Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Morality, faith, and the South

Another study (from Pew) has come out showing that the US is a major outlier compared to other first-world countries, in that a substantial proportion of our population believes that atheists can't be moral.  Never mind that atheists are under-represented in prisons, less likely to divorce, more highly educated, etc etc.


Writing in Salon, CJ Werelman  puts this down to the religiosity of the Southern US.
Essentially, the Republican Party has convinced tens of millions of Southerners that a vote for a public display of the Ten Commandments is more important to a Christian’s needs than a vote against cuts in education spending, food stamp reductions, the elimination of school lunches and the abolition of healthcare programs. 
....While the Republican Party retains its monolithic hold on the South, the rest of America remains deprived of universal healthcare, electric cars, sensible gun control laws, carbon emission bans, a progressive tax structure that underpins massive public investment, and collective bargaining laws that would compress the income inequality gap. In other words, without the South’s religiosity, “America” would again look like a developed, secular country, a country where it’s probable for an atheist to be elected into public office, and where the other 50 million law-abiding atheists wouldn’t be looked upon as rapists, thieves and murders.
We discussed "what's wrong with the South" a few days ago.   Can we lay it all at the feet of religious fervor?


9 comments:

JCF said...

"In other words, without the South’s religiosity, “America” would again look like a developed, secular country, a country where it’s probable for an atheist to be elected into public office"

JMO, but whether the USA "looks secular", and even where voters choose to vote for atheists is LESS important to me than those earlier things mentioned ("universal healthcare, electric cars, sensible gun control laws, carbon emission bans, a progressive tax structure that underpins massive public investment, and collective bargaining laws that would compress the income inequality gap").

In other words, I think the article is making an equation between "progressive" and "secular/atheist" that I'm not comfortable with. I think I hardly need to state that I'm a progressive largely BECAUSE I follow Jesus of Nazareth. [NB: I might still try to practice the Golden Rule otherwise, but w/o faith that it all MEANS something, eternally, I might just say "F#ck it!" :-/]

Kevin K said...

It saddens me that Southerners are keeping Mr. Werelman from buying an electric car.

IT said...

I agree s/he's a bit strident, but I'm following up on my previous post.... The REpublican tea party base heavily overlaps with the evangelicals and they are heavily southern. How much if our politics these days comes from the south vs. everyone else?

Erp said...

Personally I don't put too much weight in the low number of atheists in prison for two reasons: (1) the probable attitude of others whether guards or fellow prisoners or parole boards towards known atheists and (2) having a declared religion means a chance at a weekly service of some sort to break the monotony.

Kevin K said...

Dear IT

I may have come across as too snarky. But if we just look at the numbers the "South" is in no position to impose itself on the rest of the Country. The 11 states of the Confederacy have 22 senators. Not even enough to sustain a filibuster. Clearly, this is about more than the South blocking cherished progressive goals.

Kevin K

JCF said...

KevinK, back in the mid 90s, after Newt Gingrich's take-over in Congress, I started seeing t-shirts that featured the Stars&Bars, w/ the the phrase "It's a White Thing: You Wouldn't Understand"

This was in Pennsylvania (not below the Mason-Dixon Line).

The point is that, while the contemporary GOP exists across the country (outside of big cities!), it's culturally a Southern party. "The South" has just spread from coast-to-coast (especially in rural areas---those predominantly rural States having disproportionate-to-population influence via their Obligatory 2 Senators---a similar principle giving them disproportionate-to-population control of Red States, which in turn gerrymandered the heck out of those states, lowering the number of Blue House Districts).

Is it a "Blood&Soil" thing? I think Republicans look those Red vs Blue LAND maps, and think that they SHOULD be charge---nevermind the population demographics of Red vs Blue! JMO.

Kevin K said...

JCF, Pretty much everyone thinks that they "should" be in charge regardless of the popularity or support for their ideas, generally because most people think their ideas are the "right" ones.

The southern states are allied with people in other regions on various issues. Gun rights, for instance, are very popular in the West and Midwest which are similar but not identical to southern culture. While one can make the point that the GOP has, somewhat ironically, become a culturally southern party, this is not monolithic. In the same way, the Democratic party has culturally become an urban-northeastern cultural party.

What is a fairly recent remanifestation of an old divide is that parts of, for want of a better term, the cultural "south" tends to see no advantage to political engagement and compromise with the cultural north.

It is a fact of our federalist system that there is disproportionate representation for smaller states in the Senate. This is to prevent majorities from imposing laws that did not have relatively broad national support.

Both of these parties gerrymand areas where they can. For example, California is going to be structured to provide the maximum safe seats for Democrats, the opposite is true for Texas.

JCF said...

"This is to prevent majorities from imposing laws that did not have relatively broad national support."

Really? I thought it was/is because those in smaller states "think that they "should" be in charge regardless of the popularity or support for their ideas, generally because most people think their ideas are the "right" ones." O_o

There's no reason that two voters from New York City shouldn't carry more political weight than one from Alabama (for that matter, two from Birmingham carrying more weight than one from Carmichael, CA---namely me!)

Political schemes that over-ride "One person/One (equally-weighted) vote"---like the Electoral College---should be done away with. An American is an American is an American...

[NB: by "American", I mean citizen of the USA]

Kevin K said...

That idea was suggested but many states (the smaller ones) would not accept the constitution if they could constantly have their rights and interests subordinated to those of the largest states. To do as you suggest would, of course, require amending the Constitution.