For those of queasy religious/political stomachs. Turn away now. Don't say I didn't warn you. This may be similar to eating a bad Chicken Soft Taco at Taco Bell....except with reading and controversy, with less hot sauce.
I often hear outrageous claims from ultra-conservative-evangelical Christians that we need to return to 'conservative family values', or something along those lines, in this country. I've been trying to research when this fictitious time period was that we need to return to. One where violence, sex, cruelty, greed, jealousy and sin did not exist and people were free to say how much they love Jesus. Two distinct time period always come up. The first time period? The area of time before and after World War 2 all the way up until sometime in the early 1960s. I'm always told this time was 'better' and given no evidence, or worst...terrible evidence. One of the most shocking is the use of mass media. Granted, mass media has only gotten worse, but one CANNOT use mass media to depict how a time period really was, especially if it is television. On ore then one occasion, I have heard shows like "Leave it to Beaver" and "Lucy" were testaments to the time period. In some ways they were, just like popular shows are today. However, as depictions of everyday life? That is where the confusion lies. Using "Leave it to Beaver" as an example of how families and people operated during the time period the show ran is ridiculous. That is like using "Full House" to demonstrate what American life was like from 1987 - till whenever the show went off the air. You remember "Full House". Very popular. Very unrealistic.
The problem is, no one seems to do research or eve think about these sort of things. "Oh, we used to be so much better back then" is a terrible thing to say. It just isn't true. Humanity has always been the same. Actually, I would argue that we keep getting better as a race. The myth that our society and families have decreased since the 1950's, and using old television shows as evidence is unreal.
My favorite, and most often heard saying is: "We were created a Christian nation..." and then usually something else ridiculous follows. When did THIS notion begin to spread? We weren't founded with any religion! That is part of the BASIS of this country. People came to the USA to avoid religious persecution, not the other way around. Separation of Church and State is a founding principal of this country, so we don't fall into the trap that western Europe did for almost a thousand years. The founding fathers were generally NOT Christian. They were mainly Unitarian, or some Deists, and some atheists. In fact, the Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in 1797 specifically states that: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." The fallacy that many point to...the "In God We Trust" seal on our dollars and coins was not used consistently until, well, the 1950s (bad timing for me, I know) during the McCarthy scare. It seems to me that the Founding Fathers were more concerned about making sure this country never thought this country was founded on any religion.
Honestly, there have always been and will always be similar problems. Parents get divorced or have a falling out. People will fight and kill. People will do terrible things to each other in every way we can think of. I pray that there will be a day that these things WON'T happen, but lets not try to pretend that they didn't in the past. Ignorance is bliss, but one can only have so much bliss before they pass out.
To read more about the founding fathers and religion...check this out: http://skeptically.org/thinkersonreligion/id9.html
Also, Wikipedia helped me out doing this blog. Check it out too.
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2 comments:
the problem with ultra-conservatives is that they operate in this statistical language, assigning some sort of arbitrary value to each person and frame populations under a normal curve, suggesting that there is some attainable or desired median.
traditional family values? tradition implies that there was some sort of radical departure... some rupture upon which things are different now than they have been.
"traditional family values" screams nostalgia.
why can't we postulate that at any given point in time that there was a set of conditions or discourse that frames history. the discourse is dialectic, it shapes conditions as conditions shape it. to return to traditional family values is to reject our current context and ignore the factors that created the discourse making it immediately incompatible with today's context.
does that make any sense?
I find that generally the people who want us to hearken back to "traditional Christian values" are either a. crazy, b. hiding horrible dark secrets that they cover by being a part of the so-called "Christian Coalition", or c. they're selling something.
While I agree there are aspects of our society that could use some good old fashioned tough love, (read: beating it silly with a leather strap) I don't think there ever was a time where we didn't have our dirty little secrets. They were just better at glossing over them and hiding them under the rug back in the 50's. That, and they were terrified the commie hunters (My state's lovely Senator, why do we have all the nuts?) would take away their rights, or worse...parade them in front of the nation in 'Pinko Joe's Ragtime Show Trial'.
Our founding fathers knew that nothing good could come of creating another religious monarchy. (Think about the doom-sayers who said we'd be answering to the Pope when JFK was elected) But, they knew that in principle...having a bit of moral fiber was a good thing. I wonder what they would have to say about our societal obsession with Hollyweird and other completely unimportant celebrities? I get the feeling they wouldn't be too impressed with what has become of their grand Republic. Some might say it's time for another major changing of the guard. I think it was Jefferson who said a nation should rise up and overthrow the establishment every (insert number I can't remember) years, lest it become complacent...and bloated, etc, etc.
Maybe we can start a new traditional values party where wearing a coat and tie are the "in" thing again. They may not have been traditional values people...but at least they looked sharp not doing it.
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