dagblog - Comments for "Persecution Politics: Paranoia Rules the Right"

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Michael Wolraich — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:55:59 +0000

In reply to Hey - took me a while to get

Sorry, no notifications, although you can subscribe to comments by RSS. I can't access the paper, but I watched the talk, which was excellent. The concern main that I have with the concept is overgeneralization, particularly with respect to politcal categories as opposed to personality types. Right-wingers can be revolutionaries too.

I think that Beck's greatest strength is storytelling. He presents an epic drama to his audience--good vs. evil, the strong vs. the weak, an ordinary man called to duty to save the world. He very deliberately fold every piece of news into this powerful story.

FYI, interesting piece about Beck and Mormon history: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/jason_echols/2009/10/mor...

Hey - took me a while to get

An old friend — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:28:30 +0000

In reply to Thanks, Adi. Great points.

Hey - took me a while to get this, for some reason, I thought it would let me know if you had responded.

I am sure I did recommend Under the Banner of Heaven. It's one of my favorite reads!

Regarding the religious element that is an interesting question. On the one hand, there is a strong religious role in the right's sense of persecution. On the other hand it seems to be galvanizing around a much broader divide than in the past.

Protestants and Catholics and Christians of all stripes have laid aside their differences to fight secularists. I think there are limits to how far this will go. For example the Christian right was not ready for Mitt Romney as president, but I think that may is due more to his utter lack of populist chops, his having spent too much time hanging out with liberals in Boston and the fact that in the words of Mike Huckabee "you don't want to vote for the guy who looks like the guy who fired you." But I also don't think they loved the fact that he was a Mormon.

Regrading the Haidt stuff, read it (or watch it) and let me know what you think. I think his take on Moral Dumbfounding is very interesting and that he gives a much better description of moral reasoning than Kohlberg and that crowd do.

As for it's applications in understanding politics, I think the main insight is that people have moral reasoning but they also have moral intuition - that's much cruder and faster and generally wins out. The classic illustration of this given by Haidt and his collaborator Josh Greene is the trolley dilemma.

We know that people are generally utilatarian in their moral reasoning but when push comes to shove (if you'll pardon the pun) they act and feel quite differently.

In other words we may all care about starving kids in Africa or failing shcools. We may see these problems as being of profound moral consequence, but they generally don't elicit the same type of visceral and powerful emotional and moral reaction we have if we see someone kick a kitten.

In terms of Beck, I think he is an absolutely brilliant populist. He knows how to evoke strong feelings in his audience. Unlike Limbaugh, he almost never bothers with the logic, or even the pseudo logic. Beck goes for the gut. If it feels right it must be true! What I think we know from history and psychology and are getting affirmation from in neuroscience is that these types of powerful emotional arguments can be incredibly effective.

My sense is that Beck's popularity will continue to grow, at least for a while- until or unless something simple and shocking (an affair? a picture of him kicking kittens?) happens to deflate it

Thanks, Adi. Great points.

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:29:22 +0000

In reply to Hi Mike, Adi here, glad to

Thanks, Adi. Great points. I've been thinking more and more about the role of persecution in creating a shared sense of identity, and the Mormon example is a great one with an interesting tie in to Beck's Mormonism. I think that you've recommended Krakauer's book to me before, or at least someone did, so I'll be sure to read it.

Excellent point also about the evangelicals following Beck, though it somewhat detracts from the religious element that you emphasized. In building a shared identity based on persecution, conservatives have effectively minimized doctrinal differences between Christians and have even brought some Jews into the fold.

As to the moral differences between liberals and conservatives, I'll check out the talk, but I've read about the theory before, and it rings of hokey pop-psychology to me. Moreover, a lot of the conservative paranoia rhetoric has been lifted from left-wing populist ideas from the early 20th century, which suggests that when it comes to the appeal of persecution narratives, conservatives and liberals are not inherently different, even though the hysteria is running high on the right these days.

Hi Mike, Adi here, glad to

An old friend — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:50:32 +0000

In reply to Thanks, quinn. Well put, and

Hi Mike, Adi here, glad to see that you are working on this stuff and keeping the book project moving along. I think that you are definitely on to a bunch of big and interesting themes.

A couple of quick thoughts.

First I agree with those who urge you to focus on the link between persecution and religion. Many new religious movements have persecution at their very core. The most interesting example of this in recent times is the LDS. The LDS was born and became wildly popular in spite of and in large part due to both real and perceived persecution.

Jon Krakuer's Under the Banner of Heaven does an amazing job of telling this story. It also shows in intimate detail the paranoid style of some current crazy modern day FLDS leaders. You can see how a healthy dose of paranoia is great for creating in-group status among a sect. My guess is that you will find good stuff written on this in the context of cults.

On a side note, it is interesting that Beck converted to Mormonism. It's also interesting to note that this his Mormonism has not kept Evangilicals from following him, despite a historic and continuing distrust between mainstream Christian sects and Mormonism.

I think this is part of an interesting trend in which religious groups used to fighting most bitterly with those closest to them are beginning to focus on more distant religious groups and secularism in general.

I don't know if you remember the comic Emo Philips. He had an old routine that highlighted the classic state of religious paranoia. It went like this:

I was walking across a bridge one day and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said,

"Stop! Don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he said.

"Well, there is so much to live for."

"Like what?"

"Well, are you religious?"

He said yes.

I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?"

"Christian."

"Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"

"Protestant."

"Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"

"Baptist."

"Wow, me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"

"Baptist Church of God."

"Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"

"Reformed Baptist Church of God."

"Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"

He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915."

I said, "Die, heretic," and pushed him off.

We have spent most of human history fighting between religions, with a special love of fighting with those closest to us, both geographically and ideologically. There is still plenty of this going on, but with the advent of global media, it's now much easier to choose ominous, all powerful out-groups to focus on.

On another front I think that John Haidt has a bunch of good insights into the nature of moral reasoning and why Liberals and Conservatives react so differently to certain moral arguments.For a very short but helpful introduction to the topic, check out his TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html.

One of the key points that Haidt makes is that there are generally 5 fundamental moral values that are found cross-culturally. They are:

Care for others, protecting them from harm. (He also referred to this dimension as Harm.)
Fairness, Justice, treating others equally.
Loyalty to your group, family, nation. (He also referred to this dimension as Ingroup.)
Respect for tradition and legitimate authority. (He also referred to this dimension as Authority.)
Purity, avoiding disgusting things, foods, actions

Liberals tend to value the first two much more strongly then the second two, while conservatives (and many traditional cultures) tend to value the 5 equally.

Watch the TED talk it's interesting.

Anyway, that was a bit rambling and disconnected, but I think there is juice in both of those boxes.

Keep trucking and I would love to hear how it's going.

Yes. Perhaps I should say "we

Nebton — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:46:52 +0000

In reply to Ridicule does not necessarily

Yes. Perhaps I should say "we dismiss them at our own peril". It would be superhuman of us to avoid ridiculing them. I, for one, am no ubermensch.

Ridicule does not necessarily

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:34:47 +0000

In reply to You know, I (and I suspect

Ridicule does not necessarily entail dismissiveness. Satire of a subject that you don't take seriously is merely comic entertainment. That's not to say that ridicule will make it go away.

Thanks, quinn. Well put, and

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:32:02 +0000

In reply to Could be. What I do know is

Thanks, quinn. Well put, and point taken. My book takes O'Reilly's war on Christmas--the first mainstream application of the persecution/conspiracy formula--as its focal point, and I plan to devote a couple of chapters to the alleged "war on Christianity," starting with the Moral Majority, so I'm deeply conscious of the religious connection. But your comments do a nice job of connecting the dots and help me see the need to explore what has been going on at the grassroots level. Next stop: church.

You know, I (and I suspect

Nebton — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:31:48 +0000

In reply to Could be. What I do know is

You know, I (and I suspect many others here at Dagblog) have had a good laugh at Conservapedia's desire to make Jesus more Republican, but the more I dwell on it, the more it actually scares me. I know it seems so silly to us that we just can't take it seriously, but LDS and Scientology were arguably founded with even more ludicrous beginnings. I think we ridicule them at our own peril.

Could be. What I do know is

quinn esq — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:58:48 +0000

In reply to Thanks quinn. I agree with

Could be. What I do know is that the fundamentalist/evangelical churches have had - in recent decades - their CONTENT shifted in the most remarkable way over toward "political" issues. As a kid in the 60's in these churches, the wave of change that hit them in the 70's and 80's was phenomenal, and came right out of the Southern US. These things are now SOAKED in current events, in Iran and Iraq and Russia and China, in abortion and taxes and government control, in separate schools and evolution, in free enterprise and guns. Wrapped around the whole thing was resentment, at being shoved under culturally and pushed to the margins, and a sense of needing to fight back. And SOMEHOW wrapped in with this was the gospel of prosperity. In short, the content of their religious life has increasingly BECOME a political message. Republicanism IS part of their gospel now. So it isn't just outsiders conflating it - it has been, very deliberately, MIXED TOGETHER within the churches. It's also important to realize that the degree to which some pols and spokespeople can be accepted within these churches, IF they spout the right POLITICAL line. Some of these Republicans can't even fake the real religious message of the right wing churches. I know, cause I'll listen to them and snicker - it's like Pat Boone "rocking out." But they get the stamp of approval BECAUSE they say certain POLITICAL things that have become touchstones. Abortion. Muslims. etc. These political stances often act as religious touchstones now. Other pols, like Palin, feel in their element enough to go deep behind the scenes, to participate in the truly weird religious shit. What I'm saying is that liberals are often completely unable to read the religious stance and status of Republican figures. Palin was not Bush, for instance. But if they hit the right buttons, they are gonna be accepted, whatever their particular views or depth of fervour. There's cross-breeding been going on here. Not just at the top, by Robertson and other figures who worked both worlds, but down in the trenches, sermon by sermon, prayer group by prayer group, election by election, layers and levels and code words and touchstones. Just keep an eye out for it, because I think if you want to find the deep black heart of the hateful, psychotic Right, the ones who will day or do anything, you're gonna end up inside church doors.

Thanks quinn. I agree with

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:09:00 +0000

In reply to If you're looking for "why"

Thanks quinn. I agree with your pithy critique of "reedy"liberal attacks on conservative craziness and the notion that rational argument and witty satire can snuff the fire. Limbaugh and Beck have thrived in the age of the Keith Olbert, the Daily Show, and Al Franken. I'm not attempting to take on the paranoid right, so much as reveal its depth and analyize its origins. Ultimately, I don't believe that what is said matters nearly as much as who says it. Past eruptions have subsided only when widely respected voices of moderation have unanimously expressed revulsion. Insofar as I have a political objective, it is to provoke those voices.

As for the religious component, I agree that there is certainly a heavy religions element to the paranoia, but I think that most analysts err by conflating religious fervor with political passion. Beck and company exploit fundamentalist Christian ideology, and they have inherited the ideas of the Robertson and Falwell, but by and large, today's right wing leaders are not dogmatic fundamentalists themselves. Moreover, past bouts of American paranoia, such as the Red Scare, have only been partly religious, and other global examples, such as fascism, even less so. Rather, my sense is that the political right wing and Christian evangelists have found common ground in a mythology of persecution that is both political and religious. The persecution fantasy is the core of the mythology; the "anti-Christ" theme is just one element of it. For that reason, analyses of the rise of the Christian right--of which there have been many--tend to miss the big picture.