The Anchoress
This is sort of funny and sort of sad. Gerald at Closed Cafeteria has been called an “idiot of the Catholic blogosphere” by someone who wrote it in plural, so I assume there are more of us “idiots.”
I will happily include myself in the category, because I know who I am! :-)
Anyway, this fellow wrote:
I’m ashamed that this guy considers himself some kind of paragon of Catholic orthodoxy. The site is actually quite entertaining when discusing anything other than politics. Alas, when politics intervenes out comes the war-loving, baby-bombing, excuse-making, flag-waving paranoia of someone who has apparently confused the United States government with the Kingdom of Heaven.
Since our dear leaders depend on blind hatred of Ay-rabs and Muslims, such people must toe the line even in the smallest matters. Today, the blogger links to an article about a man who recently went postal on his co-workers in Denver. Not exactly earth-shaking you say, people do this in the Americna (sic) heartland fairly regularly. Oh, but you see, this particular guy was a Muslim, (as the blogger righteously points out) and thus, is inherently more violent than the Christians who blow away their co-workers. Basically the blogger’s argument is: Muslim = murderer. Three cheers for religious bigotry, I guess. Alas, I bet a lot of Muslim-hating Christians are making this same “argument” as I write this.
In an interesting twist, it turns out the blogger has moved to the US from Germany. I think I’ll apply his same standard for “argumentation”: I read a blog by a German today. As you would expect, he was making bigoted comments, and this is not surprising since all Germans tend toward Nazism.
The reason the blurb is funny is because most of you know that I have – at one time or another – encouraged our very conservative and somewhat hotheaded (though very well-educated) Gerald to stop writing with a Louisville slugger and consider learning to love the whiffle bat, which can do a bit of damage without blood and carnage. And you must admit, Gerald – for the most part – has gotten much better. He will never be a writer one could describe as a razor wrapped in a truffle (that’s simply not his nature) but over the year or so since he’s begun the blog, he’s much more deft. There is less chopping, more graceful slicing, and he is often funny, to boot. And he knows I am teasing him.
The reason the blurb is sad is because the writer apparently did not notice that Gerald’s entire post on the shooting consisted of an excerpt and link from a news report, with one line in boldface, and so he set about characterizing Gerald as negatively as he could, based on…well, someone else’s writing. What is sad is that in a very short blurb this writer managed to spew venom at “the American heartland” (they’re always going postal over there, not like those peaceful, non-murderous coastal sophisticates!), the president (it’s his fault that Gerald is a bigoted Nazi from Germany [Austria, actually], because of the looming theocracy Bush has encouraged and Bush hates all non-Christians except Israelis…or something) and any who support the effort in Iraq (because we love all the baby-killin’ and the smell of napalm in the morning and refuse to look at all of the successes there and see the pointless quagmire).
Unfortunately, it is true that you can look at Catholic (and other Christian) blogs and find some who will make the Muslims=Murderers equation, just as you’ll find secularist (or “liberal Christian” – their emphasis, not mine) who cannot write a civil word about a conservative Christian without making them out to be mouth-foaming neanderthals and whack-jobs who have pages of the bible plastered on the walls, like Carrie’s mother. You know, the “Christians=mouthbreathing haters” equation.
Which begs the question, then. What makes one sort more noble than the other? If you’re a secularist or “liberal Christian” who cannot keep a reasonable tone when talking about a conservative Christian, what makes you better, or any different, than someone who may – or in this case may not – have made the Muslim equation?
There is ugliness all over the blogosphere, and people are always laying charges of nastiness at others. I had one blogger – can’t recall who, because I never respond to provocation from another blogger – suggest that I am a mean-spirited sort who asks for civility and then “in the next breath calls Hillary Clinton fat…” which is absolutely false. Check my archives. It is extremely rare for me to comment on anyone’s appearance (except in a positive way – particularly if I’m talking about a blue-eyed Celt!) and in Mrs. Clinton’s case, I have commented on her appearance exactly three times. The first to ask her to remember to wash her hair if she was going to run for the WH, because at the time, she really seemed to need reminding. The second to remark in passing that in my estimation she is a pretty attractive-looking woman, and the third to grumble about how much I dislike reading attacks on someone’s appearance instead of real, substantial commentary – I believe I wrote that I find the “thick ankles/she’s fat” crap on Hillary annoying because she is not what I would call fat, and she’s not the only woman in the world with thick ankles! (I have ’em too!) I also noted that when you start picking on appearances, you’ve stopped commenting on the real issues worth criticizing, hence you’ve allowed yourself to be considered unserious – and thus in-credible – on the subject. But…there was some blogger, insisting that I had called Hillary fat. Whatever.
I know that several Christian bloggers have, as I have, linked to Muslim bloggers and endeavored to help foster understanding between religions. I know that other Christian and conservative bloggers have no patience for it and don’t exactly edify the Body of Christ on some issues. I also know there are times – like yesterday, fer instance – when I am not exactly the most edifying Christian on the block, either. I also have seen liberal blogs that are rational and sane (yeah, there’s a couple out there!)
There are extremists on every issue, on every side, and the blogosphere is a hot-blooded and dynamic place – we all misspeak, lash out ill-advisedly and otherwise blow it from time to time. I myself, according to Joe Marshall, am a “glittering holy terror when annoyed.” But shouldn’t we at least try to smash each other (if we must) on the basis of what we’ve written, rather than our re-printing of an excerpt?
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