Ripon College Days

Issue date: 11/17/04 Section: Opinion

As a teacher of ethics, I might be expected to feel heartened by the fact that Americans listed "moral values" at the top of the list of concerns that influenced their presidential votes. I am not. Rather I am troubled and disturbed by what I take that fact to mean, regardless of the final outcome of the presidential election.

Most Americans are deeply affected by the state of the economy, the future of health care and social security, the state of the environment, the war in Iraq and our foreign and trade policies, and other very basic policy issues. Yet a majority of voters cast their ballots not on the issues that will ultimately affect their lives and the lives of future citizens, but on a more ephemeral notion of spiritual character.

This fact disturbs me for two reasons. First, it suggests that American voting behavior is irrational. It appears to show that we care less about what is being done by our leaders to us or for us, than about who is doing it. As one widely quoted voter put it, "What matters to me most is that there be a good Christian man in the White House."

Secondly, and following from the prior concern, I am convinced that the real meaning of "moral values" has little to do with actual moral values and, as the previously quoted voter suggests, much more to do with religious values. In short, I believe that the exit polls results actually show the triumph in American culture, particularly in the Heartland, of Christian fundamentalism as a political force, and the defeat of the essentially secular Enlightenment understandings of the function and purpose of government upon which our nation was founded and from which it has thrived.

Not incidentally, I blame our former President, Mr. Clinton, to a very great extent, for the re-emergence of this long-standing, but often deeply submerged tendency in American thought. His personal moral failings, regardless of his political successes or failures, motivated and energized the Christian Right in ways that surpassed even concerns about abortion or other fundamentalist wedge issues.

That America is drifting to the right may concern me as a liberal, but that, after all, is something I freely accept as a believer in democracy. Perhaps liberals and progressives will eventually figure out once again how to make their message resonate effectively with voters. Perhaps--and no rational person could truly hope for this to happen--the economy and the war will become so disastrously bad that voters will throw the rascals out. But that America is drifting in the direction of theocracy, or rather that it is drifting in the direction of becoming schismatically fragmented along theological/ideological lines gives me ultimately greater cause for alarm, because no matters of fact, no evidence, no reality is sufficient to raise questions or sway the faith of the true believers. If God, or God's agent is in the White House, it will not matter how his decisions and actions affect us in our earthly lives, since whatever happens will be for the best.

For those of us in "the reality-based community," this is the real meaning of the exit polls showing "moral values" to be the single greatest concern of voters, and the real and terrifying truth about our nation's current direction. God help us.

David Seligman
Professor of Philosophy

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