From the Mind of Meegs

Can I be honest? The Jeremiah Wright stuff creeps me out.

It doesn't creep me out because of what he says. Occasionally, he has a point, though for the vast, vast, vast majority of it, I don't agree. But I also think a lot of his critics are deaf to both context and history. But maybe that's me.

It doesn't creep me out because it drains voter and media attention away from other matters. For all the attention, you'd think he was running for president, instead of one of the tens of thousands of people he's pastored over the years. With the economy in the crapper, gas prices through the roof, food costs skyrocketing, unemployment, plus the debacle in Iraq that shows no signs of ending anytime soon...let's just say it's not like there's nothing else the candidates or we as a nation could be concerning ourselves with. So yes, that is annoying, but it's not the creepy part.

It doesn't creep me out because it requires us to engage in that always fruitless exercise where we make Person A answer for something that Person B does. If we all have to be held accountable for every belief every one of our friends or family members possesses, then we might as well restrict ourselves to only associating with those we completely agree with. So welcome to your new world, population: 1. That's infuriating, but not creepy.

Here's the creepy part. I don't like it when a demagogue gets attention for being a demagogue. It seems like both his obsessive supporters and his obsessive detractors are drawn to the lurid spectacle of it all.

I would liken it to the unsettled feeling I get when a sex pervert gets attention for being a sex pervert, or a rich person gets attention for being rich, or a murderer gets attention for being a murderer. Now, please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying he's a pervert or a murderer, and I have no idea if he's rich or not. I have absolutely zero reason to think he's committing any kind of crime. I'm not equating one with the other, nor am I really even drawing a comparison with his actions. I'm drawing a comparison with our reactions.

Sex isn't the only thing that can be an object of our voyeurism. Violence, money, power--we have a voyeuristic relationship with all these things. Sex, money, power and violence all appeal to the very basest of base instincts about humanity. They are at the root of nearly every sin we ever commit. Though money, sex and, I suppose, power (not sure about violence) can be used for good, they can only be used for good if we aren't ruled by them. Our struggle as humans should be to put these things in their proper place, not drag them out and assign them a place of prominence wherein we fixate on them like some sort of societal snuff film. We bring these issues out of the proverbial closet so we can deal with them honestly, not so that we can drink in vulgarity for its own sake.

In a very real way, I think the fixation on Charles Manson,  the fixation on Paris Hilton and the fixation Jeremiah Wright all have something in common (again, our fixation on them, not the individuals themselves). They are all objects we use to pull out the some of the most fundamental forces on human behavior and, rather than attempt to rise above their illicit appeal, we roll around in it vicariously.

Is it possible that all of this could be channeled into some sort of productive dialogue, rather than voyeurism? Sure. I think that happened, briefly, after Obama gave that speech a few weeks ago. But now I feel like we're right back where we started: reveling in the spectacle and ignoring the consequences.

Like I said: creepy.