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In the new You're Wrong About episode about Tipper Gore's crusade against "porn rock", @RottenInDenmark observed that media oriented moral panics like this often collapse the context of the things they're describing.
That's also how fundamentalists read the Bible. Short thread:
That's also how fundamentalists read the Bible. Short thread:
For context, I grew up fundamentalist Baptist and was homeschooled using fundamentalist Baptist materials from Bob Jones University and A Beka publishing.
One of the distinguishing features of independent Baptist theology is that the Bible is the sole word of God, and you don't need any official structure like a pope or church councils to interpret it correctly.
My dad told me once “you don’t have to *interpret* the Bible! It’s the people’s book. It’s perfectly clear!”
The idea is that if you open the Bible to a random spot, God will speak directly and specifically to you, without any special knowledge or context or careful reading on your part. It will just be obvious.
This is why proof texting is so common in these circles. You get a lot of books and tracts with titles like “What Does God Say About X?” And then a huge list of random isolated verses that are tangentially related to the topic...
Fundamentalist Baptists also tend to be more authoritarian than the average American, which means that they have more of a “list” approach to knowledge and learning than a “systematic” approach.
Sex and devilry are on the bad list, and putting things in context just isn’t part of the habitual approach to texts, so it’s not surprising that media that MENTIONS “bad” stuff also winds up on the shit list.
There’s also the idea that ANY contact or awareness of bad things will corrupt you, whatever the context might be.
American conservatism has been very influenced by Protestant Fundamentalism since at least the Moral Majority days, so it never really surprises me to see those fundie hermeneutic habits pop up in conservative political discussions.
You see a lot of almost Bible-level reverence for the Constitution, and the idea that it’s nearly perfect and in changeable and doesn’t need to be interpreted in light of its historical context or our current issues. “Just read it and follow it! It’s clear!”
And you see books like Tipper’s proof texting random rock lyrics to bolster a foregone conclusion. (Can’t do a good old Baptist proof text without some foregone conclusions!)
The Gores are Baptist, or were when this 1999 article about their faith was written in any case. And it would be difficult to get elected in Tennessee without at least some ability to connect with evangelicals. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/29/us/beliefs-wide-ranging-talk-al-gore-reveals-evangelical-intellectual-roots-his.html
I don’t think Tipper is unintelligent, and I suspect that she does read and communicate in a more nuanced way elsewhere and on other issues!
But just go on and color me unsurprised that she uses pretty Evangelical reading and interpreting conventions when she’s trying to build a moral crusade coalition.
OH! A fun addendum! I wasn’t allowed to read the Lord of the Rings because it had a wizard in it. My dad questioned me about the ring...”what else can enslave ppl?”
“Um. Sin?”
He looked at my mom and was like “OR DEMONS.” And I didn’t get to find out how they got out of Moria.
“Um. Sin?”
He looked at my mom and was like “OR DEMONS.” And I didn’t get to find out how they got out of Moria.
Then my mom read the hobbit and hated it because she thought it was super boring, but also fine, so I eventually got my books back in time to become an embarrassing nerd for the rest of my teen years. But yeah... CONTEXT.
