This video is only tenuously related, but very funny.
So I’m standing there, enjoying the hell out of this Gogol Bordello concert last night,* and I dwell for a moment on how many influences they manage to wrap into their music. They bill themselves as “gypsy punk rock cabaret”, which basically is this mash-up of Eastern European music and punk rock, but what makes them especially fun is they’re perfectly happy to grab all sorts of influences, so you have Carribean influences, with reggae beats, dub effects, and even dancehall rapping, plus some rapping in Russian but with more of a U.S.-style feel to it. It’s a band that could seem like a novelty act, but they’re serious about just delving into using the energy of culture clash to drive this music, and it’s really pretty amazing. You really find yourself buying into this larger vision that’s expressed by the musical style, but also their lyrics that are almost cutely modernist and progressive, like “There were never any good days/There is today/There is tomorrow” and “My brothers are protons/My sisters are neurons”—this notion that culture is a shark that has to keep moving or it dies.
Which leads me to my post yesterday, where I mentioned seeing this presentation at the Texas ACLU conference by professor Stephen Klineberg about the recent shift in the demographic balance of Texas from being a white majority to a minority majority state, which means that no one group has more than 50% of the people. The “browning of America” is hardly news, but what really struck me about the presentation, which was focused on Texas and more even on the Houston area, which is ahead of the rest of the state in terms of racial diversity, was that stark age divisions that are also in play. To summarize the various graphs and charts he showed us, the higher you go up on the age scale in Texas, the dramatically whiter you get. There’s similar trends around the country. So someone my age looks around at her peer group and sees a much different mix of people than someone who is 60 years old. Needless to say, this concerned me. It certainly explains a lot, particularly the much-ballyhooed generation gap between 2nd wave feminists and 3rd wavers, who reputedly have a more multi-cultural outlook. But it’s a chilling thing to think about, which is that this country is facing a deadly combination of racist anxieties and “kids these days” thinking.
Dr. Klineberg basically concluded what Gogol Bordello is pushing in their carnivalistic road show, that it’s even pointless to discuss whether or not the changing face of America is a good thing, which is just a passive approach. The active approach, the best approach, the only sane approach really is to decide that it is going to be a good thing and go with that. Be happy about it, and see the possibilities. Cultures that don’t keep moving die. People who dig their heels in and throw hissy fits about the situation, who demand that their taxes be cut rather than invest in people who don’t look like them or have a different culture, are just contributing to a general decline in standards of living in the country, but they’re certainly not going to get the clock rolled back to a whiter, more culturally homogenous country.
That’s why I think I have such a violently pissed off reaction to this talk about chipping off evangelical voters for the Democrats. While I think individuals have a variety of reasons for being attracted to this megachurch evangelical movement, I think the larger social dynamics that are driving it could be described simply as being the last stand of WASP America for cultural dominance. The right to define American culture as their culture, and all other cultures as “other” was simple when whitebread America just had the sheer numbers of people to back it up. The second to last stand was the fleeing to the suburbs. Now the last stand is to redefine the whitebread cultural experience in terms of a religious awakening, and lay claim to being a persecuted religious group that, under that justification, uses the law to shove their cultural dominance down everyone’s throats.
The “rest of us” is a serious hodge-podge of people, with clashing cultural issues, for sure, but taken as a group, we’ve got a majority and the fact that the Democrats can’t, as the party for the rest of us, parlay that into more electoral victories is massive fucking failure. But I suppose it’s an understandable failure, since building a coalition of disparate groups under the banner of being disparate groups is going to inevitably lead to clashes. The only way to pull it off in the long term is to start really, truly believing that diversity is a strength, that cultural clash can be a real benefit all around. That it’s not an assault on your culture if thing morph and change, but that’s just what culture does. I have hope, though. Maybe it’s really because I see American culture so much through the lens of pop music, and see the ease at which the various subcultures in the U.S. both retain a cultural memory, borrow from each other, and innovate, without losing a strong sense of identity. Musicians can do it, I think, and the rest of us can follow their example, right? Not that it’s always tension-free, but even tensions can be a source of energy if you approach it from the right angle. Instead of struggling for dominance and survival, you struggle to progress, to innovate.
I suppose that’s why I get frustrated with people who say that Obama is this cipher candidate, as if that’s necessarily a bad thing. From where I’m sitting, it’s actually a remarkable phenomenon what’s happened to his campaign. People projected on him this idea of an America where people retain strong senses of identity while maintaining a coalition where our very diversity is what holds us together, and he was smart enough to run with that. Isn’t that kind of the point of the process, to let the people’s hopes and expectations guide the politicians? That this hope was projected on him and was strong enough to get him this far makes me very optimistic indeed. I don’t expect it to be smooth sailing—if he gets the nomination, it’s going to send a strong signal to those who still push for what they euphemistically call “traditional values”, and they’re going to defend their plans for this country fiercely. The whole scuffle over his church and his minister is just the first shot in what is going to be an ugly battle. But despite the ugliness up ahead, I’m still really happy about the fact that the campaign has gone so far on these hopeful feelings.
*Seriously, if you ever get a chance to see them, just do. Last night, a woman playing a marching bass drum flipped it on its side and used it as a surfboard to crowd surf. You just don’t see that sort of shit every day.
34 Responses to “Rambling thoughts on the sharklike nature of culture”
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Gogol Bordello did the bass-drum-crowd-surfing thing when I saw them too! Definitely one of the most entertaining and engaging live shows I have ever been to.
I think one of the drummers for Gogol Bordello is Elijah Wood’s girlfriend. That band rocks my world. I discovered them while watching “Everything’s Illuminated”. They did a lot of the awesome soundtrack to that movie.
Great post. Thanks for putting into words my visceral repulsion at the idea of wooing the megachurch evangelicals. I absolutely 100% agree that this new megachurch evangelical movement is a desperate effort to preserve their idea of “white culture (the “real american” culture)”.
I always get depressed when I think about how the Democratic Party can bring all of these disparate groups of people together. We all tend to get pissed off at each other about who has been around fighting the good fight the longest and who has been screwed over the most by the white male majority. Sigh. If we could get past that, we might get somewhere.
Bravo Amanda!
I don’t think I know Gogol Bordello (could I have heard them on NPR once upon a time?), but the rest of your comment is oh so right!
The megachurch is the last stand of WASP America (and I can say that as an mid-50’s, Episcopal American: i.e., culturally really, really old). I’ve written on some blogs about the fundamentalist/fear nexus, but you nailed it. They are so afraid of “those” people (including us Anglos who thought the 60’s were a good thing — I was there and I do remember it) they can’t control themselves. Or, more especially, they can’t control their kids, who might, you know, date one of “those” people, or worse yet, end up being one of “teh gays”. Worst of all, they might grow up to accept people as they are! However will we stay in charge then?
Keep up the good posts. Some of us over here in Little Texas (aka Eastern New Mexico) like to be reminded that there is a civilized world out there sometimes.
Gogol Bordello hasn’t done blues yet.
But I must complain their second album is lame compared to first one. hah
I wanted to like Gogol Bordello but they just sound HORRIBLE to me. I guess it doesn’t help that I have a violent allergy to klezmer music dating back to the days of my bat mitzvah.
I love Gogol Bordello, I was just listening to them on the way to work.
Damn, I wish I lived somewhere they might tour.
I’m with Illogical Planner - the cultural divide you describe is one that’s been nurtured by Republicans, intentionally or not. Over the past 3 decades conservatives have staked out a cultural/rhetorical position of unexamined white privilege with religion as its shield.
I have just finished reading Glenn Greenwald on the telling contrast of responses when a religious figure connects our nation’s bad fortune with specific national acts. In a nutshell, it goes something like “black preacher claims there is a history behind 9/11, conservatives demand he be driven into the wilderness; white preacher claims liberal society provokes god’s wrath (9/11, Katrina, ad nauseum), conservatives assign him a special White House liason and/or bring him in as a consultant.”
Our national values are built on privacy and respect of individual belief - from the government at least. It’s still a dream but it’s a good one and very doable.
These values are the root of diversity’s strength - that our society demands individual dignity and from it necessarily comes a dignified country. So it’s not surprising that, in an act of jiu-jitsu, it would be used against us.
Woot, think the coffee has kicked in eh?
The fastest growing sector of the evangelical movement is hispanic. They’re not leaders right now, but are actually more conservative socially than the white evangelicals. And they’re more liberal in terms of economic justice which is why they tend to vote Democratic.
There are certainly churches that are not diverse and many churches that push the divide you’re talking about, but the only reason the number of religious is not down in the US is because of the immigrants who tend to be more religious than those born here.
-Two years ago…
“Sally was… a sixteen year old girl in Nebraska, when gypsies came through her little… town”
-Today
Guys, we don’t need to play nebraska ever again. we don’t even need to play east Tennessee. If it’s not atlanta, we can pretend the entire southeast doesn’t exist.
//Someday, yes, someday, I will live in city on the tour circuit.
I was at the concert last night too, and I loved it. They put on a great show.
I also read about the drummer dating Elijah Wood. Funny thing is, I saw Elijah Wood DJ at a SXSW party thing on Saturday…I wonder if he stayed around to see the Gogol Bordello show yesterday?
They bill themselves as “gypsy punk rock cabaret”, which basically is this mash-up of Eastern European music and punk rock, but what makes them especially fun is they’re perfectly happy to grab all sorts of influences, so you have Carribean influences, with reggae beats, dub effects, and even dancehall rapping, plus some rapping in Russian but with more of a U.S.-style feel to it.
isn’t this what the oberlin kids call “cultural appropriation”?
i realize this is a bit of petty trolling, but that’s been a sore spot for me ever since i was a student at Directional Illinois University and an acquaintance (also white) told me that she wasn’t okay with me, as a white person, playing jazz.
I thought cultural appropriation was what Pat Boone did.
The fastest growing sector of the evangelical movement is hispanic. They’re not leaders right now, but are actually more conservative socially than the white evangelicals. And they’re more liberal in terms of economic justice which is why they tend to vote Democratic.
That’s likely to change generationally, since young immigrants tend to socialize pretty quickly. That’s why, even though I worry about the now, I like the long term prospects for the nation. Young people are more engaged now than they were 20 years ago (my youth), and they’re a lot more socially liberal across the board.
You sure that wasn’t Directional University of Illinois?
I take it your acquaintance never heard of Brubeck?
Gogol Bordello are much more enjoyable either live or in theory than on record.
The cultural appropriation thing should really only come into play when someone is playing someone else’s music wholesale without acknowledgment. To claim that playing anything with roots in a culture that isn’t your own equals appropriation really serves no purpose other than to restrain creativity. Basically, I have an issue with white people playing roots reggae (unless it’s done with the purpose of paying respect to the struggle that music represents), but not with Beirut doing bricolage with French and Ukrainian melodies, for instance.
Steven, I think that some cultural appropriation concerns have been genuine, especially after black rock musicians were robbed. But what concerns me is when people are so cynical they don’t see that society can grown and change. More musicians swap and borrow and give full credit than steal without sharing the pie now.
The thing that worries me is that the humanist values that lie at the heart of my understanding of liberalism are held by a minority of people worldwide and are completely incompatible with the majority of cultures. It’s all well and good for cultures to mutually assimilate into something new, but it’s easy for the compromises needed for that assimilation to come at the expense of things which are genuinely good in one or the other culture.
As a concrete example of what I’m talking about, consider the widely shared belief in the evil of homosexuality - it is found in cultures worldwide, as is belief in the inferiority of women. When cultures merge it seems to me quite likely that the common elements will be preserved, including those common elements which are bad. The split between catholic hispanics and white evangelicals over issues like immigration keeps them from allying effectively on retrograde social policies, but there’s no guarantee that this will persist.
The upside of the process of mutual assimilation is that it is inherently turbulent, a process that by its very nature involves questioning of assumptions and shifting of identities. Within that dynamic environment humanist ideas have a fighting chance to assert themselves as critical elements of the emerging worldview. Indeed, they have something of an advantage because they offer a framework within which differences are respected, mitigating the alienation that inevitably accompanies cultural turbulence. However, they can only succeed if they are aggressively asserted and promoted, which is the exact opposite of the accommodationist strategy towards evangelicals that some democratic party strategists suggest.
End ramble.
Steven, I think that some cultural appropriation concerns have been genuine, especially after black rock musicians were robbed. But what concerns me is when people are so cynical they don’t see that society can grown and change. More musicians swap and borrow and give full credit than steal without sharing the pie now.
yeah, i know. that’s why i added the petty-trolling disclaimer - it’s just sort of a personal hobby-horse of mine.
Ye gads I love Beirut. The ‘rest of us’, the hodgepodge of groups being placed at odds ‘whitebread america’ is certainly true and often a cause of stressful amusement. I personally have found surprise in my nodding agreement to certain radical Islamic groups, who also would want to kill me.
Actually feds, I didn’t mean islamic, k, back away from the guns please. Nice guard doggy. Lets see, change from islamic, insert Wright. I agree with Obama’s preacher, and then it’s like but oh, he kind of hates women. Phew.
they did that in Chicago, too!
sweet spaghetti monster, i love those people.
Togolosh, I guess that’s what I mean about moving forward. It’s bullshit to say that abandoning, say, an aversion to homosexuality is going to do irreparable harm to a culture, even though that’s the excuse homophobes hide behind. Cultures are not static. They can move forward without losing identity.
@ #17
These progressive values we share aren’t the arbitrary gift of some arbitrary cultural tradition; they are the outcome of social struggles.
As people get assimilated into the global capitalist system–whether “here,” as immigrants and rising ethnicities in First World countries, or “there,” in Third World countries appropriated wholesale, they will get polarized along the same familiar lines. They will contribute both progressives and reactionaries.
Well, tolerance, acceptance, and embrace of gender diversity is an interesting example because here in the USA, and I gather pretty much throughout the industrial capitalist First World nations, is a process that has happened largely in my own lifetime. When I was born in 1965, there were to be sure some enclaves of de facto toleration, and (remembering for instance Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, which Amanda reviewed here about a year ago) tacit toleration under the radar, but officially to present as anything but the narrowest version of heteronormal was a mental disease, according to the American Psychiatric Association, and legal grounds for tossing aside all manner of basic human rights, and carte blanche for anyone professing to be offended to commit just about any kind of violence and pretty well get away with it. By the time I was 10, tremendous progress had been made. Was this just some belated fruit of a special and peculiar Western liberalism, or was it not the reward of a long and necessary struggle, against certain ruling opinions of a nominally liberal civilization that had cheerfuly assumed harsh intolerance of anything “queer” was perfectly compatible with its liberalism?
When I was born, it was still illegal, in more states than not, for a man and woman of different “races” to marry. It is no coincidence that so many social movements came to a head in the 1960s.
Also in this past year Amanda had us reading Reagan’s When Abortion Was a Crime, with its unsettling (for the cultural determinist, anyway) highlighting that the most severe effects of the process that criminalized abortion fell on the women (and those who cared about them) in the generation (indeed, the years and months) just prior to its sudden and sweeping re-legalization.
The liberal values we cherish did arise as a response to such turbulence–but also were a part of that turbulence; indeed reactionaries of the 19th century made their careers denouncing the wickedness of the irresponsible rabble who dared to assert their own political dignity, gainsaid the superior wisdom of their more (or at any rate, more expensively) educated social betters, and wittingly or no overturned the family structures that were supposed to keep them in their place.
Amanda - I see your point, and I was sort of thinking out loud around it. I think the shark analogy is powerful. I’m going to ruminate on it a bit.
That said, one of the things progressives can learn from the neocons (spit) is that in times of transition the zeitgeist tends to pick up the ideas that are lying around ready for adoption. This is the key to neocon success. PNAC was formed explicitly with this idea in mind and their ideas have shaped an entire presidency, much to the detriment of everyone who isn’t a member of the crony corporatist elite. If progressives are to be effective in shifting the momentum of the culture we have to have a slate of ideas ready to go when the moment of plasticity arrives. As I see it there are two things on the horizon which constitute a moment of plasticity. The first is the obvious one, namely the upcoming election (which the dems might yet piss away in their inimitable style), and second is the economic crisis which will follow on the implosion of Big Shitpile. I don’t know what the full slate of ideas is, but the shark analogy is IMO a promising way to think about the way forward.
That’s a really good point, and should be something that progressives keep in mind when we’re asking each other what’s the point of thinking up great ideas if no one is going to adopt them. Because we need to be able to capitalize on opportunities.
I am, despite a lot of bitter cynicism, something of a real optimist. Like our looming economic collapse—yes, it’s going to suck. But you know what would really suck on top of the sucking? If we sit around with our fingers up our asses instead of realizing this is our opportunity.
Everyone is worried what’s going to happen to the Democrat who wins with a raging war and an economy in the tanker. Well, I hope to god that whoever it is is smart enough to realize that big problems soften people up for the big solutions. FDR knew it.
My suggestion: The Apollo Initiative. Progressives have been beating this drum for years, slowing getting labor unions on. It’s the perfect way to bring together a coalition of environmentalists (i.e. the white professional branch of the party) and labor (everyone else) by selling this idea of a huge government investment in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure to make this a green nation that’s energy independent, creating jobs and real wealth for the country all at once, instead of the fake wealth that is a service-based economy. We all know that it’s the perfect solution, but it’s a solution that’s been looking for a problem, in a sense. Or at least the nation’s realizing on a fundamental level we have a problem.
Well, a war we’re up to our ears in because of oil dependence has completely changed the body politic on the issue of green energy. Carter got nailed at the ballot in part because he said we need to suck it up and get green, and Americans wanted band-aid solutions that got them cheaper oil. Now we have a fucking oil baron asshole to the right of Reagan in office—and he’s talking about breaking oil dependence. That’s a real change in political will. The moment is now. Throw economic depression in and what we have is a population that’s ready to start talking about big solutions.
And we have a big solution ready to plug in, because we were willing to sit around coming up with ideas with no foreseeable hope in the near future of being implemented. Let’s hope the Democrat who wins (and let’s hope they do) is willing to play ball.
Yes yes yes. Do the republicans (the one who always say we cannot be ‘green’ as it would hurt the economy) not realize what a boost it would be to build in a massive eco-friendly public transportation system? It would be like the New Deal part two.
To All,
Here’s a problem from my mid 40s point of view. I believe that tolerance of other culturals is in general a good thing. Here in the US as we try to become more tolerant of others beliefs we begin to be less so of others. Since evangelicals seem to be the dart board here, how tolerant of their beliefs are we.
As an example, my 12 yr old nephew comes home from school a couple of months ago and says he learned something cool in school; since he hates school I was curious and asked what it was. He begins telling me about Muhamad and Allah. He goes on to tell me about how Hindus believe in reincarnation, and something about Budda and his enlightenment. As I listened I waited to here about Christ, when he mentioned nothing of him I asked what his teacher had told them about Jesus, he responded by asking me who Jesus was. Since he’s not my child I told him to ask his mother, didn’t want to over step my bounds.
How tolerant have we become when it’s fine for a teacher to explain Allah and Budda, but if that teacher mentions Jesus someone is going to get sued. You can’t talk about tolerance then in the same sentence denigrate a certain segment of society for their beliefs.
Just my point of view,
Jason
Well, Jason, from another mid-40 y.o. POV, it’s quite a corker to hear that a 12 yr old living in this country says with a straight face that he’s never heard of Jesus.
Because all those other religious figures that he was actually so jazzed to learn about–they aren’t part of the dominant, ruling culture in this country. They aren’t the sort of subject that teachers can reasonably assume the kids they teach get exposed to 24/7. Whereas this Jesus fellow is someone any bored kid flipping channels on the satellite/cable, or talking randomly with her or his peers, can hear quite a lot about.
Maybe they don’t show Davy and Goliath, or Jot, in syndication on the cheap broadcast stations anymore, I dunno. I hardly miss them, and I certainly haven’t noticed them here on my parent’s dial here in Northern Nevada. But then again, I omitted the numerous Christian networks from my own favorites list. I know there’s a whole channel on the setup devoted just to the Catholic Church, and my mother listens to Catholic radio every morning.
Maybe that 12 or 20 volume set of Bible stories I had an edition of as a kid isn’t being hawked in every dentist’s office and haircut joint the way it was when I was a kid in Panama City, Florida.
But if this boy professes not to have “heard of” Jesus, I venture the suggestion that he has, but didn’t like what he heard, and has chosen to tune out this particular deluge of white noise. And if his parents don’t choose to twist his arm to at least pretend to believe in Jesus, the way a large majority of parents in this country generally do, that’s an excellent reason for teachers to presume they shouldn’t either.
Actually he must really hate school and anything taught there a lot, since just about every cultural referent we have has Christian churches in some form or other at least visible in the background.
He doesn’t ever watch movies, then, or TV sitcoms? He’s never seen episodes of Buffy, nor even any Japanese anime (which, in my very sporadic and haphazard sampling, seem to include Christian churches and/or clergy in every 10th or 20th episode)?
How about the Star Trek episode, “Balance of Terror,”the one where the Romulans first appear, which begins with Kirk performing a wedding for two crewmembers in the chapel on the Enterprise? (Not to mention quite a few other episodes with yet other Christian references.)
What you are doing here, Jason, is what so many people who talk about reverse racism or female oppression of men or the like do–you are, or profess to be, completely tone-deaf to the context of social power that we evaluate oppression, and other social practices for that matter, within.
We don’t teach about Jesus in public schools in the same way we might teach about Mohammed, or Buddha, probably as much because the various Christian ministers and other local bigwigs object to Jesus being portrayed as anything less than God and his followers as the only possessors of truth, as because some militant atheist might possibly sue. No teacher in a US public school is trying to convert their pupils to Islam, or Hinduism, or Jainism–and with the best will in the world, they probably have a hard time teaching these subjects without being at least a bit offensive to actual believers in these traditions–because these teachers are not, generally speaking, believers in any of these traditions. And if Muslims, or Jains, or Hindus, were as strongly established in US society as Christians are, I doubt they would allow unbelieving teachers to portray their beliefs as anything but true facts–any more than the US Christian establishment has allowed schools to teach Christianity as anything but The True Faith. We have seen it taught thus in US public schools (and objected to, by other Christians, such as Catholics, who felt that their denomination was being attacked and therefore established schools of their own. (I rather suspect that, given that there must be a fair number of neighborhoods in various places in this country today where Hindus, or Muslims, are local majorities, that these are the neighborhoods where kids are not offered classes about that very denomination, for the same reason public schools don’t generally teach classes about Christianity–because the local religious establishments reserve that privilege for themselves.)
I actually learned a fair amount about other Christian denominations, and various non-Christian religions, when I went to Catholic school in the 1970s. Although I think it’s fair to say that Sister Katherine and our hierarchy-approved texts did a fair job describing these other religions fairly (based on what more I’ve learned about them as an adult free of Church supervision) I never felt for a moment that any of this was intended to give me or my peers the opportunity to abandon Catholicism and follow one of these other ways instead.
Not everyone here thinks it is good or necessary to attack religion just as such, but I certainly join in with the most anti-religious people here in lambasting the particular foibles (and all too often, felonies) of various established church people–precisely because they are established; they are powerful social institutions in this country and thus the world, and their actions have have consequences for all of us, whether we want them to or not.
And some of the very best and most cutting criticisms of the hypocrisies of established religion come, as they always have (at any rate in the Abrahamic religions) from other religious people. Have you every checked out Slacktivist, for instance? Lots of Pandagonians hang out there, and Fred is not just a Christian, but, perish the thought, an Evangelical Christian! And one of the most sweetly bitter critics of the follies of modern big-time showbiz evangelism I’ve ever read. Check out Left Behind Fridays at Slactivist some time if you think that criticism of religious nuttery is something only intolerant atheists do.
Here, this can get you started:
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2008/03/lb-martyr-envy.html
Jason, I would start by saying, “Okay, the evangelical culture is the result of white people who think we will lose our culture if we don’t have social dominance anymore.” And then reject the idea that white people have to be culture-less without dominance and start trying to get your nephew to see the difference between having a culture and hating other people for being different.
The deep irony about dominance is that the members of the dominant class lose this ability to feel self-esteem for themselves, because they have the nagging suspicion that their dominance defines them. It’s other people who have a culture/ethnicity/gender/race, and they are defined as the standard, but the standard is simply not having those things. So men are Not Women, white people are defined as what’s left over once you’ve taken out (in America) Asians, Latinos, African-Americans, etc. Your cousin is learning a negative definition of himself, as Not Muslim.
Your nephew can learn to construct a positive identity, which is the point of my post. The goal is to be yourself and be happy about it, and your need to hate others will diminish.
That’s why, after all, the fundies dread having their children have contact with pop culture. Americans have a lot wrong with us, but we do have a rowdy and interesting pop culture. In the specific case of white middle class people who are the target audience for mega-church fundamentalism, pop culture offers a grab bag of cultural experiences that are positive and fulfilling and give you less incentive to define other people down to make yourself feel better. Maybe it would help to start exposing him to a variety of experiences that give him something positive to care about, so that the hate-filled church experience diminishes in comparison?
Gogol Bordello : never seen ‘em live, and I’m always disappointed that, in the videos I’ve seen, you can’t even HEAR the violin– it’s all bass, drums, and teensy bit of accordion. Maybe the mix just sucks.
As to Amanda’s #29: our culture is our most powerful weapon, both internationally and domestically, in the struggle against fundies.
As for Jason: concern troll.
jason, do you know what I would call someone (in the USA) with a 12-year-old nephew who hasn’t heard about jesus?
A goddamn liar.
I was raised orthodox jewish, and by the time I was 12, I knew ALL about jesus. I’d already had to explain to friends that I didn’t believe in him.
I’m with you, Alicia. I’m up here in the Godless liberal enclave of Canada, and by twelve, I knew all about Jesus, and was already getting the shit kicked out of me for not believing in him.
I don’t think I know Gogol Bordello (could I have heard them on NPR once upon a time?)
Yep, I first heard them on NPR doing an acoustic set (which was fabulous, almost better than their regular work IMO) and immediately ran home and looked them up. I’ll bet the interview is online.
GB acoustic! I think i’d prefer that: their bass player gets ‘WAY too much priority in the mix.