Harry Stein - How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace)

the Smashwords edition

of a StoneThread publication

Copyright 2012 Harry Stein

StoneThread License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personalenjoyment. Please don't resell it or give it away.

If you want to share this book, pleasepurchase an additional copy as a gift.

Thank you for respecting the author'swork.

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Credits

Photos of Harry Stein on cover courtesy BetsyKey Hall

Formatting, cover photo and cover design byWTW Solutions

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Permissions

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the NewYork Post

for permission to quote from an editorial byEric Breindel.

Letter from Tennessee Williams to Esquirequoted by permission of

The University of the South, Sewanee,Tennessee.

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To those celebrities who, against allodds,

have selflessly kept their political views tothemselves.

Contents

Introduction

My first-ever appearance on a networktelevision program did not go nearly as smoothly as I'd hoped. Itwas on the Today show back in the early eighties, and the subjectwas ethics, about which I'd recently started writing a column inEsquire magazine.

Sitting on the set with me beforehand,waiting for the commercial before my spot to end, Jane Pauley putme at ease with her small talk. Then the little red light came onand Pauley read a brief intro from the TelePrompTer. She turned,smiled and hit me with her opening question. "An ethics column inEsquire? Come onnnn..."

I was stunned speechless, then started makinglike Ralph Kramden in extremis: Hmmmma, hmmmma, hmmmma. "Well," Ieventually managed halfheartedly, "you're probably not proud ofeverything on NBC either," a response that resulted in a furiouscall from Esquire's editor-in-chief within minutes of my returnhome.

For a while I was pretty annoyed with Pauley,but of course she was right. What right did a publication largelydevoted to promoting self-indulgence as the key to the "good life"have mouthing off about moral behavior? More to the point, what thehell right did I have to do the mouthing? I'd never even read anethics book. My degree is in journalism, which is not, but shouldbe, called a B.S.

But no matter. TV being TV, six months afterPauley dissed my column, I was invited back on the same show, thistime as a bona fide ethical expert. Vanessa Williams had beenforced out as Miss America after appearing in Penthouse with hernose in places it didn't belong, and someone was needed to makeethical sense of it. Already starting to enjoy the adrenaline rushof having the whole world seem to stop while the camera sucks youin, I dutifully complied, and indeed, over the next few years I wasidentified on all sorts of shows, from Donahue and Oprah toNightlinesometimes literally, in words under my nameas a moralauthority.

I realized at the time this was insane. In aself-respecting world, the competence of anyone claiming expertiseon anything would be prudently assessed; those who spoke to mattersutterly central to human health and happiness would be greeted withparticular skepticism.

But hey, I wasn't complaining. I always leftthe studio feeling great about myself, the well-known hosts havingbeen friendly, even deferential. And why not? We were all basicallyof the same tribestatus hunters and gatherersand the samegeneration, which meant we shared a common set of important lifeexperiences and guiding assumptions: not only on hot-button topicslike abortion, but on things like what was funny (SNLthis was theeighties, remember), what was scary (the Moral Majority) and how tomake the world a better place (larger doses of compassion).

But then something odd began to happenmainlyto the country, and incidentally to people like me. As feminism andmulticulturalism more and more sought to remake society, attackingas narrow or antique much that had served humanity well formillennia, we concluded we could no longer in good conscienceremain on that side. There was both too little respect for theaccumulated wisdom of the ages and too much playing havoc withtruth and common sense. Indeed, many of us were soon startled tofind ourselves tagged conservatives (and often worse) for holdingfirm to the values of old-fashioned liberalism: a bedrockcommitment to fairness and individual liberty.

Along the way, I lost a couple of goodfriends. But I also made remarkable new ones, some of whom hadarrived at the same destination by the same route, some who hadbeen there all along. The startling thing, for one raised inAmerica's most progressive precincts, was that this was a worldless of yahoos than of humane and principled souls, fightingagainst the junk values that pervade the culture and, perhaps evenmore so, against the dumbed-down thinking that allows them toflourish.

Since being dumbor at least oblivious tohistory, subtlety, sophistication and nuanceis often what it takesthese days to pass as a correct thinker, lots of people who shouldknow better now act that way as second nature. Just the other day,a writer friend was telling me how much trouble he'd had getting aproject on Al Jolson off the ground because of "the blackfacething."

"But that doesn't mean Jolson was racist,"added the guy quickly, immediately off into his standard Jolsondefense, pointing out that Jolson was just a creature of his timeand place and that you had to put it in historical context.

I mean, has it really come to this? Does myfriend really think he has to go around talking this way to avoidbeing branded racist himself?

Indeed, from this distance, it strikes me asnearly lunatic that anyone would choose to live that way,constantly monitoring oneself for rogue thoughts. There's so muchless stress following one's gut instead of the crowd. And in recentyears there's been so remarkably less to have to justify.

It was a couple of decades back, watchingpeople I like and respect laboring to defend standard issue liberalpositions on matters as varied as affirmative action and BillClintons social life, that I had a realization as terrifying asanything confronted by a whimpering Scrooge as the ghosts draggedhim through the wreckage of his existence. That used to be me! Ifnot for a few happy twists of fortune, it still could be me!

"Must it be, Spirit?! Am I doomed to foreverlook upon injustice posing as virtue and moral sleight-of-hand andyet see nothing? Am I so besotted with my own goodness thatindecency need only be on my side and it will be defended?"

But noI wake up to find myself at peace.

Right is still right and wrong stillwrong.

This book is the story of that journey.

How to TellYou've Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

You hear someone talking about morality andyou no longer instantly assume he must be a sexually repressedreligious nut.

You're actually relieved that your daughterplays with dolls and your son plays with guns.

You sit all the way through Dead Man Walkingand at the end still want the guy to be executed.

You understand that the homeless guy whomumbles to himself and stinks of urine is not "disadvantaged" but alunatic.

Watching network news, you notice that theperson opposing affirmative action is identified as a "conservativespokesman," while the one supporting it is just a "Harvardprofessor."

Christmas season rolls around and it hits youthere may be a religious connection.

Black history month seems to last fromFebruary to July.

At your kids' back-to-school night, you areshocked to discover the only dead white male on your tenth grader'sreading list is Oscar Wilde.

And by the end of the night you realize theonly teacher who shares your values teaches PhysEd.