Safe Harbors
Rush Limbaugh is dead. He died of cancer. I recall somebody talking about his Christmas Eve broadcast, how it sounded like he was saying good-bye. He probably knew that he was close, that his time was near.
The celebrations of his death online are, in a word, gross. But I didn't expect otherwise. The Wheaton rule ("don't be a dick") doesn't apply to Republicans, conservatives, or anybody who doesn't think like Wil Wheaton. Instead, people celebrate Limbaugh's death as if he were Fidel Castro. Except many people were much more respectful when Castro died.
And why? I mean, Castro murdered people, ruined a country so badly he had to forbid people to leave it, and regularly had dissidents jailed and tortured. Why be happier Rush is dead?
Why be sad Rush is dead?
I don't go for public mourning over public figures. The outcry over Princess Di and various other celebrities always seemed a bit weird to me. But, for a moment, let's take a dip into some C.S. Lewis.
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
“What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.” (both quotes C.S.Lewis)
In our world, there are many places where the conservative voice is silent or nearly so. This condition was somewhat relieved by the onset of cable news and the internet, but not entirely. It's telling that Rush got his start before then, talking on the radio. And people heard him, and heard the things they felt and thought but could not put into words, because nobody else around them said those things. They didn't have the vocabulary. But Rush did, and he gave it to them. Day after day, people found one person, at least, that said the things they knew but could not frame. Somebody they could nod along to, even grumble with in the car or alone at work, without getting into trouble.
Now, in later days, Rush's influence waned somewhat. It became easier to find voices like his as the internet exploded. But there are still needs out there, often unspoken. If you wanted to find the modern equivalent to Rush's listeners these days, it'd probably be Jordan Peterson's audience. All out there hearing something different from what everybody else says, but that sounds right. Sounds true.
There is considerable effort these days going into shutting up certain voices, but that effort is ultimately futile. Maybe the Woke crowd will finally manage to get all the opposing voices banned off Facebook, from app stores, from YouTube. Maybe they'll chase down all the ISPs out there (the attempt is being made to ban Baen, currently: https://monsterhunternation.com/2021/02/16/publishing-house-baen-books-attacked-by-cancel-culture/) and get them to kick of those who say the 'wrong' words, think the 'wrong' thoughts. And yet, here I go back to C.S. Lewis. In That Hideous Strength, the protagonist, Mark, is trained by the enemy to think 'properly', to 'set him free' from his old biases so he can become enlightened in their manner. But...
"After an hour, this long high coffin of a room began to produce on Mark an effect which his instructor had probably not anticipated. As the desert first teaches men to love water, or as absence first reveals affection, there rose up against this background of the sour and the crooked some kind of vision of the sweet and the straight. Something else-something he vaguely called the "Normal "- apparently existed. He had never thought about it before. But there it was-solid, massive, like something you could touch, or eat, or fall in love with. It was all mixed up with Jane and fried eggs and soap and sunlight and the rooks cawing at Cure Hardy. He was not thinking in moral terms at all; or else (what is much the same thing) he was having his first deeply moral experience."
There will remain a sense, in many, that there is something missing. Something worked around, left out. Something important. And that is what men like Rush Limbaugh and Jordan Peterson have given voice to, why they're admired. Why people might feel as if they are friends, even if they've never met the men in person. There is a truth there that was not spoken in the places those people lived. A truth they needed.
Neither man is perfect, of course. We are all fallen creatures. Rush's struggle with addiction is well documented. And I have not always agreed with the things Rush has said, even though we are more or less on the same side in many things. But for many, he was their harbor- the friend who saw the truths they saw and could not speak. He was their voice.
And that's why he was hated, why people celebrate his death. Because he said things they would rather nobody said, things they wanted stamped out. And they couldn't shut him up. Years and years, plugging away, an unstoppable force. Now that death has stopped him, they celebrate victory as if they themselves had done the deed.
And that's why it's gross.
The celebrations of his death online are, in a word, gross. But I didn't expect otherwise. The Wheaton rule ("don't be a dick") doesn't apply to Republicans, conservatives, or anybody who doesn't think like Wil Wheaton. Instead, people celebrate Limbaugh's death as if he were Fidel Castro. Except many people were much more respectful when Castro died.
And why? I mean, Castro murdered people, ruined a country so badly he had to forbid people to leave it, and regularly had dissidents jailed and tortured. Why be happier Rush is dead?
Why be sad Rush is dead?
I don't go for public mourning over public figures. The outcry over Princess Di and various other celebrities always seemed a bit weird to me. But, for a moment, let's take a dip into some C.S. Lewis.
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
“What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.” (both quotes C.S.Lewis)
In our world, there are many places where the conservative voice is silent or nearly so. This condition was somewhat relieved by the onset of cable news and the internet, but not entirely. It's telling that Rush got his start before then, talking on the radio. And people heard him, and heard the things they felt and thought but could not put into words, because nobody else around them said those things. They didn't have the vocabulary. But Rush did, and he gave it to them. Day after day, people found one person, at least, that said the things they knew but could not frame. Somebody they could nod along to, even grumble with in the car or alone at work, without getting into trouble.
Now, in later days, Rush's influence waned somewhat. It became easier to find voices like his as the internet exploded. But there are still needs out there, often unspoken. If you wanted to find the modern equivalent to Rush's listeners these days, it'd probably be Jordan Peterson's audience. All out there hearing something different from what everybody else says, but that sounds right. Sounds true.
There is considerable effort these days going into shutting up certain voices, but that effort is ultimately futile. Maybe the Woke crowd will finally manage to get all the opposing voices banned off Facebook, from app stores, from YouTube. Maybe they'll chase down all the ISPs out there (the attempt is being made to ban Baen, currently: https://monsterhunternation.com/2021/02/16/publishing-house-baen-books-attacked-by-cancel-culture/) and get them to kick of those who say the 'wrong' words, think the 'wrong' thoughts. And yet, here I go back to C.S. Lewis. In That Hideous Strength, the protagonist, Mark, is trained by the enemy to think 'properly', to 'set him free' from his old biases so he can become enlightened in their manner. But...
"After an hour, this long high coffin of a room began to produce on Mark an effect which his instructor had probably not anticipated. As the desert first teaches men to love water, or as absence first reveals affection, there rose up against this background of the sour and the crooked some kind of vision of the sweet and the straight. Something else-something he vaguely called the "Normal "- apparently existed. He had never thought about it before. But there it was-solid, massive, like something you could touch, or eat, or fall in love with. It was all mixed up with Jane and fried eggs and soap and sunlight and the rooks cawing at Cure Hardy. He was not thinking in moral terms at all; or else (what is much the same thing) he was having his first deeply moral experience."
There will remain a sense, in many, that there is something missing. Something worked around, left out. Something important. And that is what men like Rush Limbaugh and Jordan Peterson have given voice to, why they're admired. Why people might feel as if they are friends, even if they've never met the men in person. There is a truth there that was not spoken in the places those people lived. A truth they needed.
Neither man is perfect, of course. We are all fallen creatures. Rush's struggle with addiction is well documented. And I have not always agreed with the things Rush has said, even though we are more or less on the same side in many things. But for many, he was their harbor- the friend who saw the truths they saw and could not speak. He was their voice.
And that's why he was hated, why people celebrate his death. Because he said things they would rather nobody said, things they wanted stamped out. And they couldn't shut him up. Years and years, plugging away, an unstoppable force. Now that death has stopped him, they celebrate victory as if they themselves had done the deed.
And that's why it's gross.