| After a few fruitless go-rounds of arguing at cross-purposes, I reached the conclusion that rational argument was going nowhere. Whenever this happens, one thing I consider is shifting focus from the reasons given to the motives. Given the ludicrous contradiction Mark pointed out, why are they doing this?
Of course it's unfair to simply ignore people's arguments and skip directly to questioning motives. In fact, doing so invariably constitutes some form of fallacious reasoning, and I was immediately accused of this. It's called "ad hominem"--against the man. But like virtually all the fallacies, this one derives its power from the fact that it's based on a valid principle that's misapplied.
All other things being equal, the source of arguments is a good heuristic indicator of how seriously they should be taken, and people do have a strong tendency to consistent fall into patterns of making certain kinds of arguments, with characteristic strengths and/or weaknesses. People who persistent argue in bad faith are an extreme example, and we are well justified in distrusting or even disregarding everything they say as simply a waste of our time and energy.
We err, however, when we turn this valid heuristic principle into an assumed fact with which to dismiss an argument as false without even looking at it. This is how a valid heuristic principle becomes a fallacious form of argument. (Note: it is still valid to dismiss an argument as not worth our time, for example. We don't have to refute every false claim in Corsi's book, or even read someone else's refutation. This is a valid heuristic for determining what's worth our time and serious attention and what is not.)
There are a number of related fallacies here. The genetic fallacy simply rejects an argument because of where it comes from, the appeal to authority and appeal to tradition accept it for the same reason, the ad hominem rejects an argument and attacks or criticized the one making it, etc.
I go into this background detail as a way of indicating that I don't take it lightly when I set aside the arguments people are making to shift attention to motive. Even the worst of motives can still lead to valid arguments, so caution is always called for.
But here we had a case of sustained ridicule out of all proportion for what was being proposed. No one was arguing that this was the most effective form of activism ever invented. It was simply, as Mark pointed out, something that need take no more than thirty seconds, and more worth doing something than nothing. That was all we were arguing. The venom we encountered--though mild by internet standards--was simply out of all proportion to the proposed action.
Some of it, of course, derived from reflexive defense of Obama whatever he chose to do--a form of authoritarian submission that's no doubt depressing to see, particularly on the left, but hardly new or surprising. And some, slightly different, derived from a form of authoritarian aggression--attacking those who dare question anything Obama might do.
While both these motives are disturbing, to say the least, I view them primarily as correlates of rightwing authoritarianism (RWA), which is well-documented to exist across the political spectrum, even though it tends to be more common on the right, a tendency that grows increasingly stronger as people beceom more political involved. There is relatively little one can do about such attitudes in the short run, aside from not giving much power or authority to those who have them.
However, there are two alternative forms of explanation that deserve our attention. First is the fact that environmental factors can readily overpower individual attitudinal ones. Put simply, in a threatening environment, even those who are not particularly authoritarian in their basic attitudes may adopt authoritarian positions for a time. Thus, some of the authoritarian submission we see may well not derive from a basic authoritarian orientation. It may simply reflect an understandable fear that we could be facing another 4 years of wildly reckless Republican governance.
The second explanation is more a more complicated one, not necessarily wholly separate. This one focuses on more narrowly on the form of action itself, and the vehement accusations of futility. It is not so much--or even at all--about the content of the activism, and can be expressed by someone who despises Evan Bayh. This is what I honed in one myself, when I wrote:
As Someone Who's Walked Precincts, Done GOTV and Gone To Jail
among other forms of activism over the past 40+ years, I'm well aware that this is not a big deal.
But neither is picking up the phone and calling your congressmember. That doesn't mean it has no effect, muich less that it's worthy of mockery. Especially when done by thousands and thousands of people.
It sounds to me like you have serious self-esteem issues. If you really knew how important what you're doing is, and you felt secure in it, you wouldn't feel any need to denigrate others you don't even know.
Or, maybe you just had a bad day.
Hopefully the latter.
Self-esteem was foremost in my mind at the time, given the intensity of the put-downs being voiced. Such contempt for others one does not even know--others like Vincent Bugliosi, George Lakoff, Mike Lux and Dunacn Black, whose long-term seriousness of purpose ought to be recognized by all--drew my attention to issues of self-esteem.
But there was something else, broader going on as well, as I pointed out in a later comment:
I think that a lot of people are feeling ineffectual, because, in fact, it's objectively true that individuals are less effectual than they were earlier on. There are less people out there who are persuadable, it's harder to reach them, and at the same time, the campaign is perceptibly responding more to people that don't support it than it is to its base. This has to take a psychological toll, particularly if one denies what is going on. Being conscious is invariably better, as it allows for coping mechanisms. Lashing out at others as "ineffectual" is clearly indicative of projection, and not being on top of the toll it is taking.
I think this is a very real, very deep problem that tens upon thousands of activists are facing. And the two-fold root of this problem is quite simple. One is structural and unavoidable: in any election cycle, early persuasion is always easier, and early activism is always more visibly rewarded for the same sorts of mundane activities that the vast majority of us are engaged in.
But the second factor is particular to this campaign. Put simply, Obama's great appeal, the reason he is the nominee, is because he is different, because he represents change, because he promises to break the mold and offer new possibilities. However, ever since he clinched the nomination, his campaign has increasingly been about the exact opposite of all this. It's not just about "moving to the center," but about moving toward "tried and true" conventional positions.
As Matt noted in his diary, "Democratic National Security is For the Boys",
Here's who is representing the face of the party on national security.
- Former President Clinton
- Gov. Bill Richardson, New Mexico
- Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana
- Sen. Joe Biden, Delaware
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada
- Sen. Ken Salazar, Colorado
- House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, South Carolina
- Rep. Patrick Murphy, Pennsylvania
- Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth
- VP Pick
So unless the VP is a woman, the 'Security America's Future' evening features four Senators who voted for the war in Iraq, one ex-President who supported the war in Iraq, one Congressman who voted against the war in Iraq, one Governor who opposed the war in Iraq, one Congressman who served in Iraq and voted for war funding, and one veteran who served in Iraq, ran a divisive primary and got crushed in a general election. There are no grassroots antiwar progressives on there and there is ONLY one woman.
What exactly did Evan Bayh do to deserve to represent himself as a leader on national security? And Joe Biden? And Ken Salazar? And Rockefeller? Really? All of these people got the big decision wrong, but they are tied together by a willingness to preen around as serious boys who like guns.
Moreoever, the one woman on stage that night, Tammy Duckworth, though she represents a laudable and important commitment to veterans, also represents an explicit repudiation of grassroots antiwar progressives.
This lineup--indeed, the very fact that we even have a whole night devoted to "national security" rather then "restoring America's economy" or "clean energy for our children's future" or (God forbid!) "restoring the Constitution"--is an almost total repudiation of the very foundation of Obama's career on the national stage, and all those ordinary American citizen-activists who enabled his rise. Yes, he had consultants, and fundraisers and all the rest, too, but what set him apart was that vast sea of citizen-activists whose hopes are being directly contradicted by the campaign Obama is now running.
What am I suggesting in place of the above line-up, you might ask? Well, aside from a totally different focus, as noted above (Or how about a night of "Republicans for Obama", if one must "show strength"? They could easily be much more progressive than the lineup presented above), why not feature someone like Andrew Bacevich, the conservative veteran who held forth so powerfully for the entire program on Bill Moyers Journal last night?
I'm not asking for Ron Kovic, because Bacevich looks the part and has the background of a Republican elder, and would say almost the exactly same thing, at bottom, as Kovic would say.
Heck, at this point, Sun Tzu would say the same thing as Kovic would say.
There is simply no denying that the Obama campaign has fundamentally abandoned the basic premise of its original rationale for being. Whether the governance that follows will continue this trajectory, or turn back towards its origins, we cannot say. But the sense of individual impotence in the face of such a turnabout is something that simply cannot be denied. Denying it simply means that you will lash out at others, projecting your own sense of powerless onto them.
The way forward can only lie with acknowledging that sense of impotence, and then resolving to do something about it. There should be no doubt that however compromised the Obama campaign is, the alternative is infinitely worse. So the question is not about whether one should continue to support the campaign. Rather, it is about how to organize against the tendencies that have to dominate it of late. And this is a question that will be with us for the duration of an Obama presidency--and even afterwards.
It's best to start owning our own sense of powerlessness. That is the only path that leads, eventually, back to our own true power. |
