Blogs from Paris, Vienna, and New Orleans

Blogs from Paris, Vienna, and New Orleans
New Orleans in a Fog

Home Thoughts from Abroad

"Home Thoughts from Abroad" is the name of a poem by Robert Browning, in which he expresses a longing, a Sehnsucht for home, which for him was England. "Home Thoughts from Abroad" was also a sketch in the 1960s English comedy "Beyond the Fringe", which my brother and I have performed intermittently since high school. In this sketch American life and culture is humorously portrayed as philistine and critiqued from an upper-class Oxbridge English perspective. It does have some amazing insights. The sketch actually endeared to me those very American peculiarities which it so humorously lampoons.

To me "Home Thoughts from Abroad" is a place where, as a resident of three very different, unique, historic, and multicultural cities, I can explore and reflect on the notions and experiences of place, culture, language, ethnicity, rootedness and Entfremdung (alienation) from a perspective which is rooted in Western religious, literary, and philosophical tradition. New Orleans provides one with an experience of life in every extreme - joy and sadness, the heights and depths, wealth and poverty, life and death - in such concentrated doses that it makes it difficult or impossible to escape reality. This, for me, is one of the joys and gifts of New Orleans. Vienna is to me like an old glove, in which I feel very comfortable and at home. In Vienna, one can enjoy the very best that Europe has to offer. Paris is both foreign, but familiar - a place and a culture for which one longs and one is not disappointed.

"Zeitgeistliche Überlegungen" continues this theme to include observations about current events and ideas, and my thoughts about them. Although the blog will be mainly in English, some German or French may appear from time-to-time.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Some interesting perspectives on the attraction of Donald Trump to conservative Evangelicals.... Authoritarianism.

To me, one of the more perplexing issues in the current election season is the attraction of Donald Trump to religious conservatives. Trump could barely be described as a Christian, and he is hardly a churchgoer or a church member. He claims an upbringing in the Presbyterian church, and sometimes refers to himself as a Presbyterian, although the parish in Queens which he attended as a youth does not claim him as a member. Nor does Marble Collegiate Church (part of the Reformed Church of America) claim him as member, although he occasionally attends there. His political rhetoric is hardly Christian from any classical or catholic perspective. So why do many Evangelicals like him so much?

Two recent articles illuminate this issue very well.

The first published on Politico notes that the common attractive feature among Trump supporters including Evangelicals is that he speaks to their longing for an Authoritarian figure...

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533

The second article is from the New York Times and sees his support coming from Trump as a "Man of conviction" which is not unrelated to authoritarianism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/us/politics/evangelicals-see-donald-trump-as-man-of-conviction-if-not-faith.html?emc=edit_th_20160119&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=1888164&_r=0&referer=

Like many religious people, some conservatives Evangelicals love things to be simple, simple black and white, simple right and wrong. Shades of gray are dangerous. Nuance is dangerous. Trump is attractive because he is none of these.
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