False Witnesses 2
"If you want to look thin, you hang out with fat people."
-- Thornton Melon
Commenters on the previous post about this rumor were right to argue that I overstated the case in saying that there could be no "innocent dupes" involved in its spread. That's too categorical. But those few who may have been innocently duped by such an unbelievable tale -- the very young, the very old, the very insular -- weren't also among those most active in spreading the rumor. They heard it, and they may have believed it, but believing false witness and bearing false witness are not the same thing. It is those bearers of false witness I'm interested in here.
Those spreading this rumor can be divided into two categories: Those who know it to be false, but spread it anyway, and those who suspect it might be false, but spread it anyway. The latter may be dupes, but they are not innocent. We might think of them as complicit dupes. The former group, the deliberate liars, are making an explicit choice to spread what they know to be lies. The complicit dupes are making a subtler choice -- choosing to ignore their suspicion that this story just doesn't add up and then choosing to pass it along anyway because confirming that it's not true would be somehow disappointing and would prevent them from passing it along without explicitly becoming deliberate liars, which would make them uncomfortable.
What I want to explore here is why anyone would make either of those choices. In both cases, the spreading of this rumor seems less an attempt to deceive others than a kind of invitation to participate in deception. The enduring popularity of this rumor shows that many people see this invitation as something attractive and choose to accept it, so I also want to explore why anyone would choose to do that.
To briefly review the details of this absurd rumor, the claim was that some nameless CEO of Procter & Gamble appeared on some daytime talk show and declared his allegiance to Satan. This unidentified and unidentifiable Fortune 100 executive told Donahue/Oprah/Sally Jesse that he belonged to a Church of Satan, and that a portion of the company's profits -- every dollar collected from the sale of Tide and Dawn and Crest -- went to support its evil agenda.
The origin and organization of this slanderous tale seems to trace back to P&G's would-be rivals in a cult-like multi-level marketing scheme that coveted the Cincinnati-based company's market share. That's a sleazy tactic -- marketing by smear campaign -- and it betrays a lack of confidence in the quality of the rival product line, but one can appreciate the perverse logic at work. There was money at stake. If the rivals could create a negative association with P&G's product line, then it would make their own products seem more attractive by contrast.
Such whisper campaigns needn't be terribly plausible. They work by connotation and association. For every possible X number of people who actually come to believe that P&G supports the work of Satan there will be 3X people who come away with some dim, unexplored sense that the company is "controversial" or vaguely associated with something unsavory (think "Swift Boat").
The motive of this small core-group of rumor-mongers is thus not terribly complicated or difficult to understand. It's not even terribly interesting. They were lying for the sake of money. Nothing novel or remarkable about that.
Far more interesting than those greedy sleazeballs, though, are the members of the much larger group of gossips who enthusiastically spread this malicious and obviously false story. This larger group has no financial interest at stake, so what's in it for them? What motivates someone to accept the invitation to participate in deception, to accept an obvious lie and then to voluntarily tie their own credibility to something so incredible?
To try to understand these cheerful gossips, I'd like to turn to an equally strange, if less malicious, group of enthusiasts -- the Anti Kitten-Burning Coalition.
Every once in a while, I am sorry to say, some sick bastard sets fire to a kitten. This is something that happens. Like all crimes, it shouldn't happen, but it does. And like most crimes, it makes the paper. The effects of this appalling cruelty are not far-reaching, but the incidents are reported in the papers because the cruelty is so flagrant and acute that it seems newsworthy.
The response to such reports is horror and indignation, which is both natural and appropriate. But the expression of that horror and indignation also produces something strange.
A few years ago there was a particularly horrifying kitten-burning incident involving a barbecue grill and, astonishingly, a video camera. That sordid episode took place far from the place where I work, yet the paper's editorial board nonetheless felt compelled to editorialize on the subject. They were, happily, against it. Unambiguously so. It's one of the very few instances I recall when that timidly Broderian bunch took an unambiguous stance without their habitual on-the-other-hand qualifications.
I agreed with that stance, of course. Who doesn't? But despite agreeing with the side they took, I couldn't help but be amused by the editorial's inordinately proud pose of courageous truth-telling. The lowest common denominator of minimal morality was being held up as though it were a prophetic example of speaking truth to power.
That same posturing resurfaced in a big way earlier this year when the kitten-burners struck again, much closer to home. A group of disturbed and disturbing children doused a kitten with lighter fluid and set it on fire just a few miles from the paper's offices.
The paper covered the story, of course, and our readers ate it up.
People loved that story. It became one of the most-read and most-e-mailed stories on our Web site. Online readers left dozens of comments and we got letters to the editor on the subject for months afterward.
Those letters and comments were uniformly and universally opposed to kitten-burning. Opinon on that question was unanimous and vehement.
But here was the weird part: Most of the commenters and letter-writers didn't seem to notice that they were expressing a unanimous and noncontroversial sentiment. Their comments and letters were contentious and sort of aggressively defensive. Or maybe defensively aggressive. They were angry, and that anger didn't seem to be directed only at the kitten-burners, but also at some larger group of others whom they imagined must condone this sort of thing.
If you jumped into the comments thread and started reading at any random point in the middle, you'd get the impression that the comments immediately preceding must have offered a vigorous defense of kitten-burning. No such comments offering any such defense existed, and yet reader after reader seemed to be responding to or anticipating this phantom kitten-burning advocacy group.
One came away from that comment thread with the unsurprising but reassuring sense that the good people reading the paper's Web site did not approve of burning kittens alive. Kitten-burning, they all insisted, was just plain wrong.
But one also came away from reading that thread with the sense that people seemed to think this ultra-minimal moral stance made them exceptional and exceptionally righteous. Like the earlier editorial writers, they seemed to think they were exhibiting courage by taking a bold position on a matter of great controversy. Whatever comfort might be gleaned from the reaffirmation that most people were right about this non-issue issue was overshadowed by the discomfiting realization that so many people also seemed to want or need most others to be wrong.
The kitten-burners seem to fulfill some urgent need. They give us someone we can clearly and correctly say we're better than. Their extravagant cruelty makes us feel better about ourselves because we know that we would never do what they have done. They thus function as signposts of depravity, reassuring the rest of us that we're Not As Bad As them, and thus letting us tell ourselves that this is the same thing as us being good.
Kitten-burners are particularly useful in this role because their atrocious behavior seems wholly alien and without any discernible motive that we might recognize in ourselves. We're all at least dimly aware of our own potential capacity for the seven deadlies, so crimes motivated by lust, greed, gluttony, etc. -- even when those crimes are particularly extreme -- still contain the seed of something recognizable. People like Ken Lay or Hugh Hefner don't work as signposts of depravity because we're capable, on some level, of envying them for their greed and their hedonism. But we're not the least bit jealous of the kitten-burners. Their cruelty seems both arbitrary and unrewarding, allowing us to condemn it without reservation.
Again, I whole-heartedly agree that kitten-burning is really, really bad. But the leap from "that's bad" to "I'm not that bad" is dangerous and corrosive. I like to call this Thornton Melon morality. Melon was the character played by Rodney Dangerfield in the movie Back to School, the wealthy owner of a chain of "Tall & Fat" clothing stores whose motto was "If you want to look thin, you hang out with fat people." That approach -- finding people we can compare-down to -- might make us feel a little better about ourselves, but it doesn't change who or what we really are. The Thornton Melon approach might make us look thin, but it won't help us become so. Melon morality is never anything more than an optical illusion.
This comparing-down is ultimately corrosive because it bases our sense of morality in pride rather than in love -- in the cardinal vice instead of the cardinal virtue. And to fuel that pride, we end up looking for ever-more extreme and exotically awful people to compare ourselves favorably against, people whose freakish cruelty makes our own mediocrity show more goodly and attract more eyes than that which hath no foil to set it off.
Melon morality is why if the kitten-burners didn't already exist, we would have to invent them.
And, of course, we do invent them. After a while the buzz of pride we get from comparing ourselves to the kitten-burners begins to fade and we start looking for a stronger drug. Who could possibly be even worse than the kitten-burners?
How about Satan-worshippers?
In the first post on this topic, I mentioned that the Church of Satan aspect of the Procter & Gamble rumor seemed a bit too outrageous and over-the-top. But while that outrageousness makes the story less plausible, it's also what makes it so compelling. The pride that fuels Melon morality is an addictive drug, and the mythological Satan-worshippers of the P&G rumor offer that drug in its purest form.
Whether or not there actually is any such thing as the or a Church of Satan needn't concern us here. This story has nothing to do with any actual religion or cult or the actual doctrines espoused by Anton LaVey or any other publicity-seeking character who has claimed the name of Satanism. This story isn't about that. It's about the idea of Satanism -- the lore and legends of this enduringly popular bogeyman.
That lore does not arise from or relate to any actual belief system or actual believers. It is, rather, the stuff of legend as recounted in a hundred Jack Chick tracts and heavy metal album covers, in urban legends and campfire stories, in the flim-flammery of Mike Warnke and Bob Larson, and in low-budget Z-movies like the classic Satan's Cheerleaders.
From sources like those, you already know the basic outlines of "Satanist" lore. Black robes, candles, pentagrams and strangely shaped knives feature prominently. Those knives, of course, are used for ritual human sacrifice.
The very idea of ritual human sacrifice is shocking and horrifying, which is why it tends to be included in stories told by people seeking to shock and horrify. When that is your aim as a storyteller the tendency is to constantly up the ante. What could be more shocking and horrifying than ritual human sacrifice? How about the torturous ritual sacrifice of children? And what could be even worse than that? The sacrifice of babies.
This is what "Satanist" signifies in the P&G rumor. It means people who kill babies -- sweet, innocent, adorable little babies. Here, from the article linked above, is an excerpt from a 1991 fundraising letter from the Anti-Satanist "ministry" of con artist Bob Larson:
I watched them rip apart a newborn baby and take the heart while it was still beating. I can't forget the screams. I still hear them every night!
That's supposedly eyewitness testimony from someone saved out of the depraved Church of Satan thanks to the ministry of Bob Larson. It reads more like something out of a horror story than like something out of a fundraising solicitation for a Christian ministry. It's not quite a horror story, but it works in a similar way.
Satanist stories, much like stories about ghosts or vampires, tap into big mythic fears -- the sense that there is real evil in the world, that the innocent often suffer, that we may be powerless against the powerful. We tell such stories because we are afraid -- reasonably afraid -- of powerful, unnameable things. These stories give those fears a shape and a name and a horrifying face, and somehow that can be more reassuring than allowing such fears to remain amorphous and existential.
And just like vampire and ghost stories, Satanist stories have their own sets of rules, details and basic outlines with which we're all familiar. These give the stories their own kind of reality. (Ask most people, "Do you believe in vampires?" and they will answer No. But ask those same people if vampires can be killed with a wooden stake and they'll tell you Yes.)
None of these stories work as stories if we undercut their impact by acknowledging that there's no such thing as ghosts or vampires or Satanic detergent executives. To tell these stories well, we have to pretend these things are real. To hear these stories well, our readers have to agree to go along. This is a familiar, but dramatically necessary, convention in horror stories from Sleepy Hollow to Amityville. This conceit usually involves only the willing suspension of disbelief, but for those who really get caught up in them -- those particularly afraid already -- that storytelling suspension of disbelief can turn into the expulsion of disbelief, the abandonment of skepticism in real life. The fearful and the fear-prone come to almost believe that the ghost stories and urban legends are really true. They come to almost really believe that someone out there is really killing the innocent little babies. (Almost.)
So maybe that's all we're dealing with when it comes to the P&G rumor -- the same mixture of storytelling and suspension of disbelief, with the usual subset of listeners/readers who fail to make that distinction. Maybe the people passing along this rumor are no more malicious than that gullible friend of yours who still thinks The Blair Witch Project was a documentary.
Maybe. Maybe for some few of them. But the problem with this horror-story explanation is that the P&G rumor isn't told the way we tell horror stories and ghost stories. It's told in well-lit supermarkets and Sunday schools, not in dark rooms just before or just after bedtime. And it isn't really told as a story at all. It's presented, instead, as more of an argument or a lecture, the way someone might tell you, for example, why you shouldn't eat foie gras.
In it's usual forms, the P&G rumor is told and retold without any of the flair or artful detail that we expect from storytelling. I'm not sure it even qualifies to be grouped in with urban legends. Compare it to any of the stories we usually think of as urban legends -- the subcutaneous spider-eggs story or the missing-kidneys and bathtub-of-ice story -- and it just doesn't measure up. Those stories are retold, in part, because you don't have to believe them to appreciate that they're good stories. The P&G rumor, by contrast, is implausible and unforgivably dull. It's just not a very good story.
But while the P&G rumor can't really be considered a horror story, it is clearly about horror or, at least, about fear. Consider, for example, the variation of the rumor that Snopes provides on their page debunking it. Try to count all the things the author of this particular lie is afraid of:
PLEASE MAKE A DIFFERENCE
The President of Procter & gamble appeared on the Phil Donahue Show on March 1, 1994. He announced that due to the openness of our society, he was coming out of the closet about his association with the church of Satan. He stated that a large portion of his profits from Procter & Gamble Products goes to support this satanic church. When asked by Donahue if stating this on t.v. would hurt his business, he replied, "THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH CHRISTIANS IN THE UNITED STATES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE."
That's as pure a distillation as you will ever find of the nightmares and bogeymen that terrify the religious right, complete with the attempt to justify those fears because those people are really Satan-worshipping baby-killers.
Perhaps the deepest fear lurking in that e-mail has to do with the persecution complex of American evangelicals we've often discussed here before. The fear here is not that Christians in America might face persecution, but rather the fear of what it might mean that they don't. The supposed effort to prove that there are ENOUGH CHRISTIANS ... TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE is an expression of the fear -- or the recognition -- that the people sending and resending this e-mail are not CHRISTIAN ENOUGH TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. They're shouting because they're frightened -- truly frightened of the truth about themselves, which is always far more frightening than any fear of what might be lurking outside ourselves in the dark.
The response to that fear is a desperate grasping at Melon morality in the most extreme form they can imagine -- trying to prove to themselves that they are different enough to MAKE A DIFFERENCE by contrasting themselves with baby-killing Satan-worshippers. With baby-killing Satan-worshippers that they know are purely imaginary.
That requires more self-deception than any of us is capable of on our own. That degree of self-deception requires a group.
This is why the rumor doesn't really need to be plausible or believable. It isn't intended to deceive others. It's intended to invite others to participate with you in deception.
Are you afraid you might be a coward? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend to feel brave. Are you afraid that your life is meaningless? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend your life has purpose. Are you afraid you're mired in mediocrity? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend to feel exceptional. Are you worried that you won't be able to forget that you're just pretending and that all those good feelings will thus seem hollow and empty? Join us and we will pretend it's true for you if you will pretend it's true for us. We need each other.
You can't be doing well if it seems like an improvement to base your life and your sense of self on a demonizing slander that you know is only a fantasy. To challenge that fantasy, to identify it as nothing more than that, is to threaten to send them back to whatever their lives were like before they latched onto this desperate alternative.
That suggests to me that if we are to have any hope of disabusing them of their fantasies, then we will need to recommend some third alternative, something other than the lie or the reality that had seemed even worse.
I often wonder about this with the emails my (very conservative) father forwards to me. Most of them take 30 seconds to debunk on Snopes. Many are so ludicrous that they defy description (the most recent included the prediction that Obama, if elected, would name Hillary Clinton to the Supreme Court). I've responded over and over, pointing out the flaws and falsehoods.
Yet he keeps sending them - often the same ones which I had already provided counters to. In the interest of family peace I have yet to ask "Do you know these are lies and forward them anyway, or do you actually believe this?" I do think it with pretty much every email, though.
Posted by: BuhallinBuhallin | Oct 08, 2008 at 04:51 PM
Many are so ludicrous that they defy description (the most recent included the prediction that Obama, if elected, would name Hillary Clinton to the Supreme Court)
I don't know if I'd call that one ludicrous. It was certainly bandied about as a possible offering to Clinton instead of a VP offer.
Posted by: Cyllan | Oct 08, 2008 at 05:13 PM
Unfortunately if you were to suggest a third option, that they could find meaning and purpose by following Christ's example of looking out for others and taking care of those in need, you would be met with blank looks and an angry reminder that things have to get worse or else Jesus isn't coming back. That mean hollow streak in American Christianity is the backbone of this movement, when you've turned life into nothing but a dull gray waiting room waiting to go to heaven or get raptured you've got to create some amusements. And this requires no effort provides a bounty of ego stroking. It's wrong to dislike these people as much as I do but I can't help it. They passed being "innocent" in this a long time ago, they relish they're completely unearned Get out of Hell Free card and use their considerable pull to take people's civil rights away while howling that they are being persecuted. Strangely we're both looking foward to the rapture, I can't wait for you to disapear too.
Posted by: JessicaR | Oct 08, 2008 at 05:56 PM
This makes me think of a recent essay about why terrorists do such inexplicable things.
Clearly, murdering innocent people is a much, much worse way of reassuring yourself how strong and virtuous your group is than lying about a soap manufacturer, but there is a similar sort of insecurity. I suspect that even those people who were burning kittens were doing it to prove to each other how bold and daring they were. Not only can a group invent an enemy group where there is none, it seems that groups can create each other to hate.
Posted by: | Oct 08, 2008 at 05:57 PM
To challenge that fantasy, to identify it as nothing more than that, is to threaten to send them back to whatever their lives were like before they latched onto this desperate alternative.
I don't care.
That suggests to me that if we are to have any hope of disabusing them of their fantasies, then we will need to recommend some third alternative, something other than the lie or the reality that had seemed even worse.
Cosplay? Society for Creative Anachronism? LARP?
Posted by: J | Oct 08, 2008 at 05:59 PM
I expect False Witness 3 to take the next logical step, and decry the complicit dupes who spread Fairy Godmother, Santa Claus, and God stories.
Oh, wait.
As for those high-and-mighty kitting-burning opponents, over 80% of them no doubt chow down on throat-slashed cows and chickens without a second thought. So much for morality. People don't oppose kitten-burning because it's somehow inherently immoral to do harm to animals. They oppose it because kittens are cute. They (as in both the paper and its readers) would not likely care so much about, say, rat-burning.
False morality, from America's churches to you.
Posted by: Keith T. | Oct 08, 2008 at 06:15 PM
"And like most crimes, it makes the paper."
Huh? I imagine you mean most heinous crimes? I'm not sure about that, but it's plausible.
This reminded me of something I hadn't thought about in a long, long time. One day when I was in junior high in the early 1990s, my English/Civics teacher informed us students that a Satanic cult controlled Grand Rapids, Michigan and killed anyone who spoke against it or threatened to expose it. (I can't think of a very good Amway joke to put here, but it certainly is the spot)
In my memory he was being serious and he wasn't one to be exactly subtle when he felt someone was being stupid, so I don't think he was trying to make some kind of point. I wonder where he fell on the continuium?
(I'm assuming that the story is false, of course. His story about killing a deer with a knife when it jumped up after he grazed it while hunting and attacked him, which I'd always repeated as a 'Mr. X is so looney' anecdote turned out to be at least coaroborated.
Posted by: witless chum | Oct 08, 2008 at 06:21 PM
THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH CHRISTIANS IN THE UNITED STATES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
I've read this email on Snopes before, but it makes me laugh so hard every time. I just love the quaint idea that any executive in their right mind is going to piss off at least 80% of his target market. Indeed, probably more; I doubt Muslims would support a company that gives money to the Church of Satan either, and cultural osmosis means that even people who aren't believers (or, in the case of Jews, see Satan as an agent of God, albeit a rather unpleasant one) know enough Christianity to associate the devil with evil.
In reality, CEOs cuddle up to Christians as much as they can - after all, even the smallest act can unleash waves of self-righteous persecution BS; remember the storm in a teacup when McDonald's made a small donation to a gay rights group? I think the first sentence in the article lays bare the real reasons behind the cuckoo-logic behind this persecution complex, as the AFA demands Macky D's "remain neutral in the culture war". For these people, it's not just a moral disagreement. They're engaged in warfare, and they're losing. From here, it's all too easy to see where a persecution complex develops from, and why Left Behind was so popular. The rapture would be the endgame, the ballistic thermonuclear salvo that would leave the RTCs unambiguously winners, while all their opponents are condemned to hell, doomed to never enjoy God's steaming piles of produce drenched in butter.
Posted by: SchrodingersDuck | Oct 08, 2008 at 06:22 PM
THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH CHRISTIANS IN THE UNITED STATES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
I get the feeling that this really should read THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH REAL TRUE CHRISTIANS IN THE UNITED STATES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Because that's the big fear. Not that there aren't enough Christians, but that there aren't enough Christians that tow the RTC line.
Posted by: telesilla | Oct 08, 2008 at 06:52 PM
Cosplay? Society for Creative Anachronism? LARP?
Doesn't religion kind of already have those things? This weaves in with some religion-as-fandom discussions I was reading on Livejournal. The canon, the fanon. The squee. The bashing. And yes, for any fun religion, the cosplay and the LARP.
Posted by: lonespark | Oct 08, 2008 at 07:01 PM
Hey, in the Warnke link they quote LaHaye; that was weird pot-kettle-ebony stuff right there.
Okay, really; hands up if you've ever been conned, whether out of money, possessions, beer, whatever. How stupid did you feel when you figured it out? How quickly did you run out and tell people how stupid you were? How quick were you to stop someone else from getting screwed, or do you just laugh at the poor idiot playing 3-card monte on the street?
If false witnesses here include those evangelicals who were ever suckered by the Darby/Scofield PMD fallacy (this would be me, raising my hand), then we are talking about a swindle going back generations; my parents, my parents' parents and my parents' parents' parents (great-grandfather was a Baptist preacher in Missouri; taught his children that Jews had horns on their heads, although they figured out this part was not in fact true). How in the world are we going to get this group of people to accept they have been lied to? Yes, yes I know; people are leaving the institutionalized church in droves, probably because at some level they realize they are being screwed. But still we're talking about a subculture that puts a lot of stock in integrity and being forthright. I greatly fear what happens if and when this all comes crashing down in the next 20-30 years and how we as a nation/larger culture can pick up all the pieces of these broken and abused people; especially since we (most of us, anyway) were broken and abused (and threatened with hell!) by them first.
Thanks, Fred, for doing this.
Posted by: | Oct 08, 2008 at 07:05 PM
me @ 21:05.
Posted by: Cowboy Diva | Oct 08, 2008 at 07:06 PM
As for those high-and-mighty kitting-burning opponents, over 80% of them no doubt chow down on throat-slashed cows and chickens without a second thought. So much for morality. People don't oppose kitten-burning because it's somehow inherently immoral to do harm to animals. They oppose it because kittens are cute. They (as in both the paper and its readers) would not likely care so much about, say, rat-burning.
Well, your points are both true and not quite true. If people killed the kittens first, then burned them, or cooked them, I doubt we'd have as much objection. It's the obvious, purposeless cruelty. Also, if inhumane treatment of meat animals were highlighted the same way in the paper, a lot of people would protest, and a not-insignificant number of folks favor hunting and slaughtering of food animals with an absolute minimum of suffering.
A lot of people hate wolves, and a lot of those same people oppose shooting them from helicopters and hacking them to bits. We might want to kill rats, but we mostly don't enjoy the idea of hurting them for no reason. Cockroaches, on the other hand...they're just not ramen.
Posted by: lonespark | Oct 08, 2008 at 07:13 PM
I think the same warm reassurance that "at least I'm not as bad as THAT" also drives things like celebrity gossip, reality television and sites like fandom_wank. (I sheepishly admit that internet drama is my one guilty pleasure.) It's a basic human urge to make comparisons between yourself and others. It's a hard habit to break.
Posted by: Sheila | Oct 08, 2008 at 07:20 PM
One day when I was in junior high in the early 1990s, my English/Civics teacher informed us students that a Satanic cult controlled Grand Rapids, Michigan and killed anyone who spoke against it or threatened to expose it.
So does he fear for his life now that he's informed his students of the cult?
Unfortunately if you were to suggest a third option, that they could find meaning and purpose by following Christ's example of looking out for others and taking care of those in need, you would be met with blank looks and an angry reminder that things have to get worse or else Jesus isn't coming back.
Nah, I think a "faith not works" lecture is more likely. We're saving souls, not bodies, remember? The only work that matters is converting lots of people.
Posted by: Ryan Ferneau | Oct 08, 2008 at 07:28 PM
Yesterday I wandered onto Conservapedia's page on Barack Obama, and it was basically a compendium of all the lies and smears against him, presented as fact. The most ridiculous argument was "Obama is a Muslim because there's only a 1% chance Obama's father converted away from Islam". Obviously the unfortunate implication in these folks' minds is that of terrorism, which is probably in the same league as baby-killing. Also, their page of the Theory of Evolution begins with a picture of Hitler.
I don't know how we're ever going to show these folks the error of their ways.
Posted by: Mike | Oct 08, 2008 at 07:52 PM
great-grandfather was a Baptist preacher in Missouri; taught his children that Jews had horns on their heads, although they figured out this part was not in fact true
True story: my college room-mate went out with a boy who had never before left his little hometown in rural North Carolina. When he found out she was Jewish, he asked her bashfully if she might remove her shoes so he could touch her hooves.
Posted by: hapax | Oct 08, 2008 at 07:57 PM
Fred,
Reread your last three paragraphs-- it could have been lifted almost directly from a Richard Dawkins screed applied to religion as a whole. But set aside the question of whether or not Christianity is actually true or not. Either way I think you've nailed exactly why so many of these people claim to believe in religion so fervently, but twist it into something so troubling. Again, to paraphrase you, if their interpretation of Christianity didn't already exist, they'd have to create it. And probably that's exactly what happened. My question to you is, what if in curing someone of these problematic false witness tendencies you inadvertently cut the only tie keeping them believing in religion at all? As an evangelical it seems you might have a conflict of interest, or at least a delicate balancing act to pull off.
Posted by: Ian | Oct 08, 2008 at 08:05 PM
Well, I can't speak for Fred, but I doubt the desirability of any belief system founded on a desire to feel superior to others. Richard Dawkins' atheism has a suspicious whiff of that, to me.
Posted by: Lila | Oct 08, 2008 at 08:51 PM
Thanks, Fred, for the parable about the lies that conservatives spread about Obama. When they shout "terrorist!" at a Palin rally, referring to Obama, they're going through the same psychological maze as the people who send these P&G-is-Satanic emails.
Posted by: Queequeg | Oct 08, 2008 at 09:20 PM
Another excellent post.
Who could possibly be even worse than the kitten-burners?
I can think of one example that has been the subject of nonstop conversation among almost everyone I know. Here's something that I know will make me sound twisted and psychotic - I'm less horrified by the woman's crimes than by the blood lust of her detractors, who sound ready to form a lynch mob. That is terrifying to me on a molecular level, because that hatred could be directed at me and anyone else. I reached the point where I stay out of conversations about the story, because being around the hatred makes me physically uncomfortable.
Their extravagant cruelty makes us feel better about ourselves because we know that we would never do what they have done.
That may be true for many people. But I suspect the most bloodthirsty detractors really doubt that they would never do those things, and cannot admit this even to themselves.
Posted by: Tonio | Oct 08, 2008 at 09:27 PM
The supposed effort to prove that there are ENOUGH CHRISTIANS ... TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE is an expression of the fear -- or the recognition -- that the people sending and resending this e-mail are not CHRISTIAN ENOUGH TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Dumb question - why would these people doubt their own Christianity? Are they always measuring themselves against an impossibly high and unrealistic standard for what constitutes a Christian? Or do they treat the fact that many people are not Christian as a reflection on themselves?
Posted by: Tonio | Oct 08, 2008 at 10:02 PM
why would these people doubt their own Christianity? Are they always measuring themselves against an impossibly high and unrealistic standard for what constitutes a Christian?
I think that's the ticket.
The model set down in the Codex Astartes by Roboute Guilliman, and in the teachings of the Adeptus Terra, requires perfection. Space Marines, superhuman as they are, are still only human in their hearts (both of them); half of those who fall to Chaos must be simply measuring themselves against the men of wax that Guilliman puts forth, and seeing how they fail.
Ahem. Or, um, less fanboyishly...
These people, from their tribalism - he supposed, only knowing what he's read - treat "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven" (which I've always found a bit patronising and on the nose, but leave that aside) as dangerously wishy-washy thinking. Christianity is the perfect way of life. And not just Christianity, but my Christianity. So, since I follow my Christianity, I must logically be perfect...
...but what about that time when I got into that argument with my wife and raised my voice and still didn't win...
...or when I forgot to pick the kids up from soccer...
...or that time I had uncomfortable feelings for Johnny Depp...
Any flaw is scary when you measure yourself against an insurmountable model. And if you're insecure, you tend to spend a lot of time picking out beams, motes, planks, twigs, and corneas from your own eye. But it's easier if you can say "Well, at least I'm not Jim, whose son is gay", or "Well, at least I'm not Imran, who's going to Hell for his Muslimity", or "Well, at least I'm not Allerion, who's an Eldar witch who must be purged in the name of the Glorious Emperor". Hence the tribalism and bearing false witness Fred mentioned.
Posted by: Patrick Phelan | Oct 08, 2008 at 11:38 PM
Something about your analysis of the Anti-Kitten Burning Coalition reminds me of "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". But it's too far past my bedtime for me to figure out what/why.
Posted by: stinger | Oct 08, 2008 at 11:59 PM
Consider these:
Children play at being adults. House, doctor, fascination with driving, astronauts, etc... Child's play is basically practice at being adults. But also look at what children pretend to be: Star athletes, secret agents, super heroes, soldiers, ballet dancers, actors... Children imagine BIG.
Then they grow up and have to aim lower, whether it's due to squandered opportunities or just insufficient raw talent... That is a big let-down, particularly if you can remember your childhood dreams and find yourself and your circumstances measure rather unfavourably. Sadly these are probably people who desperately need to do this because they do not like their respective lives and can't conceive of deliberately and consciously going back to that childhood state of pretending. The big association of gaming with Satanism from back in the eighties, and of theatre with homosexuality in the pop-culture unconscious probably keeps RTCs from trying those routes of escapism anyway.
They're left with only the destructive escapist options.
Just my uneducated mental meanderings... but given that wisdom is a function of having made many decisions and remembering the results of said decisions... and given that as a role-player I've made many rather esoteric decisions, even if only by proxy... I'd like to convince myself that there might just be a seed of wisdom in this rambling.
Posted by: Jason | Oct 09, 2008 at 12:08 AM
Are they always measuring themselves against an impossibly high and unrealistic standard for what constitutes a Christian?
I spent well over a decade getting messages from pastors and fellow Christians that basically boiled down to, "You're not good enough, you'll never be good enough, it's impossible to be good enough, why aren't you good enough?"
It wears on the soul after a while. The option seems to be to a.) destroy others to make yourself feel better or b.) leave. I chose option b.
Posted by: Geds | Oct 09, 2008 at 12:10 AM
Yay for Henry IV, Part 1
"I can think of one example that has been the subject of nonstop conversation among almost everyone I know. Here's something that I know will make me sound twisted and psychotic - I'm less horrified by the woman's crimes than by the blood lust of her detractors, who sound ready to form a lynch mob. That is terrifying to me on a molecular level, because that hatred could be directed at me and anyone else. I reached the point where I stay out of conversations about the story, because being around the hatred makes me physically uncomfortable."
Shoot. Before I clicked on the link I was positive you were talking about Sarah Palin.
And I'm voting for her!
Posted by: Boze | Oct 09, 2008 at 12:13 AM
I used to teach in a prison for many years. There, the lowest form of life was defined as the child molester. Even the murderer could look down on those "terrible people". Once, I suggested that drug dealers did more harm in society than a child molester. An abused child could get help and counselilng and recover but one drug dealer hooking a person and making an addict often destroyed an entire family, the children carried that disease into their families for generations. Talk about blowing up the system. When it was unclear who you were supposed to be better than, the anger was unmeasurable.
Jon
Posted by: Jon | Oct 09, 2008 at 01:05 AM
Not sure how relevant this is, but for some reason, reading this (Fred's post) made me think of one big reason why I dislike some religious people and/or Republicans: they tell me things that are very obvious and then expect to get credit for telling me, as if I am so stupid or evil or clueless that I don't already know. Things like, "Killing innocent people is wrong," or "Terrorists are dangerous and we should try to stop them from killing innocent people," etc. Of course, they almost never say these things so baldly, because even they see how dumb it makes THEM look to say obvious things like that. What annoys me is that they say things that are essentially telling me (an adult in her 40s) things I already know and then sit back with a look that says they are now waiting for me to pat them on the back for their stunning insight. Since sometimes these people are family members or coworkers, I feel it necessary (believe it or not) to NOT say the first thing that comes to mind, ie, "No shit. Tell me something I don't already know, genius."
Are these people themselves stupid and just think, from the depths of their dumbassery, that they are making an insightful comment, or do they think I'm stupid? BTW, when I call out religious and/or Republicans on this, I don't mean that only the religious or the Republican do it, but they seem to do it more than others. They state really obvious things (for example, when debating the merits or lack thereof of same-sex marriage) as if they are actual, persuasive arguments and then get mad when you (or I, I guess) look at them as if they are morons. "Gay marriage is wrong because two men can't reproduce with each other." Uh... OK. Thanks for that expert testimony, but it's not a real reason.
Just wondering if anyone else ever encounters this. I just expect better arguments from adults. Adults with (often) spouses and children, people who have jobs and have purchased houses and other things that involve intelligence. To hear the nitwittery that emerges from some people who are normally not stupid is almost as jarring as if they had ripped off their human face and had a lizard face underneath.
Posted by: LL | Oct 09, 2008 at 01:14 AM
And already, I feel I have to issue a clarification: When I wrote "reading this (Fred's post) made me think of one big reason why I dislike some religious people and/or Republicans" I didn't mean that Fred wrote anything stupid or that he's one of those dipshit religious people. I guess it's because he was pointing out that when people react to awful things as if the rest of us have to be told that they're awful, it reminded me of other instances in which people behave in a similar fashion (like telling us that murder is wrong as if we don't know that already).
Posted by: LL | Oct 09, 2008 at 01:19 AM
Okay, why Grand Rapids, Michigan?
Boze, I'm not seeing the hate. This is just funny.
Posted by: hf | Oct 09, 2008 at 01:35 AM
"Try to count all the things the author of this particular lie is afraid of"
Well, the use of the phrase "coming out of the closet" is certainly telling.
Posted by: John Small Berries | Oct 09, 2008 at 02:07 AM
A group of disturbed and disturbing children doused a kitten with lighter fluid and set it on fire just a few miles from the paper's offices.
NEDM!!!
Posted by: The Cynic Sage | Oct 09, 2008 at 02:10 AM
The crimes of a single human acting alone always scare me less than the passion of the lynch mob. The scope of the single human's crimes are potentially smaller. And the lynch mob thinks they're right. Even if the single criminal also thinks s/he's right, the righteousness of the mob, coupled with its irrational fixation on targets and its ease of manipulation by aloof leaders, make it scarier to me. The criminal is at least a thinking person; the lynch mob is a weapon.
Posted by: Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little | Oct 09, 2008 at 02:10 AM
Are these people themselves stupid and just think, from the depths of their dumbassery, that they are making an insightful comment, or do they think I'm stupid?
I think many of these people think that A) telling right from wrong is very, very hard, B) they have succeeded at telling right from wrong, and therefore C) their insight is rare like precious gems D) so they must share it with you and save you the hard work they went through to gain it.
This probably relates to a certain kind of religious person who thinks that morality is impossible for someone who isn't in their religion and currently right with their deity. It is now their sacred task to help others become right with their deity so that they, too, can live a moral life.
So I think that rather than thinking us stupid, they think the knowledge very hard to acquire. They think they are doing us favors by giving us a hand up the face of the mountain. They don't notice that the reason we're not even trying to scale that cliff is because we've spotted the stairs around the back.
Posted by: Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little | Oct 09, 2008 at 02:18 AM
I think that want to imagine that knowing right from wrong is something that only belongs to Christians, and the right kind of Christians at that. The idea that we are not a society of sociopaths and that most people do not wish to do harm to others frightens them. The idea that we don't need religion to tell us right from wrong or make us behave punches them in the gut. So what would be a mildly annoying subculture becomes a dangerous majority when enough believe that everybody is out to get them.
Posted by: JessicaR | Oct 09, 2008 at 02:37 AM
Yesterday I wandered onto Conservapedia's page on Barack Obama, and it was basically a compendium of all the lies and smears against him, presented as fact. The most ridiculous argument was "Obama is a Muslim because there's only a 1% chance Obama's father converted away from Islam". Obviously the unfortunate implication in these folks' minds is that of terrorism, which is probably in the same league as baby-killing. Also, their page of the Theory of Evolution begins with a picture of Hitler.
I don't know how we're ever going to show these folks the error of their ways.
Did you read the talk page ? It's the best part. You get to see them debating the stuff !
Posted by: Caravelle | Oct 09, 2008 at 02:48 AM
I can think of one example that has been the subject of nonstop conversation among almost everyone I know. Here's something that I know will make me sound twisted and psychotic - I'm less horrified by the woman's crimes than by the blood lust of her detractors, who sound ready to form a lynch mob. That is terrifying to me on a molecular level, because that hatred could be directed at me and anyone else. I reached the point where I stay out of conversations about the story, because being around the hatred makes me physically uncomfortable.
I completely agree with you Tonio. The thing is, I can't imagine why one would do something like that woman did if they didn't have a serious mental problem, and once you consider such criminals as sick people it becomes rather futile to hate them.
It reminds me of a child in France who died like that of abuse a few years ago, a big part of the story was how the school and social services failed to notice he was being abused before it was too late.
Anyway, what reasons did the family give for abusing him ? Discipline. His being "unsubordinate", stuff like that. In other words, authoritarianism gone too far.
So seeing authoritarians get a hate-on because of child abusers makes me feel a bit queasy.
Posted by: Caravelle | Oct 09, 2008 at 03:00 AM
Those spreading this rumor can be divided into two categories: Those who know it to be false, but spread it anyway, and those who suspect it might be false, but spread it anyway.
Any evidence that these people exist, or what proportions of the spreaders they make up? I agree with your analysis, Fred, but it would be interesting to see this claim substantiated; it makes me uncomfortable to agree with analyses based on assertions that aren't backed up. I start wondering whether I'm just as careless as people who forward these stories.
The very idea of ritual human sacrifice is shocking and horrifying, which is why it tends to be included in stories told by people seeking to shock and horrify. When that is your aim as a storyteller the tendency is to constantly up the ante. What could be more shocking and horrifying than ritual human sacrifice? How about the torturous ritual sacrifice of children? And what could be even worse than that? The sacrifice of babies.
I'd recommend, on this subject, Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witchhunt by Michael Snedeker and Debbie Nathan. It's a well-researched and detailed investigation into the origins and functioning of the 'Satanic Panic' of the 1980s, in which people were actually jailed because of such allegations; it looks at the individual histories, socio-economic and political backgrounds, legal ramifications, medical methods and police techniques. Extremely informative.
The US Christian group that pressured Heinz to pull an UK commercial featuring two men kissing is now targeting McDonald's, accusing the fast-food chain of refusing "to remain neutral in the culture war".
Whereas if McDonald's had made a donation to an anti-gay rights charity, would the group have accused them of rejecting neutrality and demanded everybody boycott them for their perfidy? You betcha. Or possibly - not a chance.
It's the same argument you hear in Creationism-teaching: as long as they're on the losing side, they want authorities to remain neutral; the minute they start winning, neutrality can go hang. Transparent? You could build a greenhouse with these guys.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | Oct 09, 2008 at 05:23 AM
Are these people themselves stupid and just think, from the depths of their dumbassery, that they are making an insightful comment, or do they think I'm stupid?
Well, since you characterized them as "religious and/or Republican," I'm going to hazard a guess that you're a Democrat, or that you're at least less Republican than they are. (Maybe you're like me, raised conservative but moving left.) And since a great many Republicans actually believe (thanks in no small part to the words of demagogues and self-labeled "satirists" like Limbaugh and Coulter) that "liberals are a bunch of terrorist-sympathizers who hate America" -- heck, you can hear Palin leveling that charge directly at Obama these days, you don't even need to recall Bush's "you're either with us or..." -- it's possible they're worried you're becoming like that, or are in danger of associating with people like that.
In other words, they honestly believe that the majority of Democrats are stupid, and perhaps might be thinking that of you, too, yes.
The fact that, over the years, there have been Democrats who have been that stupid doesn't help.
Posted by: JayH | Oct 09, 2008 at 06:36 AM
Okay, why Grand Rapids, Michigan?
Why indeed? As far as I can discover from consulting the mighty Google, it's the home of a Christian publishing house that has released several hysterical "Satan-is-here-and-He-wants-your-children" books. So maybe the Satanists were gathered there to engage in eternal demonic battle with God's Warriors.
Also, its area code is 616 - just one number away from OMG the number of The Beast!! (And now thought to be the actual Number of the Beast referred to in the Bible, hehe.)
Posted by: sophia8 | Oct 09, 2008 at 06:51 AM
They give us someone we can clearly and correctly say we're better than.
Ahhh, the famous fandom pecking order:
Literary SF fan, circa 1969: "At least we've read a book or two, not like those damn Trekkies."
Trekkie, circa 1979: "Our fandom has some plausible science, unlike those goofy Star Wars folks."
Star Wars fan, about 1986 or so: "We get out and socialize, not like those D&D gamers in their basements."
Gamers, maybe 1992: "Our women carry swords and kick ass, not like the half-dressed tentacle-threatened schoolgirls the anime pervs like."
Anime fan, say 2003: "You want disgusting? One word: furries."
I don't even want to go into the matter of who the furries look down on. Needless to say, there come a point for some older fen where the whole thing begins to look a bit silly... and more than a bit sad.
And, speaking of fandoms: the alt.sex people? Without going into details, they do the same damn thing. Ridiculous.
Posted by: MikhailBorg | Oct 09, 2008 at 06:55 AM
The idea that we are not a society of sociopaths and that most people do not wish to do harm to others frightens them.
Huh... I really don't see why it would be frightening NOT to live in a world full of evil...
I don't even want to go into the matter of who the furries look down on.
Everybody else? (Seems like the lowest rung would want to view the whole ladder as upside-down, so that's where we get the most "You don't understand me" styles of whining.)
Posted by: Ryan Ferneau | Oct 09, 2008 at 07:37 AM
Tonio: why would these people doubt their own Christianity?
Maybe many of these people are equating "Christian enough" with being in on the true knowledge of the cosmic battle of Satan against God and "the believers." The world is a supernatural battleground, and if they were "Christian enough," they'd see evidence of that fact. So they're always looking for "angels among us," in the recovery from any illness, any time they escape injury in even a minor accident, in all the little details of their daily lives. Every time a political or social decision goes their way, it's divine intervention.
And so they also feel that they should be seeing demonic activity as well. Indirect evidence-- legalized abortion, no public prayers in public schools-- is all very well. But a little direct evidence, such as admitted Satanists in high places, or corporations conspiring with demons to corrupt their children with dolls, is even more convincing. If it's not true, it ought to be true.
Mildly OT: I ran across a review of this new movie, American Carol, which referred to it as "the first conservative satire." I don't watch movies much, but any time I hear about "the first" or "the only," I always wonder. Can any of the movie people here think of an earlier example?
Posted by: Amaryllis | Oct 09, 2008 at 07:40 AM
lonespark: Yes, but Cosplay, LARP and SCA all rely on works alone.
Posted by: inge | Oct 09, 2008 at 07:47 AM
Mildly OT: I ran across a review of this new movie, American Carol, which referred to it as "the first conservative satire." I don't watch movies much, but any time I hear about "the first" or "the only," I always wonder. Can any of the movie people here think of an earlier example?
Fox News.
ZING!
Thanks, I'll be here all hour.
Speaking of hour, have you heard of the "Half-Hour News Hour", a lame ripoff of "The Daily Show"? And speaking of conspiracies, Zucker apparently blamed the fact that his movie didn't go over too well on some sort of bizarre ticket fraud http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/?p=4497. Not sure how credible this source is though...
Posted by: Drake Pope | Oct 09, 2008 at 07:52 AM
Did you read the talk page ? It's the best part. You get to see them debating the stuff !
How!? Do you have one guy saying that he thinks Obama rapes children while another guy arguing that he only eats them? Do they wave badly photoshopped photos of him punching a pregnant woman in the stomach to induce a miscarriage? Do they argue about whether or not Obama's an "evil Islamic terrorist" or an "evil Muslim terrorist"? If all of your facts are smears, how do you decide which smear is "true" and which one shouldn't even be mentioned!?
Posted by: Drake Pope | Oct 09, 2008 at 07:56 AM
Hah, from the very first paragraph of the Conservapedia page on Barack Obama:
Barack Hussein Obama, II (born, allegedly in Honolulu,[1][2] August 4, 1961)... If elected, Obama may become the first Muslim President of the United States.
Later it alleges that he is likely to be a Muslim because he pronounces "Pakistan" correctly, admires Malcolm X, and has a Muslim middle name.
On the Talk page, in discussion of Obama's birth certificate, one contributor begins their statement "We know many liberals love deceit...", with "liberals" and "deceit" being internal links to the relevant Conservapedia pages. Thanks, guy!
Posted by: SeanH | Oct 09, 2008 at 08:18 AM
And speaking of conspiracies, Zucker apparently blamed the fact that his movie didn't go over too well on some sort of bizarre ticket fraud http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/?p=4497. Not sure how credible this source is though...
Oh yeah, my mom said she heard about that on Fox News. But it does sound bizarre to me. I work at a theater, and I don't think any theater employees care what stupid movie you want to see, as long as you're not whining for a refund.
Posted by: Ryan Ferneau | Oct 09, 2008 at 08:18 AM
Oh, God, something even better. I post a contribution to the Talk page, unedited except for the removal of bold and italic text.
I don't think any comment on this is necessary.
Posted by: SeanH | Oct 09, 2008 at 08:20 AM