Bush hears voices, but listens badly and has no sense of history

Clarification: surely you mean "Lewis Lapham ... has just said ... that he believes that Bush believes he has been instructed by God etc."

This whole idea has been making the rounds of American media for a month now -- this sense that Bush may feel he has some divine calling to go into this war. The problem with this is that it's semantically near-impossible to distinguish between people's descriptions of their own "higher callings." The bulk of Americans would like to feel that their president feels some sort of moral and partly religious conviction in any major act he undertakes: the nation has no problem with a president who says "I thought hard about this issue and prayed a great deal, and it's come to me that this is the right decision." The problem is that we all have different interpretations of how metaphorical that should be. Most people agree that if you actually think you're being called or instructed -- like verbally, specifically -- you've gone too far.

I mention all this because the media run-round on this issue seems to be this vague unexpressed worry that says, you know: "Wait, we assumed he meant this in the normal metaphorical way, but is it possible that he feels called on some sort of literal level?" The problem with the amount of ink that's gone into this is that you're never going to be able to tell how literally it operates in his mind or heart.

I'm suspicious of anyone who thinks they have all the answers I am even more suspicious if they claim to have got the the answers from some ancient text (I mistrust Marxists as much as bible bashers) or from voices in their heads.

That's not to say I'm anti-god, but god is about self discovery not about the writings of some dead guys, some sane some stark raving bonkers and how they are interpreted by loons in robes.

(As an aside I think Lieberman would have been a very bad thing)

That's a quote.

= my profession in a "nut"shell.

Ed, you have to move away from the "voices in head" and "instructions of ancient text" talk, because this operates on different levels of metaphor. I know this quasi-religious emphasis isn't nearly as present in British politics, so I'll try to elaborate:

Basically, any given leader needs to say "I believe in my core that this is the right decision," and in a religious context, an element of that is going to be "I believe this is right on a religious level -- i.e., I believe this is what God would have me do." There's a big spectrum between (a) people who reach this just by having religious convinctions and being very certain that a particular decision lives up to those convictions -- this is perfectly normal -- and (b) people who literally think they are being moved or inspired or directed by a higher power. Even people who use the words in the second could actually mean the first -- it's a difficult question how literally they're taking all of this.

Religion often contravenes my first principle.

should i be heard ?

American theocrats - Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, Philip Berrigan

There are more false profits than good teachers. I don't think GWB has found his god I think he's found a convenient crutch.

I should stop using Ed as a springboard for my awful awful jokes.

Sure you can get guidance from teachers, but at the end of the day it has to come from within.: The central issue here is how we classify what we find within -- those with deep convictions just tend to decide that "what's within" was either put there by or at least reflects some sort of higher power. This needn't change the content of what's found there, though it certainly influences people's confidence in asserting it, and their assessment of how relative or subjective their discoveries might be.

Slacker.

Ned, I find Lieberman scarey too. And unfortunately his particular slant on Judaism probably feeds into his views on Israel.

This is one of the many reasons why I wouldn't be sure things would have been better with Gore in post-9/11...

Cause I'm all about the healing.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/sprj.irq.fries/index.html

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=536&ncid=536&e=7&u =/ ap/20030311/ap_on_go_co/freedom_fries_2

In the meantime, Dubya's use of religious imagery and the strength of the religious right in politics scares me -- lots of nasty things have been done in the name of "God tells me to."

Seriously, though, I am still not sure what to say about religion. I am agnostic, but I was raised jewish. I was never too partial to Lieberman, as he is very conservative, and I am not sure whether it is worth speculating about what his influence over Gore would have been.

You have to remember that this is the predominant American conception of a Christian God -- it's as a personal God, one who "touches our lives" in his own "mysterious ways." In this context, saying "God told me this is right" isn't a claim of divine inspiration -- no more than saying that God took your grandmother away means he actually appeared and killed her. It can work as a methaphor and a rhetorical trick -- basically this way Americans have of convincing themselves that things are okay, by saying they can feel that God wanted it this way.

NANA??????

Personal god doe not necessarily equal an internal god. The god of religions is constructed by the books, priests, imams, the songs the pomp, the ceremony. Its a lame cop out form original human thought. God is not supernatural, god is a natural outgrowth from the human desire to explain. God is an internal understanding.

"With whom?"

"Er, I think you mean by whom, and there's no 'whom' anyways."

(After I posted): Shit, but felicity beat me! Argh!

"Kiss me baby... for FREEDOM!"

There's lots of subtle as well as not-so-subtle things in Murikuh these days that scare me. The fact that they use the word "blitzkrieg" to describe the US military's strategy in print very often scares me. The fact that barely anyone notices the irony also scares me. The fact that he himself uses the word "crusade" scares me, more than his usage of the word "newkyooler". I used to joke that he was the Anti-Christ, but it's getting hard to remain so certain it's a joke when he talks this way.

Being on a "mission from God" and being a musician = not that scary, and kinda endearing.

Being on a "mission from God" and being the President of the USA = kinda scary.

Having said that, I've seen planks of wood that are more intelligent than George W.

Ed, I'll stop restating my not-entirely-important point, but I do think you're over under mis-estimating the way religion works in American culture and especially in American politics.

so simple = no simple

As long as it's not bleu, blanc et rouge.

A creator/god is just a handy shorthand to explain why we are hear in the absense of ay knowledge of the big bang or amino acids.

God as a law giver is irrelavent went we can base our laws on the interactions of equals. Rather than proping up fudalisms.

I am my own master.

Oops: Bush has used words to that vague effect, and with more frequency than many people are comfortable with. The reason I started talking about the different levels of metaphor in them, however, is that structurally Bush’s presentation of it isn’t different from the usual way American politicians address these things. (E.g. if Jimmy Carter said he felt “a calling” to go build homes for Habitat for Humanity, we’d assume he meant it on the spiritual level and not the hearing-voices level.)

I'll agree that I need to improve my understanding.

Hmmm. I always explain to the British about Americans' separation of church and state being absolutely necessary - just think what could happen if it was not.

This is not entirely true. People love to say this because it's less scary, but in fact the model of Christianity these guys work from does constitute a particular American mainstream, whether it's followers are hugely devoted to it or not. It's frightening but we need to admit it.

This is a really important point in understanding why fundamentalist Christianity has the power it does here, I think: people tend to treat it as "more" religious than other brands of Christianity, not "differently religious" -- sometimes even while pointing out errors in fundamentalist thought.

I mean whys it ok for him and not them? This disheartens me. ANd I am not in any way suggesting I am defending Al-Q or Hussein or anyone else for that matter. I think theyre all stupid, Bush, Blair and Howard included. Yarr *waves fist in an impotent rage*.

Of course. When I said "mainstream" I was thinking in terms of the world, cf. many posts above. As regards "fundamentalism," that's an academic argument. They are born-agains, and the apocalyptic flavor is endemic right now. Check the "Left Behind" series (for all you non-USA residents: Xian apocalyptic pulp that outsells all other fiction these days). That particular head of steam has been building up since the early '80s (Hal Lindsay's The Late Great Planet Earth) but overflowed from 9/11. But OK--let's say Murkin eschatological fantasies date back to Cotton Mather or Jonathan Edwards, they occur in cycles, this is just another passing fad--how else to explain some of the more obviously insane (as opposed to merely venal) aspects of the drive to war? It's true that if the USA were a patient, the diagnosis would be pathological narcissism, but is narcissism alone sufficient to provoke global war? It can serve to reduce your targets to symbols, but wouldn't you need a bit of paranoid schizophrenia in the mix to convince yourself that you are chosen and cannot die? And doesn't Last Days jesusism fit the bill rather nicely?

"nut"shell.

*groan*

My country is turning into a sad little banana republic.

Choice paragraphs:

The book also shows that in the lead-up to announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Bush told a Texan evangelist that he had had a premonition of some form of national disaster happening.

Bush said to James Robinson: 'I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen... I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.'

President George W. Bush told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and create a Palestinian State, a new BBC series reveals.

Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

Abu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."

The President mentioned that he is struck by the number of people he meets who tell him they are praying for him. He jokingly noted, “Now maybe the only people who pray in America come to my events,” but he wonders if there is evidence of a Third Awakening saying, “It feels like it to me.” He talked about the two constituencies that faithfully supported President Lincoln, noting that he had recently read extensively about the former President and his own policies aren’t based on his insights (nor obviously does he consider himself another Lincoln). Bush explained that Lincoln’s strongest supporters were religious people from the Second Awakening “who saw life in terms of good and evil” and who agreed w Lincoln that slavery was evil, and the Union soldiers who Lincoln had “great affection and admiration for.”

About the current situation, he added, “A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me.” He kept coming back to how cultures change, both in America and overseas. “Cultures do change and ideological struggles are won.” “There was a stark change between the culture of the ‘50’s and the 60’s—boom—and I think there’s change happening here.” “It seems to me that there’s a Third Awakening.”

Claiming the mantle of being the turning point of a great sea-change is way goofy seeing as the role of the religious right has been unfolding over decades now, and that Falwell and more recently Dobson have been main lodestones. Bush seems to implicitly claim he's the watermark when he's merely a reflection, which figures.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Brody_Evangelicals_surprised_by_Bushs_Bible_1211.html

"Evangelical Christians were conned into thinking that Bush was 'one of them,'" the Moral Collapse blogger concluded. "the reality is that he isn't one of them and he never was."

well, duh

i think it's nice for him to go out of his way to give every single american a special reason to hate him.