Monday, July 17, 2006

 

ER book review: 'Godless: The Church of Liberalism,' by Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (New York: Crown Forum, 2006, pp. 310, notes, index.)

By The Erudite Redneck

Ann Coulter couches her most recent polemic within the framework of a brilliantly incendiary thesis: Liberalism, as she defines it, is not as irreligious as its most secular proponents insist. Rather, as a political orientation, liberalism functions exactly like the historical church, with its own cosmology, martyrs, sacraments, doctrines, priesthood, creation myth and crusades. Liberalism is the state-sanctioned religion, she insists, since it is propagated mainly in tax-funded public schools, especially dogma surrounding evolution. Her argument is surely appalling to secular liberals who care nothing for religion, as well as progressive Christians who cringe at the comparison.

Coulter sets up Chapter 1, “On the Seventh Day, God Rested and Liberals Schemed,” with a Scriptural epigraph that apparently is meant as a kind of grace note for the entire book, since it is the only chapter heading. Romans 1:25-26: “They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator. … Therefore, God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature.” It is gratuitous and a little off. Limiting the quotation to Verse 25 would have been more appropriate. Better still, for Coulter’s purposes, would have been Romans 1: 22-23, especially since she later attempts to debunk evolution “theology” -- “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

Why such scrutiny of an epigraph? Its awkward placement as a marker for what follows sets the standard for the remainder of the book. Coulter whips her thesis – liberalism as religion – into froth. The devil, as they say, is in the details – and he leaves snags and tears in her tapestry of sophism.

Early on, Coulter shows either bald ignorance or, perhaps she is relying on the ignorance of many of her most loyal readers, with this note on Page 3: “Throughout this book, I often refer to Christians and Christianity because I am a Christian and I have a fairly good idea of what they believe, but the term is intended to include anyone who subscribes to the Bible of the God of Abraham, including Jews and others.” Coulter, then, joins a 2,000-year-old line of people who want the terms “Christian” and “Christianity” to mean just what she wants them to mean. That or by “and others” she means Islamists, since Muslims claim the Koran interprets the New Testament in the same way that Christians claim the New Testament interprets the Old Testament. Islam, after all, traces itself to Ishmael, Isaac’s brother, Abraham’s “other” son.

Crucial to her argument is this premise, on the same page: “Liberalism is a comprehensive belief system denying the Christian belief in man’s immortal soul.” Her mention of People of faith for Kerry, the famously liberal Riverside Church in Manhattan and “liberal minister Jim Wallis” give the lie to her central argument, which weakens it considerably.

So, viewing the rest of “Godless” becomes easier in some ways. Despite the appearance of logic, the book isn’t actually an argument at all. Coulter is a genius at turns of phrase. She can be knee-slapping funny, although, like most successful comedians, she is gratuitously mean. She self identifies as a polemicist. Yet she masquerades as an apologist – for political conservatism, which is one thing, the Republican Party, which is another, and traditional Christianity, which to hear her tell it, includes Judaism “and others,” which must mean “nice” Muslims.

In Chapter 2, “The Passion of the Liberal: Thou Shalt Not Punish the Perp,” Coulter berates anyone who still insists that rehabilitation, as well as removal and retribution, should be a goal of incarceration. Chapter 3, “The Martyr: Willie Horton,” gleeful rehashes the disgraceful use of the infamous “revolving door” spot to belittle Gov. Dukakis during the 1988 presidential campaign. Chapter 4, “The Holiest Sacrament: Abortion,” perpetuates the myth that to be “pro choice” is to be “for abortion on demand” and repeats the tired complaint that the judiciary – “Co-equal Branch of Government since 1803" -- dares to interpret the Constitution. Coulter would do away with the Supreme Court of the United States in favor of a populist right-wing Congress and a strong executive, apparently. Which raises the question: Why is she so unhappy? Conservatives are taking over SCOTUS, the Congress is in Coulter’s kind of hands and a powerful regency leads the executive branch.

In Chapter 5, “Liberals’ Doctrine of Infallibility: Sobbing Hysterical Women,” Coulter castigates Democrats for “using” emotion – including the legitimate grief and righteous indignation of the “gaggle of weeping widows,” survivors of 9/11, and Cindy Sheehan. As if they speak for the Democrats. It’s a free country, more or less. They speak for themselves, with many, but not all, Democrats, amening them all the way. In this chapter, she dares attack Max Cleland, disabled Vietnam vet, for fairly labeling George W. Bush as a “chicken hawk,” and shamelessly mischaracterizes U.S Rep. John Murtha’s position on the war in Iraq and being “for surrender.”

In Chapter 6, “The Liberal Priesthood: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Teacher,” Coulter excoriates the Democratic Party for being beholden to the National Education Association and slams teachers for being more interested in themselves than the pupils and students in their charge. She has a point on the Democrats’ tie – it’s a steel cable, actually – to the NEA, but with the right wing condemning “government” (public) schools and pushing home schooling as an act of patriotism, it’s a tolerable relationship. Her complaint about teachers’ unions caring more for teachers than for their students fell on deaf ears here; what union does not exist to protect its members first? Odd that Coulter, while insisting that teachers not think so highly of themselves, would at the same time make “teaching” a form of “public service” on the same level as the clergy. Which is it? She does have a point about teachers’ unions clamoring for higher teacher pay: Shut up already. Teachers make more than most of the working press, whose calling is as high – which is the main reason teachers get little empathy from the press, at least outside the liberal bastions of the press.

The remainder of the book is a more or less sustained attack on evolution: Chapter 7, “The Left’s War on Science: Burning Books to Advance ‘Science’ ”; Chapter 8, “The Creation Myth: On the Sixth Day, God Created Fruit Flies”; Chapter 9, “Proof for How the Walkman Evolved into the iPod by Random Mutation”; Chapter 10, “The Scientific Method of Stoning and Burning”; and Chapter 11, “The Aped Crusader.” Coulter is right to expose efforts in the academy to close legitimate debate; she probably informs a new generation of historical shams and dead-ends associated with evolution; she summarizes the political and Babbittish hucksterism surrounding the Scopes trial in 1925; and she seems to fairly characterize the emotions surrounding the Intelligent Design movement, although at bottom, she bases her own anti-evolution position on something that, itself, is as empirically inscrutable to many scientists as the actual elements of evolutionary theory are to Christians whose sense of cosmology, science and ultimate truth is summed up: “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.” So, while she gets kudos for taking a crash course in evolution before tackling it, so she says, these chapters add little, save more froth, to arguments over the origins of life. They do add to the politics surrounding science versus faith, but again, mostly just suds.

It pained me to read “Godless,” mostly because Coulter is so adept at polemics, and because polemics are mistaken for logic by so many people. I’m jealous of the way she has with words, and I’m disturbed that, even despite the recent revelations of her plagiarism, she is still so defended by her True Believers. It upsets me that her valid points are lost in the explosion of words and wit. On the other hand, without such explosions, nothing she wrote would be noticed. I’m suspicious of the footnotes – not because I checked them but because they exist. They seem to be an attempt to add a scholarly patina to something that is book journalism. Keeping attribution and further clarification in the text would be more honest in writing such as this.

Reading “Godless” is like listening to heavy metal or early rap: Important words and even valid ideas lose power when drowned out by so much sound and fury. Of course, those who consider heavy metal and rap high art forms, that is, those, who enjoy sound and fury, whatever it signifies, will enjoy “Godless.”

(Special thanks to regular commenter and uber-righty Nick Toper, who gave me a copy of "Godless" -- a payback for me sending him Jimmy Carter's Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, and Robin Meyer's Why the Christian Right is Wrong: A Minister's Manifesto for Taking Back Your Faith, Your Flag, Your Future [see ER's review here.])

Comments:
There you go reading trash again.
Stop it, now!
 
Ha. Kind of like Newshounds -- www.newshounds.us -- with the motto, "We watch FOX so you don't have to."

I read "Godless" so regular readers of ER don't have to!
 
Better you than me. What a selfless act, not unlike the friend who falls on the grenade to save his comrades!

I'm curious, did Nick Toper likewise read the books you sent him?

I've found that, while I'm willing to ocassionally read a conservative source, most of those who disagree with me are unwilling to read what they perceive to be a liberal source.

For those on the Right who want a challenge to their economic views, I offer Ched Myers' little booklet, "Sabbath Economics" - a tiny little epistle with much information crammed in to it. I'll gladly buy and send one to you, should you be willing to read it.

(I never have any takers on this offer...)
 
Nick told me he was reading Bro. Jimmy's book and said he thought his heart was right but his head was wrong.

I'll bet the Meyers' book burns Nick's eys too mich for him to read very much of it at a time.
 
So, I am curious. After reading ac, do you wash your eyes out with bleach and water, or just water and drown your memories in alcahol?

You are a better man that I, I can't even touch the book.

jimr
 
gosh, that coulter sure is a wiz at grossly inaccurate sweeping generalizatiuons!

ugh.

thanks for taking one for the team, er.

KEvron
 
Jim, bourbon and branch water.

Nick, how mean of you, on a couple of different levels, for you to put my beard and her short skirt in the same sentence! Also, if I'd read anyting else of book length that she'd written, maybe I could see what she's standing for in this one. And also: Thanks. :-) I whipped it out this mornign while the AC man replaced my compressor and took me for $2,000-plus.

Kev, you're welcome. I'm thinkin' of askin' for a love offering to help pay for my therapy. :-)
 
Dang it. By "I whipped it out," I meant, "I wrote this review quickly." (snicker).
 
I started Godless, read 50 pages, then decided life was too short and tossed it aside. I won't pick it again. I'd say that I was impressed that you read the whole thing, ER, but I'm not really. It's more like hearing that someone had to go in for a painful operation. I sympathize with your pain, but have no desire to experience it myself. :)
 
Clancy stopped by! Howdy, Clancy! Yer right! I wanted to give it a real review!

Let's here it for Clancy, who just got a perfessin' gig in the Southland after sojourning in the frozen North for a long time!
 
Thanks, Tech. ... I think! :-)
 
Thanks for the sacrifice of your time and sanity.
But thanks not for the shot at teachers and their pay.
I know you well enough to know you would not last a week in a forth grade classroom.
Also you know that society will never pay writters of any ilk what they are worth, unless they are true freaks or lucky as hell.
As you Max and John and all the other cowrdly Democrats that fought in Vietnam (plus any Republican that doesn't tow the rep party line). May the camel crotch rot infect anyone who agrees with such shameful stupidity.
 
Hmmm. Actually, I meant it more as a swipe at the stranglehold the NEA seems to have over the Dems, and as an explanatioj of *why* teachers get little empathy from the working press.

And you lost me totally after " ... lucky as hell." You left a word out or something?
 
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has trouble understanding some of those wanderings.
 
NEA has influence in that it is the only labor union game in teacher town and they would go towards any party that would give them the time of day.

...Lucky as hell... meaning simply, just dumb luck sometime suffices for talent and effort.

By the way did you have any of those overpaid teacher hacks teach you while you were growing up?

Actually I'm suprized that any of these post make it in. I'm using small town libraries and the last time I pushed enter after a post the machine locked up and little ding dings went off and the Libraian came over and turned my mach..............
 
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