“Folks hate the gop more than the dems”

There is that word hate again.

2009 has been named the Year of Astronomy in honor of Galileo who, four hundred years ago, transformed the occupation then known as “natural philosophy” into what would become modern science. Galileo turned his telescope to the sky and drove the final nail in the coffin of the geocentric (Earth-centered) world view of the Universe.

2009 is the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth and is being celebrated as such. Darwin’s classic “On the Origin of Species” again pulled the rug out from under doctrines deeply held and believed true.

I believe Joe Scarborough is deeply conflicted and perhaps feels orphaned, as I’m sure many well meaning conservatives must. The potential demise of the Republican party under the grip of an extreme cadre of science denying, racist, fascist, inciting, but most of all deeply fearful lot is the result of succumbing to culture shock.

I do not mean culture shock in the traditional form, i.e “the ’60s”. The culture shock I am referring to is, for fundamentalists, tantamount to post traumatic stress disorder. First with Galileo, then with Newton, then Darwin, and finally Einstein, science has gradually dissolved and proved false deeply held cosmologies which, for millennia, had provided satisfactory – if supernatural – comfort in response to one’s own ultimate annihilation.

God was the ultimate father figure. God was the ultimate authority figure. Now, after four hundred years of the scientific method, God is dead. What is one with an authoritarian mindset to do? We might look to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ 5 stages of grief.

Stage 1. Denial
Stage 2. Anger
Stage 3. Bargaining
Stage 4. Depression
Stage 5. Acceptance

It is safe to say that those who hold to the traditional conservative mindset are still in Stage 1. The far-right minions of high religiosity and authority worship who have hijacked the Republican party are well into Stage 2. The Catholic church has shown signs of late to entering Stage 3 with its forgiveness of Galileo.

Fear of annihilation and the absence of God coupled with the fear that this knowledge might lead to societal breakdown is a lot to wrestle with for some and just beginning to sink in among a long-time tradition of supernaturalists. What, you might ask a scientist, would it take to disprove your theory? The scientist would say: contrary evidence. When faced with the same question, the conservative and the fundamentalist would simply say: nothing.

Scarborough was combatant because, to my mind, he was having to face the fact that the paternalistic, authoritarian, daddy fetishist conservative Republican party died when God died, and he’s scared.

If the shoe fits.

///”“My point to you was that we can both pick out extreme rhetoric on both sides who are reckless and irresponsible on both sides” Scarborough declared. “We’ve gotta step back and try to figure out how to heal this country.””///

I don’t think that the right-wing neo-cons *want* a “healed” country. They want us divided, and then they want the country run their way.

I don’t understand why people can’t have intelligent, rational, calm conversations about divergent points of view. They have this need to be “right” as if there’s only one way, their way. See above.

BTW, I think your book sounds very interesting, and I will have to pick up a copy.