Culture Wars Sowing Stupidity and Hatred
Celebrities, Whacked Religionists, National ‘Nonprofits’ Riling Up the Masses and Raking in Cash for the Fun of It
The damned overhyped culture wars. U.S. culture wars like those all over the planet are all about sowing and cementing division, creating distraction and outlandish sums of money.
There are slews of politicians, journalists, television broadcasters, radio host carnival barkers, lawyers, and businesses of all sorts, who could not survive, thrive, and party without culture wars. They are fun aren’t they. (When I worked at the nonprofit “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” — yes, an old nationalistic mouthful of a title — the executive director and communications director were clownish white men who delighted in helping to fund and flame U.S. culture wars.)
In the U.S. culture wars are money-makers, not like professional sports, but the white-collar classes thrive on them.
Distraction is not a bad thing in life, but there are levels. Some distraction is not distraction but mind expanding or transcendental, such as literature, music, theatre, and some musicals and movies.
The culture wars hyped by mainstream media and thirsty “nonprofit” advocacy groups and their lobbyists and consultants, is lowbrow entertainment at best. At worst they are misleading, seeding great stupidity and hatred from coast to coast.
Who are some of the great offenders of U.S. culture wars?
They are high profile, often celebrity, monotheists, or religionists.
U.S. history is strewn with them. In recent times alone the U.S. has been blessed with the likes of the late-televangelist Jerry Falwell, a founder of the so-called moral majority, and Liberty University, which to this day pumps out white, evangelical Christian lawyers to shape U.S. law in hopes of creating a Christian theocracy aligned with U.S. capitalism.
Falwell’s son, Jerry Jr., continued in his father’s flamboyant tradition, but took it a bit overboard, and was forced to resign his leadership of Liberty University in 2020. See this Vanity Fair piece for an enjoyable read of Falwell Jr.’s downfall from the good graces of the nation’s religious right and former President Donald Trump. Falwell Jr. was a fierce supporter of Trump and his reelection often in the most unctuous and despicable terms possible.
Falwell Jr. became a religious right darling because of his bigly Trump-embrace. But instead of living into his 70s amassing more wealth and power and dropping dead in an office at Liberty University after a large buttery breakfast at the local Bob Evan’s like his father did, Falwell Jr.’s tenure was short-lived after reporters discovered he enjoyed watching his wife have sex with their pool boy Giancarlo Granda.
Falwell Sr. and Jr., to a lesser degree, helped cement the U.S. religious right within the Republican Party.
But the televangelist Pat Robertson must not be overlooked. Robertson ran twice for president as a Republican, founded Regent University, and co-founded the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) with Jay Sekulow, who defended President Donald Trump during one of his impeachments.
Robertson also created “The 700 Club,” a worldwide Christian evangelical hit show and a platform for plenty of hatred. Robertson demonized LGBTQ people all the time, sometimes blaming hurricanes on gay people. So much has been written on Falwell Sr. and Robertson, and Robertson still delights from time to time on his 700 Club.
The Christian Right’s influence doesn’t end with the Republican Party.
Indeed, U.S. taxpayers have long tolerated federal and state tax breaks and benefits for houses of worship. Churches, synagogues, mosques all operate with big help from taxpayers. They get tax breaks as “nonprofit” entities and megachurches raking in tens of millions pay no taxes.
The tax setup makes a mockery of the ideal of the separation of government and religion. The tax gifts to organized religion happens because Congress is controlled by monotheists, and the U.S. Supreme Court is controlled by religionists — every justice on the high court is a monotheist. And the high court has for decades twisted itself into pretzels to defend the government-religion partnership. Legal weasels call it “accommodation.”
In 2022 the moral majority is also big in the Democratic Party, a party in love with markets and capitalism as well.
Almost every Democrat running for national office in 2022 (see Nina Turner in Ohio for example) tout their Christian religious bona fides ad nauseam.
West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, a longtime Democratic Party fixture, touts his Christianity along with his gun collection, and hatred of domestic programs for people stuck in poverty or addicted to pain killers. Manchin is a tool of the “health care” insurance industry and a former coal baron. His family is also a hive of filthy capitalists in the one of the nation’s poorest states. Jacobin dubbed his family America’s worst.
The uptight, dusty, and not living-well U.S. Constitution may ban religious tests for public office, but in the U.S. if you want to hold political office you better be Christian or a member of one of the other monotheist clubs. Poll after poll shows U.S. people will vote racists into public offices but not atheists. Polling of U.S. people on their religion shows a socially conservative populace with a large percentage it professing a literal belief in the Bible’s creation story.
Do culture wars never die? Distraction of course is a part of the brew. Many people have laughed at Robertson’s antics for instance. When he ran for president at least the first time, he could be close to goofy. But this helped obscure the fact he was winning votes in a presidential Republican Party primary.
Money and division are the driving forces though.
Think Houston megachurch mogul Joel Osteen or 2020 presidential “contender” Kanye West. Both men are Christian evangelicals, influential, and rake in tens of millions selling a prosperity gospel and ongoing redemption of current “sins,” such as closing your megachurch to Houston residents seeking shelter from flooding, or harassing your former wife via social media during high-profile, public divorce proceedings.
Osteen and West are wealthy several times over and their religion tells them that is a good thing. None of their followers enjoy similar wealth. Though many are no doubt entertained.
Are culture wars a good and necessary balm for terrified, troubled minds?
It sure appears that way, but I would much rather spend money on beauty that make my gay soul happy. There is too much material to read, music to take in, and movies to give a chance.
Culture wars are best snuffed out in quick manner. Not giving into the monied class and leaving behind culture wars are key in lessening their impact in the future. The world is facing a climate crisis, so it is real possible culture wars may not be never-ending. Not when mother nature is up your face all the time.
