Self congratulation -- and other deprecation -- in political discourse

Self congratulation -- and other deprecation -- in political discourse

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been shot. Fortunately, it looks like she's going to recover.


Among the initial reactions has been a rush to blame. Unfortunately, it's a rush to blame, it seems, everyone except the shooter. He was incited by Fox News, or by a graphic used in Sarah Palin's election campaign. To be sure, there's no evidence the shooter even knew how to spell Fox News, or saw the Palin graphic. Nevertheless, one or both of these might just possibly have incited someone to shoot someone else, and so therefore they can be blamed for the fact that a nutcase shot Congresswoman Giffords.


Makes perfect sense to me. (Not!)


Nevertheless, it fits a political theory I find pervasive and extremely annoying. This is the theory that conservatives are too stupid to tell the difference between figures of speech and instructions to commit violent acts. If you put a target on a map, conservatives (who are so stupid they're actually conservative) interpret this as a command to shoot someone, blow up a building, or nuke a city. They are too stupid to see this as in any way metaphorical. (After all, conservatives all think allegory was Bill Clinton's vice president.)


This kind of thinking shows up in other places, too. Conservatives like to think they're the ones smart enough to recognize that Darwin got it wrong, and that only those who are stupid or have base motives can possibly believe in evolution. The same crowd attacks any Harry Potter books or films as soon as they're published, because they lead children into witchcraft. Dungeons and Dragons not only led people into magic and sorcery, it prompted kids to commit suicide and/or murder. And while we're at it, the game of Monopoly incites the likes of Bernie Madoff, and games of Cops and Robbers are why we have the gang problems we do today.


Well, no. Most people have played Monopoly, and realize it doesn't create Bernie Madoffs. (Alas, it doesn't even create millionaires that often.) Most people have played Cops and Robbers, and the people who played robbers didn't go on to commit real robberies. People have experience with these activities, so the fact that they don't know how to critically evaluate statements about them doesn't matter. They compare any claims about Monopoly and Cops and Robbers against their own experience, and arrive at a sound judgment.


But the habit of not thinking critically persists, and has effects in areas where people don't have experience -- where critical thinking is most needed. At the time, most people had no idea what happened in a Dungeons and Dragons game, so a few cherry picked tidbits were enough to raise alarms. Harry Potter's School of Witchcraft has failed, except among a small crowd of True Believers, because so many people have read the books and/or seen the movies.

Politics, including the flurry of charges and counter charges, is a little different. Among the politically active, there is enough polarization that people in one camp tend not to mingle with those in the other. The people most abjectly terrified of Tea Partiers have never attended a Tea Party event, and wouldn't go to one on a bet. The people who deprecate Fox News never watch it and have no idea what fraction of its news stories are true or not. All they know is, someone told them Fox News is garbage, and this assessment is taken as Gospel. Conservative politicians operate from evil motives, and so there's no reason to understand why they propose what they do. All that's needed is to find the right label to apply (SIXHIRB -- Sexist - Intolerant - Xenophobic - Homophobic - Islamophobic - Racist - Bigoted) and be on about one's day. Once you affirm that Conservatives Are Evil, there's no need to evaluate any of their proposals. They must be evil too. End of story.


This deprecation -- indeed, denigration -- of others would normally be abhorrent to any American, raised to believe that rank prejudice of this sort is itself evil. However, this is where self-congratulation comes in. People like to believe the best of themselves. They like to believe they're good, intelligent, kind, wise, and decent (GIKWD). And they like to believe whatever beliefs they hold, and whatever policies they advocate, are grounded in this goodness, intelligence, kindness, wisdom, and decency. And in a sufficiently closed community ("a bubble"), it's easy to go through a day, week, month, or year never encountering anyone who will disabuse them of these notions. We're all GIKWD, and we all agree on the big issues.


From this it's a small step to believing anyone who doesn't agree on some big issue must be wrong. Since everyone in the good, wise, intelligent group all believes one way, the disagreeing party can't be right. He can't even be having an honest difference of opinion. His failure to agree must be due to a lack of GIKWD. Because we have those traits, and he disagrees with us. We congratulate ourselves and attribute to ourselves good traits and motives, at the expense of attributing the opposite to any who differ.


Once you start down that path, it's very easy to reduce opponents to labels (SIXHIRB). Add labels like "stupid" and "mind-numbed robots". Conservatives are stupid, otherwise they'd see the wisdom in every liberal proposal and they wouldn't be conservatives any more. Because they're stupid, when you show them a target on a map, they can't tell the difference between targeting someone for defeat in an election and targeting someone with a rifle. And since they're all mind-numbed robots (otherwise they'd turn off Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and think for themselves), they will interpret a target on a map as instructions from The Party and execute them. (Though I have to wonder -- given the number of people who supported Palin, saw that map, and listen to Fox News, why did this evil and cunning plan only recruit one individual? There should have been a crowd of people with guns, ready to do the Party's dirty work. Someone's definitely screwed up at Illuminati Headquarters.) But let's not let facts or logic get in the way. Conservatives are stupid and easily led. That's why we have to worry about them being set off by anything that might imply, even in the slightest degree, a call to violence.

Liberals, on the other hand, are GIKWD. Because they're wise and intelligent, Senator Obama can quote from The Untouchables ("They bring a knife, we bring a gun. They send one of ours to the hospital, we send one of theirs to the morgue") without thinking they're being told to kill the opposition. And because they're Good and Kind, they wouldn't do that anyway. Their thinking goes, we're GIKWD and we can be trusted with similes, metaphors, and figures of speech. They're SIXHIRB, and anything that looks the least bit provocative, even if you have to translate it through seven languages to find the provocation, will send hordes of conservatives shambling off to wreak havoc.


Well, with all due respect -- and to some, that's not a whole lot -- I reject that.

I understand the impulse to find someone to blame for the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. May I offer this suggestion?

Blame the asshole who pulled the trigger and punish him. Don't draw tenuous chains of cause and effect that you'd never accept in any other circumstance.


And above all, don't use this as an excuse to call for violence against conservatives, however noble and flowery the words in which you dress up that call.