The clash of cultures in America

Rick Perlstein discusses Sen. Vitter (R-LA) and his apparent hypocrisy. While Sen. Vitter looks to liberals as though he is a hypocrite, he is in fact a member of a culture in which such behavior is NOT hypocrisy.

Sen. Vitter (R-LA) is a conservative christian. He strongly believes in the proposed Constitutional amendment to "protect the sanctity of traditional marriages." He considers divorce and homosexuality to be symptoms that society is falling to pieces around him. Everyone is sinful, and Society is in a great war with Satan, who tempts everyone with sin. Since everyone is sinful, then when one gives in to Satan and sins, it is necessary to recognize it, stop the sin, and ask forgiveness from God - a forgiveness God will always grant to someone who is remorseful.

Once forgiven, then the person must continue the battle against Satan. This is not hypocrisy. It is man's role in the great battle between God and Satan in which the battleground it the souls of inherently sinful men and women. Since Sen. Vitter is aware that even he can succumb to the temptations of Satan, he will have to redouble his efforts to create a society in which Satan has no chance of winning.

So Sen. Vitter had an eleven month affair with a New Orleans prostitute, and Larry Flint identified his phone number as one the D.C. Madame, Jeane Palfrey, released as belonging to one her customers for $275.00-for-90-minutes girls in Washington, D.C. So what? Satan tempted Sen. Vitter's with sin and, as an inherently sinful man, he failed to resist. Now he has admitted his sin, asked (and received) forgiveness from God, and will continue his fight in the great war between God and Satan as before.

His admission of sin and his receipt of forgiveness from God remove any guilt or anxiety, and his christian conservative voters agree with him. He is a sinner, a flawed man, and they will expect him to redouble his efforts to create a more christian nation, one in which Satan cannot win.

This culture is not the culture of either secular or religious liberalism. We find his behavior to be more than just a sin against God. It is profoundly anti-social, and his failure to recognize that and to suffer anxiety over such behavior makes it very likely that he will do it again. Worse, we see him acting out his own failure by using government to punish others if they violate his sense of sin. He wants to pass laws to punish women for what he considers the sin (not the crime, though he would pass and enforce laws to make it such, but the sin) of sex outside of marriage and the (chosen - not innate) sin of homosexuality.

It is easy for Sen. Vitter and the christian conservatives to judge the people they consider sinners because they reject them and avoid direct knowledge of them. Instead of asking why someone did something they consider a sin, they will preach at that person. If a member of their own family or close circle of friend commits such sins, they refuse to talk about it, so knowledge of the impact of such things as the way they treat women and homosexuals is limited to the biblically acceptable language. The personal destruction in the lives of people they condemn becomes God's punishment for their sin rather than the results of the way they treat those they condemn.

Since they never discuss the reality (as opposed to the biblically sourced ideological view) of such events, they never become familiar with the real cause-and-effect sequences. Rick sums it up very nicely:

"Secular (and even religious) liberals will laugh and scoff, and call the whole sordid right-wing ritual a "free pass to sin".

And this will be a reasonable conclusion. It is true that this whole worldview contains within it a profound possibility of what economists call moral hazard - a perverse incentive built into a system that hastens the possibility of bad instead of good outcomes (by way of example, conservatives identify welfare payments as moral hazard: if you pay people who do not work, you give them an incentive not to work). The cynical - I would certainly count Gingrich among them - can exploit it to aggrandize their power.

But I have to insist that this worldview is not inherently about whitewashing accountability. At its best, the theology of sin and redemption is real - for those to whom Satan is real - and a real spur to moral living, to community-building, to humility, to compassion to grace. It can be a genuine and mature worldview - one that recognizes that people are both good and evil, both autonomous and compulsive, loving and hateful."

Rick professes to find good elements about this culture and system of thought. I find it more difficult to accept, since it requires sacrificing an awareness of reality to the requirements of someone else's ideology. Because he expects no punishment, personal or social, for his "sins", I expect Sen. Vitter to commit the same or similar sins again. worse, because he displaces what anxiety he might feel into the motivation to work for God's glory through passing laws that create God's world on Earth and he has no clue what he is in reality doing to people he will never know or admit can be hurt by his actions, I find Sen. Vitter and his worldview profoundly frightening.

But I will agree with Rick when he says that recognition of Sen. Vitter's hypocrisy is not going to cause him any real trouble being reelected. This is a culture clash that has moved from local American politics up to national politics - again.

---

Addendum: July 11, 2007 - 12:35 AM CDT
There is the minor detail that then Congress-turkey Vitter was breaking the law when he visited a New Orleans Brothel located on Canal Street. But that is all just the male-dominates-women culture which is also such a big part of conservative christianity.

Sure looks like hypocrisy to me, but I guess if God has forgiven him ....

Naah! I really don't buy it. The man is slime.

---

Addendum 2 July 11, 2007 - 1:15 AM CDT
Mark Kleiman has posted a news report on Sen. Vitter's extra marital dalliances.

It isn't yet public, though apparently it's widely known in Louisiana political circles, that Vitter's commercial romance was blessed with issue. Reportedly his natural child now lives with her mother in Alexandria, VA. That they are receiving financial support from the Senator has not been shown.

I wonder why the child's mother is living in Alexandria, VA. Perhaps to be near the Senator?

---

Addendum 3 - July 11, 2007 6:26 AM CDT
Jeanette Maeir, ex-New Orleans brothel operator, says of former client, Sen. Vitter "He seemed to be one of the nicest men and most honorable men I've ever met."

MSNBC goes on to write:

Vitter, a first-term Republican who previously served in the House, recently played a prominent role in derailing an immigration bill backed by President Bush. He also is a key supporter of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid, serving as regional campaign chairman for the South.

Nice, honorable, but unable to keep his sexual behavior consistent with that description. And Rudy Giuliani has chosen him as a key supporter in the South. That says a lot about Rudy, too.