In his great book Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion, the British theologian, satirist, and mystery writer Ronald Knox notes that, “these days,” America “is the last refuge of the enthusiast,” i.e., one who is convinced of his personal possession by the divine.
I thought about Knox’s book–which focuses primarily on the 17th and 18th centuries and the heresy of Montanism–while watching the crowd cheering Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention last night. There, surely, was one variety of enthusiasm, understanding the word in the modern, not the theological sense.
I thought the speech a splendid breath of fresh air–an “electrifying mix of intelligence, passion, energy, optimism and plain speaking” as one British paper put it–and I would surely have been cheering wildly along with the rest of the crowd had I been there in St. Paul.
But one of the things that struck me most forcefully about the crowd’s response to Palin’s speech was how the quality of its enthusiasm differed from the enthusiasm that greeted Obama’s Greek-temple oration last week. The crowd went wild for Palin, as it did for Obama. But in her case the enthusiasm was directed more at the performance than the performer. The crowd liked what it heard, and reacted accordingly. Palin came offering a new approach to Washington politics: an approach that featured an effort to make government smaller, to keep it our your life and pocketbook, and that emphasized traditional “small town” virtues like hard work, entrepreneurship, family loyalty, and fiscal responsibility. She also came bearing a refreshing quota of humor: what other candidate for high office would gladly describe herself as a hockey mom and then go on to explain that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was that the hockey mom wore lipstick?
By contrast, Obama came offering–himself. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” he said in his Super Tuesday speech. I fear that he–and, what’s more, that his acolytes–really believe it. The enthusiasm that greets Obama is not the acknowledgment and approbation of an ambition, as it was in the case of the enthusiasm for Palin’s speech, but rather a coefficient of a personality cult. All those McCain ads portraying Obama as a Messiah-like figure are caricatures. But like any good caricature, they are revelatory precisely because the seize upon and exaggerate an obvious truth. Obama really did say, after all, that his nomination marked the moment when “the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
So, it is with enthusiasm as it is with so many other things: there is enthusiasm of the good sort–which describes that natural ebullience we feel in the face of some important good–and there is enthusiasm of the narcissistic sort, which is fervent but blind in its uncritical endorsement of an abstraction: The Leader, The One, be he right or wrong.
It may be that Palin’s deepest cut was the comment about Obama’s styrofoam greek columns. -She might as well have sewn shoulder straps on them for the ‘Orator’ to carry them around.
She demonstrated a willingness to buck the program. -I will be delighted if, and when, she squares up to Biden and calls him a pompous wind-bag. We all know he has that coming.
Obama is about subterfuge; Palin is about substance. And John and Cindy McCain are truly a class act. This couple accepted Sarah Palin and her family unconditionally, and McCain chose her as his running mate without hesitation. The McCains possess uncommon courage, principles, integrity and humanity. Those are the qualities I want in our next president and vice-president. Together, these 3 will do so much for the country.
From the Obama campaign we have seen beautiful graphics, journalistic photos and a sense of epic historicism. From Palin we saw a seat-of-the pants performance from a girl from Idaho. I think the difference is that one feels authentic, while the other feels orchestrated.
Rock star v. rock star, the Republicans have Grace Slick and the democrats Herman’s Hermits. “There”s a kind of hush all over the world tonight”
The remark from Joe Biden was most telling… “”I was also impressed by what I didn’t hear in the speech. I didn’t hear a word–didn’t hear the phrase middle class mentioned…”
It WAS the middle class talking to him. Of course Mr. Biden can recognize the middle class. It is that he refuses to recognize the middle class that reveals his underlying weakness. It is one thing to be the middle class and another to use the middle class for political gain. It is a valid observation that enthusiasm expressed by the crowd was for the speech not the speaker, because the words rang true with no hint of political contrivance. Plan-speak is what middle class America is about.
Your analysis was spot on.
While the Obama cheers seemed as orchestrated as in a TV-Studio with their signs flashing ‘Applause’ and ‘Laughter’.
The Palin cheers and more specifically the reactions of the audience was that they truly reacted to what was being said. Laughter and even raucous laughter when a joke or snipe was being told, applause when they were affirmative to a position and boos and nos shouted when Palin told them about the lies, the sexism and the hypocrisies of the opponents position.
– The one is childish following and the other grown-up rational excitement.
” that emphasized traditional “small town” virtues like hard word,”
That’s a mistake or a meme. Probably the latter.
After reading so much enthusiasm expressed for Mrs. Palin, I watched a video of her speaking at her church and saying that “Our national leaders have sent them (U.S. soldiers) on a task from God. . .”
This is absurd.
Mrs. Palin is not the kind of person this country can afford to be, as the expression goes, “a heartbeat away” from the most powerful office on Earth.
I think these last two posts of yours touch on the heart of what we are seeing in this campaign: a choice between vacuity and reality.
Obama’s campaign is actually a SCAM: Axekrod has taken a socialist nonentity with an exotic name and persona and a gift for flowery oraory and HYPED him into the nomination for the Presidency. Obama not only has never accomplished anything worthwhile, he has done some very disturbing things and is still attempting to cover them up. He does not, moreover, give any genuine impression that he is likely to “grow”. He is dedicated to his socilist agenda. Furthermore he is astonishingly self-focused, with no feel for the average middle class voter, for whom his contempt is ill-concealed. His disciples are largely urban, college indoctrinated and socialism-inclined. The “talks one way in Scranton and another way in San Fransisco” bit really resonates with the Red States.
These are exactly the people that middle America is nervous about, and McCain is sharp enough to realize that, while he is widely respected, he was not going to win on “issues”. So he picked EXACTLY what his ticket needed – somebody who was the opposite of the tired old maachine politicians who they rate at a miserable 12 in approval, even lower than their rating for journalists.
These are people who a keen sense of the phony, resent being talked down to and scoffed as small town losers. The are delighted and excited to have a candidate who comes acroos oss , and truly is, just like them.
The yill take down the scamsters on November the 4th. The Hicks will rump the Hypes.
The perception of those like KD, that trust in God is “absurd”, is a reflection of the total disconnect of the Obama camp that will lead to their bEing whomped in this election.
Obana is just like bottled tap water: a cheap product, with no nutritional value, wth a faNcy label, peddled by at $5.00 a gallon by a bunch of city slickers.
A lot of HYPE with a FAT CHANCE.
In never said that trust in God is absurd.
I said that to suggest that the war in Iraq is a task from God” is absurd.
How even more absurd to say that “our national leaders” send soldiers on “tasks” from the Almighty.
I would have expected more from readers of Mr. Kimball’s blog.
At any rate, I was not talking about the “Obama camp”, but about Mrs. Palin.
By the way, Daniel Larison at Eunomia at The American Conservative website makes some interesting observations about Mrs. Palin.
Correction:
I never said that trust in God is absurd.
Obama has obviously not read his Confucius:
” ‘Simple and slow in speech’ becomes almost a refrain in the teachings of Confucius. For instance, in 12.3, he says, ‘The person of true goodness is restrained in speech.’ Throughout the text he repeatedly cautions his followers not to mistake eloquence for substance, as in 1.3: ‘The Master said–artful words and a pleasing countenance have little, indeed, to do with true goodness.’ …
Whether trust in god is absurd or not, it is a really good idea for our political leaders to not invoke divine authority for their policies. For one thing it sounds, you know, crazy. And funny. And politically naive. But on the up-side it is also sinister, undemocratic and un-American.
I’ve never heard Richard ‘Dick’ Cheney do it.
Talking of funny, I heartened to see that Roger Kimball takes The Sun. It is Country-GB’s favorite purveyor of naked lady pictures and ‘news’ stories designed to be readable by people with the literacy of an 8-year-old. If the Sun thinks that Palin is right for the job then it means… well actually it means that Rupert Murdoch told them so.
I doubt that Roger Kimball takes the (GB) Sun, though I might be wrong – the pictures on page 3 are fabulous. Do you mean the NY Sun? I don’t think Rupert’s writ runs there.
Got it now – yes, the link to the red top. I actually do agree with you, Roy M, about the Sun and Rupert Murdoch. How a place like London can produce unquestionably the vilest newspapers in the anglosphere is a fitting subject for an Anthony Daniels article.
And while on this hobby horse, and ENTIRELY off-topic, it disturbs me to see in the New Criterion (which aims to promote “the best that has been thought and said”) approving references to Fox News Channel. Talk about a pact with the devil. Politics aside, FNC is relentlessly vulgar, trivial, simplistic, thoroughly uncivilised and has just that coarsening tendency that the NC deplores.
Glad I got that of my chest.
Roger, I agree with your basic premise, but I have to say…I think a lot of people saw Palin, heard her speak, and came to the conclusion that they don’t just like the message – the messenger is *all right*, too.
I’m glad she’s on our side; it’s like the Silent Majority has finally found a voice.
Scott
Roy M: Defining “un-American” can be tricky.
For example, Mr. Kimball’s associate editor at The New Criterion is a young man who is deeply enamored with monarchy, seems to feel the American Revolution was a mistake, and regards Lincoln as a tyrant upon whom all lovers of freedom and liberty should spit (while at the same time, regarding the Spanish dictator, Franco, as — literally — a saint.) Is he “un-American”?
*
It seems that many party loyalists regard Mrs. Palin’s apparent simplicity and innocence as a virtue, just as they did with President George W. Bush. In that case, she is certainly no less qualified for the Presidency than our current Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.
Both are not shy about proclaiming that American military decisions come directly from the Almighty.
I have heard some party loyalists call their ticket “Maverick Squared,” to signify Mr. McCain’s selection of the young, feisty (and some have said vindictive) Governor.
Some Texans have taken exception to Mr. McCain’s embrace of the mantle “Maverick.” (I trust readers of this blog know the origins of the word.) The late Maury Maverick Jr. was a truly independent thinker and politician who often defied entrenched corporate and political power in defense of minority rights, workers rights, and anti-war activism. Next to the real Texas Mavericks, Mr. McCain is a true and loyal successor to George W. Bush who has, throughout his Presidency, stood for increased corporate power and influence — not to mention unprecidented government growth, spending and debt.
I have read that Maury’s sister wrote that her brother once told her that “if he hears that John McCain is a maverick one more time, he is going to shoot the TV. . .”
Piper Palin for President 2048!
PALIN NEVER SAID “Our national leaders have sent them (U.S. soldiers) on a task from God”.
Here is the actual quote:
“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”
If you can read you will spot the difference. She is basically saying: pray we are doing the right thing.
Even according to you, she is saying: pray that our national leaders are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task from God.
This suggests she is praying that the invasion of Iraq (at the behest of our national leaders) be a task from God.
What el gordo is “basically” saying is that one must hope that the invasion — planned and excecuted by “our national leaders” — is “God’s plan”.
This is dangerous thinking, if not patently absurd.
Suffice it to say that not all conservatives find the video of Mrs. Palin at her church benign.
Not all conservatives believe (as it seems Mrs. Palin does) that our foreign and defense policy is simply God-given.
Her political program (as expressed in the church video) — to build a sports complex, a pipeline, change a tax bill — all likewise simply becomes a matter of religion.
This is mortifying.
There is a big difference since she obviously did NOT say that the Iraq war was willed by God, which is what you pounced on. Why would you turn on a dime and disparage that difference? Why are you not angry that someone tried to mislead you with a bowdlerized quote? I think it is because the faked quote suited you just fine and you are just looking for excuses to make the point you wanted to make anyway.
As an atheist I am not worried at all by her statement. Christianity is in the foundation of our culture. If you think believing christians don´t belong in elected office, just say so.
Thanks to “vanderleun”: I mistyped “word” for “work.” Now fixed.
KD seems to share the misconception that when traditional Christians say that some course of action is God’s work they mean that God has in some spooky way whispered in their ears about it. But for such Christians, doing what’s right is always doing God’s work. The task you’ve concluded needs doing, using perfectly ordinary moral reasoning, is always a “task from God.” Sweeping the floor can be a task from God. Visiting an old folks’ home is a task from God. And if there are just wars, then fighting them is a task from God.
To be sure, one usually only makes a point of calling an undertaking “a task from God” if it’s fairly large-scale. The war in Iraq, as a just war, is a BIG task from God, one that can get those who undertake the task killed. That’s what Governor Palin meant — not that God appeared with all the angels to GWB and said,”My Son, go thou unto Iraq and cast down Mine enemies.”
Note too that Governor Palin said this, not in a stump speech, but to her home congregation, to people who would know what she meant.
It might help them sleep better if those who fret about traditional Christians in public life would take the trouble to learn a wee something about traditional Christianity. In both Protestant and Catholic forms, it’s actually pretty consistently negative or at least extremely cautious about private revelations.
The meaning of her statement is that she prays the war in Iraq is or will be taken as “a task from God.”
“Task from God” (not a fake quote by the way)
What else does that mean but God’s will?
You say you are an atheist. I am surprised you aren’t concerned when national leaders (President Bush, for example) and/or aspiring national leaders (Mrs. Palin) believe their actions and decisions are inspired, if not directed, by an absolute, unerring Power.
There is a difference between being a Christian in elected office, and being a Christian in elected office who believes that he or she is on a military Crusade from God.
I know many Christians — Catholic and Protestant — who are appalled by this notion.
This morning I read someone comment that Mr. McCain’s real “change” message is “same policies, but competently executed.”
But the choice of Mrs. Palin presents a problem. It says “same policies, same incompetent execution.”
Reform was never really in the picture. Mr. McCain’s idea of reform is essentially to do the same thing, but do it well. There’s no real acknowledgement that the policies themselves were ever at fault. So there’s no reason to think the actual policies themselves will change.
Maverick, indeed.
KD:
I think you can tell the difference between “God tells us to love one another” and “God has commanded that you be my girlfriend”.
Similarly, when I read the Palin quote I hear “God has tasked us to do good and make the world a better place, and let us pray that our actions in Iraq serve that purpose”, not “God ordered the invasion”. The former is self-examination with humility, the latter is a foolish caricature.
Perhaps the former is “self-examination with humility.”
Unfortunately, it is not what Mrs. Palin said. They are your words.
Let us deal with what Mrs. Palin said (“Pray. . .for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God.”), not your suggestion that the military invasion of Iraq was doing “good” and “making the world a better place” or that “our actions in Iraq (initially characterised by the military as “Shock and Awe”) “serve that purpose” which you and Mrs. Palin imagine to be God’s.
Love, indeed.
Mark: The word task implies work imposed by a person of authority.
“. . .on a task that is from God.”
The words are clear.
Your “spin” does not alter them.
At any rate, this attitude is not something new. Nor is it purely American. Think of Pope Urban’s shout, at the outset of the Crusades, “Deus lo volt!” I also recall a well-known photograph by August Sander of a young Nazi soldier with “Gott Mit Uns” on his belt buckle.
Come on, everyone – let us join KD on the front lines as it bravely slings “indeeds” and oh-so-creative Nazi analogies at the right wing hordes.
Nazis are evil.
SOME nazis believed their actions to be divinely inspired.
SOME conservative supporters of the Iraq war believe that, like all human endeavors, OIF is divinely inspired, or at least controlled by God, as a component in an ultimate sacred plan for humankind that they as mortals do not claim full knowledge of.
Therefore, these conservatives are evil Nazis.
We could conclude that all sorts of people claim to be divine agents in the service of all sorts of causes, whether good, kooky, or just plain evil.
If we are religious, we could perhaps conclude that if God is all powerful, ALL activities are “God’s work”, inasmuch as they advance his goals – even if they are immoral.
If we’re Atheists, maybe we could disagree with the above proposition while acknowledging that the desire to do God’s work can still be a valuable bulwark against wrongdoing, in times of both war and peace. But I guess those conclusions just doesn’t help validate some posters’ prejudices. Oh, well.
One wonders what KD and likeminded commenters would have to say about Christian antiwar activists, or Obama campaign volunteers who believe in good faith that their activities are divinely sanctioned ( perfectly acceptable beliefs in principle, IMO). I can’t claim to know KD’s mind, but maybe THOSE instances of missionary zeal are OK because they happen to coincide with his/her personal politics.
Consistency, indeed indeed indeed indeed.
I no more called conservatives like Mrs. Palin “evil Nazis” then I called them Medieval Crusaders.
The point I am making is quite simple. The claim for divine sanction of military actions is nothing new, and it is not restricted to any country or religion.
Draw your own conclusions.
Correction: I might rather have said:
The claim for divine sanction of military actions is nothing new, and it is not restricted to any particular country, religion, or political philosophy.
KD:
I realize that I was in error above, and I stand corrected.
I said:
I think you can tell the difference between “God tells us to love one another” and “God commanded that you be my girlfriend”.
This turns out to be incorrect. I now think that you, at least, can’t.
We can be tasked by God to do good, pray that our actions conform to this task, without claiming either God’s command or sanction for our actions. The very act that we pray that our actions conform to God’s task to do good implies, not a righteous certainty, but a humble willingness to imagine our own failings in this regard. This is not a claim of authority for our actions from God, but a reminder of our ultimate responsibility for our actions, or inactions, to God.
Your tendentious reading of “Pray [...] that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God” as “God commands us to send them” is unwarranted.
It is quite warrented.
Another person put it this way:
Sarah Palin saw the war in Iraq as a task from God, but that we might not follow through with it the way God wants us to. So it was for continued guidance so we can continue God’s will in the task which is in Iraq.
That was the point of her speech/prayer.
*
Allow me, sir, a question. Do you believe the war in Iraq is divinely sanctioned?
“I no more called conservatives like Mrs. Palin “evil Nazis” then I called them Medieval Crusaders.”
Of course he didn’t call conservatives Nazis. You see, out of all the hundreds of movements that the world has seen in the past several centuries, KD just HAPPENED to select Nazism. Interesting. I wonder what’s next? Perhaps some fulminating about the dangers of right-wing political hyperbole? It would complement that charming buckle anecdote quite nicely.
I also selected Pope Urban.
At any rate, there are many examples.
Is there a point to your comment?
“Your tendentious reading of “Pray […] that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God” as “God commands us to send them” is unwarranted.”
I seriously doubt that most of Palin’s detractors even care about the distinction. The mere confluence of God (exemplified by Palin’s prayer) and Guns (servicemen about to embark on a mission) is enough to repel them. Rather than reflecting honestly on questions of human agency, many of her critics are probably content to make facile comparisons that oh-so-coincidentally involve Hitler and/or Nazism. If you call them on it, they start sputtering and ask you what your point is. Their analogies weren’t intended to be nasty-oh, no. After all, they DID throw in a comment about Pope Urban as a sort of rhetorical fig leaf.
I selected the examples of “Deus lo volt!” and “Gott Mitt Uns” because they were brief and to the point.
.
A few questions:
Does not the “confluence of God and Guns” not repel you?
Does Mrs. Palin honestly strike you as someone who reflects on questions of human agency?
Are you willing to honestly answer this question: Do you believe our military presence in Iraq is divinely sanctioned?
“I selected the examples of “Deus lo volt!” and “Gott Mitt Uns” because they were brief and to the point.”
I see.
And “Babies, Lies, and Scandal” was all about US magazine wanting to expose the lies on Left-leaning blogs.
But anyway – why should I be repelled by God & guns? Embarking on a military tour makes young men think about their own mortality. Some go to go to Church to try and ease their minds. From time to time, dignitaries attend these services. Palin could genuinely believe that her remarks might comfort them (or it could just be a cynical photo op to her. Maybe a bit of both). The intersection of religion and military service doesn’t have to mean delusional red-staters invading Iraq b/c they have a direct line to Heaven.
How should anyone know whether & to what extent Palin reflects on human agency, morality, & religion? Unlike some Democrats & Republicans I try not to lose my head over any candidate. I’m fully aware that the politicians I support are still human and often deceptive. Could be that Palin’s an amoral deceiver, and if so it won’t come as a complete surprise to me. After all, there are enough fallen political charlatans throughout History who did the same.
Nevertheless, for now I believe that her remarks at the ceremony seemed appropriate. Making false equivalence between praying that God approves of soldiers’ and nations’ between adhering to a fanatical religious triumphalism is absurd (at least to me. To others, it’s perfectly OK as long as it helps denigrate the candidates they don’t like.)
And as for OIF – it is not a religious crusade for me and I do not claim to know what purpose the war could serve for God, Satan, Horus, Zeus, or whatever.
Correction: that second-to-last ‘graph was not worded properly:
“Equating a prayer for God to look favorably on a nation’s or on soldiers’ actions with fanatical religious triumphalism is absurd.”
What does “Babies, Lies, and Scandal” have to do with our discussion?
Nothing whatsoever.
My primary argument is that Mrs. Palin is not (as her own words reveal) simply praying for God to look favorably on the nation’s or on soldier’s actions. Her prayer/speech carries with it the assumption that He already has, and that the war in Iraq is a task from Him that we must succeed at.
There is much on this blog that smacks of the absurd when it comes to Mr. Obama. I guess that is perfectly OK as along as it helps to denigrate the candidate Mr. Kimball and others don’t like.
Perhaps a more honest, less partisan approach from the editor and readers of The New Criterion, a publication described as America’s leading review of the arts and intellectual life.
By the way, there is much in your last comment that I agree with.
KD, you thought the square peg of your opinion had found a square hole. The hole turned out to be round, yet you hammer away lustily.
You say you are an atheist. I am surprised you aren’t concerned when national leaders (President Bush, for example) and/or aspiring national leaders (Mrs. Palin) believe their actions and decisions are inspired, if not directed, by an absolute, unerring Power.
First, they didn´t say that. That is your unproven claim.
Second, I am an atheist but I can look beyond the tip of my nose.
Saying that “Iraq is a task from God” and praying that what you are doing is the right thing are fundamentally different statements. The latter worries me not at all. It sure won´t make me vote for a walking disaster like Obama.
Now I have to resate my original question, which you did not answer:
Does it not worry you that the quote was deliberately bowdlerized in a transparent fashion by a major newspaper and in a youtube clip? Why was it changed at all if there is no difference?
Here is another one: I guess it never even occurred to you that there is a christian left? They are more likely to go after your wallet and your freedoms than Sarah Palin. Think about it.
I already told you that Mrs. Plain is praying that we do the right thing because it is a task from God.
“Task from God.”
Your “spin” cannot alter her actual words.
As for President George W. Bush believing his actions are inspired by God:
“God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam which I did. . .”
“I trust God speaks through me.”
Believe as you like.
The YouTube clip I watched was not skewed. It was Mrs. Palin’s speech/prayer, sans commentary or spin.
As for a “Christian left” that will “go after” my wallet and my freedoms: absurd. What “freedoms” of mine are a Christian left “likely” to go after?
Is this the “Christian left” that is “likely to go after” my wallet and my freedoms?
http://www.miserere.org/m/
I don’t know why I am going into this again, only that the same canard showed up in the Gibson interview tonight.
KD said in his post on Sep 8 7:54 am:
“The Christian Left [...] is likely to go after my wallet and my freedoms [...]”
The exact words, which no amount of spin can alter.
See? this kind of quote bending, eliding crucial clauses, is foolish and unbecoming in a self-governing people, whether practiced by KD or Charles Gibson.
If we cannot engage with meaning as intended by our opponents, and instead play ‘gotcha’ word games like this, we will have so debased the civil debate required by a free people as to put into peril our experiment in self government.
Mark,
el gordo said (quote):
“I guess it never occured to you that there is a christian left? They are more likely to go after your wallet and your freedoms than Sarah Palin.”
The import of these two sentences is simple and clear: There is a Christian left that is more likely to go after my wallet and my freedoms than Sarah Palin.
Do you somehow interpret it differently?
I asked el gordo if the link I provided was an example of the Christian left he or she was talking about.
Not very complicated.
At any rate, my EXACT words on Sept 8 7:54 am were:
Is this the “Christian left” that is “likely to go after” my wallet and my freedoms?
But you quote me as saying:
The Christian left [...] is likely to go after my wallet and my freedoms [...]”
What I asked was a QUESTION in reference to the link I provided.
I did NOT make a statement, as you have done when “quoting” me, and I certainly did not “bend” the meaning of el gordo’s statement.
The only bending of meaning is what you have done with my question.