c. 2008 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) So I guess this will be another “confessions of a former talk show host” column.
In the 1990s, soon after the Republicans released their “Contract with America,” the Christian Coalition released its “Christian Contract with America.” It seemed transparently similar, so when Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed appeared on my show, I asked a simple question.
“Who’s doing the theology for the Christian Contract with America?”
In all my interviews with Reed, before and after, I never saw him stumble for words like he did then.
Therein lies my problem with today’s political life _ right, center, left and everything in between.
Instead of a thoughtful approach to serious issues, designed to unify differing groups through well-reasoned arguments, today’s political process avoids ideas and opts instead for partisan positions designed to identity a big enough segment of voters to win.
Whatever happened to the common good?
In a recent Newsweek column titled “The closing of the American mind,” Evan Thomas describes the deep divide between political junkies and the rest of the population. “The junkies,” he says, “watch endless cable-TV news shows and listen to angry talk radio and feel passionate about their political views. They number roughly 20 percent of the population, according to Princeton professor Markus Prior.” Thomas says the other 80 percent were once moderates but are now turned off or tuned out.
Based on my experience, I would say that the problem is rooted in what Neil Postman described as a dumbing-down of the political process through a media that reduces political life to personalities, sound bites and visual symbols as a substitute for serious explorations of ideas and values that matter.
Postman points out that the Lincoln-Douglas debates lasted for hours _ including a lunch break so people could eat and then go back for another four hours of debate. The audience expected a logical debate and thorough airing of the candidates’ positions so they could reach the right conclusion.
Today, an entertainment formula has replaced serious political debate. No wonder the title of Hong Kong-born artist Kenneth Tin-King Hung’s New York gallery debut makes so much sense: “Because Washington Is Hollywood for Ugly People.”
It seems to me that in our current dysfunctional system, politicians who think deeply can’t get their ideas out effectively, and those who don’t think deeply can get by in a system that does not require it. That’s what happens when 60-second TV commercials have replaced substantive dialogue.
Lest we pile all the blame on the hapless politicians, let us take some of the blame for accepting spoon-fed news in short snippets of audio and video clips.
And dare we admit that we have truly been dumbed down? In a relativistic age that accepts the cockeyed notion that equal and opposite positions can both be true, the political winner will be whoever yells loudest, connects most personally or inspires some emotive response.
For the most part, the turned-off and tuned-out don’t vote, so I was heartened to see politically active young adults turning out en masse to campaign in Iowa, most of them for Sen. Barack Obama.
Unfortunately, I doubt they possess a deep understanding of the intellectual or “spiritual” basis for Obama’s candidacy; if Obama has explored the intellectual, spiritual and moral underpinnings of his positions, I have yet to hear them.
He may or may not have them, but even if he does, our current broken campaigning system does not require him to reveal them. It might even penalize him for trying to advance a serious case for his positions.
My talk show tried to be an exploration of ideas that matter. Politicians ranked up there with entertainers and athletes as the worst guests because they’re savvy enough to know that the medium, and the public it serves, demands and allows time only for entertaining quips _ so that’s what they deliver.
One can’t even turn to religious leaders for philosophical and theological examinations of the issues because the fastest growing, most influential churches in America are led by winsome entrepreneurial personalities.
If Washington Is Hollywood for Ugly People, what does that make today’s pop religion?
(Dick Staub is the author of “The Culturally Savvy Christian” and the host of The Kindlings Muse (http://www.thekindlings.com). His blog can be read at http://www.dickstaub.com)
KRE/PH END STAUB
750 words
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