Mark Morford: New Age ninny

Mark Morford, SF Chronicle columnist, is a good intellectual representative of a large segment of San Francisco progressivism. He never says anything they don't want to hear, which means he never writes about specific city political issues; he flatters their sense of moral superiority over those who belong to mainstream churches by endorsing a generic "spirituality" that avoids the rigors of actual belief systems; and of course he regularly flays President Bush---brave move in San Francisco!---which flatters his readers' sense of moral/political superiority over the benighted Red States of America.

Morford is all agog over the candidacy of Democrat Barack Obama, who isn't merely a talented politician; he's a "Lightworker" recognized by "many spiritually advanced people"!

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul. The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually demeaning stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare. And this why he is so often compared to Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., to those leaders in our culture whose stirring vibrations still resonate throughout our short history. 

Morford knows "many spiritually advanced people"? Whatever that means. Unlikely on the face of it, given his often-expressed contempt for ordinary Americans, the vulgar herd that drives SUVs, votes Republican, and shops at WalMart. How dare those slobs try to stretch their hard-earned dollars! Even though Morford's "advanced" friends apparently don't adhere to any particular church---that would be "coweringly religious," you understand---they are of course "deeply spiritual." This is the great New Age fallacy, that you can somehow be "spiritual" without believing anything in particular.

I too plan to vote for Obama, not because he is a "Lightworker," but because I am a Democrat, and he's a better choice for the country than Republican John McCain, even though McCain seems to have a better sense of the realities in Iraq than Obama does, which, by the way, could mean trouble for Obama and the Party of Defeat in November.