What's Wrong with Motherhood and Appl...
What's Wrong with Motherhood and Apple Pie: Reflections on Halos, Good Samaritans, and Nazareth
I hope you will forgive my understatement when I say that our nation currently faces some challenges. There are many, among them being the number of children growing up in broken homes, the high school dropout rate, and the mismatch between the skills of our workforce and the jobs of our information age economy. One thing we can do to work toward addressing these challenges is to communicate to our young people the importance of taking responsibility for their own success, staying in school, and setting goals. These ideas could all be considered to be well aligned with conservative values. One would think that conservatives would be happy about a leader with considerable respect among the youth of our nation modeling these values and speaking to them on these issues.
And yet, when exactly that leader announced that he was going to do exactly that, conservatives reacted with outrage. They labeled it as "indoctrination." They nitpicked that he used the word "I" when he talked about his effort to improve educational facilities, and the words "help the President" instead of "help the nation." They complained about the fact that he had not coordinated directly with every school district in America. They demanded that parents be given the opportunity to opt their children out of his speech, or that the schools not show the speech at all. When they got their wish to be able to opt their children out, they complained that if they did, their children would feel ostracized.
It seems that President Obama can do no right in the eyes of conservatives. Perhaps if he had announced that he was going to speak to the children about the goodness of Motherhood and Apple Pie they would have been happier. Frankly, though, I doubt it. Somebody would have complained that by speaking about motherhood, he was advocating for fathers to abandon their families. Somebody else would have argued that apple pie is fattening and that encouraging youth to eat it would contribute to the nation's obesity crisis.
This is a classic example of what people usually refer to a the "reverse halo effect" (someone with a stronger background in psychology might name a different cognitive bias). In short, once we've decided that a person has a bad trait (like being a Democrat, perhaps), then we tend to think ill of everything that person does. This certainly isn't limited to politics, and it leads to errors in judgment no matter where it occurs.
The gospel attributed to Luke contains a relevant passage:
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’ (Luke 10:25-37, NRSV)
Luke was addressed primarily to the Jewish community, and like many of Jesus' teachings, this story would have been very challenging to a Jewish listener. Samaria had been the capital of the Northern Kingdom (of Israel), which was conquered and resettled by the Assyrians. As a result, the Samarians of Jesus' day were the mixed offspring of pagans and Jews, with a distinctly Assyrian worldview. Some of them continued to practice Judaism, but the Jews to whom Jesus was speaking in this passage thought of the them as "evil cousins" who had corrupted the Torah -- perhaps worse than Gentiles.
Jesus challenged his listenesr to recognize that a Samaritan could be acting more in accordance with the will of God than a member of the Jewish community, even one who knew and followed the Law of Moses very closely. The writer of Luke was telling the Jews, through the lawyer, that in the eyes of God it doesn't matter what group you belong to. What matters is how you live your life. What I hope is now the obvious corollary is that it shouldn't matter to conservatives that Obama is a Democrat when he is telling our young people to take responsibility for their own lives, stay in school, and set goals for themselves.
There is a school of thought that argues an author should always give an editor one thing to complain about that will be easy to fix, so that the editor can feel that they have done their job and the author can publish the work the way they intended in the first place. In that spirit, I will risk my conservative critics accusing me of likening President Obama to the Messiah (it's just going to be an analogy, folks!). While officially being a Jewish province, Galilee was rife with pagans and fanatics. Its residents held an even lower place in the esteem of the residents of Jerusalem than did Samaritans. Yet Jesus was born there, in the town of Nazareth. Hence the following early dialog among the apostles reported in the gospel attributed to John:
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.' (John 1:45-46, NRSV)
My point is not that President Obama is the Messiah (he's not, OK?). My point is that too many conservatives respond the same way as Nathanael when they hear about a Democrat. Can anything good come out of Obama? Come and see.
Acknowledgement and Epilogue
I need to acknowledge the help of the Rev. Dr. Verity A. Jones in understanding the context of the Good Samaritan story, though obviously any errors are entirely my own. Rev. Jones is the Publisher and Editor of DisciplesWorld magazine, and I am proud to call her my friend.
Also, after I drafted the majority of this post, I listened to NPR's report on President Obama's address. It includes these encouraging words:
In Florida, where the speech was harshly criticized by state Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, school officials in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools said parents were initially concerned, but seemed more agreeable after the text was posted on the White House Web site.
"We basically made it voluntary. We sent a message to the parents and to all the schools that if it's something dealing with the instructional mission of the classroom that they can view it if they want," said Hilda Diaz, district spokeswoman. "If the parents send a note, then the students don't have to participate."
Even Greer backed off his opposition after he read the text, saying Monday that he thought the speech was fine.
"It's a good speech," Greer told ABC News."It encourages kids to stay in school and the importance of education, and I think that's what a president should do when they're going to talk to students across the country."
Last week, Greer had said he was appalled that taxpayer dollars were being used to spread Obama's "socialist ideology."
I hope you will forgive my understatement when I say that our nation currently faces some challenges. There are many, among them being the number of children growing up in broken homes, the high school dropout rate, and the mismatch between the skills of our workforce and the jobs of our information age economy. One thing we can do to work toward addressing these challenges is to communicate to our young people the importance of taking responsibility for their own success, staying in school, and setting goals. These ideas could all be considered to be well aligned with conservative values. One would think that conservatives would be happy about a leader with considerable respect among the youth of our nation modeling these values and speaking to them on these issues.
And yet, when exactly that leader announced that he was going to do exactly that, conservatives reacted with outrage. They labeled it as "indoctrination." They nitpicked that he used the word "I" when he talked about his effort to improve educational facilities, and the words "help the President" instead of "help the nation." They complained about the fact that he had not coordinated directly with every school district in America. They demanded that parents be given the opportunity to opt their children out of his speech, or that the schools not show the speech at all. When they got their wish to be able to opt their children out, they complained that if they did, their children would feel ostracized.
It seems that President Obama can do no right in the eyes of conservatives. Perhaps if he had announced that he was going to speak to the children about the goodness of Motherhood and Apple Pie they would have been happier. Frankly, though, I doubt it. Somebody would have complained that by speaking about motherhood, he was advocating for fathers to abandon their families. Somebody else would have argued that apple pie is fattening and that encouraging youth to eat it would contribute to the nation's obesity crisis.
This is a classic example of what people usually refer to a the "reverse halo effect" (someone with a stronger background in psychology might name a different cognitive bias). In short, once we've decided that a person has a bad trait (like being a Democrat, perhaps), then we tend to think ill of everything that person does. This certainly isn't limited to politics, and it leads to errors in judgment no matter where it occurs.
The gospel attributed to Luke contains a relevant passage:
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’ (Luke 10:25-37, NRSV)
Luke was addressed primarily to the Jewish community, and like many of Jesus' teachings, this story would have been very challenging to a Jewish listener. Samaria had been the capital of the Northern Kingdom (of Israel), which was conquered and resettled by the Assyrians. As a result, the Samarians of Jesus' day were the mixed offspring of pagans and Jews, with a distinctly Assyrian worldview. Some of them continued to practice Judaism, but the Jews to whom Jesus was speaking in this passage thought of the them as "evil cousins" who had corrupted the Torah -- perhaps worse than Gentiles.
Jesus challenged his listenesr to recognize that a Samaritan could be acting more in accordance with the will of God than a member of the Jewish community, even one who knew and followed the Law of Moses very closely. The writer of Luke was telling the Jews, through the lawyer, that in the eyes of God it doesn't matter what group you belong to. What matters is how you live your life. What I hope is now the obvious corollary is that it shouldn't matter to conservatives that Obama is a Democrat when he is telling our young people to take responsibility for their own lives, stay in school, and set goals for themselves.
There is a school of thought that argues an author should always give an editor one thing to complain about that will be easy to fix, so that the editor can feel that they have done their job and the author can publish the work the way they intended in the first place. In that spirit, I will risk my conservative critics accusing me of likening President Obama to the Messiah (it's just going to be an analogy, folks!). While officially being a Jewish province, Galilee was rife with pagans and fanatics. Its residents held an even lower place in the esteem of the residents of Jerusalem than did Samaritans. Yet Jesus was born there, in the town of Nazareth. Hence the following early dialog among the apostles reported in the gospel attributed to John:
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.' (John 1:45-46, NRSV)
My point is not that President Obama is the Messiah (he's not, OK?). My point is that too many conservatives respond the same way as Nathanael when they hear about a Democrat. Can anything good come out of Obama? Come and see.
Acknowledgement and Epilogue
I need to acknowledge the help of the Rev. Dr. Verity A. Jones in understanding the context of the Good Samaritan story, though obviously any errors are entirely my own. Rev. Jones is the Publisher and Editor of DisciplesWorld magazine, and I am proud to call her my friend.
Also, after I drafted the majority of this post, I listened to NPR's report on President Obama's address. It includes these encouraging words:
In Florida, where the speech was harshly criticized by state Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, school officials in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools said parents were initially concerned, but seemed more agreeable after the text was posted on the White House Web site.
"We basically made it voluntary. We sent a message to the parents and to all the schools that if it's something dealing with the instructional mission of the classroom that they can view it if they want," said Hilda Diaz, district spokeswoman. "If the parents send a note, then the students don't have to participate."
Even Greer backed off his opposition after he read the text, saying Monday that he thought the speech was fine.
"It's a good speech," Greer told ABC News."It encourages kids to stay in school and the importance of education, and I think that's what a president should do when they're going to talk to students across the country."
Last week, Greer had said he was appalled that taxpayer dollars were being used to spread Obama's "socialist ideology."
posted by ManOfManyInterests at 10:19 PM
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