The Phobia(s) That May Destroy America

I am continually amazed by the level of fear, contempt, and anger that many educated/urban/upper-middle-class people demonstrate toward Christians and rural people (especially southerners.) This complex of negative emotions often greatly exceeds anything that these same people feel toward radical Islamists or dangerous rogue-state governments. I’m not a Christian myself, or really a religious person at all, but I’d think that one would be a lot more worried about people who want to cut your head off, blow you up, or at a bare minimum shut down your freedom of speech than about people who want to talk to you about Jesus (or Nascar!)

It seems that there are quite a few people who vote Democratic, even when their domestic and foreign-policy views are not closely aligned with those of the Democratic Party, because they view the Republican Party and its candidates as being dominated by Christians and “rednecks.”

What is the origin of this anti-Christian anti-”redneck” feeling? Some have suggested that it’s a matter of oikophobia…the aversion to the familiar, or “”the repudiation of inheritance and home,” as philosopher Roger Scruton uses the term. I think this is doubtless true in some cases: the kid who grew up in a rural Christian home and wants to make a clean break with his family heritage, or the individual who grew up in an oppressively-conformist Bible Belt community. But I think such cases represent a relatively small part of the category of people I’m talking about here. A fervently anti-Christian, anti-Southern individual who grew up in New York or Boston or San Francisco is unlikely to be motivated by oikophobia–indeed, far from being excessively familiar, Christians and Southern people are likely as exotic to him as the most remote tribes of New Guinea.

Equally exotic, but much safer to sneer at…and here, I think, we have the explanation for much though not all of the anti-Christian anti-Southern bigotry: It is a safe outlet for the unfortunately-common human tendency to look down on members of an out group. Safer socially than bigotry against Black people or gays or those New Guinea tribesmen; much less likely to earn you the disapproval of authority figures in school or work or of your neighbors. Safer physically than saying anything negative about Muslims, as you’re much less likely to face violent retaliation.

Some other factors which I think motivate some people toward the anti-Christian anti-Southern mindset…One is the fear that Christians, especially Southern Christians, are anti-science, and that Republican electoral victories will reduce Federal support for science or even lead to restrictions on scientific research. And indeed, some conservatives/Republicans have been known to make some pretty strange statements, such as Representative Paul Broun’s recent assertion that “All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, the Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell.” But in realistic terms, there is far more threat to U.S. science from “animal rights” terrorists–the vast majority of whom are politically on the Left–than from anti-evolutionists. Also, there are certainly significant pressures on allowable and non-allowable topics for university research emanating from the “politically correct” Left. And numerous followers of “progressivism” are believers in various forms of mysticism, such as magical crystals and a conscious Gaia, which are at least as inconsistent with pure scientific materialism as are the Biblical miracles. At the level of practical technology, the irrational hostility toward nuclear power, genetically-modified crops, etc comes almost entirely from the Left.

Another factor is sex. Many seem to fear that conservatives/Republicans are anti-sex “Puritans,” and will force women into metaphorical (or maybe not so metaphorical!) chastity belts. Democratic Party operatives have done their best to conflate opposition to forcing institutions to pay for birth control with opposition to birth control itself. In reality, of course, no serious Republican national-level politician is remotely proposing the banning of birth control, or for that matter the banning of homosexuality. And, speaking of “Puritanism,” we should also note that the anti-male hostility emanating from certain radical feminists, who are almost entirely creatures of the Left, has done much to poison the relationship between the sexes, especially on college campuses.

Yet another factor involved in fear/hostility toward Christians is historical: it is indeed true that Christianity has often been used as an excuse for religious persecutions. Mary Antin, a Jewish immigrant who came to the U.S. from Russia in the early 1900s, wrote that pogroms in her home country had sometimes been led by priests carrying crucifixes, and it took her several years to get past an instinctual aversive reaction when passing by a Christian church. (She later became acquainted with several American priests and came to respect them for the work they were doing among the poor.) And, of course, the Holocaust was perpetrated largely by people who represented themselves as Protestants or Catholics. But in today’s world, hostility toward Israel…which more than occasionally shades off into outright anti-Semitism…is mainly generated by the “progressive” Left. Surely one is far more likely to encounter anti-Semitism among the members of the church that Barack Obama attended for 20 years than among the members of your typical Southern Baptist church or Catholic parish.

It’s important to understand history, but it’s also very dangerous to identify one’s friends and enemies based entirely on historical considerations while ignoring current realities. I read somewhere of a remote town in Russia where, at the time of the German invasion in 1941, the local Jews looked forward to the coming of the German troops. The town had been occupied during the earlier war, and the German officers of that time–only 20 years earlier–had been considerably less thuggish and anti-Semitic than the homegrown Czarist local officials. The town’s Jews, largely cut off from news of the outside world, did not realize that “German soldier” meant something different in 1941 than it had in 1914. Analogously, “Democratic politician” means something very different in 2012 than it did in 1960.

The primary factor behind anti-Christian/anti-”redneck” feelings is, almost certainly, the fact that these groups offer a convenient target for in-group solidarity and feelings of superiority at the expense of the “other.” To the extent that people not motivated by this factor are considering a vote for Barack Obama and/or other “progressive” Democratic candidates based on concerns about Christians and “rednecks,” they are prioritizing fears which are largely imaginary over dangers which are all too real.

The anti-Christian, anti-”redneck” phobias have been key contributors to the spread of the “progressive” ideology that threatens virtually all aspects of American life, from freedom of speech to national security to economic well-being.

James Madison, the one largely responsible for authoring the Constitution, based the three branches of our government partially off of the following verse from the Bible:

“For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us” (Isaiah 33:22, KJV).

Thus, it can be seen that this verse references the judicial (”judge”), legislative (”lawgiver”), and executive (”king”) aspects of the government.

It was also based on the writings of the philosopher Montesquieu, who promoted the same idea.

Separation of powers was promoted in the hopes of avoiding tyranny. If the power was divided among three branches of government, which each had unique powers, then power would not be concentrated entirely in one place, and thus would be less likely to tyrannize the people Separation of powers is closely tied to the idea of checks and balances: each branch is able to check the power of the others, so that if one steps beyond its constitutional limits or attempts to abuse the people, it can be stopped by the other branches.

Jackson, thank you for this thoughtful column. As a rural Southern (white, but of course for some reason Southern never means "Black" despite being the historical birthplace of Aframerica) religious Fundamentalist (though not a chrstian) I am the terrible monster these people hate and fear so much and it simply doesn't make any sense.

Blacks and Hispanics pay no social price for their chrstianity--though of course this may be for the simple reason that they vote right. If rednecks "voted right" would they be accepted as well, or would they still be villains?

Similarly, the redneckphobic urban intellectual types have no problems with the "charming" super-rational belief systems of "indigenous pipples." They would never think of taking a picture of some tribesman who believed doing so would "steal his soul," but they delight forcing the "redneck" to accept homosexuality. They claim to believe that "all cultures are equal" but obviously believe that "redneck" culture is inferior to every other culture on earth.

Many years ago I purchased and read The Redneck Manifesto by Jim Goad. This book isn't perfect. The author is apparently an atheist (and thus his ideology is as groundless as that of his opponents) and the book is full of obscenities and racial slurs. He also evinces a mild but noticeable anti-British (pro-Irish) and anti-Israel prejudice. His thesis is that the poor of various ethnicities have been turned against each other by the master class as a strategy of divide-and-conquer. Once upon a time this would have had him classified as left wing. But nowadays, simply defending "rednecks" is right wing in and of itself.

But nevertheless there are layers to this prejudice (anti-rural/southern by wealthy urban elites) that simply defy any and every convention. And these can't be addressed without addressing the two ethnic communities that appear to be at each other's throat.

Let's look at American Blacks. They aren't aliens or recent immigrants. They've been here for almost four hundred years. In fact, one could say that they stand second in line to Anglo-Saxons as the Americans. Yet now they have been transformed into an angry, alien horde that refuses to look at anything other than its own narrow economic interests. They worship like hillbillies but they might as well be secular humanists in their concerns. Do they believe in "gay rights?" Evolution? The documentary hypothesis? If so, how can they claim to be in rebellion against Europe? Isn't rationalistic humanism the most European ideology in history? I must confess that I am flummoxed and have been for a long time. I live in the rural South with Black people and I must confess that I don't understand them at all. They don't seem aware of any issues under the sun other than those having to do with race and poverty. Nothing else exists for them.

But are they really so different from the hated "rednecks?" Other than in their concerns and in how they vote they seem just like us. Why do they hate us so much? Why do elite urban intellectuals who despise rural Southern whites practically worship Blacks as superhuman beings sent to earth to bring about "social justice?" What is the secret of the alliance between these two communities (lefty intellectuals and grass roots Blacks)? I have often in the past used professional wrestling as a metaphor for this alliance because, like the "heel" wrestlers, Blacks and effete urban whites shouldn't have anything in common. They should be hostile to one another. But they are not. Their alliance is apparently unbreakable. I almost wonder if the introduction into public schools of explicity "Black" chrstianity would even be objected to by liberals.

Similarly, the poor rural Southern whites are themselves a mixed bag. Sometimes it seems the right idealizes rural Southern whites just as leftist intellectual idealize Blacks, but the sad fact is that the white South was solidly Democrat for a hundred years. Together with urban Northern Catholics they formed one of the two original Democrat voting blocs. And to this day there are plenty of "good old boy" yellow dog Democrats left. Some conservatives may not be aware of this, but I assure you all it is true. Not to mention that if Southern Blacks hadn't been treated like garbage for so long when they were still Bible-thumpers we might not be in this mess today. And how many are aware of the poor Southern white populist tradition--William Jennings Bryan and Huey P. Long? Yet so-called "socialists" despise these men because their socialism would have benefited the wrong people. And lest it be forgotten, the white South was an integral member of the original New Deal coalition.

None of this makes any sense. I find myself hated by "intellectuals" who supposedly don't hate anyone, and who prove it by hating me, because I am allegedly hatred incarnated.

I'm going to close by saying something absolutely outrageous. But the fact that two communities allegedly share the same religion nevertheless hate and despise each other so much tells us an awful lot. How many rural white and urban Black chrstians worship a "gxd" created in their own image rather than the Objective G-d Who created us all? This is an old problem of chrstianity, going way back to Greeks and Latins (and Copts and Jacobites and Armenians and Assyrians). Perhaps it's comes with a belief in the incarnation.

At any rate, it is obvious to me that there is no line that American Blacks will not cross to stay Democrat. They and their preachers will justify every abomination. And the fact that this community is not alien but among the very oldest of Americans makes the whole thing triply disturbing. Something is wrong here. And it's not anything new. There's been something wrong all along or this would have never happened.

I didn't used to be a bigot. But I must confess that I'm having a terribly hard time fighting against that temptation now, and I'm afraid it's only going to get harder and harder to resist.

The attacks are not just against rurals, but against Traditional America. Those Jews screaming about Christians support the destruction of Judaism on the alter of their true religion political correctness. 2/3 of American Jews care more about burning their children on the topeths of Moloch (Abortion) and the sanctifying abomination (homosexual marriage) than they do about the threat to their fellow Jews. If you want to understand what has happened to America, you have to understand three things.
1. The elites have been taught to hate America thanks to Cultural Marxism. Oikophoba is the shibboleth of this belief, not its entirety. Many apolitical middle class and upper middle class people, understand that to be on the wrong side of leftist shibboleths is to doom themselves and their children to a lower class future.
2. Greivance politics*
3. Democrats have grown the taking class with welfare, and Republicans with tax reform.
4. Immigration and the failure to Americanize them, their children, and our own children.

I wrote about this four years ago http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1969413/posts

*Grievance politics unites disparate minorities in unthinking opposition to the majority, even against rational self interest. The politics of grievance is an unthinking ersatz ethnic loyalty, wherein one defines oneself in opposition, rather than in being. It leads Jews to support political correctness, immigration of Muslims, and Third Worldism, even though these are all against their rational self interest as an Americans or as a Jews. It leads Scottish, Welsh, and Irish nationalists in the UK to endorse immigration. It leads black leaders to support immigration, liberal social politics, and objectively failing education and social models. And this doesn't just apply to minorities in the West. Grievence politics in the form of anti-colonialism allows the South African regime to support Mugabe's starvation of fellow Africans in the once prosperous Zimbabwe. At its core, grievance politics is adolescent behavior. It is a mixture of finding virtue in being oppressed or having been oppressed, certitude in current virtue, a desire for unquestioned compensation and revenge. What kind of Jew is nuts enough to find common cause with Muslims who'd just as soon destroy Israel (and the United States) and murder American Jews by millions. In fact, Muslims are equal opportunity mass murderers that would kill Jews, Christians, Secular Humanists, Atheists, or any other faith (or non-faith) in the name of Allah. Why are American Jews completely blind and deaf to this very real threat? A willfully blind "Jew" who defines Judaism as liberalism, (IE an idolitor) or a derascinated leftist of Jewish descent.

I rarely fing the time to respond anymore, but ZC, I did think of you when posting this.

The redneck reference. rmlew, as a half urban, half northcentral approaching a couple centuries rural person, there's an anti rural bias, rural folk are rubes. In the north they vote the right way more often, but the bias is there. If you're suggesting the bias is a function of traditional values being more a function of rural rather than urban values, I won't disagree. Though I do think it's more a function of religiousity.

Grievance politics, clearly it's a potent political force. But I'd disconnect it from minorities. Who I doubt are functioning in any minority oriented interest accepting and advocating assistance, and freebies. It's self interest which majorities participate in as well.

I wouldn't in any way define it as idolitry, but Judaism doesn't equate with contemporary American liberalism. I'd be hard pressed to think of a secular political movement it equates with for a couple millenia.

ZC, what you describe a hatred between coreligionists, I recognize not yours, based on race is sad. I'm at a loss as to any cause other than secular political differences. Hatred still being hatred.

Politically, I do think the rural/urban divide is obvious from the maps, doubters can spend a couple minutes drilling down to congressional districts. Urban districts are blue.

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