The absurd, ginned-up controversy over the Cordoba, now Park51, project in New York City continues. Certain would-be has-been Republican and “Tea Party” politicos, abetted by their sycophantic supporters in the media, have decided that the way to the public feeding trough, or to their own talk show, lies through ignoring the actual problems that confront the nation and instead distracting the masses with tales of invasion from Mars.
So it is that motley delegations from the obedient Teamasses of America showed up in New York City to demonstrate that they neither honor nor even understand the principles upon which the nation was founded. Well, as the Founders understood, the masses ye always have with you; they are ignorant, excitable, grasping, xenophobic, and often on the edge of violence, which is why the Constitution did not create an Athenian democracy. The Big Question is and always remains, does this noisy faction limit what ultimately we can be as a civilization, or will they eventually become the detritus of history?
Stephen Budiansky has a nice essay on the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, which is, as these things generally go when they become media sensations, neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero. I particularly like the Spanish proverb he quotes:
Olvidar la injuria es la mejor venganza.
“To forget an insult is the greatest revenge.” I wrote something along that line a while back (I can’t find it, so no link). People who take offense from the actions of another, and people who feel themselves insulted by the words of another, have chosen their response. They could just as well have chosen to ignore them. Taking offense readily is a relict of the honor culture that we ought to have outgrown centuries ago. In an honor culture, “honor” is a quality that can be taken from you by another, and so when another does take it, one is obliged — if one is a “man” — to fight to regain it. This may involve stoning your daughter to death, or it may involve challenging your enemy to swords at dawn. However it is done, it is an exercise in romantic immaturity, and even if not illegal it is stupid.
In a more mature culture, honor is something that accrues to those who behave honorably. The honorable person knows that he or she is such, and that sense of security cannot be harmed by the lesser beings who may conspire to harass him. Thus the exquisite put-down quoted by Mr. Budiansky: I do not notice you; you leave no impression upon me; it is as though you do not exist.
Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the attitude of the masses toward 2,500 years of Western culture.
Photo credit: Roger L. Wollenberg—UPI/Landov