Souvlaki
I heard something very irritating on the BBC World Service on the radio early this morning as I was bumbling around in waking-up mode. In beginning a feature on the religious avowals being made by all nine Democratic presidential candidates, the reporter said ‘The United States is a deeply devout country…’ I gave a kind of mental yowl of disgust and rage. It is not! It does have a lot of religious believers in it, to be sure, but the figure is not 100% yet! And it is possible to ignore the stuff most of the time. Really it is. People who’ve never been here will hear that kind of thing and imagine that every other building is a church, priests and nuns lock up pregnant women and keep them imprisoned for years on end, contraceptives and divorce are unavailable, the streets are clogged with people crossing themselves or shoving bibles in your face…It’s not that bad yet! There is an enormous amount of religious nonsense flying around, especially in political rhetoric, but there are also huge swaths of the public realm that are entirely free of it. You can go to the supermarket and buy some pasta sauce and oranges without getting a sermon at the checkout counter. You can go to the post office and get stamps without being asked to pray with the clerk. There are no muezzins yelling into the air five times a day. Hey, supermarkets are even open on Sunday – in that way we’re far more secular than the UK is.
The fact is, the degree of our ‘devoutness’ gets badly exaggerated. I don’t even know any devout people. Of course I only know about three people, so that doesn’t prove much, but still – those three people don’t know any devout people either, and none of their friends do, and and –
No but seriously. It is exaggerated. I don’t know why – it’s probably partly the usual maddening way that Democrats fall all over themselves to imitate Republicans. Bush II is a religious zealot and some people like and approve of that, so instead of offering us an actual alternative to that way of doing things, the Democrats do their level best to give us more of the same. Well why bother having two parties then? Why not just drop the pretense and have one?
But why entities like the Beeb feel compelled to help them is beyond me. ‘Deeply devout’ indeed – two hurrah words when they could have been two neutral or even two boo words. ‘Devout’ – that makes it sound so nice, doesn’t it. Humble, loyal, grateful, all those good things. But there are other ways of looking at it, other adjectives that could have been used.
Those nice people at Socialism in an Age of Waiting cited one of my blasts at religion recently. They do say the sweetest things.
On this very subject see also Ophelia Benson’s comment “Theological Education” in the Notes and Comment section of Butterflies and Wheels (also in sidebar –>). As always Ophelia skewers some very well-known knowns that, in our more patient and optimistic moods, we’d like to think didn’t need spelling out any more.
You just can’t get much better than that. Not only do I skewer, but I do it always. My lifelong ambition has been realized.
Hi Ophelia
When were you last in the UK? Not only are the supermarkets open on Sunday, but in London and most provincial towns Sunday is now not much different from any other day.
Last time I was in town on a Sunday I was able to get my hair cut, buy books and CDs, get a meal and stroll round the shops.
A minor blemish on an otherwise excellent example of OB excoriation though.
Ah, you’re right, it has been awhile. (You mean all supermarkets are open on Sunday? Or only some of them, the smaller ones. That was the case last time I was there, but Waitrose & Sainsbury’s & Safeway slammed shut at 5:30 Saturday and remained that way until Monday morning. But bookshops and such were open, yes. A start.)
Try finding a pub open past two pm on Christmas Day though!
“But why entities like the Beeb feel compelled to help them is beyond me. ‘Deeply devout’ indeed – two hurrah words when they could have been two neutral or even two boo words.” The cheap answer is that if they said “terrifyingly superstitious” instead they would need to hire a whole extra legal department to deal with the fallout.
It hooks into all the stuff you were posting last week about secularists being too polite to give as good as we get.
Indeed it does. Which is why I’ve taken a solemn vow (before God, with the red earth of Tara trickling through my emaciated fingers) to keep relentlessly nagging about it. They do, so we have to.
Let’s all meet in the pub next Christmas afternoon and discuss it.
Those early morning (on US West Coast) BBC folks (BBC World Service?) are truly annoying. Especially — embarassing to say — that American, Vickie. Her act is so moralistic and superior. Ugh.
All the supermarkets in the UK are open on Sundays now. Small shops can (and in many cases do) open all day. Shops over 280 square metres can open for six hours, which must be consecutive and fall some time between 10am and 6pm. But they’re not allowed to open on Easter Sunday or Christmas Day.