The past 40 years of political and cultural history have been an almost complete fraud. Pop-culture, culture itself in the age of saturation media, is all about selling ads.
In the early 1960s, Doyle-Dane-Bernbach, among others, discovered an unbeatable gimmick for doing this; the trappings and superficial appearance of rebellion and non-conformity. Since this is actually a type of conformity itself (as many have noted) the idea is not to encourage real non-conformity but a comfortably marketable and carefully focused illusion of it.
Often as not, the object of this pseudo-rebellion is a strawman, a pop-culture caricature of some alleged oppression rather than the thing itself. This is the real origin of pop-culture's contempt for Christianity. It is the historic majority religion and a natural subject of rebellion for the simple-minded, the impressionable, and the emotionally needy; that is, the most rigid of pop-culture conformists.
Islam, on the other hand, is exotic and relatively unfamiliar to this audience, and has the additional cachet provided by an aura of menace and violence.
That it is one of the most rigid systems ever devised does not matter to those who need not live under it. Promoting it is superficially rebellious and outrageous, and therefore indispensable to those for whom pop-culture conformity is a religion in and of itself.
The Conquest of Cool by Thomas M. Frank documents and analyzes the relationships among advertising, pop-culture, and radical politics. It is a devastating indictment and quite possibly the most important book of the past 10 years. It was written before 9-11, but later events have only multiplied the urgency and relevance of its message.
Often as not, the object of this pseudo-rebellion is a strawman, a pop-culture caricature of some alleged oppression rather than the thing itself. This is the real origin of pop-culture's contempt for Christianity. Very interesting thoughts. Being on the cultural dividing line of a "Brady Boomer" and a "Baby Boomer" myself, I have often wondered what triggered the mass insanity of the 1960's. I remember sitting in my parents living room as a very young child, watching that horrible show "Laugh In!" To a little boy, that show was very disturbing. A twisted mass of sensory overload and cynicism. It was a metaphor for what was happening to America at that time.
When I asked my older friends what was going on, I always recieved the same pat answer: "It's the WAR man!" But that wasn't totally true--it was not Vietnam threatening these people. Many I knew had deferrments to the draft, or were female and ineligible. It was more of a mass induced psychosis and a rebellion agains "The Establishment"--which meant Christianity.
Each generation must struggle for its soul, and seek what it worships and values. That goes on today, in many nations. By every definition of a cult, Islam is one.
In the 1960's--America went through a Liberal rebellion against God. It continues today. To me, the mass insanity that gripped the US in the 1960's was almost entirely similar to the madness that took Germany after 1933.
