these times · 6 September 2008
Dahlia Lithwick: “There is a way in which she's cashing in on the ability of very, very, very pretty women to say very, very vicious things with a great big smile.” (Day to Day)
Gail Collins: “[Her] speech totally swallowed up all the attention in St. Paul, leaving nothing whatsoever for speakers like Mitt Romney… announcing: ‘We need change all right! Change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington.’ Tragically, nobody seemed interested enough to point out that this made no sense.” (NYT)
wozu: “since Plato, animals have played a vital role in political rhetoric. That the barracuda, a fish universally regarded as vile, predatory, mercenary — a shark lacking even the nobility and solitude of sharks, a shark that also scavenges — has been elevated into the panzoon of respectable animals tells us a great deal about the state of American politics.”
Tom Friedman: “There is no bigger issue on campuses these days than environment/energy. Going into this election, I thought that — for the first time — we would have a choice between two “green” candidates. That view is no longer operative — and college students (and everyone else) need to understand that.” (NYT)
(0v0): Uncorked a cheap cabernet last night and caught up on Jon Stewart. It's all political theatre at this point, all of it, so of course the campaigns are going to be exercizes in overstatement all the way through. Statements made for effect. The bad cab shined up my sense of the absurd last night and here I am thick-skulled in the morning. I feel like archiving some thoughts here.
For months I’ve had a difficulty relating to people in my generation who would even consider voting against Obama. Or to be more accurate, the idea of voting against him makes me sick to my stomach. Facebook is a more private community than this one, but the (0v0) network—at least those of who talk to me—is much closer to me ideologically than the immediate friends in my Facebook. They are close to me in life, but far in feeling; and you are the inverse.
I have zero surprise that my family and everyone I know back home would vote against Obama—they have ways of seeing and hearing that pre-determine the message they’ll receive from him as Clintonesque and coat any line from the GOP in a sheath of pearl before they swallow it. Also, most of them are unconsciously racist in small ways, despite the best intentions of their hearts. Social conservatism is its own world of perception. But those from my generation—even the trust fund kids and the high-earners who I know have at times voted GOP even though it’s not hip—who are capable of even wondering how to vote… that’s just disturbing. Particularly those who do it for fiscal reasons, because fiscal conservatism is atomistic, whereas social conservatism goes much deeper inside. Yet conservatives of both kinds are fairly nestled into my life, and I don’t want it different. It is mind-blowing to read down a list of facebook updates with such a rage-range.
The theatre is out of control, but I really do have to engage this process sincerely. Both political science to my right and New Age Yoga to my left would say disengage and don’t identify with this, either because engaging is irrational or because it’s "bad energy." And then there's a certain hipster disconnectedness. To that, fuck irony. Irony is the near enemy of historical perspective. To all of it, we don’t get to sit this out. Don’t get to pretend that we’re moving to Canada. We’ve benefited from being Americans in every way, and constitute this monster both by our actions and our inactions; and that creates responsibility.
In a way, I wonder if my trust fund and high salaried friends who would think twice about Obama are practicing a form of cynicism. Disengaging from the political level of the question as staying the course as fiscal conservatives. Talk about making it easy on yourself.
Anyway. I wonder if all this will make my case to the academics that rurual America is real. Yes, the GOP is pushing this politics of “outsider” resentment because it’s just what has worked for them for so long—all the way back to Nixon. But also, of course their polls are telling them it resonates. Hello: people in rural areas have a completely different experience of nationhood. This stuff is real; the people who buy the “son of the soil” line are real. It actually is elitist not to know that.
A dear friend who is gay and Mormon—though not allowed, obviously, to go to church—is trying to convince the more politicized of her siblings that gay marriage is not a threat to their privacy. Some of them, meantime, are on the anti-gay activist rosters, and asking my friend not to “take it personally because it’s just about protecting our privacy.” This is the church’s line: if marriage is legalized, then the church’s privacy (their right not to honor the unions) will be threatened. First, pure lies. Second, what a brilliant inversion. It is the vagina police—of which the Mormon Church is an important constituient—that wants to violate privacy. What happens in the culture wars is that the public/private dichotomy gets breached in the wrong way. In a way that kills invidual choice while leaving the conceptual public/private binary intact. The right is so brilliant at self-identifying its own greatest outrage—here, that it is only the right that wants to invade your home life and your sex life—and declaring that this is exactly the sin of the “other side.”
Speaking of sides, these campaigns don’t even know how to talk to each other. They are both running against Bush, and doing so orthogonally to one another. It won’t go on like this—they GOP is trying to force the Dems to argue on their terms, as always—but wouldn’t it be interesting if they just talked past one another all fall? It’s what makes sense, really. The two campaigns are pitched at totally different kinds if mind. Luckily or cursedly, the media will make make them intersect. Must have “two sides” to things in the world of agree/disagree. It would be boring as hell if it weren’t so infernally interesting.
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Categories: markets-networks-society
, self-deception
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Oh yeah, so, I just got on Facebook, right? I mean, I just joined up recently. And my head is SPINNING from the shock of seeing those notifications, telling me that this person or that person is supporting McCain-Palin.
Edited out: some stuff about a friend whose freshman year abortion and subsequent 6 years of depo-provera was provided free by Planned Parenthood, who plans to vote McCain-Palin! And a host of other people who are always playing the “fiscal conservative”, social moderate card. As if. I am sick.
Hello: people in rural areas have a completely different experience of nationhood. This stuff is real; the people who buy the “son of the soil” line are real. It actually is elitist not to know that.
Hi! YES. This is the aspect of American politics that I spend the most time trying to explain to the French.
Posted by: joy · Sep 6, 08:55 AM · #
It must be frightening being a US citizen who is proObama at this moment. As someone from far far away, I still find Palin scary with her prolife, gun loving attitude. I thought that nothing could be as bad as GWB, but now it seems that I was wrong. And since US politics does effect the whole world it is scary for us too.
And for the life of me, I will not be able to understand those Hillary supporters who will rather vote for McCain than Obama. But then I am not American, am I. So I should keep quite and observe.
Posted by: Fatou · Sep 6, 09:20 AM · #
Watching RNC, I was haunted with questions about my own self-awareness.
“they have ways of seeing and hearing that pre-determine the message they’ll receive from him as Clintonesque and coat any line from the GOP in a sheath of pearl before they swallow it.”
I can’t help wondering if MY ways of hearing and seeing predetermine the message I’LL receive (how could they NOT?)...
This makes me nervous. I’m tempted to say the GOPers are worse, are MORE blind — but you know, I’m not really able to sell that to myself so efficiently any more…
Posted by: karen · Sep 6, 09:31 AM · #
ARG! I’ve been writing and writing about all of this, but can’t post any of it because I’m still too outraged and the writing is more personal catharsis than something that could be read by anyone else (as in, it tops the charts in raging rants). This business- this us vs them (whichever side of the fence you’re on), is intriguing, maddening, and a lot of times frustrating to the point where I feel like there’s no hope. Karen, what you wrote is true- we all have our pre-determined philosophies which will color what we read, see, and hear, so… how do we get past that? I watched both conventions, and tried, really tried to listen to the Republicans and try to understand their message. What I heard was fear-based anger, and attacks that were sarcastic, demeaning, and idiotic. I listened to John McCain and definitely softened when I heard, without all the bells and whistles, about his life and his history in the military, but what confuses me so much is why a man, who has seen the brutality of war up close, is not the most peace loving, peace promoting person on earth. I would think that he would take the position of war, or military action of any kind, as a last resort, not something to cling to as defining the strength of our nation. Clinging to guns and religion? um. YES. Palin. She’s not just clinging, she has a death grip. How can a party who claims to want less gov’t also think it’s okay for: creationism taught in school, abstinence only, taking away the choice of a woman when she is pregnant, and hello… the Patriot Act??
I don’t get it. I try to understand that we’re all after the same thing- our goal is peace and prosperity and a unifying of the country, but when I hear someone like Palin, all hope goes out the window.
rant over.
Posted by: Liz · Sep 6, 11:19 AM · #
Nice angle! The Democrats sell social responsibility and are accused of social irresponsibility. The GOP sell every-man-for-himself- responsibility, which is of course socially irresponsible.
Two documentaries for high schools and presidential debats – Hearts and Minds, and The Fog of War. Discuss.
Posted by: Gregor · Sep 6, 01:53 PM · #
Briefly, another one: GOP says “country first” (other identites are supposed to come after nationhood… ok...) and claims to be the party of the patriots. It also calls the Dems snobbish and elitist. But who’s snobbish when it comes to patriotism? The GOP simply will not allow that Dems are patriotic and systematically delegitimates their military service. With great effectiveness. A rare calling out of this tactic is Bob Scheer’s exchange with Tony Blankley yesterday on Left, Right and Center.
A great example of Dem inability to engage the GOP directly is Obama’s pre-emptive “now let’s not get into a competition about who loves their country more. We all love our country here.” What he needs to say is: “I’m a patriot and the GOP are a bunch of elitist snobs for denying our patriotism.” Take the discourse home to roost. Show enough conversational muscle to give self-identified patriots who feel the need to to go GOP the space to follow their moral instincts and support Obama.
Anyway. I’m at times re-amazed by the thoughtful people from around the world, with such diverse experiences, who speak to me here. Thank you. I think this perspective sharing contains the key to navigating through the self-doubt that we all experience as we become more reflective and which Karen describes.
I have many thoughts in response to your thoughts, but am writing other things at the moment. More presently. (I love how “presently” is a euphemism for “later.”)
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 6, 02:43 PM · #
I often wonder what people in other countries must think of Americans during times like these. I think what is so much different about us here is the sheer SIZE of the country and the population and it is buried deeply into the political process. So many different regional slants on politics for reasons that have a lot to do with local culture and economies. It’s vastly different to live between Fifth Avenue and the Hollywood Bowl than to live on the ‘leftist’ coasts. Or in the Southeast vs. the Northwest.
I have several dear friends who are RAGING Republicans. They are constantly trying to bait me to debate with them regarding my love for Obama. Why? I don’t get angry about their choice. (I do, however, pray to Ganesh and Shiva and anyone else who will listen that their choice doesn’t prevail.) I find, among my Republican friends and acquaintences a sincere inability to see any viewpoint other than their own. This is the pill that’s hardest to swallow for me.
Posted by: LI Ashtangini · Sep 6, 03:49 PM · #
Yes, ahem, presently when you get back…
I like that. It has muscle. But the problem with responding saying ‘elitist snob’ is that those hearing this pointed back at them do not identify with that character. Its shadow, and thats why they are immune. But alas I am not yet smart enough to come up with a comeuppance. If I do, I will make millions of dollars, and we can all live on an island. It will be called Isla de coraje y la tranquilidad.
Posted by: Gregor · Sep 6, 03:56 PM · #
Gregor in my mind you live there already.
Sonya, that is my experience too… People who are comfortable shifting between points of view are not likely to support McCain-Palin. What’s up with that?
Also, yes, Fatou’s saying that this ticket looks more insane than Dubya-Darth takes me aback. Woah.
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 6, 04:48 PM · #
Oh. I am blushing. :)
Posted by: Gregor · Sep 6, 07:00 PM · #
oo, owl sweared.
but about important stuff
Posted by: arturo · Sep 7, 11:21 AM · #
The only thing I like about the usual Republicans is their love for guns. They make it much easier not to worry about gun control being an issue. Really, gun control shouldn’t ever be an issue. But the backward Republican attitudes that drive them to try to form society to their constricted moral purview makes it impossible for me ever to support them. Right now I’m quite willing to accept a little of the backwardness of the Democratic moral purview (and “gun control”) to compensate for the social engineering that Bush-Cheneyans have worked on us.
Posted by: Carl · Sep 7, 12:23 PM · #
Yes, exactly the point we were making!
Do I actually have to spell it out? I don’t know if I can without saying fuck again. I’m pretty sure you’re just baiting me for your own amusement and it would be really dumb of me to break down and talk about fucking Rawls, or mention my own experience of dropping the last of my “off the table” “conservative values” at 22, here. Silly Carl! Go spend the rest of the day in the Rainier Valley. I actually love that neighborhood. Sunday is cheap day at the giant Goodwill, too. Get going.
Sorry Arturo, I gues that was two more fucks. Fuck it. This is important stuff… :)
Back to dissertation…
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 7, 01:26 PM · #
I didn’t mean to bait you. It’s just that when the comments reach critical mass I become lazy and skim through them. Then I miss most of the meaty bits. Or maybe it’s that I’m always lazy and it’s especially obvious when there’s more work to do. Whatever.
The Rainier Valley has some cool peculiarities. I can walk down the street there, or in the CD, and people return my greetings. That doesn’t happen throughout most of the rest of the city. I guess I’m supposed to conclude that people are a bit more genuine where they’re subjected to more economic stress. Or something like that.
I’m tired out from pumping money into the economy so I’m going home to relax and get ready for the week.
Posted by: Carl · Sep 7, 04:25 PM · #
Carl, you are a mysterious creature. Just when I think I’m on to your hidden schemes, you tell me you’re all there on the surface.
There are a couple of amazing community centers and groups in Rainier. Also... gun violence. I was thinking of maybe hanging out with that. In a place where gun violence against people is more the trouble than the right to perpetrate gun violence against animals. :)
What I’m implying in this thread is that when people do perspective-taking, GOP-style politics breaks down. Except in one instance ("empathy" with future lives of unborn people--sometimes just a way to keep women enslaved to biology), Republicans don’t put themselves behind others’ eyes. GOP ideology is qualitatively different—and narrower, less reasonable in the Rawlsian sense—than Dem. Once you take others perspectives in a real way, them/us divisons don’t work as much; politics becomes less about fear and resentment; and pluralism starts to make “common” sense. (Except for all the swearing, I'm a dead give-away moral conservative in my own life. But I finally started perspective-taking when I started hanging out in Latin America. It took extreme "otherness" to sensitize me to local "otherness." Fun trivia: i was anti-abortion until I age 23, when one day I got the guts to empathize with impoverished pregnant people.)
I’m not saying Dem politics is all great or anything. It’s actually pretty lame. And has this weird ignorance of what it's like to actually _be_ a redneck. But I'm saying the substance itself of GOP politics is dependent on an anti-pluralist mindset. It’s out of touch.
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 7, 05:47 PM · #
Ok. Been thinking too about Dem hatred of fly-over states. It’s really what’s giving the GOP things to get angry about when everyone should be mad at them for the war and the economy. But instead a small number of angry, urban Dems run around being so compassionless and hateful toward middle America that it gives the GOP all this space to do their politics-of-resentment routine. So we’re stuck in this stupid internal culture clash instead of talking about the military and the mortgage crisis. People in middle America do feel hated for their redneckhood. It doesn’t make them want to stop being racist and anti-gay and sexist. It makes them hate people in cities all the more.
The elitism that has shown up in responses to Sarah Palin is amazing. Some of it comes from what I think is a legit place—anger that McCain would condescend to women by showing he thinks any woman will do, and horror that this somewhat corrupt anti-green anti-gay creationist with no idea of mainland politics should run the country. But if you really look at the horror, a lot of it isn’t even about Palin’s substance. It’s rage that she could come in at the last minute and threaten the guy in which all of us—even the diehard Hillary people—have become so emotionally invested. That’s certainly the root of my emotions about Palin. I’m pissed that she’s stealing the win to which I feel entitled. Outraged by it. All the other reasons I give for why she’s a problem are, however reasonable, not really why I am angry. She’s raining on my parade here and it’s making me especially pissed off.
I think it would be a good idea for a lot of Dems to realize that the sudden hatred they’re feeling and rampantly venting towards red states is really just this basic playground anger of someone cutting in line when they’ve been waiting for their due. They’re essentially mad about their own ineptitude, and projecting all of that on to a totally easy target.
Which just gives her more power.
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 7, 08:49 PM · #
“People in middle America do feel hated for their redneckhood.”
Really? I am interested to hear more about this. I imagined folks were pleased with redneckhood — and homophobia, sexism, racism.
I am starting to see where people could be irritated with the city-folk. I’ve always been on a coast, at least ‘til I moved to AZ. And I’ve pretty much taken a “Geez, what’s wrong with you people?” attitude toward the middle of the country.
Ultimately we’re probably going to have to find some common ground — open up to the possibility of having similarities — before we can get past this intractable polarization.
And, obviously, campaigning only exacerbates the divisiveness…
Posted by: karen · Sep 8, 04:03 AM · #
Sounds like this is the moment to bring up the theories of spiral dynamics, and also Robert Kegan’s work on subject/object. They make so much sense.
Essentially, people dislike people who think they are ‘better’ than they are.
And people who have become a little bit more perspective taking (just a little), abhor those people that are blinkered (because its the state they just escaped from).
This is all shadow (Jung etc.).
The problem with Dems is that they have not done the insane amount of studying their own crap, in order to transcend their subjective feelings about the rednecks. Obama falls into this category too, he is a little too White Knight. He does need more experience. But Palin has no perspective other than her own, and that means she has no business being allowed to speak to the public, never mind running for office.
I am looking for Islands in the realty section!
Posted by: Gregor · Sep 8, 04:33 AM · #
There was a short-lived show a couple of years ago called ‘Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip’ (yes I watch too much tv, go with it) that brought up a lot of these ‘middle America vs. the urban coasts’ issues. In one episode in particular John Goodman plays a judge in a tiny town in Nevada where one of the actors gets caught speeding back to LA (incidentally Goodman won an emmy for this particular role). This judge is not a big fan of the show, nor of ‘city folk’ in general. He f’s with the actor and the studio execs who come out to save him for a while until he learns the actor’s brother is at Nellis AFB and he was returning to LA after visiting him there back from one of his tours of Afghanistan. That somehow makes him worthy of being let off the hook. This is the episode where I got my favorite political line (paraphrasing) ‘not everyone between Fifth Avenue and the Hollywood Bowl is straight out of Hee Haw’. No, Karen, many are not pleased with their redneckhood, homophobia, sexism and racism, they just don’t know any different way to be. AND to have those of us who are ‘city folk’ preaching to them that the way of life they have always known is wrong or somehow less than is, I believe, very frustrating for them. I know because my entire family falls into this category. Racism, homphobia, sexism, you name it and the small-town affliction befalls them. All of them are Republicans who would never consider voting for Obama. How do you reach people like that? How do you convince people who may be somewhat less cultured, less educated, less exposed to other ways of living, that perhaps they might want to broaden their perspecitve and THEN if they want to take the conservative stance, by all means. The thing that REALLY scares me is I know of several women in my family who will without a doubt vote for McCain/Palin simply because she has a vagina.
Posted by: LI Ashtangini · Sep 8, 05:27 AM · #
All good points, Owl!
Yes, I’m quite annoyed about this Republican tactic that brought Sarah Palin into the picture — it really is just a reactive tactic. But I see also that she’s well-suited to the role I think she will ultimately play. Barack Obama and Joe Biden can keep to their no-mudslinging principles and present dignified, inclusive politics to the nation. All the Republican diversions and smack-talking would be most transparent when contrasted against such a positive campaign.
Those Republicans are incomprehensibly cynical though. To them, Sarah Palin is disposable. Those guys are rotten to the core.
Posted by: Carl · Sep 8, 10:30 AM · #
The whole “redneck” discussion is interesting to me since I feel like I’ve had some life experience with at least part of the redneck population (I know it’s vastly different in different regions). My parents moved us from San Antonio to a very small town so we could grow up with “small town values”- and I don’t regret that childhood one single bit. One of the most popular kids in school was this teeny tiny guy who was a champion bull rider. yeee haw! BUT, when I went off to school, I moved to a city and now couldn’t imagine living in a small town (Gregor- maybe this is “the state I escaped from”?). My brother, with the same childhood experiences I had, still lives in the country (wife, kids, 2 nice cars, good jobs – in the city- pool in the backyard, etc), and has a TOTAL redneck attitude. It’s by choice. My parents are not country bumpkins, they just wanted us to grow up in a slower paced community, so they basically raised us neutral- we were able to choose our path. My brother and I went in different directions politically. So what IS a redneck exactly? There’s the redneck attitude (often by choice) and the redneck based on economics. My brother is redneck by choice (and proud of it- John McCain all the way, NRA, Bill O’Reilly, etc etc).
When I hear the Republicans talk about small towns and hail the rednecks as their base… it makes me wonder how this is being defined. Why is it that only small town people really understand life (or the hard life, as it’s generally presented)? Poverty, hardship, and the struggle for bettering one’s life is not owned by the “rednecks”... what about inner city poverty, or the vast population of homeless, or the 9th Ward in New Orleans? They’re not rednecks and yet I feel like they’re not given as much of a voice because they don’t fit into the rural redneck mold. Why are rednecks seen as “more American”? I’m seriously asking this… to me, it seems to be a form of racism. And I’m not quick to say that. Maybe it’s because I’m in the South and even though I’m planted in this lovely, mainly liberal-minded city, I still see the good ‘ole boy attitude and a worn out, romanticized version of what patriotism means.
Is this just a huge lesson in tolerance? For both sides?
Posted by: Liz · Sep 8, 10:34 AM · #
:) Yes, I think she’s being made a sacrifical lamb in a big way. There’s a blog called Tenured Radical written by an historian who has some pretty good strategic insights into the Palin situation. She says Palin’s been asked to “fall on her sword” and has agreed to do so.
I can’t get over the fact that the fascist “country first!” slogan is being led by someone who was a member of the Alaska secessionist party! This is hilarious! Oh, there’s my inner snobby intellectual talking. :)
Sonya said: No, Karen, many are not pleased with their redneckhood, homophobia, sexism and racism, they just don’t know any different way to be. AND to have those of us who are ‘city folk’ preaching to them that the way of life they have always known is wrong or somehow less than is, I believe, very frustrating for them.
This is exactly the case in my experience. I don’t have the credibility to offer alternatives, either. I’m too well traveled, urban, educated, feminist and “rich.” And I don’t go to church.
I didn’t abandon Christianity to be a jerk. It just didn’t work for me at all. But that means I can’t be trusted. And if non-Christians come in as the representatives of non-sexism, non-racism and non-homophobia, that makes those ideas suspect.
Rural America needs a grassroots, local anti-sexism, anti-racism, anti-homophobia for it to really take. It is happening in small places, but it feels like there are a lot of reasons—internal and external—that it can’t really come to fruition.
In any case, the utter hostility to being colonized by cityfolk (their money, their culture, their ideas) is understandable.
Gregor’s taking it exactly where I’m seeing it. At times of cultural upheaval, SD makes SO MUCH SENSE. I see it less when I’m studying history that’s less overtly conflictual, but wow.
And the idea that any political consciousness has repressed anger and fear in its shadow… well yes. Seems so wildly the case in all of us…
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 8, 10:34 AM · #
Liz! Astralplane! I gotta get back to work….
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 8, 10:35 AM · #