The first yahoo

I note this week I've been researching the web for an article I recall from college written by an Andrew Goodman (maybe) around 1974 (possibly) on what he called the yahoo: the near impossibility of holding an intelligent conversation with a conservative before they veer off the rails. If you google yahoo, today, in the post-pc age, well, you'll only hit tracks of the more famous search engine.

The shelves in my study are balanced with the classic conservative writings of Burke, Hayek, Kirk and Weaver, sprinkled amongst their liberal foes, and if it looks interesting, I admit to buying Fr. Richard John Neuhaus' First Things magazine, containing brilliant articles found nowhere else on the relationship of theology and culture.

The yahoo sneaks in at the back, in confirmation of the Goodman dictum, where the good Father comments on the affairs of thte day. This former Lutheran war protestor is a born again Catholic neo-con; a zealot who's seen the light and condemns all things post-Vatican II. (What C.S. Lewis would describe as a typical example of an over-the-top convert.)

In the June/July issue, Neuhaus trots out a very tired shibboleth for a walk: the anything-goes yahoo. This is, of course, what inevitably follows the union of a same-sex couple, or "institutionalizing relationships of every imaginable and barely imaginable thought." If Sally and Mary wed, you'll marry your Volvo. You know you've thought of it; you know you want to. You're just waiting on Sally and Mary to let loose a flood of Volvo love. When you cross examine Neuhaus' biography, it's no surprise to come across the usual yahoo suspects: the IRD and Scaife Foundation.

The yahoo shrugs off consequence and responsibility; the very qualities neo-con's bemoan liberals lack. On June 15, in opposition to hate crimes legislation, Pastor Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Lanham, Maryland, was quoted in USA Today, "Let's say a congregational member has a diminished [mental] capacity, goes out and hurts somebody and is arrested and says, 'Pastor Jackson told me to do this." Most times, the anything-goes yahoo is just silly; the homophobic clergy yahoo, however, should be considered alarmed and dangerous, and approached with caution, if approached at all.

No one can tell when it comes to causes and consequences. The Atlantic reports this month, contrary to popular opinion, that Americans didn't wipe out the buffalo, by themselves, for themselves; it was actually caused by, and for, the benefit of the French and Prussian armies that needed new boots and belts after their war in 1871.

Who gets to tell who where to get off? Should Western environmentalists scold African and Chinese entrepreneurs for pollution when they're only trying to match the same harmful standard of living we take for granted?

Here's another surprise: it's been reported lately how Chinese brick factory owners kidnapped children for slave labor; how parents spent years reclaiming them. In response to negative world opinion, the Chinese passed worker protection laws. Who lobbied against it? According to the NY Times, "Baker & McKenzie's employment law group, which represents many of America's biggest corporations in China." A spokesperson said, "It will be more difficult to run a company here." Without child slave labor? You think? --yahoo let loose, running wild, full steam ahead; damn the consequences.

I'm not surprised, in the Murdoch-owned London Times, that religion writer Ruth Gledhill, in an interview with the Archbishop of Nigeria, served up the ragged agenda-yahoo: "Akinola will not contemplate going back into Communion with the U.S. unless they abandon completely the liberal gay agenda." While she's busy composing red herrings like "this is a man whose name strikes fear into the souls of Western Christian leaders," (the name strikes something but it aint fear), the most repulsively ugly yahoo of all slithers in on its belly when Akinola says of gays and lesbians, "They are sick and tired of normal heterosexaul relationships? We see it as a problem that can be treated."

I see. People reduced to problems; problems to be treated; with solutions; final solutions?

Amongst the voluminous scholarship surrounding Pope Pius XII's supposed involvement or non-involvement in the Holocaust, the justification arises, if the Vatican had voiced public opposition to the genocide of the Jews, then Catholics in occupied lands would have faced grave danger. Just how much persecution of the 'other,' is tolerable in the name of self-protection?

I note last week the broken-English comments of the leader of the Nigerian movement for gay human rights, Davic Mac-Iyalla: "We want to remain the ties Episcopalians so that we don't feel abandoned. We don't have anywhere to go but the Episcopal Church. We want to remain in communion with the Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury, for example, the welcome of the Episcopal Church of everyone."

Mr. Mac-Iyalla is in exile; his life, forfeit, if he returns to his homeland. I wonder if Neuhaus considers that thought barely imaginable? Does Pastor Jackson or Akinola harbor any nagging concern for his safety, or is he merely a problem to be treated? Sometimes yahoo is ridiculous; oft times, yahoo kills.