[editor's note, by a gilas girl] Promoted to the front page by a gilas girl. Love her or hate her, Susan Sontag's commentary is certainly an appropriate topic of discussion for the dKos community. And I've not yet seen anything on her passing on the front page. This particular aspect of her work is one we've been discussing anyway. Kudos to Downeast Dem for going back and re-reading for us all.
Last week after I learned of her death I went back to reread some of Susan Sontag's essays. I stumbled across this speech which is a brilliant analysis of the rift between the US and Europe. It also contains one passage which I think helps us understand the role of religion in America today.
"Perhaps the most important source of the new (and not so new) American radicalism is what used to be viewed as a source of conservative values: namely, religion. Many commentators have noted that perhaps the biggest difference between the United States and most European countries (old as well as new according to current American distinction) is that in the United States religion still plays a central role in society and public language. But this is religion American style: more the idea of religion than religion itself...The United States is a generically religious society. That is, in the United States it's not important which religion you adhere to, as long as you have one. To have a ruling religion, even a theocracy, that would be just Christian (or a particular Christian denomination) would be impossible. Religion in America must be a matter of choice. This modern, relatively contentless idea of religion, constructed along the lines of consumerist choice, is the basis of American conformism, self-righteousness, and moralism (which Europeans often mistake, condescendingly, for Puritanism). Whatever historic faiths the different American religious entities purport to represent, they all preach something similar: reform of personal behavior, the value of success, community cooperativeness, tolerance of other's choices. (All virtues that further and smooth the functioning of consumer capitalism.) The very fact of being religious ensures respectability, promotes order, and gives the guarantee of virtuous intentions to the mission of the United States to lead the world. "
So the 'religion without content' - the religious brand - is more important than any specific theology. Religion serves to legitimize the exisitng order (an 'opiate'?) and infuses our international ambitions with a ready-made virtue. My only quibble with is with her statement about 'tolerance'. The more virulent form of evangelical Christianity that has taken hold here has a strong streak of rigid intolerance.