The Varieties of Liberal Enthusiasm

The City Journal ^ | Spring 2010 | BENJAMIN A. PLOTINSKY

[Eric Blair 2084]

Cast your mind back to January 2009, when Barack Obama became the president of the United States amid much rejoicing. The hosannas—covering the inauguration was “the honor of our lifetimes,” said MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews—by then seemed unsurprising.

snip.

The better we understand this religious impulse, the better we will understand liberal America’s likely trajectory in the years to come.

The first signs of the spiritual zeal that would eventually play a significant part in Obama’s election came not from Washington or Chicago but from Hollywood. Our moviemakers are adept at measuring the zeitgeist of the nation—of its liberal half, anyway—and are a powerful force in shaping it. And for more than a decade, they’ve been churning out what critics call “black-angel” movies. These films feature a white protagonist guided to enlightenment by a black character, usually of divine or supernatural origin or, at the very least, in touch with spiritual experiences that the main character lacks. With the black angel’s help, the white hero finds salvation.

The genre includes, to name just a few, The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), in which Will Smith—playing a caddie who is really, the film hints, God—restores Matt Damon’s golf game and love life; Bruce Almighty (2003), in which Morgan Freeman, as God, bestows his powers on a manic Jim Carrey;

snip

Far and away the best of the black-angel films is Frank Darabont’s The Green Mile (1999), based on a novel by Stephen King, whose knack for setting his finger on the cultural pulse has made him a multimillionaire.

[Eric Blair 2084]

This is a must read. The best op-eds are the ones that compel you to see things that you thought you saw the first time in a whole new light.

The Left’s political zealotry increasingly resembles religious experience.

[FreedomPoster]

AGW also has religious cult elements.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Exactly. Read the article.

Liberalism is a religion. I thought Ann Coulter was joking.

[neverdem]

BTTT