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Saturday, 26 September 2009
quote [ "The 5,000 Year Leap," first published in 1981, is a heavily illustrated and factually challenged attempt to explain American history through an unspoken lens of Mormon theology. As such, it is an early entry in the ongoing attempt by the religious right to rewrite history. ]
I heard about this in an interview with David Weigel on NPR.
[politics] [by Krutz@6:45pmGMT] [+10 WTF] |
Comment
cb361 said @ 10:58pm GMT on 26th September [Score:5 Insightful]
The joke is quite telling, though not just about Glenn Beck. It reveals a lot about the differences in mentality between liberals and conservatives. In general, the liberal point of view gives and expects fair play. That you ought to concede an argument if the evidence is against you, and you shouldn't use methods unless you're willing to accept the same methods used against you.
This is my view of the world, and I've seen a lot of evidence for it on SE and elsewhere. I think that it's just the way that our brains work for most of us here, and like all pre-conceived notions you're not really aware of having it until you meet someone with opposing pre-conceived notions. And then there are going to be fireworks.
From what I can see, conservatives (or at least the conspicuous ones) have a different set of pre-conceived notions. A much more visceral, absolutist view of the world, emotional not intellectual. A belief that you don't have to extend people with opposing views the same respect that you would expect yourself because you are right and they are wrong.
That's the nub, I think. Liberals are deeply confused about the behaviour of the right. Teabagging and birthing and all the rest of it seem utterly utterly illogical, and deeply unfair after the relative respect afforded to the Right for the past eight years. But the conservatives are playing a different game, based on the fact that there is no need for debate or reasonableness when you are in the right.
Coming back to Beck in 1990. The point of the joke is an intellectual one. To intellectually box Beck's supporters in, and force them to acknowledge the vileness of his arguments, by using one of his own methods against him. I love it, but it won't work because there's an implicit assumption that the person hearing it is open to debate. But to Beck's supporters, he's right, and that's all there is to it.
I read the thread on freep, and not a single poster acknowledged the purpose of the joke. It was all "...and now those damned libs are so scared of Glenn because he's telling the truth that they're accusing Glenn of rape. If those bastards want a fight, we'll give them one. No more Queensbury rules."
It went over their heads, of couse. I can't imagine what internal version of the Queensbury rules that freeper had been playing, but as I've said, they're playing a completely different game. I think that liberals argue and keep on arguing because the argument isn't won until you've forced your opponent to concede through the power of your argument. You would never shout down your opponent, but the objectionable part of the conservative movement is happy to bring people in to shout down a town hall meeting because when you're in the right there's no requirement for meaningful debate. When you're right and you know you're right, you've already moved beyond that stage and it's all about defeating your enemy in any way possible.
I don't think that's sunk in for liberals. After the recent landslide Obama victory, I just assumed that the Christian Right in America would sheepishly concede the argument. That was what ought to happen in my liberal world-view, but of course they just became a lot more extreme and amenable to reason. And we still have very long replies written to trolls on SE, as though citing your sources and evidence has ever changed manoreason or vtsol's opinion.
I've been using the phrases liberal and conservative loosely, and of course we all have all good and bad aspects of this inside us. I'm sometimes inclined to think that I shouldn't have to engage with people because I'm right and they're wrong. Unfortunately I think that American SEers are going to need to abandon some of their intellectual ideals, because unless liberals adopt their own 'I'm right and fuck everybody else' attitude, they're going to be crushed in four or eight years time by the conservatives who already believe in that.
Trying to see things from the other guy's point of view is a vitally important ideal, but quite you're in a war right now, and it's getting dirtier. They say that the UK is usually about ten years behind the US, and I think things are already getting bumpier over here as well.
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