For years, I’ve had a category on my blog called “The New Puritans,” with posts on the topic dating back to nearly its start.
But a group of articles making the rounds this weekend reminds us that the left’s puritanical streak isn’t all that new. First up, in an essay titled, “Our Puritanical Progressives,” George Will flashes back to the days of the toughest Super-Villain Batman and Robin went up against in the 1950s, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham. Today, many comic book fans likely think of Wertham as some sort of arch-conservative member of the biblical Moral Majority; Will reminds us that he was nothing of the sort:
In 1954, Fredric Wertham brought science — very loosely defined — to the subject of juvenile crime. Formerly chief resident in psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, he was politically progressive: When he opened a clinic in Harlem, he named it for Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx’s son-in-law who translated portions of “Das Kapital” into French, thereby facilitating the derangement of Parisian intellectuals.
AdvertisementWithout ever interviewing the convicted spy Ethel Rosenberg, Wertham testified on her behalf concerning what he called her “prison psychoses.” Since 1948, he had been campaigning against comic books, and his 1954 book, “Seduction of the Innocent,” which was praised by the progressive sociologist C. Wright Mills, became a bestseller by postulating a causal connection between comic books and the desensitization of young criminals: “Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry.”
Wertham was especially alarmed about the one-third of comic books that were horror comics, but his disapproval was capacious: Superman, who gave short shrift to due process in his crime-fighting, was a crypto-fascist. As for Batman and Robin, the “homoerotic tendencies” were patent.
Even before Wertham’s book appeared, a committee of New York’s legislature considered government licensing of comic-book publishers. More than a dozen states passed laws restricting sales of comic books – laws similar to the California one pertaining to video games. Some civic groups staged comic-book bonfires.
Comic-book publishers fended off such pressures by adopting a severe code of conduct. Soon even Betty and Veronica, those less-than-wanton femme fatales of the “Archie” comics, had their supposedly provocative protuberances made less so by donning looser-fitting blouses.
In 1956, fear of comic books was suddenly eclipsed by fear of Elvis Presley, whose pelvis would not be the last cause of moral panic. Pre-Presley panics had concerned ragtime music, “penny dreadful” novels, jazz, “penny theatres,” radio and movies. By 1926, seven states and at least 100 municipalities had censors who pre-screened movies. In 1940, NBC radio banned more than 140 songs that were thought to encourage, among other evils, “disrespect for virginity.” NBC would broadcast only the instrumental version of Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale.” Post-Presley panics about threats to children have concerned television (broadcast, then cable), rap music and the Internet.
The following decades would also see plenty of Malthusian progressives, who also brought their own uniquely puritanical streak to the ideas they attempted to foist onto society, as Brendan O’Neill writes as Spiked:
Reading an op-ed in an American newspaper last month, which argued that gay marriage should be legalised because it will help reduce overpopulation (homosexuals don’t breed, you see), I knew I had heard a similar sentiment somewhere before.‘Given the social hardships of our era, the benefits of homosexual marriage could be immeasurable’, the op-ed said. ‘Even America, though its population pales in comparison to that of other nations, is considered overpopulated because the amount of energy each of its citizens expends in a lifetime is enormous. Obviously homosexuals cannot, within the confines of a monogamous relationship, conceive offspring.’ So, legalising gay marriage would ‘indirectly limit population growth’.
Gays celebrated because they don’t have children… homosexual relationships culturally affirmed on the basis that their childlessness could help solve a planetary crisis… gay monogamy bigged up because it doesn’t involve conceiving offspring. Where had I heard such ideas before? Why did this promotion of homosexual relationships as a possible solution to the alleged problem of fertile, fecund heteros cramming the world with too many ankle-nippers sound familiar?
Then it struck me. It’s the storyline of Anthony Burgess’s Malthusian comedy-cum-nightmare, The Wanting Seed. In that 1962 dystopian novel, which I devoured during a Burgess phase in my teens, Burgess imagines a future England in which overpopulation is rife. There’s a Ministry of Infertility that tries desperately to keep a check on the gibbering masses squeezed into skyscraper after skyscraper, and it does so by demonising heterosexuality – it’s too fertile, too full of ‘childbearing lust’ – and actively promoting homosexuality.
It’s a world where straights are discriminated against because there’s nothing more disgusting and destructive than potential fertility, than a ‘full womanly figure’ or a man with ‘paternity lust’; straights are passed over for jobs and promotion in favour of homos, giving rise to a situation where some straights go so far as to pretend they are gay, adopting the ‘public skin of dandified epicene’, as Burgess describes it, in a desperate bid to make it in the world. There’s even a Homosex Institute, which runs night classes that turn people gay, all with the aim of reducing the ‘aura of fertility’ that hangs about society like a rank smell, as one official says. ‘It’s Sapiens to be Homo’ is the slogan of Burgess’s imagined world.
Now, nearly 50 years after Burgess’s novel outraged literary critics (one said it was ‘too offensive to finish’) as well as campaigners for the decriminalisation of homosexual sex (who were disgusted that Burgess could write of a homosexual tyranny while it was still illegal in Britain for one man to have sex with another), some of the sentiments of that weird invented world, of that fertility-demonising futuristic nightmare, are leaking into mainstream public debate – to the extent that a writer can claim, without igniting controversy, that ‘the benefits of homosexual marriage could be immeasurable’ in terms of dealing with the ‘social hardships’ of overpopulation. No, heteros are not discriminated against in favour of gays; there’s no Homosex Institute. But there is a creeping cultural validation of homosexuality in Malthusian terms, where the gay lifestyle is held up by some thinkers and activists as morally superior because it is less likely to produce offspring than the heterosexual lifestyle, in which every sexual encounter involves recklessly pointing a loaded gun of sperm at a willing and waiting target.
And this is not an isolated incident; Burgess is not the only imaginer of mad Malthusian worlds whose ideas have come to some kind of fruition. Such is the Malthusian tenor of our times, so deep-seated is the New Malthusian prejudice against fertility (the f-word of our era), and so widespread is the eco-view of human beings as little more than the hooverers-up of scarce resources, that bit by bit, unwittingly and unnoticed, some of the wackier authoritarian ideas of twentieth-century Malthus-infused literature are finding expression in our real world today.
But of course — note how well that passage dovetails into the Freakonomics argument on abortion that gave the amnesiac left the vapors a few years ago.
Puritans? hardly.
Oh there may be a few school ma’arms who believe leftist propaganda about world peace, diversity, social nirvana and the other claptrap ruse’s they throw out to trick the rubes into supporting them.
Amoral is the correct word choice. They will say or do anything to acquire and retain power. They wouldn’t know a principle if one hit them on the head. Obama is the poster boy.
It’s not just “progressive” leaders that will do anything to maintain control.
And I’m sure you’ll notice that the positions of both parties have changed over time, there’s a reason why most other countries use red for “radical” and blue for conservative.
No, it isn’t money and it isn’t power. From a Rightist perspective, those are good motivators, but Leftists are operating on another plane. Go back to the French Revo — the worst of the worst was Robespierre(?), “The Incorruptible”. His motivation, as with other purists like Lenin and Saul Alinsky is pure hatred of normal people, and the desire to control, and ultimately kill, them. The fact that the pure Left is ultimately aiming to depopulate the world is why they must be destroyed, not defeated. Personally, the fact that a group of people wants to kill me and my family makes the prospect of foiling their plans and then ending their swinish lives most excellent to contemplate. The same effect is evident in the change of Americans’ attitude towards alien peoples, from mild interest when they are in their own habitats, to implacable hostility when they show up in my country, aiming to change everything I do to their foreign satisfaction. Yep, get out, or get in the ground.
The argument that homosexual marriage will limit population growth is ridiculous on the face of it – it’s based on flawed assumptions. First, gay couples who aren’t married are already in infertile relationships; being married will not change their reproductive status. Second, it assumes that once gay relationships are de-stigmatized and gay couples are allowed to marry, that heterosexuals will somehow be tempted give homosexuality a try and enter into homosexual marriages. Sexuality is not such a fluid construct – most gay AND straight people will tell you that sexual orientation is largely fixed in adults. If it wasn’t, then centuries of disapproval and persecution would long ago have convinced homosexuals to give heterosexuality at try, and yet gays are still with us.
Puritanical Progressive? After spending ungodly amounts of tuition money for an indoctrinated stupid speech-coded social engineering business, sex, theAtre and religious degrees, the poor Ivy-Inbreds need something to give them life.
They are master blue-nosers, their Ivy-Inbred degrees are credentialed by blue-nosed masters with PHDs.
Strangest thing about Gay marriage.
As the LAW sttands today, Heterosexuals are not allowed to enter a contract of marriage with members of the same-sex YET Homosexuals are allowed to enter a contract of marriage with the opposite sex.
If Gay Marriage is allowed then such law is obviously discriminatory towards heterosexuals.
No doubt the Harvard-Inbred Lawyers and Law Professors will socially engineer the correct speech code to deal with the fact that enacting Homosexual marriage WILL lead to real discrimination against Heterosexual-tyrannis maximus, Alexander the Great had it. THe Crooked Man.
what would a typical obama prayer sound like ? hmmm …will he ask for a mustache like Stalin or Mugabe or for the prowess to actually be able to write his own memoirs.
Well, for one thing, he’d pray to himself…
that’s a bummer.
a mere mortal would see his mortality but he can still manages to fool himself.
@5 GPM
Dearest Allah…
There is one blindingly obvious reason why homosexual marriage will not necessarily lead to reduced population growth. While gays or lesbians cannot reproduce sexually with each other, they CAN adopt children. In some cases these will be unrelated children but, in some cases, they will adopt children that one or both partners had in prior heterosexual relationships. And, of course, lesbians can always have a male friend impregnate them, either directly, the old-fashioned way, or via indirect methods like in vitro fertilization.
Interesting article. I wonder how many people realize what the philosophical basis of the Puritans actually was (and is)?
I would refer you first of all to Rush Limbaugh’s famous article on “The True Story of Thanksgiving” (which details the essentially socialist nature of the original Puritan settlement at Plymouth and the true reason for its initial failure)
and the show segment “The Mayflower Pilgrims” at Issues, Etc (Nov 25, 2010).
The Puritans believed in greater “purity” of doctrine and practice, and believed that the Kingdom of God could be brought to fruition in this world through the deeds and righteousness of the faithful. They were, essentially, socialists seeking to create a paradise on Earth. (Beliefs contrary, BTW, to the actual teachings of Christ)
Yes, very Puritan, or more specifically, Calvinist.
The Calvinists held to a doctrine of Predestination: God had already chosen those who were saved or damned, and the saved were shown by their devotion to goodly lives (the Protestant Work Ethic) and higher status, the damned were shown by their “dissolute ways” and lower status.
Calvinists hated Kingly tyranny, and heavily annotated their bibles to show how Christ spoke out against tyranny. And so on. They did not dislike sex (in the married kind) but were obsessed beyond measure with status.
Status determined if you were saved, and just how beloved of God you were (there were many gradations).
This obsession with status has continued in Progressive Calvinist form to this day, with the saved and damned being shown by their economic/social status and “correct” beliefs.
The desire to destroy fertility of course only goes to “White Trash” (i.e. Catholic and Evangelical Whites), non-Whites as “Godly Magical Totems” (see any Hollywood movie with “Wise Non-White characters”) are totally exempt. Fantasies about killing Middle America (2012, Day After Tomorrow) specifically exempt Africa or Mexicans.
This should surprise no one — the struggle between a semi-hereditary Protestant elite that believes its temporal success entitles it to spiritual and political supremacy is as old as the textile revolutions and great burst of wealth around 1500 or so.
I’m no expert, but I get the feeling that the puritans have got a bad rap. My limited reading indicates that they really weren’t the fun-hating drab wowsers that we usually portray them as.
… and they didn’t hang, burn, and press witches either… oh wait, they did!
Yeah. Good call.
Just because Puritans burned witches, doesn’t mean that they didn’t like to have fun. On the contrary, it means that they were just as prone to witch-hunting hysteria as we are today.
Rather than congratulating ourselves and saying “We are nothing like those stupid Puritans!”, we should be cautious, and ask ourselves “Are we still like those stupid Puritans?”–and maybe, maybe we’ll manage to avoid burning witches in our own generation.
I’m not sure where there is to go with this. Is the inference that the left is more puritanical than the religious right, more repulsed by Batman Comics, more attuned to material wealth?
The point was also made that Puritans distrusted earthly wealth… sort of like Jesus?
The most I can get out of this is that there are elements of the Puritanical in Progressivism. Whether there are more or less of these elements than there are in “traditional folks” seems completely up in the air.
Can’t both be Puritanical or “liberal” just usually about the opposite things?
Well, do you see conservatives banning toilets that use “too much” water, making it prohibitive to make incandescent light bulbs in favor of mercury-vapor filled compact fluorescents, and banning Happy Meals? I wonder if it was the word “Happy” that offended the Puritanical Progressives.
“I’m not sure where there is to go with this”
Here, how about some help D-White?
38. Dwight
“I like to hunt…”
October 20, 2010 – 5:14 am
Take a plane to Berkeley (remove the Picket Fence), get some feels, go to coffee shop, and then start a conversation with “I like to hunt…”.
“Can’t both be Puritanical or “liberal” just usually about the opposite things?”
You will have your answer before you can get the words “I am a Liberal” out. Won’t matter anyway. And the people who do hunt will exercise their right to remain silent.
You won’t have the chance to rap about the existence and purposes of picket fences either.
Hey, Mr Lucky, I’m not sure where you’re going with your Berkeley trip, but be sure to send me a postcard. Know any good taxidermists?
“Know any good taxidermists?”
Sure. Born sleazits. It will be anything you desire…
Even that Palin Doll. Text only though.
Skin a deer on Sproul Plaza. Will you live to tell the story?
Try your HS class.
One has to use judgment about where one does one’s killing and skinning. It’s all part of the overall judgment one needs to get by, sometimes, even thrive in this world. For whatever reason, you have constellations of odd obsessions and all sorts of bizarre takes on things. May God grant you a little more peace.
Anyone who doubts that there is a strong element of the puritanical among our contemporary progressives probably 1). hasn’t spent much time among the academic variety of progressives lately, and 2). hasn’t had to sit through tiresome presentations where they blather on about “sustainability.” You can learn more about “the sustainability inquisition” in this article at the website of the National Association of Scholars.
Obama prays every day? heh. No way. Unless, as noted, it’s to himself.
Remember, Obama is a pathological liar; he’ll make one claim to one audience and the next day, or three hours later, make an oppositional assertion to a different audience.
And he’s a clinical narcissist; he doesn’t acknowledge any force above His Own Will.
No, Obama’s assertion that he prays every day is copied from Bush who claimed that he read the bible and prayed every day. Bush is surging in popularity now, while Obama is dropping like a stone. So, Obama is deliberately setting himself up as similar – for political purposes.
Right – everything’s political with obama. Zero substance. Zero character. Nightmare president.
While President Obama claiming in the immediate aftermath of his midterm “shellacking” by conservatives that he prays daily may be surprising to some,
Prays daily? Yeah right. None of his lies surprise me. Prays 5 times daily with his ass in the air. Now that I can believe.
Well, do you see conservatives banning toilets that use “too much” water,
Toilets that use too much water were replaced with toilets that you have to flush twice.
@Terry
How much water does each mohammedan use with his fivefold pre-ass-hoisting daily wails? Do wimmin similarly ablute?
Yeah, but what really gripes my ass is their selective progressive puritanism. Circa 1967 claiming “gay”–a term that did not yet exist — and showing up in drag for an induction physical got you out of the Vietnam draft: I’m sure if the draft is ever reinstated there won’t be any draft exemption for claiming “homophobia” during the next “unjust” war–although a sex change will probably work. However, the intellectual roots for “islamophobia” and its conceptual paradigm for the Muslim Brotherhood was the gay rights movement “homophobia”, ironically. In some corporations and government civil service practices tobacco smokers wont be hired, because of their imputed high health care costs and risky life style choices, but gays, and their risky life style choices will get hiring preferences. In the seventies radical sociologists argued that being gay was a life style choice to counter the stigma of genetic predisposition, but now the genetic predisposition is favored to avoid the implied solution of gay aversion therapy. Truly, progressive social science, like all politics, is local and personal and unscientific.
Obama and Pelosi were justifiably punished at the polls at the start of the month for ignoring the economy, and instead focusing on expanding an already leviathan government and punishing consumers via ObamaCare. But does Obama really want the economy to grow? If so, why would he name John Holdren as his Dr. Strangelove-esque science “czar”?
Everything Obama tries to do is designed to earn him adulation from the congregation, which is his core base of liberal Democratic supporters, who in turn give him the support and backing he needs to venture out and crusade against conservatives. That’s why things like the War on Terror leave him in ideological agony, because his heart wants to close Gitmo, bug out of Iraq and Afganistan and issue KSM a bench fine and be done with it, but his advisers and his own head know he’d be opening himself up for political disaster by doing so.
Where his nanny state puritanism jibes with his base, Obama’s at his most comfortable. Where reality forces him to ever-so-gently attempt to get some distance between his actions and his supporters’ beliefs, he’s hesitant, weak and wracked with agony over the political consequences of his actions more than how those actions will affect the nation or the world.
What do you mean,”. . there is no Homosex Institute”? I think that the myraiad of orientation classes and the promotion of homosexuality as a normal, enlightened choice on so many university campuses that they ought to qualify as such. What a waste of our tax dollars and sisplay of outright stupidity, to be forced to affirm the deviant, self-destructive lifestyle choices of a mere 2% of the population. Sounds like liberalism run amuck.
“…to be forced to affirm the deviant, self-destructive lifestyle choices of a mere 2% of the population.”
Er, I think the point is that whenever x% of the population feel as you do, then there is some need for what you decry. If you would grow out of your prejudices, then we could really make the case that all the pc, gay-affirming stuff really is unnecessary.