PoliicsUSA: Centrism: Stanley Crouch speaks up for Moderates. Together with Harry Kits, Michael Gerson, and Gideon Strauss they form a benign quartet
Stanley Crouch:
"Can We Reclaim The Middle?"
"The kinds of ideologues who are buffoonishly trapped
in irrational narcissism threaten both the right and the left.
It does not matter if one is Donald Trump, a conservative
elephant, or Cornel West, a so-called academic donkey
ready to spout 'progressive' clichés. In fact, each believes
that President Obama proves how out of touch he is by
not calling one of them for badly needed advice."
More: "We are at our best when we tune out the loud,
broad comedy of both the Tea Party and the progressive
buffoons, allowing the true spirit of America to come
through. And though the extremes only get louder and
louder, I am confident that we will make it through,
because we are still the United States of America."
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Stanley Crouch: "Can We Reclaim The Middle?" (December 12, 2k11)
refWrite comment: Stanley Crouch makes a case against what he enfigures
as Donald Trump to the right of him, Dr Cornel West to the left of him, both
volleying and thundering. So the esteemed Mr. Crouch makes a case for
moderates, moderation, and centrism. Now, if that centrism were to flame
into the tinder of desire for a new political party formation in America, as
some suggest (A third major party? Most Americans say it's needed, USA
Today), a party of policy moderatism and one which at the same time
took upon itself the rhetorical morality of civilty (a deliberative ethos of
"gracious civlity" — as Harry Kitts of Centre for Public Justice (Canada),
and Citizens for Public Justice USA has called upon us to do, largely in the
persons of Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson and Christian
communicator Dr Gideon Strauss — we might gain the new Shangri-La
Party indeed. But that woud increase the chances of our speech and written
discourse becoming a steady drone. With most passionate people retreating
to their earphones where music remains avant touts choses. Maybe it
woud be the case of Hear-no-evil gaining ground, while See-no-evil woud
be less likely to disappear.
But in those cases, what woud come of the God-given gifts of wit, satire,
mockery such as that of H. L. Mencken, of rants such as those of the
Diggers, Robert Burton who wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy,
(recording the Thames River boatmen as they raised to an artform the often
elaborate workaday curses in the enshrouding fog over the water), or
Thomas Paine who whipped up the revolutionary fervor of regulars and
irregulars alike thru his broadsheet Common Sense in the course of
America's bloodiest war, and more recently Christopher Hitchens. But I've
left out America's comedians like Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and the early
work of Eddie Murphy (just to name a few who were h+ly political in their
deployment of obscenities approved by an audience's laffter). How come
reformational Christians have not produced a handful of contemporary
geniuses to goad laffing Christians into a more robust witness in the various
societal spheres of life? Our colleges do not encourage these gifts, and thus
no failures and no successes for walking an edgy narrow line for the coming
of the Kingdom of God.
— Politicarp, refWrite's politics frontpage columnist
as Donald Trump to the right of him, Dr Cornel West to the left of him, both
volleying and thundering. So the esteemed Mr. Crouch makes a case for
moderates, moderation, and centrism. Now, if that centrism were to flame
into the tinder of desire for a new political party formation in America, as
some suggest (A third major party? Most Americans say it's needed, USA
Today), a party of policy moderatism and one which at the same time
took upon itself the rhetorical morality of civilty (a deliberative ethos of
"gracious civlity" — as Harry Kitts of Centre for Public Justice (Canada),
and Citizens for Public Justice USA has called upon us to do, largely in the
persons of Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson and Christian
communicator Dr Gideon Strauss — we might gain the new Shangri-La
Party indeed. But that woud increase the chances of our speech and written
discourse becoming a steady drone. With most passionate people retreating
to their earphones where music remains avant touts choses. Maybe it
woud be the case of Hear-no-evil gaining ground, while See-no-evil woud
be less likely to disappear.
But in those cases, what woud come of the God-given gifts of wit, satire,
mockery such as that of H. L. Mencken, of rants such as those of the
Diggers, Robert Burton who wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy,
(recording the Thames River boatmen as they raised to an artform the often
elaborate workaday curses in the enshrouding fog over the water), or
Thomas Paine who whipped up the revolutionary fervor of regulars and
irregulars alike thru his broadsheet Common Sense in the course of
America's bloodiest war, and more recently Christopher Hitchens. But I've
left out America's comedians like Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and the early
work of Eddie Murphy (just to name a few who were h+ly political in their
deployment of obscenities approved by an audience's laffter). How come
reformational Christians have not produced a handful of contemporary
geniuses to goad laffing Christians into a more robust witness in the various
societal spheres of life? Our colleges do not encourage these gifts, and thus
no failures and no successes for walking an edgy narrow line for the coming
of the Kingdom of God.
— Politicarp, refWrite's politics frontpage columnist
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