Objects of Cultural Disdain

John Podhoretz, the movie critic refers to "Object(s) of Cultural Piety" or OCP. Once something or someone becomes an OCP, it (or he/she) must be the subject of veneration. As a movie critic, he points out that once the commercially genius Steven Spielberg (Jaws, Raiders, Jurassic Park) directed Schindler's List, he went from venerated because he could make money to someone just plain venerated. This is when he became an OCP. No matter what sludge he has produced or directed in subsequent years (Lost World, the latest Indiana Jones movie), no one can criticize him. Podhoretz makes the same case for Pixar whose last two movies have been duds when compared with Toy Story or Nemo.

I was thinking about his great point when I saw this today...

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/09/letterman-top-ten-palin-has-a-slutty-flight-attendant-look/

David Letterman's "joke" about 14 year old Willow Palin is so beyond the pale that I couldn't understand how a mainstream TV personality could possible get away with it.... And then I understood. Sarah Palin is an OCD - an Object of Cultural Disdain. All the right people hate her and so they can laugh at the thought of her little girl having sex with Alex Rodriguez in the dugout. And they all think that the people who watch his show would laugh too and it never crossed their small minds that people just might be offended.

Sarah Palin is a big girl and can take it even though the mischaracterizations of her are untrue, unfair and insulting. But you know how far down the "cool" list she is when someone like Letterman feels he can say such crude things about her child and not just get a way with it, but be slapped on the back as a great comedian.

Of course it also made me wonder how fast he would have been fined, fired and roasted over open coals if he had dared say something like that about Malia Obama (she's 11). As well he should be. How much hate does it take for a Letterman (or an audience member or viewer who laughed) to not see that? The problem with the veneration of the Obamas (OCP's if there ever were any) is that the worshipers of gods always need devils to hate. And sometimes those devils turn out to be innocent children.

So is there a middle ground in the abortion debate?

Regina Brett, columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, wrote this today:

http://www.cleveland.com/brett/blog/index.ssf/2009/06/abortion_debate_needs_to_inclu.html

I figured that I'd try to answer her question.... Here's my reply to her:

Ms. Brett -

I read your Plain Dealer article on abortion today with interest. Your article basically answers the question you ask at the beginning as to why those "in the middle" are quiet - it's ambivalence. You know life is precious. You have your own joyful experience to attest to that. But you also know that life presents great challenges to us as well, and we want to have all options available to us to resolve those challenges. That is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

You speak of your wanted grandchild with love and affection. You speak of the unborn child of a 17 year old who doesn't want to be pregnant with more detachment (naturally - there's no relationship). But what's the difference between those two fetuses? One is wanted and one is not? Is that how we value human life? Sadly, it is. And that's what makes abortion such a corrosive issue. If life is precious, how can we close our hearts to precious life - any precious little life? The unborn child of that 17 year old is of no less value than your grandchild, is he/she? How can humans with warm hearts actually think in those terms? But we do when it comes to the political issue of abortion. Insisting that they are "equal under the law" would make us pro-life. Insisting they are not makes us pro-choice. But how do we describe those who want to believe those two lives are equally precious, but don't want to tell that 17 year old what to do with "her body?" It makes us confused and unable to reconcile those positions. That's why we stay quiet. We can't face our own moral confusion, so we shrug our shoulders and keep our mouths shut.

It's politically unpopular to proclaim all life to be precious, but in every other aspect of our lives, except abortion, we do that. We give thanks when a child overcomes cancer - because life is precious. We take part in relays for life to cure cancer - because life is precious. We mourn the loss of our oldest relative who has passed - because life is precious. We recoil in horror at the holocaust, at the memory of 9/11 and at senseless gun crimes - because life is precious. But we avert our eyes when we walk past a Planned Parenthood clinic - because life is precious, but those lives aren't protected because we don't want to impose our values and tell someone what to do with their own challenges.

So we remain silent. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. For years, I wanted to have it both ways too. I tried to reconcile my own precious children's lives with the "need" for legalized abortion on demand. I finally realized that I could not. I work to protect those little lives by supporting services like Maggie's Place - a new facility in Cleveland that takes in pregnant women who wish to keep or adopt out their babies. I try to make people aware that our abortion laws are toothless. Women do not have enough protection against predatory abortion providers - they are not given options and our culture doesn't insist that they receive them. Our culture doesn't support adoption and we should do more to do, as you say, focus on preventing abortion.

My hope and prayer is that every woman would be careful with her body and not put herself in a position to have to choose abortion, that she would value life so much that she would take responsibility and I pray that all of us would support her if she is pregnant and cannot support both herself and he child. We must do more, Regina. I thank you for bringing this up. I hope we can all find more answers - but the most important thing we must do is to face the question you raised today - and loudly proclaim that all life is precious and we will do all we can to change a culture that merely wishes to dispose of life when it's not wanted. That, Regina is no answer.

Thanks and best wishes.

Pam

John Brown and George Tiller

The death of abortionist George Tiller at the hands of a cold-blooded murderer has the left agitated and excited about an opportunity. Within an hour of his death, the blogs were alive with accusations that talk radio, right-wing blogs and anyone who is pro-life had blood on their hands and insinuated that "rhetoric" was the cause of this murder.

They want to equate those of us who value life, who believe abortion on demand to be a stain on our country and, most importantly, speak up about the issue, with a murderous individual. It suits them to use this tragedy for Tiller's family for their own purposes - to try to shut us up.

Democrats have done this before. In 1859, John Brown, an ardent abolitionist, incited a deadly insurrection at Harper's Ferry to draw attention to the plight of the slave. Abraham Lincoln, condemned him as a "misguided fanatic." But Southern democrats alleged that his rebellion was the tip of the abolitionist iceberg and represented the wishes of Lincoln and the Republican Party. It was in their best interest to tie this fanatic with legitimate abolitionists.

Not one mainstream pro-life organization or individual will stand with the man who took Tiller's life. (Interestingly enough, there were plenty of mainstream abolitionists who did stand with John Brown - among them Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau who praised his actions.)

George Tiller's death is a tragedy for his family. He is a victim of a murderous hatred. He is not a victim of the pro-life movement. I fear that his death will be all the excuse many need to equate speech with action and will attempt (and may succeed) in shutting us up. If that happens, every American who values free speech will be able to mark Sunday, May 31 as the day free speech died along with George Tiller.