The Liberal Superior Dance

If there were a Jewish equivalent of Dana Carvey's Church Lady , it would be Michael Lerner, whose piece in the Sabbath Wall Street Journal exemplifies the liberal self-congratulatory view that they are not merely right, but morally superior to the Great Unwashed.

Lerner admits that the whole DNC farce was a masquerade. The fake salute, the ad nauseam references to John Kerry's four months in Viet Nam, the parade of generals -- all to disguise the fact that this is a party that believes not that we should resist evil, but we should not fight.

Whether this disguise will actually lead the left not to vote or to vote for Nader is far from clear. What is clear is that Lerner thinks that his "cultural creatives" (aka the Left) are just better people. This view is ironic, given how the secular left gasps in horror at the religiosity of some of Bush's supporters.

This "Superior Dance" is offensive, and in other times and places has justified active repression by the left against the rest of society.

Lerner also reminds me I need to discuss George Lakoff's book Moral Politics, where Lakoff identifies many liberal and conservative themes in American with two different paradigms of child-rearing. An interesting thesis, for another discussion.