Samantha Bee interviews Frank Schaeffer, who helped create the religious right

~100 years ago when there was a fashion for Yiddish fiction and the stage it almost made sense to speak of Jewish culture separately from the religious aspect (even to read Isaac Beshevis Singer you need to at least understand the religious references) but now with diaspora secular Jews so thoroughly assimilated (as the BESHT said, the worst exile is the one you don’t even know you are in) I don’t think there remains a “Jewish culture” separated from mainstream culture. Considering that, the nature of the soffit and davening now vs then matters.

Oh, so these people saw the changes and loosened their grip on the Torah, and these people saw that and tightened their grips."

But there are Talmudic discussions on this same thing so it’s not new at all.

HOW IS THIS NOT A MEL BROOKS BIT

7 Likes

5 Likes

Just realized that the JavaScript ate my continuation before

Napoleon invaded Venice? Who knew? Again I’m gonna say your claim is slightly revisionist as a summary. The term Orthodox may well have been coined by German reformers (1) as a derision to the traditionalists but the meaning was simply “how we’ve been doing up to now since then”.

But the cultural impetus/norms behind it come from Chabad’s influence

You give Chabad far too much credit here especially considering its minuscule numbers confined to Crown Heights in the 40s-50s. Chabad did have an influence as a kiruv group until decades after that.

  1. Reform having originally been a German only thing, even during the haskalah had little to do with the Eastern European shtetles affected by Napoleon.

Please continue to think so if it makes you feel good.

Bro culture assumes that if you don’t know everything there is to know already, you’re some sort of loser. It leads to interesting skirting around issues.
I thought that you were suggesting that Schaeffer’s account of himself might not be totally reliable, not that the rise of the Religious Right might be a construct. But perhaps that’s because I have found over the years that people from that kind of background do tend to construct artificial accounts of their own past and their own thinking. The sheer amount of cognitive dissonance you have to achieve to survive in fundamentalist environments must make clear thinking incredibly difficult, like lapsed Catholic atheists who wonder if God is going to forgive them for becoming atheists (met a few of those.)

1 Like

Thanks for your permission to do so.

You’re welcome. Have you ever watched The Life of Brian? I have some advice for you: Don’t.

I have indeed, and found it quite funny. In fact, I enjoy most of the Monty Python related ridiculousness. (edit) In fact, have you seen How to Irritate People? It seems right up your alley. (/edit)

You seem to be doing your best to drive tangentially away from the fact that I had originally commented on your remarks simply to point out that not all Christian religions are the same. But please, carry on. Where are we going next?

George Bernard Shaw can:

If you want to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh or they’ll kill you

4 Likes

Certainly.

1) A news network that asks the hard questions is a news network that soon after dies in the ratings when politicians and CEOs refuse to be interviewed by them or come on their shows anymore. That counts doubly for demagogues. Trump gets ratings. Say what you will about Palin, she got ratings.

When Megyn Kelly moderating a Republican debate threw one hard question in with all the softballs, Trump took his marbles and went home. He refused to appear in the next Fox News debate, and its ratings were cut in half.

And so more recently Kelly “cleared the air” with Trump in an interview, asking him nothing but softball questions and laughing at his awkward jokes, embarrassing herself for the Daily Show and others to mock.

Samantha Bee, John Oliver and the Daily show are nowhere near as dependent on the good will of politicians. Often just to opposite.

2) A news network that asks the hard questions is a news network that will be accused of bias. And perceived bias is a killer for a news organization.

CNN learned to be embarrassingly pro-Bush II while he was in office. It didn’t prevent being labelled as left-wing lib’rul media elite when they had the low class to mention the occasional inconvenient fact.

For Jon Stewart on the other hand, when CNN’s Crossfire or Fox News tried to criticize him for being biased or silly, he’s say “Look, I’m a comedian not a journalist. It’s not my role to conduct hard-hitting interviews.”

3) With a hundreds more channels plus the internet, the old media simply doesn’t have the power it had.

Refusing the publicity of a televised debate would have been political suicide not long ago. But now Trump can simply tweet his message, and all the news services - old and new - will cover it.

Last year the movie Spotlight chronicled the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team taking on the Catholic Church over widespread and systemic child sex abuse in 2001. It’s said that the story probably couldn’t happen today. With readership WAY down, the Globe wouldn’t have had the power and legal budget to take on the church.

5 Likes

Damn. I like your explanation better.

2 Likes

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.