Great screed by James Lileks, one of my favorite writers:
http://www.lileks.com/screedblog/05/06/061505.html
Martin Kaplan has a distinguished resume. I would like to thank Marty for adapting ?Noises Off? for the screen, which contained about 27 uninterrupted minutes of Nicole Sheridan in lingerie. He also wrote speeches for Mondale, a man who could sent charging elephants into an instant narcoleptic fit, and he has the sort of scientific, journalistic and creative resume that would make him a fascinating dinner companion, right up until the moment when he said something stupid ( The Hugh Hewitt Show - Opinion and Information with a Unique Twist ):
“Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the Annenberg School of Communication at USC, calls the new Christer offensive a drive toward ‘theocratic oligopoly. The drumbeat of religious fascism has never been as troubling as it is now in this country,’ adding that ‘e-mails to the FCC are more worrisome to me than boycotts’ in terms of their chilling effect .”
In one respect, I?d agree, inasmuch as the FCC seems to take concentrated email bombings too seriously. We?ve gotten 10,000 emails! Yes, but they?re from 493 people. True, but 10,000 emails! Boycotts don?t work; they can?t chill an airplane-sized bottle of chardonnay. But that?s not the point here.
?Religious fascism.?
One of the mantras you hear invoked from time to time is ?words mean something.? But they obviously don?t. When intelligent men can make such a specious observation you realize that ?fascism? has ceased to mean anything at all, and exists now as an all-purpose slur, a tar-soaked brush to slap on anything you don?t like. Whether the Soup Nazi actually believes in exterminating the Jews and bending the nation towards race-based collectivism and militarism is irrelevant; what matters is that he doesn?t want to give you some of that yummy chowder.
If one means ?religious fascism? as the use of the power of the state to achieve a particular moral objective, you could argue that progressive taxation is ?fascism,? inasmuch as it assumes that the rich should pay more for the good of all, and this moral imperative should be enforced by law. I would not make that argument, because it would be vile. Progressive taxation is many things, but it?s not fascism. On the other hand, I?m at a disadvantage here; if gentlemen like Mr. Kaplan feel free to drop the f-bomb in order to claim the moral high ground, why should I stand down here in the moat complaining? So I put it to you that Mr. Kaplan is a fascist himself. Period. There you go! That’s easy. If pressed, I will only note that there are some of his ideas which bear a resemblance to policies one occasionally finds in fascist states - inasmuch as he wrote comedy movies, and they had funny films in Hitler’s Germany, too. I mean, draw your own conclusions, people.
It?s curious that this word should re-enter domestic politics at the same time we are not only fighting actual religious fascists, but are embroiled in a controversy over the mistreatment of the tome they regard as their instruction manual. It?s like screaming about ?Domestic nuclear targeting engineers? during the Cuban missile crisis. I suspect Mr. Kaplan subscribes to the fashionable notion that people who email the FCC to complain when a sitcom uses the Eucharist as a running gag ? literally ? are part of the dark bolus of god-bothered maniacs. Fanatics. Wild-eyed nutbombs who want to unite the world under the rippling banner of God Uber Alles first, and have the miserable sectarian wars after the secularists are dead. James Dobson, Osama ? are not both filled with terrible certainties? Is not an email campaign to bring down a TV show the metaphorical equivalent of bringing down a skyscraper? Granted, a writer who jumps from a cancelled show usually lands on his feet. But they have a certain poetic symmetry, no?
No. And anyone who tries to make the point deserves to be struck in the face with a thick, wet, cold haddock. Not that they make that point, to be fair; I?m marshalling my Clone Army of strawmen here as usual. But Kaplan?s remarks suggest he would find common cause with those who insist the problem is not the particulars of religious belief but the extent to which you take them seriously. You?re permitted to lodge complaints, but only if you come from a secular perspective. By all means, protest ? dissent is patriotic! ? but keep that Christer stuff in the church.
As the dyslexic might say, I don?t have a God in this fight; I am well aware that much in pop culture I enjoy or tolerate would be GONE if some folks had their way. But I would prefer to reserve the right to argue against some of their positions from a spiritual as well as secular perspective. In fact I suspect that if a groundswell of moderate-to-liberal Christians fought back the ?fundamentalists? and used spiritual language to make common cause with the secularists, there would be little talk of theocracy or religious fascism, even if the motivations were equally devout.
Wait until an American author is brought up on charges, like Orianna Fallaci ( http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=789030 ), and the bien-pensants are forced to confront, again, a form of religious fascism closer in spirit and form than their fevered speculations about the dark hordes of emailers. The intellectual agony will be delicious to watch. But it’s depressing to consider. What will it take?
Note: if Mr. Kaplan had said he feared a drumbeat of fundamentalist religious intolerance, I wouldn?t have spent a jot on the observation. ?Religious fascism,? though ? that pricked up my ears. Words do mean something. They truly do. Or so I believe. (Devoutly.)