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Lady Gaga: The Super Bowl’s Muse of Nationalist Catholicism

Lady Gaga: The Super Bowl’s Muse of Nationalist Catholicism

Last updated on: February 9, 2017 at 10:52 pm by Artur Rosman

Lady Gaga: The Super Bowl’s Muse of Nationalist Catholicism 2017-02-09T22:52:24-07:00 Artur Rosman

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. . . the display of American nationalist-exceptionalism, the drone show inevitably smacked of militarism, the Pepsi product plugs throughout signaled how much capitalism is tied to it all. The combination of all three along with progressivist causes such as the ones Gaga espouses is not frequently called “drone feminism.” When it swings right it becomes the alt-right. It usually tends to get a free pass on the left, because it stands for good violence.

The work of William T. Cananaugh is a great antidote to the nationalist excesses of both Lady Gaga and Milo Yiannopoulos, especially in his The Myth of Religious Violence:

It is no accident that in the secular individualist world view the definition of religion is negatively but inextricably linked to patriotism. Religion appears as the alter ego of the liberal nation-state; religion—or more precisely, religion in public—is what the liberal nation-state saves us from. Religion is defined as mere opinion, with no rational basis on which disputes can be solved. Religion therefore is inherently divisive and dangerous. What unifies us is the nationstate. In public, our identities as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Unitarians and Catholics and atheists no longer take precedence. We are all Americans, and devotional exercises meant to instill love of our country are unitive, not divisive. Such exercises, however, are not religion. Patriotism, in this world view, is defined over against public religion. To allow that patriotism might be a type of religion and might carry its own dangers of violence would threaten the very basis of our social order. Religion belongs to the private realm of opinion; patriotism belongs to the public realm of fact. Dissenters from religious orthodoxy must be protected from religion; dissenters from patriotic orthodoxy may be tolerated but not allowed to interfere with the inculcation of the fervent love of country.

The myths Cavanaugh exposes here go a long way toward exposing the reason why “one nation” frequently subsumes, and then replaces, the “under God.” The capital earned by singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” was quickly blown on the worst American clichés.

What kind of a Catholic Christian is Lady Gaga? A nationalist first, faith tacked on later and defanged. For someone who has a reputation for being wild (in commercially acceptable terms), this was much too tame.

Take a look yourself if all those things don’t annoy you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOU2qNCBAo0

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Remember to check out the related story: Alt-Right Bête Noire Milo Yiannopoulos is an Aquinas-quoting Catholic

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