Word: puritan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...have been expected, the French, who tend to be connoisseurs of other nations' foibles, provided the most piquant blend of sneering and scolding. "Since the arrival of the pilgrim fathers," said Le Monde in a front-page editorial, "America has never truly settled its account with sin. The old Puritan heritage periodically surges forth from the collective memory, invading the national life and upsetting the political game. But over time, these resurgences of prudery have grown in cruelty, bordering today on the absurd...
...Protestant churches seem obsessed with sex these days. Not that their interest in the subject is new. Puritan disquisitions on sex were so plainspoken that early 20th century editions of them had to be bowdlerized. But the terms of today's discussion are revolutionary -- not Why do men sin? but Why shouldn't they party? Traditional strictures against homosexuality, premarital sex (once called fornication), even adultery, are up for theological debate. The Presbyterians in conclave assembled gave thumbs down to the new morality; the Episcopalians gave thumbs sideways; the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will...
Zealotry of either kind -- the puritan's need to regiment others or the victim's passion for blaming everyone except himself -- tends to produce a depressing civic stupidity. Each trait has about it the immobility of addiction. Victims become addicted to being victims: they derive identity, innocence and a kind of devious power from sheer, defaulting helplessness. On the other side, the candlesnuffers of behavioral and political correctness enact their paradox, accomplishing intolerance in the name of tolerance, regimentation in the name of betterment...
...Puritan zealots and all-purpose victims deforming the American character...
There are some theories, of course. In what might be called the testosterone theory, a congenital error in the wiring of the male brain leads to a confusion between violence and sex. Men get off on hideous mayhem, and women, supposedly, cover their eyes. Then there's the raging puritan theory, which is based on the statistical fact that those who get slashed or eaten on the screen are usually guilty of a little fooling around themselves. It's only a tingle of rectitude we feel, according to this, when the bad girl finally gets hers. There's even...