Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For June 20, 2018

June 18

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost which blames today’s social anxiety on subjectivism and narcissism. In this article,  Clark also mentions some of the earthly causes of anxiety as meriting some attention, but not much. This appeared in Heidelblog

What is unfortunate here is the projection of merited guilt on others. For it seems that, according to Clark, a clear, realistic view of America involves an overall positive view of our nation rather than a negative one. And the problem for Clark is that history doesn't support his optimism.

We could start at the very beginning with a new nation that was based on a Christian-oriented white supremacy. But because our nation's founding fathers are often regarded by conservatives as being the secular equivalent of the Apostles, there is too much dissonance for many of us to understand how the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land or the practice of slavery before the Civil War and Jim Crow laws and culture afterwards point to our nation being based on racism. And what is odd is that the struggle for Civil Rights was not worthy of being mentioned when Clark described some of the sources of anxiety in our nation in the 1960s.

Likewise, the protests against the Vietnam War were described as 'riots' by Clark even though the war itself saw America become responsible for the slaughter of 2-3 million Vietnam civilians. And that the whole mess could have been avoided if America had abided by the Geneva Accords that called for the decision to reunite the nation to be determined democratically.

Of course, there were other 'look what we've done' moments in the latter part of the 20th century.  For the U.S. replaced a number of left-leaning democratically elected leaders and governments with handpicked brutal dictators. And that doesn't count the dictators we supported without using them to replace democracies.

Today, we still face the threat of nuclear annihilation. And though such destruction may not come our way by the hands of the Russians, technology makes the proliferation of WMDs inevitable. And so for as long as we depend on the rule of force, perhaps logic is telling us that, like 9/11, the use of such force on us is also inevitable. And such would be a legitimate source of anxiety.

Or perhaps despite the claims of the reduction of abject poverty being reduced,  other levels of poverty have not been reduced and wealth disparity within and between some nations continues to grow. And with more and more jobs being seen as disposable to either offshoring or automation, people have a legitimate reason for worry.

Of course, economics isn't our other biggest worry. The environment is--though no one could tell by Clark's article.
What is positive for Clark is that he grew up in a happy environment where he was sheltered from many of the hardships of life faced by others and we should celebrate that. I too grew up in a sheltered environment. But that positive regard for when and how he grew up has unfortunately caused him to conflate some of Americana with Christianity. And that is unfortunate especially when those who do not share Clark's sheltered background read his words and associate Christianity with the other side of America which Clark sees as only being a result of Narcissism and subjectivism. And here we might ask Clark if he too is a student of subjectivism since he so easily filters out what has been morally wrong about America according to the Scriptures.

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June 19

To Antonin Dvořák and his cantata about the American Flag written in 1892-1893. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

And yet, the nation, which flew the flag about which Dvořák wrote, did not give freedom to Blacks, Native Americans, and women. And to a significant extent, it still doesn't. This tells us that we need to be careful about the ideals we associate with our nation. For when those ideals are not lived out by our nation, those ideals become delusional expressions of self-worship more than a description of facts.