The Left and Falwell
The Populist (EDITED) on the reaction of some ‘progressives’ (bloggers and commenters) on Falwell’s death yesterday:
I just want to say that I am disgusted by the vile hate and nastiness, that I have been reading on the Liberal Blogs. You idiots ought to be ashamed of yourselves! I didn’t care for Falwell either, because I am somewhat of a Fundamentalist, Albeit, a more progressive one, Christian, and Falwell walked away from Fundamentalism, and rejected the King James Version of the Bible as a antiquated version of the Bible, and gravitated towards the evangelical movement. For some very good reasons, I feel. Further more, He embraced the ecumenical movement, Which true-blue Fundamentalists reject as not scriptural. Of which I agree. However, to bash a dead man to the point of just being vile, is just plain disgusting and wrong, and totally reprehensible. I’m ashamed of the blogging community, you guys are just wrong. and I’m quite frankly embarrassed to be a part of this. My Point is this, Just because you don’t like someone or disagree with his Political stance or Religious Beliefs, it does not give you a license to be uncivil and asinine.
I agree completely: some of the comments I read were highly insensitive, rude and, yes, even hateful. Ironically enough, that’s exactly what those same people say about Falwell.
Many of them are not much ‘better’ than Falwell: they are just two sides of the same coin.
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74 Responses to “The Left and Falwell”
Cosmoetica mentioned that “these three” will be completely forgotten about in 50 years. I have never read any of Chomsky’s political work, despite being a leftie myself, so I cannot say how it will stand the test of time. Chomsky as an academic linguist, however, will most certainly not be forgotten for at least a century, even though much of the field is leaving his particular theories behind. He completely changed what it meant to study language, perhaps for the better, in the late 50s to early 60s, and that legacy will stay. It’s only 40 years after the Chomskyan revolution in linguistics that mainstream linguists can publish a paper without taking the time to position themselves in relation to Chomsky’s notions on language. His thoughts in this domain have influenced linguistics, psychology, and cognitive science enormously. I realize that Chomsky-as-linguist is not the topic under consideration; however, a linguist he remains and no matter how his politics fair, he gets to keep his other merits.
This is what I find interesting in this discussion.
One man died. The negative reactions are all directed at him, specifically, or his brand of judgmental, assuming to speak for God, type of religious practice. I didn’t see any hateful rants about Christianity in general or the Bible or being religious.
On the other hand, anyone expressing a negative comment of any kind, is suddenly made answerable for the LEFT in all its forms, past and present, and for everyone else perceived to be on the left, past or present, and for every statement made by one of them.
The contrast is interesting to note as a study of rhetorical style.
Ya know, everyone gives Falwell grief, What about Mike Savage? What about Rosie and her idiotic rantings? What about all the hate in the blogs towards falwell? that’s not wrong? Give me a fucking break!
Chuck,
Rosie et al, didn’t die this week.
People react to the news as it comes up. Besides, if you bring up Rosie, you have to bring up Trump, and no one knows where it would all end.
Note that Mother’s day was not mentioned either.
That’s only the case if you assume that it is actually true that *ALL* 100 million evangelicals AND *ALL* Republicans, conservatives, and right-wingers have adopted “his brand of judgmental, assuming to speak for God, type of religious practice”. Because the condemnations directed at Falwell have, at various points on this thread and other sites as well, been explicitly extended to include ALL of those large groups, not just Falwell.
And it is that extension that is truly dangerous. It indicates that there is a strong trend on the left (not all of them, but apparently a very vocal and substantially sized group) that believes that the right is monolithic in its adherence to what they think Falwell represents. And given the intensity of their hatred for what they think Falwell represents, it is reasonable to be concerned about how they will act towards those HUGE groups of people that they think are followers of Falwell.
CS said:
“I don’t really follow you on the murderer part. Most Christians do believe that paying a debt is part of forgiveness ”
Read the quote again, he’s not just talking about paying any old debt, he’s talking about paying with their lives, about executing them:
“We visit prisoners on death row, and some of them are saved, but we believe their sentences should be carried out because they have a debt to societyâ€
Now, I could be wrong but I though that the official position of Christians is opposing the death penalty, so this seems a tad hypocritical to me.
I’m not asking you to be Falwell’s defender, I can fully appreciate that most people, even a majority of conservatives, might not agree with him, but I have to remain firm in it being natural that he attract intense rejection of his person. You say he was probably talking about the sin, I think it was fairly clear that he either was talking about the so-called “sinners” (again, since when is being feminist a sin) or was purposefully vague enough to provoke anger and hatred in those who believed his word.
Religion was a sacred thing to most Americans, you lived it, you voted your conscience and if asked you might tell someone about your beliefs. Falwell helped spearhead the merging of something sacred to most people, their faith, with the oftimes baseless and vulgar business of politics. I can’t say that either one has emerged for the better.
Hmmmm sorry about the bold, ever since they removed the idiot-proof buttons I’m just lost.
Jason -
I absolutely don’t see that the condemnation has extended to all the groups you cite. Perhaps you see condemnation even before it’s spiken.
Christians, as a group, were brought into the disucssion by CStanley by way of defending Falwell, not by his critics.
At any rate, I speak only for myself. (Who is Ward Churchill?)
You should try to remember, that the not-conservative, not-evangelical crowd includes an immense diversity, and every time you accuse someone who disagrees with you as representing this undefined (but evil, nontheless) LEFT, you make another convert to the not-conservative, not-evangelical crowd.
Paca: It’s true that Chomsky’s lingual work will remain longer than his political nonsense, but when we think of Evolution, whom do we rail about- Darwin or….Alfred Russel Wallace?
I think folk like the Pinkers and other brain researchers will have left most of Noam’s legacy to rot….but I concede, his formal research will be all that remains.
Cosmoetica, I agree that virtually all of the details of Chomsky’s linguistic theories will fall away. What will remain is largely that the study of language is to a great degree a study of thought/cognition and the manners in which humans can and cannot think, which was a shift from the purely behaviorist tradition from before. For this, he will continue to receive historical credit.
The most imp word in your last post, Paca, is historical. He will be a footnote. Ike Newton he ain’t!
I personally fail to comprehend how anyone can spend any part of their life “hating” someone…it’s such a waste. Now there are plenty of actions that I hate, but if someone is doing one of those I either ask them to stop, move to protect myself, or try to convince others not to copy them.
That said I can’t think of anything I admired about him (which I do for Pat Robertson’s poverty work even though I think he has the same misguided religious views) and don’t understand the “we should respect the dead” line of thought. Who cares, the guy is dead. Quite frankly, the rush to canonize anyone upon their death is pretty stupid. That energy should be spent respecting the followers/loved ones they left behind. The world isn’t a better or worse place now that he (or anyone) is dead. If you agree with his views then carrying them on is what matters and if you disagree, trying to convince others he was wrong is what matters.
The worst dictator’s death changes nothing if others are there to pick up the mantle and the greatest saint’s passing doesn’t diminish their message if it’s carried on. In the end, I’ve always found humanity’s incapability of living through the message instead of the person to be disconcerting.
When I took a course in anthropological linguistics 30 years ago, I don’t recall that Noam Chomsky was ever mentioned. Most professors back then were, if anything, right wing. I only recall one or two left-wingers. I detest Chomsky as a dangerous and unethical traitor – most of the Jewish liberals I know feel the same way.
Lynx, I am sorry to have scared you about the KJV. It is known for its fine use of the English language of that period. I was referring to the accuracy of the translation. You might want to visit Bart Ehrman’s website at http://bartdehrman.com/
There is nothing liberal or tolerant whatsoever about the left. The truth is they are downright hateful.
Laura, am I downright hateful?
Found these Falwell quotes at PHB:
Selected Wit & Wisdom of Jerry Falwell
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1691
Whats interesting about this thread and many like it, is that people who would never tell someone of the opposite ideology that they are hateful in person, have no problem saying that about an entire group. I guess its because when you talk about an entire group- you aren’t thinking of people individually. I’ve met all kinds of people that disagree with me politically- even people in my own family. But that doesn’t mean I think they are all hateful.
“He is widely cited in academia and commands exorbitant speaking fees in his appearances before leftist political forums. From where I live and work, Churchill and Chomsky are FAR more influential than Falwell or Robertson.”
This is the most intellectually dishonest things I’ve ever seen posted by one of the co-bloggers here even though it’s in the comments. This is from the Wikipedia biography of Churchill.
Does this sound like someone widely cited in academia?? Where did you get this idea? There is no truth in it.
Chomsky may be another matter to the “left” but I consider his overall effect on those slightly to the left and in the middle to be very minimal. This is a much more defensible position than your claim that
Let’s see. Does Ward Churchill have his own university with thousands of young people going out into the world to carry his ideological banner? Oh, that’s right. He’s being dismissed from his university position, where he was only a teacher, not the person directing the ideology of an entire university. Chomsky never went far enough in stupidity to get fired but he still doesn’t wield that kind of influence. See: Liberty University, Regent University. As far as the influence of these schools go never forget that
And oh, yeah. Neither Churchill or Chomsky ever produced a video that went to 300,000 people that smeared a sitting President to the extent that the Clinton Chronicles lied about Bill Clinton.
Sigh. I screwed up and didn’t close a tag in the proper place.
Hey, Holly!
Holly said:
You happened to take one of the few areas of linguistics in which Chomsky has had little to say. Linguistically, he’s not very interested in culture and society. Instead he cares about the individual mind.
It’s hard to describe how influential Chomsky is in linguistics, but I just did a google search on “Chomsky linguistics” and came back with 1,170,000 hits. That’s not a shabby number. I can’t come up with the source at the moment, but I’ve read that Chomsky is one of the top 10 most cited names in all of academic literature. And he’s cited not for his political stuff, but for his linguistic and psychological theory. If you are going to say anything at all from about 1963 until now about grammar or about what language is, you have to start out saying how your grammar was different or a refinement of Chomsky’s.
Cosmoetica mentioned that Steven Pinker and cognitive scientists such as him will replace Chomsky’s theories. I think Pinker would be the first to say that he himself is working precisely within the Chomskyan tradition of linguistics and cognitive science. Pinker’s NY Times best seller from several years back is called The Language Instinct, which argues that language is essentially an inborn faculty, an instinct, of all humans. It’s not something that’s just learned by hanging around people who speak. It’s as biological as growing a heart or the ability to see. This is precisely Chomsky’s idea. In fact, I just pulled out my copy of Pinker’s The Language Instinct and according to the Index, Chomsky is mentioned on 37 pages, starting at page 21 and going all the way to 434. In fact, Pinker only makes it 7 pages into chapter 1 before he has to give a 3 paragraph blockquote from Chomsky. Chomsky’d have to assault someone before MIT would fire him. (Pinker’s at MIT as well. What a coincidence!)
I am sure I sound like a Chomsky linguistics adherent. In truth, I am currently working on an academic article which, in part, argues precisely that Chomsky and Pinker’s arguments about the language instinct are wrong. But this doesn’t stop me from admitting that Chomsky’s ideas, starting from his destruction of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior in 57 or so, revolutionized the field of linguistics and helped create the entire notion that there is a legitimate scientific field called cognitive science.
I’ll try to write a post up about the arguments for the language instinct on my own blog in the next day or so for people who care.
I’d just like to note that Jason Steck has said that Ward Churchill was influential on the political left.
No one should ever listen to Jason Steck again. That is not the statement of an honest person.
Carry on.
To come to Jason’s defense somewhat, I believe he is on a university campus, as am I, and indeed both Churchill and Chomsky have some sway. Churchill was even invited out here a couple years ago by some group. Another conservative group then brought David Horowitz out in retaliation. To my mind, both were a waste of time, but they did stir up some nice controversy for a few weeks, but I think most people are forgetting who Churchill is by now. Chomsky’s political stuff is more popular, and indeed it has been around for a while. I remember some populist / greenish party being formed in the early 90s when I was an undergrad with Cornel West and Chomsky and a few other being considered as the intellectual founders. Posters went up; some percentage supported it. I can’t say if 5%, 10%, or 40% of academics would quote Chomsky approvingly.
The point is that if you are in the academic environment, you will see some support for these ideas, and the people who provide that support are often quite loud. I have an idea where Jason was coming from therefore when he said that.
At the same time, and now disagreeing with Jason, academia is a really bad sample of the left / liberals / Democrats. While Churchill was invited to our school and got a hundred people to show up, he has had little influence outside of single digit percentages among even Democrats, has never met with presidents, and is all but forgotten already.
It’s interesting to read such threads.
Getting back to the idea of ‘hate.’ I mentione dit because when Right Wing Supremacist groups have been called on their race hatred, they respond in kind by calling those who disagree w their Fundy principles haters.
PC Elitists started this trend, but the Right has co-opted the word to the point it’s meaningless. Very few of the people who have condemned Falwell, or Chomsky or Churchill, have exhibited ‘hate’- merely distaste.
Words lose their power when misused.
I’ve argued this with gays I’ve known, that every time they label someone who does not agree with them 100% a homophobe they are doing a disservice. Even Falwell was likely not a homophobe, which means that he had fear of homosexuals, or implying a fear that the homophobe is gay.
Most people I’ve met who have a distaste for homosexuals do so becaus eof the ‘yuck’ factor. They simply are disgusted by it. Similarly, having had aparent smoke for 6 decades, I feel nauseated by the thought of cancer sticks. However, such a feeling is not homophobic, but what I call homotaedium- or a disgust for the act and/or idea.
‘Hate’ has been similarly abused. Again, only a couple of folk here have declared hate for Falwell, and as Mikkel said, it’s a waste. But, simply believing the world is better off w/o a slimeball like Falwell is not hate. Even a two-step on his grave is not hate. So, put that strawman aside, and deal with the real implications- pro or con- of Falwell and his legacy.
Re: Chomsky, the last 30 years have shown how utterly impotent college campuses are in affecting the real world. Chomsky’s name would get a ? from Joe Average on the street, so why the Right obsesses over Academia’s hermetic folly is a puzzle.
McMartworld, controlled by Rightists like Bushco, has far more dominance than the Ivy Towers ever had, much less teacher’s unions, or Labor.