A Simple Beginning?

USA Today's Columnists' Opinions had an interesting blog in it's Monday: On Religion section. In it Dr.David P. Gushee, Professor of Ethics at Mercer University claims that our current heated mud slinging goes back to the case of Roe vs. Wade.

It is hardly that simple. He is arguing on religious lines, but even here he is failing to do his research. I remember some pretty nasty debates going on when Kennedy was running for president. I also remember the pastor of my church claiming he would rather live under Communism than a Catholic president. And he was not alone in his views. Rather than trace all our religious squabbles back to the beginning of time (or at least written time) I want to slip sideways and trace our tendency to demonize the opposition; be it religiously, politically or culturally.

The demonizing has long been part of American culture. Go back far enough and you might even say we were founded on the principal of demonizing our opponents.

As for the sixties being so open to debate etcetera, hardly. I had friends who spent time in jail because they took part in protest marches, tried to keep trees from being chopped down or were seen talking to the "wrong" people.

For awhile in the late sixties I was stopped frequently by police because my profile resembled that of a woman who was wanted for some such "crime."

We were also still deep in the Cold War and Communist witch hunt era. Many careers were destroyed in the fifties because of Joe McCarthy, who's own background didn't bear close scrutiny.

Dropping back to the thirties (I'm not even touching WWII and what was done to citizens of many generations who had the wrong last name) there were all sorts of fierce attacks on FDR and the Democrats by Republicans and the East Coast hierarchy claiming they were leading us into socialism and Communism. Sound familiar? Of course the Democrats attacked right back with enthusiasm.

Further back to the earlier 1900's (and this is something near and dear to my heart) there were some pretty harsh words about the establishment of National Parks. The Republicans fought the idea tooth and nail. When they lost the battle of the parks they got clever and pushed through a provision for National Forrests that was approved of by the logging industry at the time. Talk about loopholes. This bill looked like one of my grandma's doilies.

I'll stop at this point though I could easily go back to 1492 with further examples of "demonizing" as a way of life for all citizens of the Americas. Don't believe me? Read Christopher Columbus's journals from his first contact with people of the Western Hemisphere.

Religiously? Well, I invite you to consider the battles fought between various religious groups from the beginning of history (pre-Columbian included here). I chose to slide to politics to demonstrate my view because, frankly, I don't have the stomach to detail what was done to opposing religious groups in the history of the Western Hemisphere. If anyone wants to pursue this line of inquiry I suggest you begin with the establishment of various colonies that eventually became states. There's some pretty nasty stuff there.

All in all it would be lovely to think that there is something as simple as one starting point to our current clime, but there isn't. It is a complex, interwoven pattern of our culture. I don't think it will ever go away, so it is a matter of riding out whichever muck slinging contest is currently going on.

I did most of this article from memory, but did do a quick check in my old history books from college; American History:A History of the United States Volumes by Mark C. Carnes I&II