In Part One, (Health Care, Racism & The Authoritarian Divide-Part 1) I closed with this striking chart showing the correlation of support for corporal punishment of children and votes for Bush in the 2004 election:
I think its particularly striking, given that polarization in Congress-as measured on the DW-Nominate scale, is at an all-time high on dimension 1, which is basically a measure of economic attitudes, while dimension 2-which measures socio-culture attitudes, primarily race-has virtually disappeared . These two facts are strikingly at odds with one another, unless one takes the deeper perspective that the underlying reality is that of economic class dominance, a reflection of how hierarchical societies are organized according to social dominance theory. The language of political discourse-and indeed the more general language of political theatre--has become skillfully split off from this underlying reality, and now revolves the two worldviews discussed by the authors, but the "cash value" of that language, as William James would put, remains that of cash value.
This is nothing new. Conservatives have always claimed an interest in preserving tradition and social order, but the underlying interest has always turned out to be an interest in preserving traditional power relations, and the social order defined by them. Traditions that strengthen the lower orders, or support critical questioning of the existing order are not just ignored by conservatives-they are often openly attacked. And this is what is happening today.
But now we are seeing a rather complex struggle play out. The authoritarian worldview that has gained ground under the Republican banner since the time of Richard Nixon-throughout the entire Sixth Party System (1986-2008)-is strikingly ill-suited to run a modern economy, which needs a high degree of innovation and flexibility, even aside from the growing diversity of America's population. The multi-faceted policy failures of the Bush II years are not, therefore, merely accidental. They are reflective of deep-seated limitations of authoritarianism, which can only be masked by maintaining a state of war or else mass psychological state of near war that has the situational effect of moving the entire citizenry into a much more authoritarian state of mind, which makes them much more susceptible to authoritarian arguments, imagery and psychological appeals, and impairs their capacity for critical judgment and organizing opposition.
Since the election of Barack Obama, we have seen-exactly as some bloggers predicted-a resurgence of the sort of virulent opposition faced by Bill Clinton during the 1990s. Only now the policy veneer-never very strong or deep to begin with-has vanished almost entirely. When Jimmy Carter dared state the obvious-that race was playing a part in this-Obama quickly denied it, but evidence in support of Carter is overwhelming, particularly once we recognize that racism is but one aspect of social dominance, a key component of authoritarianism. (Racism is also amplified by other aspects of authoritarianism as well.) While Obama expresses the hope of putting the "culture wars" behind us, the GOP ascendancy since 1968 is founded on little else, and thus cannot be gotten rid of without being decisively defeated.
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The need for this has been played out in miniature recently, best captured by Digby in a recent post referencing her elevation of the term "hissy fit," the original of what I referred to in my earlier diary. In the recent post, Digby wrote:
The Politico has written a somewhat unenlightening article about Alan Grayson's floor speech, but I can't help but be a little bit tickled by a quote of his, which is also used in the headline of the piece. He said:"We cannot run this institution on the basis of Republican hissy fits.
The title is "The pros and cons of hissy fits."
In her original, Digby referenced an online article, "The Practice of Ritual Defamation", which gives a very good specific description of the process, which clearly delineates its anti-rational authoritarian character.
The author first describes the term generally, which is nice, but the real power comes from the elaboration that follows. Here is the general description first:
Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and "insensitivity" or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.
Ritual Defamation is not ritualistic because it follows any prescribed religious or mystical doctrine, nor is it embraced in any particular document or scripture. Rather, it is ritualistic because it follows a predictable, stereotyped pattern which embraces a number of elements, as in a ritual.
Next comes the description of the elements, which is where the article packs its real punch. While the author states after the list that:
An interesting aspect of ritual defamation as a practice is its universality. It is not specific to any value, opinion or belief or to any group or subculture. It may be used for or against any political, ethnic, national or religious group.
This is only technically true. Low status outgroups simply lack the social power to pull this off-though some might try, particularly as a means of mainstreaming themselves (White supremacists attacking civil rights leaders as "racists," for example. No, wait, bad example, that. Or maybe not. It shows what any powerless outgroup might aspire to.) I'll have more to say about this below. For now, just consider this version of the social dominance orientation (SDO) scale, and consider the fit between SDO and the likelihood of engaging in ritual defamation as detailed below (contra-trait items are 9-16):
1. Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.
2. In getting what you want, it is sometimes necessary to use force against other groups.
3. It's OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others.
4. To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups.
5. If certain groups stayed in their place, we would have fewer problems.
6. It's probably a good thing that certain groups are at the top and other groups are at the bottom.
7. Inferior groups should stay in their place.
8. Sometimes other groups must be kept in their place.
9. It would be good if groups could be equal.
10. Group equality should be our ideal.
11. All groups should be given an equal chance in life.
12. We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different groups.
13. Increased social equality.
14. We would have fewer problems if we treated people more equally.
15. We should strive to make incomes as equal as possible.
16. No group should dominate in society.
Who are the discriminated against groups in society? The evidence from around the world is overwhelming: women, minorities, GLBTs--the core Democratic constituencies. It's no accident.
And now, the elements. All but one of the eight are worth noting for our purposes:
1. In a ritual defamation the victim must have violated a particular taboo in some way, usually by expressing or identifying with a forbidden attitude, opinion or belief. It is not necessary that he "do" anything about it or undertake any particular course of action, only that he engage in some form of communication or expression.
In the GOP/conservative movement version, there's actually no such requirement. They can make up taboos on the spot, such as when John Edwards said something inconsequential about Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter during the 2004 VP debate.
2. The method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim, and never to offer more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool.
There's actually a bit of a false dichotomy here. Character assassination consists in part of damning the "particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied"-particularly by attributing implications that bear no relation to what the attacked individual said.
3. An important rule in ritual defamation is to avoid engaging in any kind of debate over the truthfulness or reasonableness of what has been expressed, only condemn it. To debate opens the issue up for examination and discussion of its merits, and to consider the evidence that may support it, which is just what the ritual defamer is trying to avoid. The primary goal of a ritual defamation is censorship and repression.
This is 100% spot on, and gets to the very heart of the matter. This is what rightwing "political discourse" is all about. Others may engage in it from time to time, but it constitutes the very core of rightwing discourse. How do they talk about climate change? By attacking climate scientists. How do they talk about evolution? By attacking "secular humanists" as a Satanic anti-Christian religion. Etc.
5. An attempt, often successful, is made to involve others in the defamation. In the case of a public official, other public officials will be urged to denounce the offender. In the case of a student, other students will be called upon, and so on.
Thus the demands that blacks attack any black who steps out of line, that "all Jews" attack any "self-hating Jew" who steps out of line, that Democrats condemn any Democrat or Democratic ally who steps out of line, etc. How often does this work the other way? Crickets?
6. In order for a ritual defamation to be effective, the victim must be dehumanized to the extent that he becomes identical with the offending attitude, opinion or belief, and in a manner which distorts it to the point where it appears at its most extreme. For example, a victim who is defamed as a "subversive" will be identified with the worst images of subversion, such as espionage, terrorism or treason. A victim defamed as a "pervert" will be identified with the worst images of perversion, including child molestation and rape. A victim defamed as a "racist" or "anti-Semitic" will be identified with the worst images of racism or anti-Semitism, such as lynchings or gas chambers.
The second half of this is perhaps the weakest part of the article. In reality, charges of "racism" (more often) or "anti-semitism" (depending more on the context) are often dismissed precisely by denying the most extreme images. Given that most individual, attitudinal racism today is "colorblind racism" that looks nothing like the images of racism past, it's quite easy to counter-attack in this way, a fact that has the effect of inhibiting charges of racism.
7. Also to be successful, a ritual defamation must bring pressure and humiliation on the victim from every quarter, including family and friends. If the victim has school children, they may be taunted and ridiculed as a consequence of adverse publicity. If they are employed, they may be fired from their job. If the victim belongs to clubs or associations, other members may be urged to expel them.
Who can forget how the rightwing went after Chelsea Clinton? Who can doubt that Sasha and Malia will be in for the same in the near future, if business as usual is allowed to continue?
8. Any explanation the victim may offer, including the claim of being misunderstood, is considered irrelevant. To claim truth as a defense for a politically incorrect value, opinion or belief is interpreted as defiance and only compounds the problem. Ritual defamation is often not necessarily an issue of being wrong or incorrect but rather of "insensitivity" and failing to observe social taboos.
Again, it must be stressed that the social taboos can be defined on the sport, and dropped just as swiftly.
Let's return again to the author's claim of universality:
An interesting aspect of ritual defamation as a practice is its universality. It is not specific to any value, opinion or belief or to any group or subculture. It may be used for or against any political, ethnic, national or religious group. It may, for example, by anti-Semites against Jews, or by Jews against anti-Semites; by rightists against leftists or by leftists against rightists, and so on.
While this may be technically true, it seems highly misleading. In addition to the with obvious fit between SDO and ritual defamation, which should be obvious from the above, there is also an obvious natural fit between relatively high-status groups (who have been shown to have higher levels of SDO) and the practice of ritual defamation. Put simply, stigmatized outgroups in any society might very well want to practice ritual defamation, but clearly would lack the capacity to pull it off. On the other hand, high-status groups can pull it off quite easily. A mere snap of the fingers might be all it would take in some situations. Moreover, given that social dominance orientation (SDO) is generally correlated with social status, members of high-status groups are generally more likely to want to engage in ritual defamation, and more inclined to feel right in doing so. In addition, once the process is initiated, high RWAs (rigthtwing authoritarians) are the most obvious recruiting pool for supporters to join in the process. Again, this would tend to favor high-status groups over low-status ones, since high-RWAs tend to follow the lead of perceived established authorities.
In short, while it may well be true that ritual defamation is a universal practice, it is far from being equally commonplace among all groups. Indeed, it is profoundly congruent with the basic political orientation of cultural resentment on which the Republican ascendancy of the Sixth Party System was built. This is also, of course, the source of the culture wars. They won't go away just by wishing, any more than racism will. Even if the one who's wishing is President Obama.
Authoritarianism has to be confronted. No ifs ands or butts. Equivocation is surrender in their eyes. They need to be soundly beaten before there is any hope of creating the preconditions for civil civic discourse. |
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