Slouching Towards Oblivion

Thursday, August 22, 2019

What's Wrong With The Evangelicals?

Y'mean, besides the fact they're a buncha pinch-faced blue-nosed puritanical assholes?

Daniel Schultz, Rewire News:

Late last week, my friend John Stoehr made a daring argument: “white evangelical Christian support for Donald Trump isn’t rooted in hypocrisy, contradiction or merely straying from the straight and narrow,” he said. “The reason they support a fascist president is simple: They’re sadists.”

You have to read the article to capture the nuances of what John is saying. The kind of sadism he’s talking about doesn’t have much, if anything, to do with sexual pleasure derived from the pain of another. Rather—drawing on the work of the philosopher Richard Rorty—”It’s about the pain, humiliation or even violence out-groups deserve by dint of being out-groups.” Sadism also includes the pleasure of seeing “justice” be done against those deserving punishment.

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First of all, let’s clarify that it really is not all white evangelicals who have become sadists. About a quarter of that group is in fact liberal, and many of them are committed to various forms of social inclusion and justice. But conservative white evangelicals by and large believe, perversely, in a world of justice and order. Each part of that equation is important.

White evangelicals and other conservative Christians believe that God has ordained certain ways of being and doing in the world. That’s the order part. Daddies are leaders, then mommies, then kids. This is the traditional cis-het thing you’re familiar with.

Religion is authoritarian. That's why it always fits perfectly with the Daddy State.

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