But Rush isn't a hater? And who the hell is it that's obstructing all sorts of "healing"? I thought the Busheviks were doing a lot of that!
But, I do agree that this is something that u.s.ers do. I notice it in discussions on the 'net that aren't political. It's like you're not supposed to have a position. It's an _opinion_ and it's _just_ an opinion. IOW, you can thrust your opinion in everyone's face and as soon as you're asked to defend it, you say, "it's just my opinion" effectively removing it--and your *reasons* for holding it--from discussion -- coz dog knows nobody needs to have a reasoned opinion. They ahve a right to their opinion, damn it, and they're going to stroke it and love it and squeeze it in public all they want, but don't you dare touch my opinion, damn it. It's mine all mine all mine.
Speaking of WMNF, it reminds me of something that came up on the show when they featured a guy who'd been an evangelical but isn't any longer. Maybe Chip knows who I'm talking about? Anyway, they were interviewing him about his book and a woman called in to say that he couldn't really have been born again.
Why? Because he hasn't had a _personal_ relationship with christ. It had just been intellectual. he only thinks about religion from an abstract point of view. He hasn't had "that personal experience with christ in your life."
Of course, he noted that he'd rec'd this kind of criticism before. In this woman's view of christianity --and she denounced denominationalism as, again, not "real" christianity--it's about revelation. It's not about your actions, or rather, it's about communicative action (*snicker*): you must profess a _personal_ relationship with christ, a personal experience of revelation, a personal experience that cements your belief in a christian god. Going to church every Wednesday and Sunday, caring for "the least of these," maintaining your virginity, turning the other cheek (heh), etc. -- these activities aren't the essential, defining feature of christianity. What counts is, as the guest author said, that you have a powerful emotional experience such that you tremble and weep when you pray and that sort of thing.
The caller then went on to express a profound distrust of intellectualism, insisting that it was important to feel, and that she was glad she had feelings and emotions, because that is what brought her to truth, not contemplative thought, arguments, objective evidence. For her, the only evidence that matters was the subjective experience of revelation which is then confirmed as objective truth in the sharing of that experience by testifying to it, in public spaces -- such as this radio program.
So, in this aspect of rightwing ideology, emotionalism, feelings, etc. are what counts and it's dispassionate reason that's distrusted. I LOVE how this is melded together with the claim that lefties are irrational, emotional *haters* so anything they have to say must be distrusted b/c it's not based on dispassionate, reasoned evidence and argument.
s.s.