"I don't know who started the "Jesusland" map, but it seems to have zipped through the email-o-sphere very soon after the results of the election became apparent," wrote Ann Althouse yesterday.
"Ironically, the central prejudice maintained by the propagators of the 'Jesusland' meme is that they are smart and the others are dumb," notes Ann Althouse -- more in sorrow than in anger -- in a most elegant explication of the psychological dynamics at work in the post-election liberal mind as it desperately casts about for some way to make it all go away and be someone else's fault:
The human mind sorts through information efficiently, not in a way that is fair, but in a way that enables the organism to get through life on a basic level reasonably successfully. This is also the mechanism of prejudice, and we all have this mechanism going for us. We'd be hopeless stymied at ever decisionmaking point if we did not have it. Yet we must also develop the consciousness that we do have it, and the ability to override it when we should. Often we are better at perceiving when other people stick too much with their prejudices than we are at seeing how much of what we think is mere prejudice. The "Jesusland" reponse to the election is a classic example of blindly indulging one's own prejudice in the process of perceiving prejudice in others.
How many times to we have to say it? It's the character, stupid.
For what it's worth, I first saw this map at michaelmoore.com
Posted by: Jeff | November 10, 2004 at 10:12 AM
Unfortunately, it's the truth. The swine made this one up. It's went on his site as soon as the election was won by the "evangelical" vote. Personally, I'd prefer "God's Country".
Posted by: Jeremy | November 11, 2004 at 06:12 AM