The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    The Real World: America

    By DF on Sun, 09/20/2009 - 2:32pm | Politics

    What happens when 300 million people, selected by fate to live together in one nation, stop being polite and start being real?

    Maybe it's something in the air.  Or the water.  Or my Harvey Wallbanger.  Whatever the case, there's no denying that Americans have been letting it all hang out lately.

    There was, of course, the month of August, which was marked by the, shall we say, colorful townhall meetings on healthcare reform.  People were getting out there, saying what was on their mind.  Literally.  Anything that was on their mind.  And pehaps "saying" doesn't really get at it.  They were yelling it, screaming it even.

    But this was just a taste of America's new attitude.  The month of September somehow promised to be calmer, more restrained.  Summer was winding down.  Labor Day barbeques offered a serene closure to the insane heat of August tempers.  Kids would be going back to school.

    However, America still had something to get off its chest.  While the first week of September offered a deceptive quiet, that placid moment was shattered by Rep. Joe Wilson when he shouted "You lie!" during the President's address to a joint session of Congress.  At the time, this breech of decorum might have struck some as anomalous.

    Nothing could have been further from the truth, for Mr. Wilson's outburst would be prove to be less than solitary.  Later that week, thousands flooded into Washington, D.C., for a townhall to end all townhalls.  Grievances abounded.  Ranting and raving at the top of their lungs, Americans were hot about healthcare, socialism, czars, death panels, communism, fascism, communo-fascism (whatever that is) and just about anything else that could prove fodder for the flinging of spittle and outrage.

    But on this day, America's new penchant for letting it fly was to move beyond the political disputes of the moment.  Tennis star Serena Williams took the ball, ran with it and threatened to cram it down the throat of a line judge.  The next day, Kanye West decided to pre-empt Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the VMAs to tell the world how he really felt about Beyonce.  Or was it Beyonce's video?  Perhaps Jay-Z can clear this up for me.

    In any case, it must have been a wonderful moment for Mr. West, gently cresting the waves of a new America that finally understood and valued his typical mode of communication.

    Was it over, this moment of collective catharsis?  Hardly.  No, not to be outdone, CNN's Rick Sanchez, who is one of the more anchorly anchors on CNN, had to take a few minutes to dress down Fox News.  Sanchez had apparently taken exception to Fox being Fox, which means disseminating bald-faced lies writ large:

    Yes, folks, that was Rick Sanchez off the Washington Post, around the back, through the nation's capital.  Off.  Two.  Satellite.  Trucks.

    Nothing but net.

    There's something to be said for catharsis.  Anyone who's been through therapy (or really lost it during an argument) knows that wonderful moment when you finally say that thing that you didn't know you had in you.  Of course, sometimes, especially if in the context of a heated argument, the elation of catharsis quickly fades into the bitterness of regret.

    There's another side to this, too.  Last year, my aunt passed away from brain cancer.  Her diagnosis was predicated by some odd behavior, which is common for tumors in the frontal lobe because they frequently fail to present physical symptoms that are relatively easy to spot.

    For my aunt, the trigger was that she just sort of stopped thinking before she spoke.  This struck everyone as very odd, since she was usually the classic Texan: Sweetness and light.  However, if you know any Texans, you also know that there's a razor-sharp wit lurking.  All of a sudden, my aunt was all razor, no sweetener.

    Things improved after she went through surgery and began treatment, but her filter remained somewhat defunct, which was okay because she got her sweetness back.  But she would still just sort of say whatever was on her mind.  Subsequently, we all got used to telling people to excuse her because the filter between her brain and mouth was blown out and replacements were on back-order.

    There's an important difference between the Sanchez smackdown and other recent examples of keeping it real.  And it has everything to do with whether or not the end product has gone through the filter, lest we truly desire to turn our society into one giant, vapid reality television show:

    As good ole Honest Abe quipped, "We are not enemies, but friends."  By all means, America, tell me how you really feel, but do us all a favor: Check your filter first.  That way we can still be friends.

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    Great post. DF.

    If we all actually had to live in a house together, I think we'd learn to be more polite. Manners develop to help us interact with others, and when you're forced to interact with lots of people who are different from yourself, you're forced to work on your etiquette. You vent when people aren't around,


    The reality-show examples, of course, are deliberately atypical. The producers deliberately choose dysfunctional personalities and crowd them together in order to create conflict. I'll admit, I used to do this with ants and matchboxes, but in my defense I hadn't been to college yet.

    I wonder if part of what's making us crazy isn't our luxurious isolation from one another. We're listening to hate radio in we own cars, where we don't have to get along with anyone. We're watching cable news and youtibe clips in subaruban homes, where we don't have to interact with anyone we don't admit, or with many people at all. We're talking about members of other political parties like they're unimaginable freaks who live on the Moon, instead of our neighbors. We don't know our neighbors.

    It's too easy to get nostalgic for a world of front porches, streetcars, and corner lunchrooms. Certainly, this country's been capable of murderous lunacy even  during the eras of community needlework and old-school town meetings. But there is something unhealthy in our mediated and isolated lifestyles.

     


    by Doctor Cleveland on Sun, 09/20/2009 - 4:13pm

    I'll take the implication one step further. Sanchez did not fail to exercise the filter out of negligence or because his anger simply could not be contained. Anger sells, baby. It's the new, new media.

    And after having spent so much time with the conservative anger-mongers lately, I was also struck by how much better they are at it. Sanchez seemed to be channeling Olbermann's seething indignation--the mad-as-hell-not-going-to-take-it-anymore liberal. But FOX understands well that stoking anger does require you to appear angry. While Olbermann's ratings drop, TIME coverboy Glenn Beck incites hordes of furious teabaggers without ever raising his voice.

    Great post.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 09/20/2009 - 9:49pm

    On the distinction between Olbermann and Beck, do you think it's more the presenter that makes the difference or the audience? I posit the latter.

    One difference I think Fox makes is it lets the crazies know they're not alone. Knowing that empowers them even more, IMO.


    by Nebton on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 9:02am

    The difference in popularity? They're both factors, and I don't know that it makes sense to speculate about which is larger. Context is also a big factor; it's no coincidence that Olbermann's ratings have dropped under a Democratic administration while Beck's (and those of other FOX commentators) have risen.

    Or do you mean the difference in the level of anger? Part of that is again context. The right is angry under Obama, just as the left was angry under Bush. But's there's something else--the right was also angry under Bush. There were already paranoid theories buzzing about. Remember the war on Christmas? Big conspiracy by George Soros, the ACLU, and the NY Times to pave the way for euthaniasia, gay marriage, and socialism. That was Bill O'Reilly's idea, not Beck's. Thus, there is a difference between the audience, but that difference is due in large part to the right wing presenters who have been stoking the flames.

    Would a Beckish schtick work with a liberal audience? Maybe not. He has a "regular shmo" thing going, and modern liberals do not tend to think of themselves that way (though FDR liberals did). But I do think that a progressive O'Reilly could be effective at inciting the left. And even if provoking liberal anger requires different techniques than provoking conservative anger, I still maintain that today's conservative presenters are much better at it.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 2:13pm

    Actually, I mean the difference in reacting to emotion instead of reacting to facts (AKA the "Beckish schtick", although O'Reilly does it, too), although perhaps I'm giving our side too much credit. The "left", of course, is comprised of several groups, but I think the "intelligentsia" is an influential part of it, and we're not as easily swayed by emotional arguments as the rabid right. Or, at least, I like to think we're not.


    by Nebton on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 2:31pm

    I dunno about that. The left has its own paranoid tendencies, e.g. 9/11 and Halliburton conspiracies. The difference is that the left has marginalized the voices that promote such ideas, while the right has nurtured them. I'm not entirely sure why that has happened, and I'm trying to figure it out, but it goes back at least to the rise of Falwell's Moral Majority and probably further to the Communist witch-hunts. It's worth noting that this has not always been the case. In the early 20th century, most of the rage came from left wing populists who stoked anger against capitalist elites.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 3:15pm

    I suppose that's what I mean about the intelligentsia being influential. I think they're part of the reason that our paranoid fringes get marginalized. I think the right's answer to intelligentsia (to the degree you can call them that) are also influential, to the degree that they're partly responsible for the nurturing of the crazies on their side. I also think that they're beginning to lose control and a least a few of them are scared of that.


    by Nebton on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 3:34pm

    There's one distinct difference between the intelligentsia on the right and the intelligentsia on the left.  On the right, the intellectual elite are perfectly happy to demonize, well, "the elite" that are keeping "real Americans" down.  Of course, these charges always come from the elite of the right and are made toward the elite of the left, which is why academia in general is always lumped in.  The purpose is to demonize the left elite in the eyes of Joe Sixpick.

    On the left, the elite also demonize the elite, but they instead target the real power elite, like corporate power, the military-industrial complex, etc.  Ironically, these charges still come from the elite of the left (think Huffington), but it's typically the intellectual elite versus the power elite.

    This is not to say that the left has no power and the right has no intellect, but rather that the intellectual elite tend to align on the left and the power elite tend to align on the right.  Each side is engaging in the populist game of trying to convince the elusive "common man" that their side is "of the poeple", bereft of an elite and that it is the "real" elite, the elite of the other side, that have "the people" in their crosshairs.


    by DF on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 3:54pm

    Well put. I would add that conservative intellectuals have been reticent to stand up to the right wing. The occasional criticisms of Harriet Myers and Sarah Palin by some conservative leaders were refreshing exceptions to the rule. Liberals, on the other hand, drop left wing extemists like hot potatoes. The behavior on both sides is based on political calculation. Conservatives believe that the right wing helps them more than it hurts them. Liberals believe the left wing hurts them more than it helps them. I'm not sure why it is or even whether these perceptions are accurate.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 4:10pm

    It's a difficult calculation as in both cases the respective extreme wings both hurt and help. Energizing the base means getting more of them to turn out and vote, but it also sometimes means losing some of the swing voters.

    As to why it might make more sense for the right then the left: the right wing is all about authoritarianism. If they're told to go out and vote, they'll do it, by golly. The left wing is all about anarchy. If they're told to go out and vote, they won't exactly because they were told to. (Yes, I'm making a caricature, but there's some truth to it.)


    by Nebton on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 4:15pm

    I think that the driver of the liberal approach is not the persception of a small advantage but the perception of a large disadvantage. Unlike conservatives, liberals are scared sh-tless of being labeled extremists. Reagan famously exploited this fear by associating the word "liberal" with left wing extemism, causing liberals to shun their own name.

    I think that the fear has some justification. Americans seem to have more tolerance for the right wing than for the left wing. But I don't know why. Maybe a backlash to the social upheaveal of the 60's and 70's. Or maybe it dates back to the Red Scare.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 4:32pm