Frank Schaeffer - son of the late evangelist, Francis Schaeffer (credited for the rise of the Christian Right in the U.S.) - continues to provide valuable personal insights into today’s evangelical subculture. Importantly, he knows the ”dog-whistle code” (thanks, JJ!) used by evangelicals, but unnoticed by good-natured people hoping to find common ground with them.
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Thanks to JJ for linking this interview of Schaeffer in comments here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Added: a re-post from May/07:
I believe in evolution,
But I also believe,
when I hike the Grand Canyon (wink,wink)
and see it at sunset,
that the hand of God is there also.
John McCain
Senator/Presidential Hopeful
I now have a new favorite quote
“A villiage cannot reorganize villiage life to suit the villiage idiot” -Frank Schaeffer
Thanks. :)
I too really liked that one! :D
Thank goodness for Frank Schaeffer and Nate Phelps, sons who grew to reject the harmful lessons of their childhoods and discard the religious insanity of their notorious fathers. The question of the hour: Why some, and not others?
note: I think they’ve earned the right to be as inflammatory as they choose – despite Husband’s feeling that Schaeffer was “over-the-top” mean in this interview. :)
~Lynn
Frank writes for the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/remember-what-civility-wa_b_286815.html
He’s on a roll for exposing this subculture he speaks of. You can catch up with a few of his posts from the above link.
Lynn, maybe tell husband that I used to be the nicest, most conciliatory nonpartisan in the world, urging everyone to find positive ways to differ and not to be blunt or rude etc etc (ask Nance — if she weren’t a Yankee, she would’ve called me “mealy-mouthed” ten years ago when we first met.)
But you do get buffeted by the most shocking lies and language and badly abused for that politeness, over and over and over until you begin to long for someone to say it unequivocally, even meanly if need to, to get through the plain truth of it. . .
It is exactly that niceness that ruthless people count on.
If your goal is to shove your beliefs onto others, no matter the truth of the beliefs, the benefit from or damage caused by those beliefs, no matter the others’ right to hold contrary beliefs, all in the name of “saving” them, or at least your bottom line, you do not deserve niceness.
These are not the polite Southern churchgoers JJ grew up with. These are politicians out to run the world to benefit themselves using religion and ignorance as tools to that end.
BTW, JJ, I was born and raised in FL. Not that that makes me a Southerner, really. But I was not converted to Yankee until I went to NY/NJ for some schoolin’ and so on. :)
Nance
I loved the village idiot quote, too.
And it’s a line I think a lot of people will understand. And maybe be able to say, “Oh, right. Those people are wrong and idiots. Let’s figure out what we should really be doing.”
I hope Obama gets to that point already. . .
Nance
Oh noes! The first time I pluck up my courage and call Nance something rude (Yankee) and then it’s not quite true!
;-)
Oh, don’t worry. I spent enough time in NY/NJ not to care what people call me. :)
Nance
Explain to me this “dog whistle code.” I’d never heard of this Frank Shaeffer, but man! I think I’d like him.
Hi Audrey – the dog whistle code is pitched only for fundamentalist evangelicals to hear or even know is there. Kathleen Parker talks about it too, the dog whistle of southern racism. Impossible to ignore if your ears have been bred to hear it.
Here’s a long Schaeffer column that lays out his views in more detail:
Subversives From Within
[...] the human race was enslaved once again by dark dominionist forces from another planet or at least a foreign fifth column that uses our own values against us. . [...]
JJ: “the dog whistle code is pitched only for fundamentalist evangelicals to hear or even know is there.”
Though former fundies like Michelle and me have *fundar* (my word for fundamentalist radar), so we can hear it, too! :) And, of course, you have people like JJ and Nance and others who have trained their ear to hear it also.
JJ: “(Americans who have been) deliberately cloistered from it by their parents and churches.”
…or, in absense of parents and churches, right-wing media, as in the case of someone I was talking to yesterday. I made the mistake of complimenting a painting only to be told that the artist’s works are very valuable – “even though he’s a liberal Nazi who lives in New York.” So, there you go. The latest scare-meme: “liberal Nazis.”
JJ: “The home-schooled, privately educated brainwashed horde are an antidemocratic, fundamentally anti-American
political movement…”
Recently, there was some survey data (reviewed at Milton Gaither’s blog) about the political motivations of Christian homeschoolers. The suggestion was that they are more likely to be “libertarian,” not “theocratic,” which, of course, tells you nothing about Christian homeschoolers, but, rather, the lack of requisite fundar, on the part of the researcher, to make such an evaluation. :)
Isn’t that an oxymoronic (emphasis on moron) scare-meme though?
Nothing liberal about the right wing, not in Catholic France when right-left originated and not in Nazi Germany’s anti-communist facism and not in the radical religious right populist vision of a future governed by corporations spouting godtalk . . .
Facism — rule by face? — must be what beauty queens like Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean believe in? Lol, might be better than the fascism I tried to type.
Btw, in my post/graphic about McCain, the dog’s dog-whistle code is “Grand Canyon.” The GC is frequently identified by Creationist/antievolutionists as the location where you can find “evidence” for Noah’s Flood – and a young earth.
JJ: “Isn’t that an oxymoronic (emphasis on moron) scare-meme though?,,, Nothing liberal about the right wing…”
Yep. Husband and I started to explain, but apparently Glenn Beck and Co. have already sealed the deal. Liberalism=Nazism. If you don’t believe it, check out all those little Hitler moustaches on Obama!
I was hoping that, by now, Prejean would have been swept from the stage of fad-ism, but no such luck. I guess her face (and other fine parts uh points) have staying power in some circles.
She was the keynote Values Voter Summit political speaker this weekend for the faithful fascist foot soldiers.
I’ve been blogging that this morning as power of story with historical staying power. Not to make it hard to keep down your CA breakfast but have you read about it yet:
Carrie Prejean Wows Values Voters [with her damn dog whistle!]
Speaking of beauty queens, remember this from our discussions right before the election last fall:
Btw, in my post/graphic about McCain, the dog’s dog-whistle code is “Grand Canyon.” The GC is frequently identified by Creationist/antievolutionists as the location where you can find “evidence” for Noah’s Flood – and a young earth.
Really? That’s so… insidious… and so… ignorant.
I guess I do not have the ear to hear some of this. I do sometimes play “spot the fundy buzzword” with my dh — a recovering Catholic — but I had no clue about the Grand Canyon thing.
Audrey,
Sounds like you should sign up for this raft trip!
JJ: “…have you read about it yet?”
ROFL! Wow. That’s some article. Enough fodder for a week’s worth of jokes! At least. :D
My favorite part? Her calling it all “absolutely crazy!”
;-)
LOL – That was my favorite part, too :)
And what do the dog-whistle-tuned ears hear in THIS??
Play the ball where the monkey throws it!
Not entirely off topic is the idea of Tea Kettle Whistling in this post about Michelle Obama using buzzwords in a speech about food as part of the opening of a farmer’s market near the White House.
I definitely still recognize a lot of the buzz words but don’t know that I’d ever considered them as such before. Then there are the variations. I’ll sometimes hear a bit of a hymn that I remember from back then and am sometimes surprised at how much of these songs I can remember. The song is of course stuck in my head the rest of the day.
Thanks for that link, Sam. By golly, I’m suddenly in the mood for a salad! Ironic, actually, as I just received medical test results in the mail today. The doctor wrote that, in addition to cleaning up my diet, I should note one new area of concern, which “can be due to a number of reasons, not all of which are serious.” WTF? “Not all of which are serious??” Is that dog-whistle code for “start putting your affairs in order”? Geeez.
Sam,
Btw, that’s also interesting to learn about Michelle Obama’s experience with her White House vegetable garden. I just assumed it was one of those First Lady PR things. I wasn’t even paying attention. Good thing you are :)
To connect the idea in another direction, whistles are crazy-making when everyone CAN hear them too, when we’re literally forced by our fellow citizens to hear. If you listen to this woo-woo videoclip as if they were talking about in-your-face teaparty protest sounds, the debate is eerily similar . . .
Especially the guy at the end who says he doesn’t think it’s a good idea and wouldn’t want the whistling in his neighborhood but hey, until they make it illegal, it sells and so he’s doing it!
(If youtube video doesn’t appear above, click here to watch.)
Morning Joe commentators today suddenly have changed tone; they are saying they know how these things always end — badly! — and Glenn Beck is coming to the end of his run, which will have to be “setting himself on fire.”
And that all politicians who didn’t loudly distance themselves from him will be sorry. . .hmmm. What changed for them, I wonder?
[...] some dedicated food food-for-thought we like. Today I found a new winner for that roll, thanks to Lynn and Sam talking here, about dog-whistle politics of all seemingly unconnected [...]
JJ,
The whoo-whooo guy in the video is just a jerk. Especially since he’s making the rest of us (who make our cars noisy for a perfectly good reason) look bad.
:D
How about this for dog-whistle code? The suspiciously Russian word “czar” –
On Czars and Unicorns”
Sam is right — music is particularly powerful power of story. Subliminal lizard-brain stuff . . .I was going to be serious and link this, but then I came across a funny one for the holiday acceleration lane starting today with Fall . . .
An interesting new find: “Annonymous Liberal.” Thanks :)
He makes a good point:
[...] blog-game of religion and politics costumed as each other for Halloween, apparently started with Lynn and JJ and many commenters both places, riffing on Frank Schaeffer’s books and his new MSNBC [...]
Just this morning, I learned about Muphrey’s Law: “When you criticize the spelling / grammar in someone else’s writing, your criticism will always contain its own spelling / grammatical errors.” I wonder if it’s true of posts that criticize other people’s logic?
…of course, if I were to go over there, I would be criticizing her and her readers’ false assumptions about my false assumptions about Frank Schaeffer’s false assumptions about evangelicals… and I’m not sure I’m up to it. :)
:?
lol, you mean like Muphrey??
Do you mean “Murphey”? Because “Muphrey” is an intentional misspelling of Murphey,… since the law is about misspelling :)
footnote to my last comment: Frank Schaeffer’s views are not really false assumptions. They are based on a lifetime of experience smack-dab in the middle of this very real – and dangerously influential – subculture. Ad hominem attacks that question whether or not he’s just “bitter” (at not having lived up to his father’s example) are just unfounded gossipy rumors. IMHO: Argumentation is only satisfying when both sides have an actual understanding of the topic.
Gotta run. I’m driving carpool!!! :D
You have the same sense of it that I got. Logic like a hammer is a useful tool whether your goal is to build understanding or build up a wall around so it’s hidden from sight (even your own) and no one can understand the point. Either way the hammer does the same basic job.
Oh, I thought the intentional misspelling was with no e! :D
Great example, JJ. :)
Sadly, wallbuilders write “logical thinking” curriculum. :(
You know I come here for the graphic editorializing . . . ;-)
I can’t help myself. I think in pictures :)
[...] 22 Fallacies Regarding Evangelicals 2009 October 26 tags: evangelicalism, Frank Schaeffer, homeschooling, Obama by C.L. Dyck Via: JJ, Bore Me To Tears [...]
With thanks to Lynn for letting me post this comment here as well as Snook, because the other discussion has been ended and folks are being sent here to read and draw their own conclusions. I think this needs to be in the mix:
The plot thickens. Our arguments about argument continue but how can we decide whether it’s “good” argument? On what criteria can we evaluate goodness of argument and the relative importance of each, but more basically than all that, how do you even know what you’ve signed on to argue about and which side of the case you believe in?
Well, how about a clear statement of what it is being argued?! At Cat’s I floundered through a series of comments, believing I agreed with what I took to be her point — logical fallacies cut both ways — and not understanding she had misunderstood and believed I was arguing the opposite side. Badly, of course. ;-)
We had each gradually started to simmer with frustration despite our mutual friendliness and general good will, apparently because she thought I was arguing against her position and doing it shoddily. She kept telling me not to say what I WAS saying (except the parts where I agreed with her points) and giving me tips of what I should be arguing and offering instead, and scolding me about what I should NOT SAY, various words used to make various points she thought required specific evidence to establish or just ruled fallacious, off-point and/or out of bounds, for the case she mistakenly assumed I meant to make.
When she kindly restated her point as the formal debate resolution above, I could suddenly see cross purposes — or rather, that we were NOT at cross purposes even though we both thought we were.
Quite the comedy of errors. (And it sounds like a much more extensive discussion than it was, probably because there was so much packed into it on so many levels. Or maybe I just think there must have been a lot going on because I was having to work so hard to make any sense of it.)
And also a comedy of manners and social intercourse, how we say it and how nice or bitchy we “feel” to others as we say it. Social lubricant and careful omission of giving or taking any offense. Ask Nance sometime about her excruciating experiences with homeschooling religion/politics debate, how “manners” and being nice and I don’t like your tone, dear, are trotted out in infinite variation yet with wearying predictability, as the ultimate trump card to cut off the discomfort of cognitive dissonance whenever it dares make a bid for attention. Hence no learning, no growth, no building of relationships that fertilize rather than kill them off — hence no “good argument” can flower. And per Nance’s example, neither can good will, at least not perennially.
Manners are not the point in philosophy, logic or science, certainly not in politics! — yet in formal debate and argument as in courts of law, manners are stylized and rigidly enforced by impartial judges and players equally sworn to observe them. Whether you’re being out-argued OR just outnumbered and feeling ill-used never mind the merits of the case on either side, manners will start to FEEL like the point and someone will claim that they are. This is false logic but true and predictable psychology, and I can attest that it feels real plus it has real and predictable consequences –it not only derails the current debate but hardens hearts and minds against future efforts. Enough laps of that race to nowhere and you finally leave the track. (Would it be logical to measure IQ by how many laps it takes?)
None of which is to say human reason does us much “good” if we can’t share it. Dale has been writing about better ways to do this “beyond belief” and Cat writes about “social argumentation” too, the feelings and colors and relationships and group in-jokes including snark etc that mix into our communicating; it’s not all textbook logic with references that make a case, not in court and certainly not in the court of public opinion.
And check this new one out: The Art of Argument, part one from Southern Female Lawyer (cock of the snook to COD – she’s married to a friend of his) says basically the same stuff as Dale (and Cat?) with similar conciliatory tone.
One interesting river running through all this– the southern U.S. really is a different culture! There’s a rigid hierarchy here and I don’t just mean social class. It’s a hierarchy of ideas and expression and it is intellectually stifling, SO much work is required to broach the simplest question or argument for reason and progress, against tradition, tribal ties and social order. The things done to real people in the name of false ideas here, range from careless entitlement and benign paternalism to underclass resentments to fringe brutishness and criminality to monstrous spittle-spewing rage, but challenge to it from within is suppressed with prayer words and scolding about manners and the virtue of submitting to your elders and betters. Those southern manners count much more than logic and reason; I might argue that down here, science and reason and intellect and logic aren’t just considered ungodly and unfaithful, but RUDE!
If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
So all the lady lawyer says is true, and we all do it her way or we are ostracized. Dale is global but he lives in Georgia, applying logic beyond belief in this same culture and having to talk the way people do here, which means you don’t argue at all. You repress conflict and criticism or you will be repressed. Or have to duel for your fightin’ words. Southern manners are church manners and church manners are basically shut up and bow your head and submit — be a good girl is what counts, not make a good argument. Do for yourself, but not think for yourself.
So Dale speaks to me when he explains about not arguing when what needs resolving most isn’t about logic and proving the case with evidence, but feelings and relationships:
That doesn’t sound like argument, good or otherwise. Or maybe I just don’t know how to have a good argument with those who can’t fathom what a half-century of living with peculiar southern logic, can finally do to one’s um, humor and manners and tone . . .
But I keep trying to figure out how to open up some space, for each of us so inclined to think clearly about the consequences of our own beliefs — whatever they may be and whatever they might become.
JJ:
Why, certainly, kiddo. ;) You are free to post as many comments as you’d like, provided you discontinue use of tossed pejoratives and adjectives of tonal colour. Ad hominem/abusive, in lieu of sound argumentation, will not be tolerated. Be advised that, should you fail to comply, I’ll be forced to push my Easy Button, which I’d rather not do, because I like you, JJ, I really do. ;)
So, are there broadly recognized standards for saying, “God. What a pretentious twit”? Sadly, I never made it over to wikipedia for tutelage, so I wouldn’t know.
[/snark]
note: btw, snark is an illegitimate form of discourse.
Been there, done that, and have the scars to prove it. Our highly evolved NHEN forums were baptism by fire though I can’t link them now to make my case, because they burned to a crisp along with my naivete about the power of reason to convert the unreasonable, and all that formerly “good” argument among diverse thinking parents (save those cards and letters, Christian soldiers, the phrase “baptism by fire” isn’t meant to offend you with my tonal colors.)
There was one specific evangelical young earth creationist biblical literalist authoritarian named Annette — trying to be as clear as possible that I don’t mean all Christians, all evangelicals nor even all debate gladiators at NHEN — who singlehandedly provided me a graduate degree (complete with bonfire on the quad for graduation) in the worst of ignorant, hostile evangelical pretense to “research” and “logic” and “just the facts” objectivity in seeking truth.
Dale is writing more today about how we can’t really have good arguments between conservative evangelical and secular humanist or atheist world views, how we can hear each other and it take sooooo much effort.
He’s got a point that we all have our own push-buttons, easy or otherwise. Yes, comparing atheists to amoral souls adrift without right or wrong or justice, much less to Stalin and Pol Pot, kills the conversation.
The real key to what he says is buried somewhere near what he says about not doing a match-ending leg-sweep and leaving the other guy no place to stand. But I think when he digs a little deeper, he’ll see that’s because he’s purposely not arguing or matching wits and seeking intellectual illumination. He is seeking human connections and symphony, not battle strategies. He’s making nice and refusing to argue, laboring mightily to say the simplest thing just to have a conversation that ISN’T a fight. That’s high-minded but not logical; it’s smart but not intellectual; it’s not the answer to good argument and sure it isn’t logical syllogisms applied to life’s ultimate concerns.
Some of us already learned the hard way and most of us at least suspect by now, there’s no way to have a good argument about religion and politics and parenting and education by mutually honored rules of intellectual integrity, no matter what we call it and pretend it is.
Hell, we can’t even manage civil tea parties together anymore, folks show up armed and dangerous! (Not hyperbole or ad hominem, see the news video) — and not when anything other than trifles are on the menu or anyone takes her gloves off for a bite, never mind making a catty remark.