dagblog - Comments for "The Kochs: paying to keep America dumb "

People are moved by emotion,

David Seaton — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:40:00 +0000

In reply to I've come to think that what

People are moved by emotion, no doubt about it... That is the secret of Holywood.

I've come to think that what

DF — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:05:38 +0000

In reply to You are right, of course, but

I've come to think that what George Lakoff has to say about contemporary American politics should be paid more heed. Essentially, he argues that the right often wins public debates because they recognized earlier and better that people don't make decisions strictly on the basis of rational argument (this was also the central idea in legendary PR man Ed Bernays' Propaganda). Rational arguments are fine and good, but they need to be couched in a moral framework in order to appeal.

In this light, the contrast between debates about, say, gay rights and debates about healthcare take a different shape. Achieving equal rights for all citizens might seem less important than making sure everyone has universal access to healthcare, but the left appears to actually be winning this argument. This would seem to vindicate Lakoff's thesis.

The Democratic arguments for healthcare, however, were primarily wonky. Many people, myself included, wanted to see Obama lead the charge making the argument that the provision of healthcare is a moral imperative. There were people on the left making that argument, but the trouble is that once you argue that universal access to healthcare is a moral imperative it becomes hard to persuade people to compromise on something less. Ultimately, those who argued it was a moral imperative were marginalized as being "unrealistic" in favor of making those who argued that incremental reform would still be better than what we had before.

The fact that some reform is better is true does apparently little to compensate for the relatively diminished emotional appeal. Again, this would seem to agree with Lakoff's thesis.

You are right, of course, but

David Seaton — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:49:35 +0000

In reply to It would one thing for the

You are right, of course, but if we are supposed to be smarter than they are we should manifest this is some practical way.

It would one thing for the

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:44:48 +0000

In reply to I'm wondering if the left has

It would one thing for the Democrats to tolerate a diversity of views. To an extent they already do. For instance, the pro-gun, pro-life Harry Reid is Senate Majority Leader. But tolerance is not the same as advocacy, and the Democratic party will never become the pro-gun, pro-life party in the foreseeable future--nor should it.

So for politicized evangelicals to go liberal, they would need to be weaned from their regular diet of anti-abortion crusades and gay-bashing. They would need to conclude that their "primary contradiction" is not liberal secularism but corporate capitalism.

I'm wondering if the left has

David Seaton — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:51:12 +0000

In reply to To the point of the article,

I'm wondering if the left has been putting too much emphasis on identity and other questions and neglecting the meat and potatoes stuff, where there would be some common ground. Personally I think gay rights and abortion are very important, but they are not nearly as important as free, universal, medicine and protecting the pensions and peace etc. I'm talking about what Mao Zedong called the "primary contradiction".

One of the best summings up of how this works that I have run across is by Kishore Mahbubani, the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (National University of Singapore), writing about the errors of American foreign policy in the Financial Times:

Mao Zedong, for all his flaws, was a great strategic thinker. He said China always had to deal with its primary contradiction and compromise with its secondary contradiction. When the Soviet Union became the primary contradiction, Mao settled with the US, even though it involved the humiliation of dealing with a power that then recognised Chiang Kai-shek as the legitimate ruler. The west must emulate Mao’s pragmatism and focus on its primary contradiction.

I think the is doubly true concerning America's domestic politics. When trying to build a wide consensus on a truly public health system it is absurd at the same time to make an issue of evolution of all things. This is classic example of what Mao would have called left wing dogmatism and Lenin would have called left wing infantalism.

My feeling is that if the progressives in America have to froth at the mouth, speak in tongues and handle rattlesnakes in order to get a single payer health system, we should do that.

Sorry about that. FYI, our

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:30:24 +0000

In reply to Thanks for the reply. I was

Sorry about that. FYI, our text editor has a spellchecker too. Right click in the box, and select "Check spelling." I'm going to upgrade the site next week. There is a new version of the text editor which will probably work a little better.

To the point of the article,

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:27:43 +0000

In reply to The Kochs: paying to keep America dumb

To the point of the article, the tight bond between evangelicals and Republicans is a relatively new phenomenon. Jimmy Carter was America's first evangelical president and broadly supported by evangelical Christians. The creation of the religious right was a deliberate political strategy devised by Paul Weyrich, a Catholic-turned-Christian-Orthodox. He recruited Jerry Falwell to run the Moral Majority, which presented Carter as a tool of the "secular humanist" conspiracy in the government.

The trouble is that modern evangelicalism in America is so focused on threats from "secularists," homosexuals, evolution, and abortion, that I think that it will be difficult to change the focus to other issues in which they would have more common ground with Democrats. Even attempts by some evangelical leaders to raise concern about the environment have fallen flat. In other words, evangelicals have been thoroughly coopted.

I think she was against the

David Seaton — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:22:27 +0000

In reply to You probably know this, but

I think she was against the entire Christian idea of brotherhood and the whole idea of being ones brother's keeper, as inspiring Socialism among other things. This whole strain of western civilization offended her, "bugger you Jack, I'm alright", ethos.

Thanks for the reply. I was

David Seaton — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:18:18 +0000

In reply to I can't speak to your home

Thanks for the reply. I was just curious. The Google News thing is a very interesting wrinkle. I agree that there seems a better ratio of wheat to chaff here than in TPM and not so incestious either. I do miss that your composing box seems to neutralize my browser's (SeaMonkey) spelchecker, as having had a progressive American education, I can't spel so gud.

I can't speak to your home

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:58:16 +0000

In reply to Interesting. In my home blog

I can't speak to your home blog audience, but the difference between TPM and dag is a matter of size. TPM cafe is like a big convention. The audience flocks to the most popular seminars--which are highlighted in the rec list. Those seminars get many comments. The rest get none.

Dag only has a handful of regular commenters. It's more like a cocktail party here. People watch the "Recent comments" column and go wherever the conversation seems the most interesting. As a result, the number of comments that a post gets can be somewhat random.

The one wildcard is that unlike TPM cafe, dag is indexed by google news. That means, if you blog about a timely or popular topic, you will get random readers coming in. Your other post attracted a bunch of objectivists who probably had their news filters set to "Ayn Rand." Their comments in turn attracted the dag regulars, and a debate ensued.

If the number of comments is your goal, we can't compete with TPM Cafe, which has a lot more regular commenters. On the other hand, I find that the comments here tend to be smarter than the average TPM comment--not because there aren't plenty of smarties at the cafe, but there are also plenty of not-so-smarties, as well as a bit too much personal politics for my taste. The conversations here also tend to run a lot longer because there is no 24-hour limit, something that always bugged me at TPM.

You should know that the number of comments does not necessarily reflect the number of reads. This post has received 125 clicks as of right now. Your other post received 616. Postd which attract a lot of attention from google news or get picked up by other blogs and aggregation services can get thousands of clicks. I'll try to set it up so that reader-bloggers can see the number of clicks, as well as where the clicks come from, later today.