[lit-ideas] Re: America is a moral country

Tuesday, November 9, 2004, 5:06:12 AM, Eric Yost wrote:

EY> Speaking of the enormen Zunge of britischen empiricism, 


and enormen it is.

But it isn't that the US is a moral country, it seems, but that we britische 
empiricisten are not:

>>>>
Let us call it "Blair exceptionalism". Our leader is a committed, practising 
Christian. A priest from Great Missenden arrives at Chequers every available 
Sunday to hold Blair family communion. Residual public debate does not inquire 
whether the prime minister is a true believer, but whether - one imminent day - 
he'll convert from high C of E to join Cherie in RC Towers.

That is exceptional. Nobody, of course, can quite penetrate beyond the outward 
and visible show of premiers past, but overt Christianity hasn't exactly 
steamed up modern Downing Street's windows. I have no idea how John Major or 
Jim Callaghan spend their Sabbaths. I always felt Mrs T was happier lecturing 
Archbishop Runcie than listening to him. ("Who is this Almighty person?") And 
Harold Wilson wore his Gannex more visibly than his religious convictions.

So Tony Blair is different. He is, in a sense, more like George Bush and the 
millions of evangelicals who voted for the born-again president than he 
resembles any of his immediate predecessors - or most of us. For we Brits are 
not a devout nation. Perhaps, at birth, marriage and death times we still go 
through the motions, but our church attendance record lies far down any 
European league table. We are a Missing (if not wholly Immoral) Majority once 
the steeple bells start ringing. 

(cut)

For the fact of the matter is that, rising en masse, we can't get righteously 
angry any longer. We are as fallible and flawed as any other society, but not 
because great issues move us. We don't have hospital boats floating in the 
Baltic offering abortions to desperate Poles. We have the malignity of random 
gay bashing, but not its tacit sanctification from on high. We are multi-faith 
and no faith, laid back and complaisant, benignly indifferent in a lager-sodden 
land.

Our leader is not like that. He talks right and wrong. He wants, eyes blazing, 
to save the world. And we do not trust him, because we no longer trust such 
terms. He wants to be best friends with George W, too. And we do not trust that 
either, because we are exceptional. 
>>>>>>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1345836,00.html



-- 
 Judy Evans, lager-sodden in Cardiff, UK   
mailto:judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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