Love and Tolerance Are NOT the Same Thing, Part 2

Continuing with my response to Tim Bednar from below, let me, for the ease of analysis, share with you Tim's post, "Stupid Culture War."

As one who is planting a church in a liberal bastion of a liberal state (and who is a liberal himself), I find the current culture wars appalling and regrettable. Laurie Spivak frames recent events:

The march to the culture war began last summer when the Supreme Court overturned state laws that criminalize consenting sexual relationships between same sex couples. Within months, the Fab Five of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy sashayed onto the scene, Britney kissed Madonna, followed by the last straw, one of Janet Jackson's bejeweled breasts appearing at the Super Bowl.

Ex post haste [sic] and as predicted by Newton's third law of the universe - for every force there is an equal and opposite force - the culture war offensive began. The FCC called for a "thorough and swift" probe of Janet's breast. A five-second delay for censors was instituted at the Grammys and the Oscars. President Bush made an official declaration of war by calling for a constitutional amendment to ban marriage between same sex couples. "The Passion of the Christ," one of the most violent films ever made, stormed box offices with thousands of tickets pre-sold to church congregations. And Clear Channel pulled the plug on Howard Stern.

I just want those who call themselves conservatives to stop and think. These kind of culture wars are stupid and ineffective. AND they offend us liberals (of the Christian and nonChristian variety) to the point of really, really NOT wanting to have anything to do with the so-called church. Just a thought. You may turn the tide on the culture war, but you may in turn be cutting yourself off from genuine dialog with the nonChristian left (and the Christian--yes I said Christian--left).

AND us liberals, we better live up to our values of respect and tolerance in the midst of all this. If not, we are guilty of the same mistake.

I tried in Part 1 to give you an idea of where I tie my goat. It's up to you now to try to get it, I suppose. I've noted yesterday how much trouble I've had putting this response together.

Last night I shared part of an earlier version with Leighton in which I provided a snarky translation of Tim's words into "conservative-speak," which is to say, I wrote an interlinear translation of how I think Tim's post comes across to a hypothetical conservative. I figure that if I can elicit a chuckle from my Canadian friends, an entire nation of people who pride themselves on their inherent niceness (Americans without the edge?), then it must not be too bad, right?

And yet, I realized that trying to make light of it is just my time-honored way of avoiding confrontation, appropriate confrontation in this case, I believe. I find myself thinking at this point that I may regret saying what follows because it's hard to back away from blunt, unequivocal statements, but I also feel like I need to quit sashaying around the issue.

I think Tim effectively tells people on either side of the political/ cultural/ theological spectrum that there is nothing in which we believe, no value that we hold, that should ever be allowed to trump what he appears to present as his core value, namely, tolerance. The manner in which he does this takes a broom to a highly nuanced, continuous spectrum of present-day and historic belief and sweeps the elements of that spectrum to one side or the other, leaving behind two poles instead a spectrum of connectedness and, dare I say it, community. Koinonia.

I take issue with his framing of this conversation in this manner because it is apparent, at least to this reader, that a conversation is not what he's interested in. Not one that is based in mutuality, at any rate, and that's not conversation; it's pontification. It's presumptuous. It's bigoted. It's offensive when he does it, and it's usually even more offensive when I do it. It's something that we do to one another in the body of Christ far too often, and we need to stop doing it to one another. Now.

If you, from your perspective, spent your life 24/7/365 swimming in a culture that seems consistently hostile to your worldview and values and consistently undermines your efforts to transmit those values to your children, how would you read what Tim wrote? That may not be where I live, personally, but I cherish friendships with a lot of people who do. And frankly, many of us, regardless of where we find ourselves on the right-hand side of the political teeter-totter, want to know why the folks on the other side of the balance, the yin to our yang, so often presume the inherent moral rectitude of their values at the expense of ours. (And yes, we do the same thing as well to them.)

Why is it that our values are considered inherently suspect for no other reason than that they are "establishment" values? Why is it wrong for us to be leery of people who want to play science experiment with the fabric of our lives when they have no idea what the outcome of the experiment might be, but doggone, it sure is a kickin' hypothesis? Why are they enlightened, but we're bigots?

I understand that many cultural values are historically and socially conditioned. I studied the same history other people studied. I understand that many so-called "traditional" values have been used to manipulate and oppress people who have no power. But do we have to look at every issue through the eyes of Marx or Foucault? After all the thousands of years of recorded human history, are these the only philosophers that got it right?

I look at Tim's blog, and I see that darling photo of him and his precious baby girl. I have two daughters myself. The older one is in second grade, the younger one starts Kindergarten next year. Already I am fighting what often feels like a losing battle to counter values that are contrary to the values I wish to instill in them. The school system's discipline process, based on behavioralism, can only use positive feedback to discipline a child.

Sounds good, right? Want to know how that works? Well, they put a "gumball machine" made of construction paper up on the wall with little Velcro-backed construction paper "gumballs." If you misbehave badly enough, you get your gumball moved out of the machine, and you lose the chance to get a toy out of the "treasure chest" at the end of the week. You get a warning first. And even if you get your gumball moved, all is not lost -- you can still "earn it back" with sufficiently good behavior.

So what's my problem with that? Oh, nothing much. We just believe and try to instill in our girls that good behavior is its own reward. We expect them to behave well, not because of what it will get them, but because it's what well-mannered children do. Imagine our joy when they, based on the values taught in the school system, try to negotiate with us how long they have to behave well in order to "earn" back our good graces.

How am I supposed to feel when I can't allow them to watch Nickelodeon unsupervised because so many of the cartoon kid characters in these shows are just smart-mouthed little brats? Just change the channel, you say? Just how many channels am I supposed to change?

Don't be upset when a group of performers grabs their crotch or flashes a bejeweled breast at them? How then do I explain to my daughters that wiggling their backsides in a manner that mimics more sexually provocative moves isn't appropriate? Am I just being anal to think that young girls who don't even know where babies really come from yet (other than that they grow in their mommy's tummy) have no business "shakin' that groove thing?" What am I supposed to tell them when they go to dance competitions and watch their peers shaking racks that they don't even have yet because that's what the big girls do?

Our neighbor's 12 year old daughter already tells of a middle school (grades 6-8 here in Charlotte, ages 11-13) culture that draws no distinction between kissing and oral sex as appropriate activities to conclude a date. Am I being stupid and ineffective as a witness for Christ to suggest that when they reply that oral sex isn't really sex, that didn't arise in a cultural vacuum? I have, at best, four more years to fortify the walls against that kind of value system, and already I feel as though I'm fighting a losing battle.

I don't believe in some vast left wing conspiracy to take over the hearts and minds of our children -- that would be a view some would accuse us of having on the right wing side of things. I don't believe that liberals are in league with the devil.

But would someone at least grant me the courtesy of acknowledging that with the tip of the iceberg staring at us straight off the bow, perhaps we have a legitimate stake in suggesting to the helmsman that a slight course correction is in order?

Let me conclude with part of a Dennis Prager column from this week:

The eyes and the heart form an extraordinarily powerful force. They can only be overcome when formulating policies by a mind and a value system that are stronger than the heart-eye duo.

With the decline of Judeo-Christian religions, the heart, shaped by what the eye sees (hence the power of television), has become the source of people's moral decisions.

This is a potentially fatal problem for our civilization. As beautiful as the heart might be, it is neither intellectually nor morally profound.

It is therefore frightening that hundreds of millions of people find no problem in acknowledging that their heart is the source of their values. Their heart knows better than thousands of years of accumulated wisdom; better than religions shaped by most of the finest thinkers of our civilization (and, to the believer, by God); and better than the book that has guided our society -- from the Founders of our uniquely successful society to the foes of slavery to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and most of the leaders of the struggle for racial equality.

This elevation of one's heart is well beyond self-confidence -- it is self-deification.

Posted by Mike at March 17, 2004 10:39 PM | TrackBack