An idiot for the global village

September 23, 1997

The Road to Damascus has been closed

Here's a quiz: The summer of 1997 began and ended with major media events that involved the United Kingdom rather than the United States. Name both. If you're having trouble coming up with the first one, the problem may be more than just a short attention span. The very idea that a major event can occur outside America's borders, and without the participation of Americans, is laughable, like the notion that anybody except an American can be a patriot. And the fact that this happened not once but twice last summer is downright disturbing. It's not so much the fact that we're not monopolizing the news as the sense that we no longer have the strength to make a Di-sized splash. Is this a brief respite from the limelight or evidence that the blood is getting thin? Is the comparatively small attention being given right now to the Immigration Menace merely a post-coital cigarette after the tussle for last year's Alien and Sedition Acts, or an admission that this country may need a little hybrid vigor after all? In spiritual terms, vigor usually comes with rebirth. The literature of the West is filled with stories of sinners, weaklings, wastrels and other miscreants being reborn (if not strictly Born Again) among the righteous. For the most part we, and the literature, are better for them. But increasingly it's looking like we may not have that kind of muscle anymore. Saul of Tarsus got the ball rolling after his encounter with the Lord on the way to Damascus. An ill-tempered, merciless persecuter of Christians, Saul was knocked off his horse by a vision from God, and spent the rest of his life as the ill-tempered, merciless Christian Saint Paul. Paul's story is instructive, because it didn't come easily. The original unseating was followed by three days of blindness and a lifetime of struggle. This pattern of conversion through hardship has been a staple of conversion literature ever since. John Calvin, while he never had to get knocked off a horse, went through his own dark night of the soul, during which god reached into his "hardened heart" and gave him to see the errors of contemporary Catholicism. He emerged not merely an adherent to a new faith, but an inventor of a new theology. That Calvinism has become almost synonymous with a bleak, brittle view of the world just underlines the seriousness of Calvin's conversion. Even in America, where convenience is prized above all, the tradition of painful labor and second birth is strong. Following his visitation from the Angel Moroni, Joseph Smith, a small-town huckster and sometime religious charlatan, re-emerged as Joseph Smith, first Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The mainstreaming of Mormonism makes it tempting to note that Smith in many ways merely re-emerged as a more successful huckster; but any man who willingly becomes a pariah, gets subjected to fanatical persecution, and ends up murdered for his beliefs in his thirties becomes a visionary by default (so long as his Cult can raise enough money to become a Religion). Modern Mormonism continues the tradition of personal renaissance - it's part of what makes them such successful missionaries. Every good convert to the LDS has a good rebirth story to tell (you can do the same, so make sure your story's a good one). But while America is still full of Born-Agains, the actual notion of a New Life is hard to come by. It's significant that most of the legitimate tales of twentieth century resurrection have not involved Christianity at all. Bill W and Dr. Bob S may have emerged from their boozy haze with a doctrinal and mostly religious model of Recovery, but Alcoholics Anonymous is notable mostly for its secular appeal. Ditto Malcolm X, who gave full life to the now-shopworn tradition of jailhouse conversion to Islam. It took years for Elijah Muhammed's star disciple to find out that the version of Muhammedism he'd converted to had more to do with telling Whitey off than submitting to Allah (When he did get a whiff of that Old Time Religion, Malcolm X in effect re-converted - an aspect of the Life which is generally overlooked. The dramatic final period of Malcolm X's life is usually scanned not as "He became a true Muslim" but as "He stopped worrying and learned to love white people"). More recently, the tradition of rebirth has taken on most of the characteristics of farce - and this is true not only for the cultures of former substance abusers and those personally saved by Jesus Christ. David Horowitz, a sometime pundit, chronicler of "the American dynastic tragedy" and rightwing crank, will do anything to get you to see him as a man living a second life. His columns generally handle such thumbsucker material as Why Israel Can't Trust Arafat, Why Gays Aren't "Normal," and the truly daring: "Here's an affirmative action plan: Study!" But Horowitz's real raison d'ecrire, or to be more precise, his hook, is that he's a man converted. You see, in the 60s, he was a radical chic fellow traveler, so now he, and we, must be reminded, again and again, of the error of his ways. Instead of the "..." ellipses Larry King uses to fill in the gaps in his column, Horowitz repeats ad infinitum the rhetorical question "Why am I no longer a liberal?" Never mind that a perfectly good answer to this question (Who gives a crap?) is readily at hand, or that the American distinction between Liberal and Conservative is so slight as to be meaningless to a neutral observer, or that Horowitz is just a bombastic windbag who doesn't really merit the attention. What's instructive here is that rebirth may be impossible in contemporary life. To be reborn is to bring down scorn on your own head, to be reviled by those who have opted to stay with the status quo. Horowitz tries - boy does he try - to stir up controversy, but his daring statements (how Political Correctness is out of control, how Liberals are the ones who really hurt blacks) sound suspiciously like the same old song and dance, somewhat less shocking that the contention that Aquafresh freshens breath. I've been trying to stir up controversy for years, and have never managed more than a tepid yawn, so I don't envy Horowitz his struggle (though I do envy him his book deals, and his guest spots on "Nightline," and "Good Morning America."). And I don't envy anybody who tries to get born again. In a country that will entertain anything except a spiritual struggle, there may not be a need for rebirth. Comfort does indeed come with a price tag, and while American life is full of second acts, it may not support second lives. We invite you to revile simpleton.

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