On April 17, Ann Barnhardt launched her spinoff site BarnhardtMemes.com, her inaugural post being "Barnhardt Meme Barrage 17 April, ARSH 2024." I discovered this this morning (April 18). The second meme in the barrage just happens to prominently feature gold bars in China:
That's kind of a confusing cartoon, actually. Shouldn't "currency wars" between the US and China involve the respective currencies of those two countries? Instead, we have gold (helpfully labeled "gold") and unlabeled banknotes which I assume from the color are US dollars. Where does the renminbi fit into the picture? And what exactly is being depicted? The Chinese buying lots of gold from the US, I guess, but how is that a currency war? I guess the upshot is that you, too, should invest in gold like those savvy Chinese, preferably via Merk Investments, LLC.
My post about Chinese gold bars was part of a larger cluster of syncs centered around bread, including my April 15 post "The Bread Cult," about a fictional cult that worships bread. An anonymous commenter said that reminded him of a Chick tract ridiculing the Catholic belief in transubstatiation (i.e., that the Eucharistic bread, or Host, literally becomes the Body of Christ). It was for this reason that another meme in Barnhardt's barrage caught my eye:
Sorry, Ann, but this is another crap meme. That thing on the right, by the way, is a monstrance, used for displaying the Eucharistic Host, but I know that only because of my research on Tarot iconography. I've attended Catholic Mass a dozen or so times but have never seen such a thing in person, and I'm not sure how many people would find it immediately recognizable. (Apparently, it is used primarily for something called the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament -- i.e., from the non-Catholic's point of view, worshiping bread.) A picture of a priest holding up a wafer would have communicated the idea much more effectively.
Beyond that, though, what is the point of the meme? Watch out, if someone supports abortion, that's a subtle warning sign that they may not believe in transubstantiation? Whose mind is that going to change? Is there anyone who might be willing to compromise on a little thing like killing babies but draws the line at voting for anyone who doesn't believe the sacramental bread literally becomes the flesh of Jesus Christ?
The idea that a baby in the womb is a person and shouldn't be killed is natural, spontaneous, and emotionally powerful. The idea that a piece of bread is actually God is counterintuitive and bizarre. It's not effective to argue for the former by assuming the latter. So strange does transubstantation seem to most non-Catholics that the cartoon (slightly modified) would almost be more effective as a pro-abortion* meme:
The message in this modified version is clear: People oppose abortion only because they subscribe to kooky religious dogmas that don't make any sense. If they try to tell you a clump of cells is a person, keep in mind that they probably believe a piece of bread is a person, too! (The reason I say this would almost be an effective pro-abortion meme is that transubstantiation is a distinctively Catholic belief, while the anti-abortion movement in the US is heavily Protestant.)
* I refuse to use the idiotic euphemisms both sides insist on.
4 comments:
Good points.
As I have often said, Christians often seem unaware that to be anti-abortion is a distinctively religious conviction, and not a spontaneous or natural instinct.
There seem to have been many tribal societies in which even recently born babies were disposed of routinely. And in the Roman Empire, it was quite normal to attempt abortions as well as infanticide. Until recently, I understand that obviously abnormal or deformed new borns were often quietly disposed of and called still births.
One gets the impression that people positively approve of this (as a "right"), and especially the mothers would rather not do it - but Rodney Stark describes the pro-natalism of the first Christians as something new and distinctive in the Roman context.
This means that the subject is not really suitable for "memes" and that they are likely to backfire in the ways you describe. Memes rely on taking for granted assumptions. So, unless people share fundamental religious (and probably Christian) values, then to prohibit abortion strikes many people as unnatural.
First be Christian, then being against abortion will follow (to some significant degree, even if not in the uncontextualized way that Roman Catholics are - at least "officially") - but it doesn't work the other way round.
Bruce, I agree that the anti-abortion position is not "instinctive," but it is still natural and comprehensible in a way that transubstantiation is not. I would compare anti-abortion to animal rights in terms of how "natural" a position it is. Virtually all cultures throughout history have routinely killed and exploited animals -- but anyone can understand and sympathize with the argument against doing so, even if they're not convinced by it. I think the same is true of abortion and infanticide. Transubstantiation, on the other hand, naturally strikes people as bonkers.
If you want to argue (effectively) against X by saying "People who believe X probably believe Y, too," the wrongness of Y has to be obvious, or at least more obvious than the wrongness of X. That's why the "Abortion is tantamount to denying transubstantiation" meme fails.
As you say, memes rely on taken-for-granted assumptions. "Memetic warfare," to the extent that it's ever effective, has to use your enemies' assumptions (not your own) against them. The slogan "Islam is right about women" is a classic example. For abortion, a recent Bee headline isn't great but is an example of the kind of meme that might work: "4D Chess: Baby about to be aborted claims squatter's rights." At least it's a clever dig at the "unconscious violinist" school of pro-abortion rhetoric, if not so much the "clump of cells" school.
This is a meme by American Catholics for American Catholics. The current U.S. President, a nominal Catholic, is pro-abortion.
@Wm - Good points.
Although, the real presence of Christ in the bread is something that did not seem at all difficult to the consciousness pre-modern Man - a comparison would be with the presence of gods in idols in paganism. It was only from the early modern period in Europe - leading up to the Reformation - that it began to seem strange - and then the specific formulation of transubstantiation needed to be made explicit and an article of faith.
Nonetheless the Orthodox then and still (and indeed the early CofE) declined to be explicit concerning what happened, but regarded the presence as real but a "mystery".
That was my own way of thinking - until I reached the conviction (eg from IV Gospel) that the centrality of the celebration was a misunderstanding/ distortion.
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