I'm glad to see all the discussion sparked by my last post (No Mistake: Why Michele Bachmann Is Trying to Rewrite History). That post explains how Michele Bachmann's alternative history of the founding fathers comes from the debunked teachings of Evangelical pseudo-historian David Barton. Some of the comments on the post, though, reflect the resilience of Barton's influence. And they highlight what I think is one of the main forces driving Bachmann and the right wing on their flight into irrationality: the fear of complexity. In place of it, the right wants to substitute radically simplified fictions, whether about history, or about climate change, homosexuality or the debt ceiling.
A couple of examples from the comments:
1) The view of Democrats as champions of civil rights is false. The truth the elites don't want you to know is that Democrats fought against civil rights for much of our history, and Republicans are its champions. The GOP's deepest shame on civil rights dates from the 60's. That decade saw the party of Lincoln betray its roots by adopting the Southern Strategy, wooing the racists who were then being abandoned by the Democratic Party. Before the 60's, it was the Democrats who had an unholy bargain with racists. Democrats readily recognize that. Unlike the current version of the GOP, Democrats are not rewriting history to make their positions of today look better.
2) The idea that the original Constitution protected slavery is based only on a distorted reading of the "three-fifths clause". The founders actually intended that clause as a clever ploy to erode slavery, by reducing the representation of Southerners in Congress. The Constitution protects slavery in not just one but three places (some argue there are more):
The three-fifths clause was not an anti-slavery ploy, but a compromise among paradoxes: The anti-slavery side would normally have demanded full personhood for slaves -- except that would have given the pro-slavery South a large advantage in Congress, when all those slaves were counted up in the census. Meanwhile the pro-slavery side's stance implied non-personhood -- but that would have given the anti-slavery Northerners the advantage, and in any case was morally unacceptable to many of those Northerners. The three-fifths clause attempted to resolve these paradoxes.
The truth, as usual, is complex. But complexity is what the right-wing historical revisionists don't like. They prefer to reduce it to binary choices of right-wrong, good-evil. We see this on the extreme left, too, where some argue that because the founders did not extend full rights to slaves, women or Native-Americans, they were no better than any other white, male oppressors. For that matter, we see it among Islamic fundamentalists, who believe that because America does some things wrong, it does everything wrong.
What all these people seem to have in common is an inability to cope with complexity. Complexity results inevitably from our ever-expanding knowledge of reality, and so is one of the core challenges posed by living in the modern world. Much of the turmoil we now see around the world originates with those who are failing to meet that challenge. Things were a lot simpler when we knew less, so their solution is to try to know less once again. No doubt this also driving a lot of substance abuse.
But the trouble with knowledge is that -- absent a Dark Ages, or unconsciousness -- it's hard to make it go away. We need to learn to handle it, to live with complexity. We should be able to celebrate the courage and genius of the founders, and the magnificence of the Constitution, without having to pretend away their flaws. We should be able to debate interpretations of history without falsifying history itself.
It is that falsification, not their opinions, that is the risk posed by Barton, Bachmann and their fellows. Democracy depends on freedom of opinion based on a shared trust in evidence and reason. Without that shared trust, opinions just become a matter of who has more power. Ironically, this is where American right-wing extremists line up with French, left-wing post modernists.
It's not surprising that at the center of David Barton's revisionism is his attack on the Constitutional separation of church and state: he wants to make everything a matter of (Evangelical Christian) faith. As the founders understood so well, that is fundamentally undemocratic.
Follow Spencer Critchley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/scritchley
There has always been vigorous civic debate in this country, but up until about 40 years ago, there was only one set of facts, and different interpretations or views of those facts. What has happened is an acceptance of creating "facts" that fit your narrative.
I suspect it began before Fox News, but their motto "Fair and Balanced" obviously means " Facts that fit your ideology, true or not" and has become accepted by newspaper editors, and schools as well, and the internet has provided along with the gift of being able to confirm facts in a matter of minutes, the curse of spreading even more junk thinking on to its practitioners.
Real discourse is impossible under those conditions, and we have become a "house divided" once more.
Same way sea urchins "got here."
No.
Your body decomposes.
I wish there was a way for the media, or other candidates for office, to point-blank ask questions like "Do you believe we're living -- right now -- in the End Times?" or "Do you believe that First Amendment-based religious liberties are only applicable to Christians?" or "Do you believe that the speed of light is inconstant?" Or any other questions that would expose disconnections from reality, disbelief in the future of humanity, and religion-based bigotry.
"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. "
-- Robert A. Heinlein, Postscript to "Revolt in 2100"
"...motives like wanting to find the truth, not wanting to be mistaken, etc., tend to align with epistemic goals in a way that many other commitments do not. ...all reasoning may be inextricable from emotion. But if a person’s primary motivation in holding a belief is to hew to a positive state of mind – to mitigate feelings of anxiety, embarrassment, or guilt, for instance – this is precisely what we mean by phrases like ‘wishful thinking’ and ‘self-deception.’ Such a person will, of necessity, be less responsive to valid chains of evidence and argument than run counter to the beliefs he is seeking to maintain." (p. 126)
So when they become politicians, they will put all of that complex thinking to good use trying to show the rest of us the right path to both fiscal and social salvation. Some great examples of this complex thinking in the past are, of course, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. And we also see quite a few great modern examples of complex thinking in the Republican and Tea Party today...Grover Norquist, Jim Jordan, Sarah Palin, etc., etc.
Along with complex Bible studies, they have extensively studied Socialism, so they can identify other politicians in their midst that have those leanings...such as President Obama and Nancy Pelosi. It also takes a lot of complex thinking to subvert a political party and get your constituency to vote against their own self-interest to further your idealistic beliefs and political agenda.
No, no...they don't fear complexity...they have plans for us all!
The rigidity of fundamentalism keeps societies in the dark ages, because creativity and new ideas are anti dogma and considered blasphemous.
But modernity instead.
That's not a battle cry. It simply results from the observation that the moderns are the only ones who won't allow themselves to be confused by the idea that the debt ceiling has anything to do with homosexuality.
People like Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh do not demonstrate critical thinking skills Palin attended 5 or 6 colleges, but doesn't show a degree. Beck and Limbaugh attend one quarter. Yet these are the people that the far right listen to, people with no creditability but the ability to take money from sheeple.
Really? I want to see the long form.
http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/08/sarah-palins-crazy-college-daze.html