You Got Me Feelin' Emotion

To the Editor:

NBC has closed the book on the controversial religious drama, "The Book of Daniel." The American Family Association credited viewer's complaints, which forced the hand of the network.

What did the American Family Association prove? It proved that changes can be made if enough people object to an inappropriate TV program -- or some unreasonable city, country, state, or federal requirement -- and make their objections known by letters, postcards, e-mail or telephone.

To do nothing is to condone something that is wrong. By the same token, if something is good, an acknowledgement is in order.

John

When I first read this letter, my initial reaction was disgust. The controversy over "The Book of Daniel" strikes me as irritating. The anger seems to be over two suggestions made by the premise of the show: that the life of a pastor might be just as complicated as anyone else's, and that Jesus might be a compassionate shoulder to lean on. I will admit that I know nothing about the show other than what I've heard; I don't really watch television at all. (Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, I do download "The Office" and "Lost" from iTunes every week. The former is incredibly well-written, and the latter is simply friggin' addictive.) Regardless, I always have a problem with the argument that art (and yes, I am swinging that term a bit loosely to include network television) should conform to cultural mores. Great art is art that makes people think about and question their values, not art that simply reflects them. The censorship of art is always a sign of cultural stagnation and anti-intellectualism.

Be that as it may, I think The American Family Association is being a bit naive in claiming they were actively responsible for the cancellation of the show. First of all, the network is a business. If the show had been economically viable and had sold enough advertising based on viewership, it would have stayed on no matter how many calls the network had gotten from overzealous christerbators. The show was cancelled because it didn't get the desired ratings. That's the only reason any show gets cancelled, no matter how vocal the opposition became. If all it took to bring a show off the air were loud protests, there'd have been no chance for long-running shows like "Married with Children," "The Simpsons," and "South Park." Second, the protesting of "The Book of Daniel" wasn't really a moral argument. It was, from the very beginning, a political argument. For all the moralizing and judgment that comes from the extremist Christians, they're certainly not opposed to watching questionable programming in the privacy of their own home. Where does "Desperate Housewives," a show that depicts drug use, violence, and infidelity, get the highest ratings? According to Nielson ratings, the show does best in the Bible Belt.

After giving it a little thought though, I remembered another article I read today, this one from the New York Times. The story detailed a scientific study of human brainwave patters when presented with information that went against the person's political beliefs; specifically, staunch conservatives and liberals were presented with snippets of doctored remarks from Bush and Kerry, both sets of which were self-contradictory. Not surprisingly, conservatives railed against Kerry but let Bush off the hook, and liberals reacted harshly to Bush but gave Kerry a skip. More interestingly, the scientists found that, when processing the snippet by the supported politician, the majority of activity was not in the reasoning areas of the brain, but in the emotional and, more disturbingly, in the pleasure centers of the brain. The implications are obvious. The rejection of unwelcome political information is not only more of an emotional response than a rational one, but doing so flares the pleasure centers of the brain, creating habits that become hard to break.

So maybe I should try to put a check on those initial reactions. Yeah, a letter like John's angers me, because I immediately feel the need to lash out against those who want to impose any sort of intellectual censorship. Taking a deep breath and rereading the letter, however, there's not a lot to really get angry at John about. I still think he's a bit naive in saying the American Family Association proved much of anything, except that pseudo-religious political groups will take credit for anything they can claim any degree of involvement in. The thrust of his letter, however, is actually a valid point and something for everyone to consider. Whether or not the activist Evangelicals had anything to do with the cancellation of "The Book of Daniel," what they have proven is that through passionate, ceaseless vigilance, they can shift our entire culture dangerously to the right. People who would have been discounted as whackjobs 10 years ago now get regular face-time on cable news shows. The radical left are now considered the whackjobs, and indeed many of them are. The problem is, those of us in the center have a tendency to remain quiet. Because we're not extreme or radical, we tend not to be passionate either. This is our biggest failure. History shows what befalls a society when it veers too far in either direction. We strive to free ourselves from the dangers of emotional responses, though we certainly aren't immune to them. We believe that balance, cooperation, and compromise are the foundation of a great society, and we have reason and history on our side. We can afford to be passionate, and we must be, to rein in the corruption and decay that occur when one group completely eclipses another. Most of us are centrists at heart, even if we identify as liberals or conservatives. Many of us have simply been fooled into this "culture war" by those with the most to gain.

None of this means you'll see a radical shift in the content of this blog. I remain angry, and I believe anger to be a valid and constructive form of passionate involvement. I will try to remember who the enemies really are, however. I encourage everyone else to do the same. Conservatives need to consider their response to things like domestic spying and the situation on Saipan. If one supports libertarianism and small government, one cannot support a government free to spy on its citizens with no checks to the power, no matter how many times George Bush says it's okay. If one values human life and human dignity, one cannot support an American Protectorate where women are brought in to sweatshop conditions, pushed into prostitution and forced to have abortions, no matter how strongly Tom DeLay advocates it. Liberals need to be cautious too, despite and, perhaps, even because they are the current underdog. Trying to overcorrect by pulling too far to the left separates one from the mainstream, making it very difficult to effectively change mainstream opinion. Sticking to one's values is admirable, but being unwilling to compromise is not. If the neo-cons are the problem, they are the problem for their unwillingness to compromise and their desire to consolidate all power for themselves. Trying to do the same thing doesn't make liberals a viable option, it simply makes them appear to exacerbate the problem.

The point is, be passionate, but rational. You can make a difference, but don't do it because someone tells you to do it, do it because you believe in the cause. Fight for ideas, not for candidates. Follow your values, not political parties. I'll be attempting to do the same.