THE MEDIA'S CHRISTMAS-DEBUNKING COMPULSION
Like any obsessive-compulsive, twice a year the media yields to an overpowering impulse. As the winter solstice nears, the media’s urge to debunk Christmas becomes uncontrollable. Then three months later as the spring equinox nears, the twitching begins again and a spasm of Easter debunking erupts right on time.
What can account for these pre-scheduled urges to debunk? What spreads them across the media from news-magazine featured stories to special TV productions on programs like A&E and the History Channel?
Popular demand cannot account for it. True, Americans like coverage of Christmas and Easter. But they hardly want them debunked. As Newsweek’s last poll showed, 79% of Americans believe that Christ was born of a virgin, without a human father, and 67% believe that every detail of the Biblical description of the birth of Christ – the first Christmas – is historically accurate. Even 55% believe that every word of the Bible is literally true. The majority of Americans, then, is not eagerly hoping that the media will disabuse them of their beliefs, least of all on the occasion of their holiest seasons.
So what is the motive for these semi-annual media debunking eruptions? Obviously, they must hope to change the minds of these hapless believers, setting them free to be more like the enlightened, intelligent, non-stupid writers and producers. It is reverse proselytizing, of course. But why?
No doubt the media are convinced that they simply want to get the “real story” on the record (twice every year.) But the “real story” they describe is no better documented, nor proven, than the Biblical story it purports to replace. These crack reporters are all too easily impressed by the pseudo-science and speculation that passes for scholarship at most seminaries.
Most seminaries, like most colleges and universities now, are bastions of liberal thought, which is too often poorly tested, rarely rigorous, and self-indulgently generous in treating speculation as established fact. These liberal fortresses of unreason remain so by being diligent gatekeepers, limiting hiring, Ph.D’s and good grades to those who meet their liberal standards. It follows then, that the majority or consensus of “most scholars” will predictably support whatever the liberal position is on almost any issue or scholarly subject. This proves nothing – except that liberals have long been in control, and that most effective opposition was weeded out long ago. In fact, opposition ideas are more often confronted on campus by sneering and put-downs than by addressing the issues on the merits. (In seminaries, opposing ideas are not usually debated, but typically dismissed as what “the fundies” believe.)
It would seem that the media are guilty, first, of not doing their job. These eruptions are not examples of good investigative reporting.
Second, the media is once again guilty of arrogance. That is the kind of arrogance that believes, because they write well and have contact with newsmakers, that they know more than they actually do. It is also the kind of arrogance that assumes that those who have different beliefs are simply wrong. That nobody intelligent could disagree with them. And that therefore the great majority of Americans are ignorant, superstitious and stupid.
What is really remarkable is the media’s drive to rub the noses of the majority of Americans in what the media assumes to be their inferiority. What else could motivate Newsweek to commission a poll demonstrating that the great majority of Americans believe the basic tenents of their religion to be literally true, then to spend the next fifteen pages trying to undermine those very beliefs?
Are they trying to be helpful, in a rather twisted way? Or is there perhaps just a little residual resentment this time, a wish to stick a finger in the eye of these believing Americans who helped elect a man generally loathed by the media to the presidency?
Whatever the reason, debunking efforts are a singularly ugly and abusive way to observe the landmark religious holidays of the great majority of Americans. The media should find a cure for its semi-annual obsessive-compulsive urges to debunk Christmas and Easter. Think Grinch. Think Scrooge.
What can account for these pre-scheduled urges to debunk? What spreads them across the media from news-magazine featured stories to special TV productions on programs like A&E and the History Channel?
Popular demand cannot account for it. True, Americans like coverage of Christmas and Easter. But they hardly want them debunked. As Newsweek’s last poll showed, 79% of Americans believe that Christ was born of a virgin, without a human father, and 67% believe that every detail of the Biblical description of the birth of Christ – the first Christmas – is historically accurate. Even 55% believe that every word of the Bible is literally true. The majority of Americans, then, is not eagerly hoping that the media will disabuse them of their beliefs, least of all on the occasion of their holiest seasons.
So what is the motive for these semi-annual media debunking eruptions? Obviously, they must hope to change the minds of these hapless believers, setting them free to be more like the enlightened, intelligent, non-stupid writers and producers. It is reverse proselytizing, of course. But why?
No doubt the media are convinced that they simply want to get the “real story” on the record (twice every year.) But the “real story” they describe is no better documented, nor proven, than the Biblical story it purports to replace. These crack reporters are all too easily impressed by the pseudo-science and speculation that passes for scholarship at most seminaries.
Most seminaries, like most colleges and universities now, are bastions of liberal thought, which is too often poorly tested, rarely rigorous, and self-indulgently generous in treating speculation as established fact. These liberal fortresses of unreason remain so by being diligent gatekeepers, limiting hiring, Ph.D’s and good grades to those who meet their liberal standards. It follows then, that the majority or consensus of “most scholars” will predictably support whatever the liberal position is on almost any issue or scholarly subject. This proves nothing – except that liberals have long been in control, and that most effective opposition was weeded out long ago. In fact, opposition ideas are more often confronted on campus by sneering and put-downs than by addressing the issues on the merits. (In seminaries, opposing ideas are not usually debated, but typically dismissed as what “the fundies” believe.)
It would seem that the media are guilty, first, of not doing their job. These eruptions are not examples of good investigative reporting.
Second, the media is once again guilty of arrogance. That is the kind of arrogance that believes, because they write well and have contact with newsmakers, that they know more than they actually do. It is also the kind of arrogance that assumes that those who have different beliefs are simply wrong. That nobody intelligent could disagree with them. And that therefore the great majority of Americans are ignorant, superstitious and stupid.
What is really remarkable is the media’s drive to rub the noses of the majority of Americans in what the media assumes to be their inferiority. What else could motivate Newsweek to commission a poll demonstrating that the great majority of Americans believe the basic tenents of their religion to be literally true, then to spend the next fifteen pages trying to undermine those very beliefs?
Are they trying to be helpful, in a rather twisted way? Or is there perhaps just a little residual resentment this time, a wish to stick a finger in the eye of these believing Americans who helped elect a man generally loathed by the media to the presidency?
Whatever the reason, debunking efforts are a singularly ugly and abusive way to observe the landmark religious holidays of the great majority of Americans. The media should find a cure for its semi-annual obsessive-compulsive urges to debunk Christmas and Easter. Think Grinch. Think Scrooge.
posted by Old Neocon at 7:24 PM
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