On March 8, 1983, Ronald Reagan delivered a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals. He told them that the American experiment in democracy rests on "seeking God's blessings:"
...we need your help to keep us ever mindful of the ideas and the principles that brought us into the public arena in the first place. The basis of those ideals and principles is a commitment to freedom and personal liberty that, itself, is grounded in the much deeper realization that freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted.The way to keep America great, Reagan proceeded, is for evangelicals to continue their work, especially as far as their prayer goes:
The American experiment in democracy rests on this insight.
Well, I'm pleased to be here today with you who are keeping America great by keeping her good. Only through your work and prayers and those of millions of others cans we hope to survive this perilous century and keep alive this experiment in liberty, this last, best hope of man.He bemoaned the recent change in attitudes toward sex:
...no one seems to mention morality as playing a part in the subject of sex.and went on to suggest that federally-funded clinics prescribing birth control to teenagers is part of
Is all of Judeo-Christian tradition wrong? Are we to believe that something so sacred can be looked upon as a purely physical thing with no potential for emotional and psychological harm?
...many attempts to water down traditional values and even abrogate the original terms of American democracy.He then critized advocates of a nuclear freeze for trying to reward the Soviet Union for its military expansion (we know now that no such expansion was taking place). He proposed the following rationale for fighting the Soviets:
A number of years ago, I heard a young father, a very prominent young man in the entertainment world, addressing a tremendous gathering in California. It was during the time of the cold war, and communism and our own way of life were very much on people's minds. And he was speaking to that subject. And suddenly, though, I heard him saying, "I love my little girls more than anything -" And I said to myself, "Oh, no, don't. You can't - don't say that." But I had underestimated him. He went on: "I would rather see my little girls die now, still believing in God, than have them grow up under communism and one day die no longer believing in God."And he cautioned his audience against the temptations of the devil:
There were thousands of young people in that audience. They came to their feet with shouts of joy. They had instantly recognized the profound truth in what he had said, with regard to the physical and the soul and what was truly important.
Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness - pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.
You know, I've always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride - the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire...Today, we refer to this speech as Reagan's "evil empire" speech, even though the only mention of the term comes at the end of the speech almost as an afterthought. A lot of people at the time thought it was rather ridiculous to suggest that we must fight the Soviets because God is on our side (whats next? an invasion of the holy land?). New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis was one of them:
If there is anything that should be illegitimate in the American system, it is such use of sectarian religiosity to sell a political program. And this was done not by some fringe figure, but by the President of the United States. Yet I wonder how many people, reading about the speech or seeing bits on television, really noticed its outrageous character.Its interesting to observe how this event has morphed in our current political culture. There is a certain subculture of people on the right who would prefer to remember this as an instance of Reagan having the guts to say that the Soviet Union was bad (as if the US has not been fighting communism continually since about 1948). There is also a tendency to consider Lewis' response - along with other criticism of the speech at time - as an instance of moral relativism, done by a collection of people shocked at the thought of saying that something is wrong.
Consider, for example, how Andrew Sullivan edits Lewis' column:
I wonder how many people, reading about the [Evil Empire'] speech or seeing bits on television, really noticed its outrageous character… Primitive: that is the only word for it. … What is the world to think when the greatest of powers is led by a man who applies to the most difficult human problem a simplistic theology – one in fact rejected by most theologians?... What must the leaders of Western Europe think of such a speech? They look to the head of the alliance for rhetoric that can persuade them and their constituents. What they get from Ronald Reagan is a mirror image of crude Soviet rhetoric. And it is more than rhetoric: everyone must sense that. The real Ronald Reagan was speaking in Orlando. The exaggeration and the simplicities are there not only in the rhetoric but in the process by which he makes decisions.Note how Lewis' main point - disgust with Reagan's use of sectarian religiosity to promote a political agenda - is completely edited out of speech, and Lewis seems to be criticizing Reagan for merely being "simplistic" - in a mirror image of today's criticism of George W. Bush.
posted by alex @ 12:25 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hi Alex,
First, I'm not sure if it was Sullivan who was intentionally distorting Lewis's comments or I who was just not reading carefully. In any event, I admire your thoroughness and your willingness to look at any evidence that is presented to you.
Second, I don't want to get into a long debate about what Reagan was doing in that speech and what Lewis meant in his response. I will make the following points about the Reagan speech, though:
1) I don't think Reagan was saying "God is in our side" so much as "God is on the side of the principles and ideals (liberty chief among them) that we hold dear." There *is* an important difference between the two statements, but I realize that you might consider either statement offensive.
2) Reagan was speaking to a group of evangelicals -- to an audience, that is, who shared his belief in God. Clinton spoke in religious terms when he addressed religious groups, too.
3) It *was* kind of gutsy of Reagan to say "evil Empire" and later "tear down this wall." He had been constantly warned off of those statements by the State Department and by some of his own aides. However you characterize the nature of the hostile reaction to his phrases, he knew that the reaction would be hostile in Western liberal circles and in the mainstream media (though the reaction was understandably somewhat differenct among dissidents in Eastern Europe).
I don't want to get bogged down in the Reagan speeches, though. My larger point still stands. There was a small but not "fringe" group of Western academics, intellectuals, writers, and Hollywood types who continued to apologize for the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, and to treat the Cold War as a conflict in which both sides were at fault. Of course, the U.S. had been fighting Communism since '48, but to say U.S. government policy was consistently opposed to Communism is not the same thing as saying all Americans or all Westerners were opposed to Communism.
To be sure, there was a large number of liberal Cold Warriors who hated Communism as much as Reagan did, but I think during the Vietnam War a significant portion of the Democratic party actually cut itself off from their honorable Cold Warrior past (and maybe Beinart addresses this in his book). [I do think it's true, for instance, that the Democrats wouldn't, at this stage, support a JFK or respond to his rhetoric].
Robert Conquest, one of the twentieth century's greatest Sovietologists (Harvest of Sorrow, The Great Terror, etc.) writes about the revisionist Sovietologists who gained a foothold in the academy in the Eighties:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_n31/ai_13991698/pg_4
He also writes about Western apologists for Communism in Reflections on a Ravaged Century (in the chapter on Soviet Myths and Western Minds). There's a part in the first chapter where he cites an interview with Eric Hobsbawn (definitely a non-fringe historian) in the 80's in which Hobsbawm says if the bright promise of Soviet Communism had been realized it would have been worth the death of 20 million people.
But again, it all turns on how we want to define "fringe" and "not fringe."
"Reagan was speaking to a group of evangelicals -- to an audience, that is, who shared his belief in God. Clinton spoke in religious terms when he addressed religious groups, too."
Perhaps, but what is objectionable here is not that he is speaking in religious terms per se. Its the argument being made thats objectionable - that a certain set of beliefs about God must be the foundation of our fight against communism (and of our birth control policy).
"There was a small but not "fringe" group of Western academics, intellectuals, writers, and Hollywood types who continued to apologize for the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, and to treat the Cold War as a conflict in which both sides were at fault....But again, it all turns on how we want to define "fringe" and "not fringe."
This, I think, is absolutely correct....
"Of course, the U.S. had been fighting Communism since '48, but to say U.S. government policy was consistently opposed to Communism is not the same thing as saying all Americans or all Westerners were opposed to Communism."
And this, I think, is beside the point. Recall that our discussion began on the topic of whether certain cold war era republican hawks provided a moral certainty that was lacking. If the only people lacking this moral certainty were a group of academics, intellectuals, and Hollywood types, then you must admit that the entire political spectrum - i.e. something along the lines of "parties which receive more than 0.1% of the vote in national elections" - was not lacking in people willing to take a stand on this issue.
What I'm trying to say is that for the purposes of the above discussion, "fringe" needs to be defined relative to the national political conversation - not relative to the kind of dialogue one hears in academia and the like.
"What I'm trying to say is that for the purposes of the above discussion, "fringe" needs to be defined relative to the national political conversation - not relative to the kind of dialogue one hears in academia and the like."
-- Fair enough, and I think you're mostly right. I would only say that "the kind of dialogue one hears in academia and the like" was sometimes amplified so that it made its mark on the "national political conversation" -- and I think that this was particularly the case post-Vietnam, although even before then certain myths were being promulgated about the phantom nature of the Commnunist threat to America (see The Crucible) or the "innocence" of those who were martyrs to anti-Communism (see essays on Hiss, the Rosenbergs, etc.).
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