THE CHURCH OF OPRAH
You remember when RTE [Irish television channel] used to close at night with the national anthem? Those were the simple days. Listen to the Soldiers' Song then off to bed with you. It was the national TV station, so it did cute old-fashioned national things. Nobody thought to question why.
In these more sophisticated times of course, it closes down with the Oprah Winfrey theme song instead. Why? Why why why why why why why why why? WHY!?
There has to be an entire thesis in that. The replacement of national anthem with talk show theme. The substitution of "Tonight we will man the gap of death" with "I believe I will run on". This is quite a difference.
In my opinion though, instead of the anthem, Oprah's theme should've replaced the Angelus. [RTE ring the Angelus bell at 6:00 every evening. Believe it or not.] Her show is after all a fine representation of that greatest modern religion - the cult of the self. Anything goes here, from Buddhist meditation to Catholic guardian angels, pretty-colour therapy to cold porridge enemas, as long as they fulfill the one true great purpose: To make you feel better about yourself.
Feeling better about yourself, this is the highest objective of a civilisation with time on its hands. A sort of jaded reply to the naive 60s counterculture catchphrase "If it feels good, do it." The grown-up version reads: "If it felt good but now you feel bad about doing it, do this." That applies as much to guilt and shame as it does to bad skin and obesity. Indeed to the modern psyche, such feelings are not really distinguishable.
Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a bad thing - not at least in comparison to more traditional forms of religious expression. Looking around the bar here, I notice an English guy speaking loudly and openly about the advantages of belonging to the Masons, and a local boy in a Glasgow Celtic jersey. Are they aware that in theory this makes them sworn enemies? I don't think they're even aware of each other's presence. I am sitting here strongly disagreeing with both of them - I think for an Irish person to support Celtic is just plain sectarianism, and I that the Masons should be an illegal organisation - but I'm very happy that, as individuals, they don't appear to give a damn. This is good. Apart from a few flashpoints, and of course when the clubs have just shut, we now live in a civilisation where such differences of religious opinion do not lead to personal conflict and violence.
To nuclear war possibly, yes. But there's nothing personal about that.