemed by the sane voice of Christopher Hitchens (who may be the only man now living who can out-argue Jeremy Paxman-- satisfying in itself, that.) The central point of contention was whether or not inflammatory Manichean talk about good and evil is ever appropriate or defensible in this putatively post-evil day and age. (I've made my own view clear: any sense of decorum or propriety which prohibits people from applying the word "evil" to Saddam Hussein is beyond question a hindrance rather than an aid to useful discussion.)

Most humorous moment: Professor Balmer's apparently serious claim, eliciting apparently serious sage nods from Paxman, that Jimmy Carter's evangelical Christianity differed from GWB's in that it championed the liberal, transnational, pacifist views held by Jesus, while GWB's version preferred the dangerous, failed diplomacy and unilateralism of the vengeful, frightening God of the Old Testament. ("You can see this by looking at how their foreign policies have played out," he said, helpfully.) I'm not even exaggerating that much.

As always, Hitchens is astoundingly articulate, each rapid-fire extemporaneous response sounding as though it had been painstakingly composed over the course of a few days and run by multiple editors. (I know he's probably said 'em so many times he could do it in his sleep, but still it impresses the hell out of me-- I couldn't extemporize myself out of a paper bag.) No transcript yet, and too many bon mots to transcribe, but here's a good one:

No president after 9/11 was going to stand up and say to people, look, probably this was partly our fault. Maybe we deserved it, maybe we should be introspective. People didn't want to hear that and it wouldn't have been true. They were up against people who took a positive relish in murder. And I don't think "evil" is too much of an exaggeration to describe bin Ladenism. It's certainly not too rough a word for the twenty-five years of misery and fascism with which Saddam Hussein has afflicted his own people in Iraq.

Watch the clip-- it's a hoot.

Posted by Dr. Frank at April 5, 2003 04:11 PM | TrackBack