Two stories illustrated the foolish, foolish hypocrisy and counterproductivity of this current period and its self-righteous effort to beat the bad - and the disagreement and differences of interpretation and perspective - out of us. And our perpetual failure to look at the dumbass in the mirror.
Howard Kurtz writes writes about the accuser of the Duke University Lacrosse players of rape.
The important paragraphs for me:
"New York Post columnist John Podhoretz makes the case:
'It is the policy of the news media not to publish the names of rape accusers on the grounds that they should not have to fear public shame for coming forward with word of a horrifying personal violation.
'That is a noble policy. But it needs a codicil. The codicil is that if a rape accuser is revealed as a liar, her name should be spoken loudly and often -- as loudly and often as the names of those whom she falsely accused have been over the past year . . .
'She must be denied anonymity because she makes a mockery of the very policy of granting anonymity to rape accusers. We do not publish their names so that they will not fear public exposure. But people who are tempted to do the monstrous thing [the Accuser] did should fear public exposure.
'They should be terrified of it.
'They should have nightmares about it.
'They should be given no encouragement whatsoever to believe they can launch a nuclear weapon at someone's reputation and escape unscathed."
Andrea Peyser, in the same paper, recounts a piece that was controversial at the time:
'This story so neatly fit the radical agenda of our 'newspaper of record,' The New York Times, that the paper disgustingly advanced the hoax on its front page, long after other media outlets had backed off.
'In a case of 'all the lies fit to print,' the paper on Aug. 25 affected an air of Timesian authority in a damning article, spoon-fed by DA Nifong. It tried to put to rest some of the alarming inconsistencies in the accuser's story about the night she was 'attacked.'
''While there are big weaknesses in Mr. Nifong's case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury,' quoth the Times. And, 'The full files, reviewed by The New York Times, contain evidence stronger than that highlighted by the defense.'
'Will the Times make reparations now?"
The Times, as this Post article alludes to, relishes in taking down those who they think need just deserts, but who, now, will take down the Times? Or the New York Post, for that matter, when they inevitably screw up a high profile story or case?
And that really is the question. Given our now and inescapable tendency to screw up, who will take any and all of us down when we inevitably screw up? More importantly, to me, how can we all be so sure that we have arrived at final truthes on this case or any case or newsworthy situation, when everyone is clearly both following the various media feeding frenzies and trying to avoid the fates of so many public figures being taken down for various sins and alleged sins, these days? How in the world can we always assume that we have arrived at final truthes when we both take so little time to really consider all the available evidence and arguments and when we are all so clearly trying to stay one step ahead of those who would beat us into submission if they think we are wrong?
We can't, is the only honest answer to that. And those who say otherwise are buffering and defending their own arrogant, self-congratulatory views of themselves - psychologists call that being defensive - and their final renderings on important matters so that they don't have to face their own fallibility and likelihood of screwing up in their bullying and pressuring and take-downs.
When those Duke boys went up for trial, originally, the conventional wisdom was that wealthy white boys at a wealthy white school playing a wealthy white game had abused their privilege and raped a low-class black stripper, engaged in a no-respect profession if not from a lower class background, and that someone was going to have to pay for that. All based on the reportings of the prosecutor involved.
Now the conventional wisdom is that a no-class stripper accused a group of innocent college students of a horrific crime in a lie that necessitates a stiff public rebuke and exposure. All based on the reportings of the prosecutor involved.
Each time, members of the media and the chattering classes and the legal and political professionals and junkies who follow them are sure that they have finally gotten the story right, that goodness has been restored, and that the bad people will get their due.
Curiously, it sounds very much like how journalism, criminal justice, politics, and especially the democratic mob has operated for as long as democracy has been around, and worse when it has not been around.
Interesting how that works, isn't it? How often, frequently, and unabashedly we screw up, and yet how righteous we are all along the way, at each juncture. The war in Iraq was right up front. Now it is wrong, just as vociferously. Those boys were presumed guilty, up front, no matter what lip service everyone gives presumption of innoncence, and then, just as aggressively, innocent young men slandered by a low-life stripper, today.
This is an ugly, hypocritical, and foolish political period we are going through, right now. And here is exactly the consequence of all that ugliness that we should expect.
Conservatives are now talking about impeaching Nancy Pelosi.
Robert Turner writes in the Wall Street Journal about Nancy Pelosi's Illegal Diplomacy, accusing Pelosi of committing a felony with her trip to Syria and violating the Logan Act, which prohibits diplomacy by anyone other than those authorized by the White House. I was alerted to this development by a Newsmax email in my inbox about impeaching Nancy Pelosi.
The take down for liberals is coming. Revenge is the dish served most reliably in D.C. They will call it justice. Just as the TrueMajority email I received recently referenced the take down of Alberto Gonzalez as "Justice is a dish best served cold." But, just as that topic sentence implies, it will really be revenge. And it will come and come and come and keep coming until Americans decide that they have had enough of this nonsense.
And that is how America and the world will look, and on and on and on. Until we've had enough of this ugliness.
The absolute insanity of it all is that everyone is hypocrits to high heaven about this one. They relish the take down of those they disagree with. They defend their friends and those they agree with from similar take-downs. And when they consistently advocate for self-righteous efforts to take everyone down, friends and foes - efforts that, remeber, they are perpetually right about no matter how many times they are wrong about them - they seem all the creepier as far as I am concerned.
And all of this is responsible for the deep and dysfunctional cynicism that characterizes Washington and the adult world, once young people discover that adulthood means everyone always living in fear and suspicion of one another all the time and noone talking honestly about themselves or their weaknesses and mistakes in public, largely out of fear of what they think might happen to them. Meaning, all of this cynicism creates a world that so many people don't trust, and then the cynical reality that this cynicism creates is used to rationalize why that cynicism is right and why people really do just need the shit kicked out of them to get the world right.
You know what drives me craziest about this long line of rationalization? It is the rationalization that is the basis for all of the worst abuses committed in the world. All of the terrorism, the repression, the despotism, the genocide, the political violence of all sorts, all of the worst human rights abuses and crimes against humanity follow from this much more fundamentally cynical view of humanity and human affairs and the need to war, metaphorically or literally, on those about whom we harbor suspicions.
Until we've had enough, that is. I've had enough. I had enough 6 years ago when this ugly political period - where all parties rationalized it more fully - began.
Cynicism is not truth. It's not reality. It's the perpetual disappointment with a reality that fails to live up to our expectations. And it is self-fulfilling. It will continue to fail to live up to our expectations the more we act cynically and are perpetually beating the shit out of one another. That is why more liberalized worldviews lifted the world out of that darkness. And it is only more liberalized worldviews that will lift us out of that darkness still. There are many signs of hope. But none of them come from the more cyncical and brutish behavior that is dominating during this period. Hope comes from every indication that some people are looking to let go of this legacy and leave it behind.
Bill Clinton's impeachment trial was most assuredly revenge for Richard Nixon. Talk about impeaching George Bush was most assuredly revenge for Bill Clinton. Talk about Nancy Pelosi's impeachment are most assuredly revenge for talk about George Bush's impeachment. And on and on and on.
And what drives me craziest about all of this is not only how many people are hurt and killed in the name of these self-righteous crusades.
It is that none of these partisans are right. They are not right about the righteousness of taking down those they disagree with. And, more importantly, they are not right, with any final rendering, about even the more substantive disagreements that are really at the heart of so many of these efforts at political and professional take down. Liberals are not right about everything or even all of the most important things in public or social life. Conservatives are just as wrong about many, many important policy issues and often the most important ones. There is no person or group who is right about all of their positions - especially the propensity of their favored policy positions to accomplish the results they desire - which is exactly why we should presume more liberal values that respect peoples' freedom, self-governance, and self-determination and that humble themselves in the face of that fact.
And the thing that we are all most wrong about is both our ability to tell the difference unerringly, that others will not err and make mistakes if we just apply enough pressure, that our propensity to err is a sign of our need to be taken to task rather than a sign of our need to freely and openly explore our options for thinking and speaking and acting in the world and learn from our mistakes as much as we learn from our successes, and that beating up on one another contributes anything at all to our ability to avoid mistakes in the future. It doesn't. It never has. If it did, we would not be making mistakes at all, at this point in humanity's history, because we have used far more force and pressure in our more illiberal past than we have in today's more liberal present.
We do all of this out of stubborn habit. And our most stubborn habit is to believe that being tough with problems is more important or somehow a real solution to so many problems that needs us to be smarter and more deeply thoughtful, more open-minded and open-hearted, to communicate more openly without fear of reprisal, to be ourselves in the open and not have to hide our true selves for fear of punishment, and that tough actually solves more problems than it actually does, even though the evidence is fairly incontrovertable to me, at least, that tough solutions often make our problems worse, not better, no matter how much we try to pretend otherwise.
The Soviets would always take responsibility for any progress in Russia or its satellite countries, as will the controlling parties in China, Cuba, and North Korea. Saddam Hussein would always take credit for any positive developments in Iraq, as would Hitler in Nazi Germany and Mussolini in Fascist Italy. Every repressive leadership claims that it causes progress in any country. And sadly, no matter how self-righteously their cause was engaged, it takes engaged debate and discussion and historical perspective for people to more honestly evaluate their legacies. The French Revolution was not a righteous sacking of a despotic monarchy most reasonable historians would agree, today. But you couldn't have told that to the revolutionaries in France at the time. The Catholic Church's harrassment of Martin Luther was not the righteous disciplining of a heretic. But you literally could not have told the Church's leadership of this at the time since this capacity to speak honestly of the Church's mistakes was at the heart of Luther's Protestant Reformation.
That is the beauty of democracy, really. Even if it does not get us all of the right answers, it is the least worst government, as Winston Churchill said, because it provides us with more checks on the self-righteous power-mongering of all parties. That should not be confused with an affirmative stamp of approval for our final renderings. Because that stamp of approval could never exist.
That is why people fight so aggressively, today, to prove that they are right. Because they are afraid that such uncertainty means that no meaningful resolution of important matters can take place if a resolution is not imposed. The irony, of course, is that such final resolution cannot exist at all, except in the ever fallible minds of individuals in a free and democratic culture. That is a fact of life for us to accept, not to fight, futily hoping that our impositions will finally resolve such fears of uncertainty.
And sadly and paradoxically, our ability to more meaningfully resolve such issues and find more workable ideas and solutions is clearly and perpetually undermined by our more aggressive efforts which undermine the honesty and engagement and thought and respectful discussion and debate that is now and forever the only best way to find more meaningful resolution of our more serious questions and problems.
Our ability and propensity to solve our most difficult problems, to be better and more thoughtful people facing and wrestling with those problems, and to more meaningfully and intelligently consider all of the factors involved with our common problems and the consequences from our available courses of action are made available only by our more liberal democratic commitments to free thought and expression and engagement and conscience. They are the foundation for our contemporary society and social mores that we so perpetually take for granted. This is why intellect makes the most important contributions to culture. Because it lays the foundation for all of our most successful adaptations, changes, habits, thoughts, values, ideas, worldviews, institutions, and other choices we make that sustain and strengthen the culture.
But we have a stubborn and wrong-headed commitment in an opposite direction that values tough and quick action over patient and thoughtful engagement and reflection. Sometimes tough action is inescapable. And sometimes quick action is necessary. But both need and must follow from more thoughtful engagment and an appreciation for why that thoughtfulness is the foundation for everything meaningful that we do.
The perpetual hypocrisy and inanity of this get-tough period is that everyone knows this, but only selectively enough to consider their own situations rather than with empathy and insight into the situations of others. And everyone pretends that their own mistakes are innocent and needing of forgiveness and an appreciation for their humanity while the mistakes that others make are in need of a serious ass-kicking.
They demean and disrespect the kind of empathy and insight into the situation of others that compassion affords because they refuse to take it seriously, despite its central place among virtues among civilized people. And they refuse to take it seriously because they are afraid that it makes them and and those who harbor it weak. "Faggy," as citizens of the future Idiocracy think of Mike Judge's protagonist, Joe Bowers.
As the young doctor in Idiocracy describes their resident smart guy, "You talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded." And that is about the essence of the mentality of that line of logic. Much like Joe, I get very tired of taking this line of logic more seriously than it deserves. No matter how smart its proponents purport to be.
Especially when it is so clearly not working to rid the world of all of the harms that they seek to rid the world of, by any objective standard. They will take credit otherwise. But the remarkable thing is that kicking ass and taking credit, much like Mike Judge's dystopia, doesn't actually make the problems go away.
Everyone wants to kick ass. Noone wants their ass kicked. Schools rightly teach thought and engagement to solve problems. And every dumbass in the world looks upon thought and engagement with suspicion thinking, "But how will I convince people that I am right if they don't agree with me or if they just don't see just how wrong they are if I can't force them to do otherwise." And that is the dumbass logic the fuels this foolish little period.
Clearly missing the point that the dumbass who might be wrong just might be us.
Love,
Ben
