Debate and Dialogue

["Doug Jones" <credenda@moscow.com>]

Glad to have you back from strep throat, Melynda. Your contributions are always welcome.

 

Melynda Huskey wrote:

 

>

>Can you help me understand, Doug, why the Moscow Civic Association has raised your hackles?

>

 

This is news to me. I suspect you're confusing curious amusement with hackle raising. You yourself have raised very pointed questions about Credenda and Christ Church. I understood those as honest challenges that are part of the ongoing dialogue about visions. In like manner, I raised a question about an interesting but typical conflict within MCA's vision (exclusive inclusivity). I understand that those sort of questions aren't typically raised in contemporary dialogues because progressives, Democrats, Republicans, and the Jerry Fallwell right actually share many assumptions about knowledge and power that I don't. But we're in Moscow, and our discussion is a little different. But no hackles have popped up yet, just irony.

 

 

>

> You mentioned (or maybe it was Doug Wilson) that non-egalitarian organizations such as your church often suffer when progressive movements >gain power. Is that a potential concern?

>

 

Though egalitarian politics do have this tendency (e.g., Canada's increasing limitation of Christian speech and freedom of association, as well as your own stated opposition to genuine freedom of association), that's far from our situation here. I wouldn't beat an eyelid if the MCA were to hold every political seat in Latah County. They're nice folks, and I don't think politics is where the real struggle is anyway. My questions have been theoretical challenges to their stated vision, along the lines of, is it a good vision if it can't be more forthright about its obvious exclusivity? They shouldn't use tolerance/inclusivity as a rhetorical club if they're principled exclusivists themselves.

 

The 1936 reference wasn't to Nazis but to an era when professed progressives appealed to tolerance during "the" show trials. That rhetoric is tiresome and cliched; progressives should progress beyond it.

 

 

Doug Jones