It began with the first George Bush (Willie Horton) and has continued to this day. Each and every year it keeps getting ratcheted up higher and higher. The American public is being bombarded by it on a nightly basis through the 24 hour news cycle. What is it you ask?
It is the loss of civility in our political discourse. There was a time when we could disagree with someone’s ideas and not be disagreeable. We could debate the merits of ideas without debating the patriotism or the character of the person behind the idea. Why is there so much rancor and demagoguery in our governance? When did it become fashionable to discount ideas not based on their value, but based on what side of the political spectrum they came from? Our political dialog has been in a slow and steady decline for a number of years and no one but those who would seek to divide us gains from it. I wish I could say that it was just one side or the other, but that is not true. We can debate from now `til doomsday about who started it, but the fact remains we all are doing it. From the extremes of discussing the sexuality of a candidate to the President being the anti-Christ, it is all demagoguery. Do we have to demonize each other to prove who is right and who is wrong? Is it possible that because someone disagrees with my assessment of the situation it doesn’t mean that they are inherently evil and the devil’s spawn?
I read an editorial that said that we as a nation have become so competitive that this new political reality is merely the out-growth of that. It stated that we generally are as a nation fractured and splintered right down the middle and the red/blue state debates are fueling this animosity. That we are so divided on certain issues that any settlement is next to impossible. These issues are so personal and so basic that there can be no compromise. You are either with us and right or with them and wrong and going to hell! Is this really how the majority of Americans feel? There is also a book that argues this same point, “Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America” by James Davison Hunter. He argued that on an increasing number of “hot-button” defining issues–abortion, gun politics, separation of church and state, privacy, homosexuality, censorship issues– there had come to be two definable polarities. Furthermore, it was not just that there were a number of divisive issues, but that society had divided along essentially the same lines on each of these issues, so as to constitute two warring groups, defined primarily not by nominal religion, ethnicity, social class, or even political affiliation, but rather by ideological world views.
I for one disagree with this analysis. The problem as I see it is that we have become a society that feeds on entertainment and conflict. We want to be entertained and see a good fight; hence the obsession with reality shows. There is a time and place for that type of entertainment, but our political arena is not it. The issues we face as a nation are too important to settle with name calling and personal attacks. In order for us to overcome these obstacles we will need the cooperation of all Americans. There are extreme groups on both sides of these issues that would have us believe that the lines are drawn so sharply and run so deep that there is no room for compromise, but they are not right. They said the same thing about slavery, integration of our schools, and women voting. It is just that the extremist are always the loudest and the moderates are becoming complacent. We don’t have to completely agree with each other on everything, but we must respect one another in the process of discussion. We will never get anywhere with the politics of demonizing our opponents. Think about it, what can you say after you have identified your opponent as the anti-Christ? Any meaningful discussions are really limited at that point. It is time to end the politics of division and hate. It is time to stop this viscous cycle before it destroys any chance we have to heal this nation. Do I disagree with this administration? You bet I do, but there are some decent and honorable people in this administration and on the other side of the aisle that deserve my respect. Not because they are right and I agree with them but because they are Americans and have the same right of free speech that I do. The American people deserve better than what the political landscape is now providing. There are many able and qualified people who will not enter into the public arena because of this environment. When that happens we all lose.
Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence. – Henri Frederic Amiel
How do you silence your opposition? By making every woid they speak the word of a traitor, a disease ridden vermin, a person who’s sub-human, someone who deserves death for expressing dissent. It’s an old trick.
An old trick but useful when your ideas cannot withstand criticism coming from a level playing field.
Republicans can’t win on their policies alone, so they must tilt the playing field and focus the debate on emotional issues, playing on people’s insecurities — so their policies need not be discussed.
They want an electorate which feels threatened, and constantly on the defensive, so they will react (and vote) based on strong emotions, not careful consideration or reason. And negative emotions — fear, righteous anger, defensiveness — are stronger (and less likely to involve thinking).
When people are not feeling defensive or threatened, when they have time to think and exercise their sense of empathy, then Democrats tend to win.
There it is. In a very tiny nutshell.
It’s come down to Jerry Springer type politics…as stated people seem to want to see the ‘other’ getting beat up if not physically than verbally and truth doesn’t matter only winning.
I just finished Phil Zimbardo’s “The Lucifer Effect”. He examines human cruelty from a social psychology perspective which rejects the idea that individual characteristics of personality are the strongest determinant of behavior. It is not a few rotten apples in the barrel, but the barrel itself, the situation, that leads most people to act much more badly than any of us would predict.
Based on work that began with Milgram’s Obedience to Authority studies and his own Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbaro concludes that people react to certain systems and situations in ways that fall very short of their personal morality and self image. We can avoid these traps if we are taught to recognize them.
A good shorthand example is that of choosing to help a person in need, or to walk away. Studies have demonstrated that the larger the group of potential “helpers”, the less likely it is that the victim will be aided. If one or two people happen upon someone in need, nearly everyone will stop and help. However, if many people are gathered around or walking by, the sense of responsibility to step up and do something is diluted, and people wisely question why nobody else is doing anything: “Somebody probably already called an ambulence. Maybe he’s dangerous. What do they know that I don’t know?.” Diminished responsibility and natural wariness are a sufficiently potent combination to keep most people from aiding another. Once we are aware that these forces are at work in all people, we can decide that perhaps nobody’s helping because nobody’s helping, and take action more in keeping with our own humanitarian standards. The strength of the barrel is its invisibility.
I am hardly qualified to boil down the work of many fine social psychologists to a bumper sticker. If this sounds interesting, you may enjoy the book, but a quick take on staying human in rotten barrels encompasses two principles:
Everyone must take personal responsibility for all that we do or fail to do.
Whether you give the order or pull the trigger, you are completely responsible.
Everyone is fully, equally and uniquely human.
De-individuating people makes it too easy to hurt or abandon them.
It did NOT begin with the first Bush. It began with Jefferson. Politics has always been pretty rough-and-tumble.
However, I will grant you this: For about 20 years, the Repukeliscum were pretty quiet. The Repukeliscum minority, when they were Republicans, were pretty cooperative Eisenhower republicans, content to win their local races and without a clue as to how to achieve power. It took Gingrich and the Repukeliscum revolution to do that.
And how did he do it? By demonizing his opposition.
That’s what the Democrats need to do. We need to get rid of this namby-pamby instinct to refuse to go for the jugular. We should call this Bush’s war. We should call them stupid, corrupt and the enemies of America at every possible opportunity.
Yes, but in doing that and replicating their tactics, do you really win? I mean how do you when a nuclear or scorched earth war? And do you really want to win? At what cost victory and what will be left of the prize?