Thessaly's Tooth

I’ve wanted to use this title for a blog post for quite some time, and it might be wasted here since this is hardly a complete thought nor even a very original one. It comes from my wondering why liberals and conservatives rarely, if ever, seem to listen to each other–even to deny or discredit what the other side is saying. They make statements without ever rebutting the statements of the other side; in good old policy debate terms, there’s no clash. It’s all constructive and no rebuttal.
Why is this? The following is my take on the leading rhetorical tactics taken by liberals and conservatives (which, following my little conceit, I call “hermeneutics”); followed by reasons why I think political rhetoric is generally as low in quality as it is high in quantity.

The hermeneutic of omnipotence[Edit: this should say omniscience, not omnipotence. I really do know the difference between the two.]: Liberals seem to bypass conservative rhetoric completely, instead making pronouncements as from on high regarding what conservatives are Up To–invariably No Good. Liberals will make statements like “Conservatives want to impose a Christian theocracy,” “Conservatives are trying to take away women’s rights,” “Conservatives hate children,” “Conservatives impoverish the middle class and give tax breaks to Big Business,” and so forth. Is there any proof for such claims? If there is, liberal commentators rarely see fit to let us in on it. I read this as indicating that the intent of such commentators is not to convince their opponents, but to galvanize those who already agree with them.
One example of what I mean is the book What’s the Matter with Kansas? I tried to read this once, expecting it to be, like the book The Right Nation which I had recently read, a political history of America but from a liberal rather than conservative viewpoint. But the book was an extended rant, not at all a history, and couched in the tones of personal religious revelation rather than political analysis. I started to understand what I was in for when on page one voting Republican was described as “derangement,” and soon after encountered some remark about how all adults he knew simply took it as a basic fact of life that Republicans grind the poor to powder while worshiping Big Business as their god.
Liberals who talk this way and are still wondering “what’s the matter with conservatives” need to either start listening to themselves or start listening to conservatives. Because conservative rhetoric isn’t all lip service to “family values.” Conservatives speak the language of freedom, individual rights, helping the working poor, accessible medical care, etc. too, and most conservatives are conservative not because they don’t care about these things, but because to them, conservatives have better solutions to these problems.
When liberals make pronouncements rather than reasoned arguments, there is no basis for any except those who are already True Believers to accept such pronouncements. The implicit (or frequently explicit) assumption that liberalism is so morally superior to conservatism that the reason why doesn’t even need to be explained makes conservatives (not suprisingly) less likely to listen to liberal points of view.
This tactic does, however, serve to galvanize those who are True Believers. It separates people into two categories: intelligent, enlightened liberals and deluded, benighted conservatives; and well, which set of adjectives would you prefer to have applied to you? By simply holding this line without opening the basic assumptions to discussion, such rhetorical devices give liberals a sense of righteousness, and may convince the undecided and influencable that the choice is indeed between Good and Evil rather than between two different political persuasions.
The hermeneutic of machismo/the hermeneutic of hypocrisy: Liberals might feel that conservatives are as or more likely to force a good versus evil choice, as in the “Real American” versus “Communist Traitor” gambit. And I do in fact hear this argument, but I don’t believe it’s the prevalent one among conservatives. I hear this kind of thing most from true extremists of the Ann Coulter variety, not from mainstream conservatives or even superconservatives like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity.
From the Limbaugh/Hannity types the worst accusations I generally hear against liberals is that they are indecisive, waffling, ready to go along with the latest opinion poll or whatever the UN or European Union dictates. Liberals are not real leaders, and, I’m hearing more and more these days, they aren’t real men. I wish I could say I’ve heard almost this exact quote only once, but in fact I’ve heard it more times than I care to enumerate: “There may be a time for introspection, for second-guessing oneself, etc., but that time is not now. These times demand real leaders, strong decison-makers, Real Men.” They might not mean “men” biologically, but they do mean what they’ve decided are traditionally masculine qualities, and they say so in so many words. (No, I’m not making this up!)
Essentially this is a straw-man argument, and I know where it’s coming from but I can’t say I know exactly who it’s supposed to appeal to. It’s coming out of continual efforts by the media to get the President to “admit he made a mistake” (which itself is a rhetorical tactic along the lines of the old joke where the comedian asks a man “have you stopped beating your wife?” The president has to either admit a concrete instance of a mistake, thus earning the ire of everyone who’s supported him; or insist that he’s never made a mistake, which is absurd). I suspect it also has something to do with the political prominence of Hillary Clinton (not a Real Man according to biology or to her political persuasion, two counts against her); as well as the old critiques of President Clinton as being a perpetual waffler; and finally, of course to Kerry’s perceived obsequiousness to the UN in the form of his Litmus Test, etc.
To whom is this supposed to appeal? Not to me, like the Da Vinci Code, it’s a little too ridiculous to be offensive. But I think that as much as it’s making a Democratic straw man, it’s making a Republican one too: saving on words, if our Scarecrow Democrat is Howard Dean, our Scarecrow Republican is Jack Bauer. And seriously, if you had to pick one of those two guys to be in charge of protecting our children from terrorists, which would you choose?
Finally, a second conservative hermeneutic: the Hermeneutic of Hypocrisy. I heard this coming over the airwaves just yesterday, and I think it constitutes not a major offensive against liberals like the Hermeneutic of Machismo, but rather is more a constant refrain: “Sure, they say they’re for choice, but they’re not for choice of whether to carry a handgun. Not for choice whether or not to fund their government programs.” “They say they’re for freedom, but not freedom for a business owner to run his or her own business. Not for people’s freedom to use their own money and property they way they want to.” “They say they’re for free speech, but only speech that agrees with them–that’s why [insert instance of conservative speaker getting disinvited from/heckled at a college campus].”
This at least is debate–it’s engaging liberal rhetoric on its own terms, and demanding that liberals explain and defend their positions on various things. This too is probably an example of false alternatives, but the liberals usually don’t bite, for the same reason conservatives don’t: because any time you allow yourself to be drawn into a debate, there’s a chance you will lose. You can’t win if you don’t play; but on the other hand if you don’t play you can’t lose. The real winning position is to continually try to rewrite the rules of the game on one’s own terms; because he or she who writes the rules has already won.
I think that those who participate in and commentate on politics would do well to listen better–to themselves and to the other side. There are two reasons for this:
(1) On the positive side, it would help make the political process less adversarial. Defining oneself as the opposite of the other may get one elected, but it eliminates the possibility of maintaining a consistent message (such as when the President came out for alternative fuels in the State of the Union and liberals everywhere suddenly discovered that we didn’t have the technology, alternative fulers weren’t a viable option after all! and yes I should come up with a conservative example too but am not going to); and it does a disservice to those who voted for one (what an awkward and British way of compensating for the lack of an appropriate English pronoun). Straw man arguments, forced false choices, and so forth, prevent the two sides from recognizing they have shared concerns and shared goals and finding solutions that are acceptable to them both. And as long as that state of affairs continues, there will be no solution to society’s problems, because it’s in the best interest of both sides to keep social problems going in order to blame the other side and make political capital off of other people’s misery.
(2) On a more cynical note, because trying to understand why they’re saying what they’re saying is vital to a true understanding of politics in general, necessary to make an informed decision in a democracy. They are saying what they’re saying for one reason: power. Sure, (at least some) politicians and pundits have genuine convictions, they have morals and guiding principles, compassion and insight. But they don’t communicate these in a candid and genuine way–they can’t. They all must choose what they say, how they say it, when and to whom they say it, with a view to power: their own careers, getting or keeping those of their political persuasion in power, and so forth. In one sense, the way they tailor their speech toward this goal is an outcome of their convictions, morals, etc.: in order to enact what they believe is right, they must have power, and in order to get power they must get people on their side, which means salesmanship which means not exactly lying but at least in grooming the truth to look they way they want it to look.
And, on an even more cynical note, power is one of the two or three things that drives humans–perhaps not in all times and places, but definitely in our time and place. As long as this is true, those who seek power are always susceptible to putting their own desire for power ahead of the greater good. And on both counts, this will to power is something we must be aware of and take into account when we try to distinguish the grooming from the mutt–to suddenly coin a rather clunky metaphor.

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