I remember watching a television show back in the 196
o's called "You Asked For It". Television as a broad medium was still fairly new. Historians may say that television was introduced in the 1930's, but to be real, anybody who could afford a television set in the '50's was pretty well off. Just look at the decline of radio
TSL to television in the '50's to get an idea of the trade-off.
My family got our first television set in 196o.
Before then, my family got its information about world and current events from the newspaper. In 1960 we had three newspapers, the
Oregonian, the
Oregon Journal, and the
Valley Times. The
Valley Times was a weekly newspaper directed to those of us who lived outside the metropolitan area of Portland, and was found on newsstands at grocery stores and cafes in the Washington county area. We knew that living in a community like
Metzger or Progress wouldn't draw the attention of
urbanites like those who lived on Council Crest or near Grant High School. So game scores for teams from grade schools and high schools from
Tigard or
Scholls was left to the domain of the
Valley Times.
The
Valley Times was one of the earliest incarnations of what we have come to know, today, as a trader. Walking into
Piggly-Wiggly on
Barbur, you'd be greeted by a stack of
Valley Times on the counter of each
checkstand. When they sold out, they were gone. But folks, just like my folks, would pick up a copy to get the news on the local PTA, church functions and scores for local schools. And not just scores. There would be the names of kids whose parents we knew.
All in all, the usefulness of a local newspaper was to bring a community together.
This was all before the ascendancy of a type of journalism that was developed in the 1960's called,
advocacy journalism.
We'd had
yellow journalism before. What is odd, when referring to this "golden" age of "yellow" journalism is that just as this movement was
proceding--and it was a movement--the ideas of the movement was being put to the test in post-Revolutionary Russia. To little or no use or value to the "real" revolutionaries of the Bolshevik Party. Emma Goldman? Get real. (Didn't she used to date an architect?)
The romantic revisionism of the Left has always relied heavily on
proto-Judaic visions of Utopia. This has been one of the logical inconsistencies of the Left that has existed as far back as the eye can see. While the Left agonizes over the existence of Judaism, it attempts to co-opt Hebraic mythology in order to justify its own existence. (I think this self-parody of "the Jew" is unintended and observable in the political views of most contemporary American Jews. the derision of the Jew in early 20
th century literature was best reduced by Gertrude Stein's critical comment to Fitzgerald that he'd "finally found your Jew." Because Jews are parodied, and have been for centuries, the "fuck you" gene has become recessive. The Jew was the sawbuck of the Progressive during the 1920's. Genetics and Jews. I understand they voted for Obama.
Sheesh.)
As the "vision" of justice is written and re-written by the Left, the odd pause is neglected and ignored.
God didn't give us Reason in order to get along. And He didn't give us Reason to prove we were donkeys.
He gave us Reason.
While it is easy for the Left to denigrate the Jew, there is no point along the time-line of the Jewish experience where Man as Jew was separated from his God. In fact, if you've actually read the
Torah or the
Bible, it can be stated that a great deal of the works--up to and including the
New Testament is a continuing conversation with God. Obviously there is a change in "voice" when reading the
New Testament". Christ was God come among us. He was here to take names and kick ass. It only requires a selective reading of the
New Testament to allow the radical Leftist to attempt to impose his views of the words of the Lord and His Apostles upon us through a revision of His Words, as an unintended consequence of the breadth of the revision in the Hebraic to Christian model. There are huge chasms that exist between the writings and teachings of the Jewish faith and the Christian faith. But it is my belief that the discontinuity that occurs is not greater than the breach. I am more Jewish in my beliefs and faith than I am Christian. Sort of "Christians for
Hebraicism", I guess.
Unfortunately for the Left, there were local newspapers being published at the time of the ascendancy of Christianity. For those unfamiliar with The Bible, a lot of this published material is referred to as
The Letters. These weren't the Words of Christ, but the words of the prophets. There was an intense period of
intermediation that required taking up the Hebraic traditions and translating how the philosophical underpinnings of Judaism were, or would become, consonant with current modern thinking about life and creation,
in re, Rome.
Writers were important during the
Christian era. The
Letters of the
New Testament are among the most important writings of the Modern Era. And yet, not a single public school in the United
States of America is allowed to teach based upon the greatest, singly most important document in Western Civilization. Take the example of
the current debate on-going in Idaho.
Long time readers of this
webspace are familiar with my admission that I am not a Christian. And, I think, if you put "Christian" into the "search" bar above, you will be taken to my prior posts on Christianity.
But my inability to declare myself a Christian does not diminish for me the importance of the writings of the adherents of Christ, nor diminish their
formulative importance in the development of the Western Philosophical Tradition. We stand upon the shoulders of our fathers. Remember, the conversation between Jews and God has been and will be unimpeded.
Being able to declare that religion is unimportant, or that the study of religion is likewise unimportant, is one of the declared goals of groups like the
NEA, in Oregon the
OEA, the ACLU and at least one political party, the Democrats.
The idea is pushed through media--our current version of Letters. From the
New York Times to the
Daily Astorian, we are told that simply asking questions about the roots or our ideas constitutes a violation of the wall between State and Church. This is a strongly and assiduously held belief among the Left. (Anybody thinking about the "wall" of Jamie
Gorelick?)
But when asked about other limitations (
a la "The Constitution") we find that these strongly held barriers only exist when it comes to intellectual inquiry. When it comes to requiring one to spend money in commerce for a product that one has chosen he neither wants to purchase, or simply can't afford to purchase, under this reading of the
Constitution it is current doctrine coming out of Washington, D.C., that there are, or is, no such limitation. Walls only exist for the proletariat. Walls have become the whim of the Elite.
I cannot expect my children to be taught the exegeses of the Western Political Tradition, but I can be forced to purchase insurance or be sent to jail.
We have, at least for a time, the Internet to focus attention upon the disparity between the Leftist view of our future, and the more traditional American view of our future. The traditional view of America is being over-written every day by newspapers like the
Oregonian and the
Register-Guard. The role of the written word is every bit as important as it was two or three thousand years ago. What is occurring currently, as it has during every retrenchment in the past, is the obscuration of logic and learning in the favour of dilettantism and ideology.
The television show,
You Asked For It, had a simple premise. Any question you had would be shown--on television!--as a response to your inquiry. It was a nakedly naive representation. You wanted to watch bears on roller skates, you watched bears on roller skates.
But where is the simple
naiveté today? Long since passing.
The essence of
naiveté is in the simplicity, or elegance, of the
naif. There is no dissimulation. There is not an undue equivocation or
obscurance. There are simple questions and answers. And you can determine whether or not your question was answered appropriately, or not. If not, you may disregard the answer.
No longer. In American politics, obscurantism is the highest form of the political art. Ask a clear question? Who cares. Dissimulation is an almost in-born trait among the political class. And the simple journal keepers who want to give pen to paper for this experience?
Where is the journalistic class?
Where are the bright young men and women of Columbia?
Long since passing.
It is my thesis that we no longer teach our children about the Western Liberal Tradition. We are now teaching our children that any idea is just as good as any other. Giving them hard walls to practise their serves against is anathema to the current crop of public school educators. It is Euclid standing upon his head.
Gibbon be damned.
History is now an eclectic series of apologies for having robust and forcefully held beliefs. There are no footnotes, no way stations along the way of progress. There is no longer a
journo in journalism. There are no way-stations. There is no inquiry, and hence, no need for answers.
It is indisputable that Mary Jo
Kopechne was killed by recently deceased Senator Edward Kennedy. But there is no way-station in the modern political dialogue that permits such a
naif's view of the incident. There is indisputable proof that the current argument for Anthropological Climate Change (
ACC),
Manmade Global Warming (
MGW) and Climate Change (CC) are the artifacts of a group of Leftists who wish to rein in the creativity of the individual.
See
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here and
here.
We were told during the Nixon Watergate hearings that the cover-up was worse than the crime.
Not today.
Today, the cover-up is the crime, and no journalist is willing to find Deep Throat. What should be a chilling moment for the Left has become another
Ted Sorenson moment.
Forgive me. I hope to remain
naivé.
Matthew 18:2.
(Stolen from Ghost of a Flea.)
(Serially, I know this pic is inappropriate. But I have it, and when else does it make sense to use such a deplorable image?)
