In Andre Norton’s classic Witch World series, eons ago there was a terrible war of sorcery in the lands to the east. They were blasted and made desolate, and the few survivors fled to the western coast. Knowing of the dangers remaining to the east, particularly the magical weaponry that still might be found there unwittingly if anyone returned that way, the remaining sorcerers cast a spell upon the entire population.
The east became a blind spot. People just didn’t talk about it. It was axiomatic that there was nothing there, nothing worth discussing, nothing worth considering. If you suggested to someone that they might travel to the east, they’d just stare at you, as if you’d suggested that they might travel to the Forty-Seven. It was a non sequitur.
For nine years or so, now, I’ve been a member of an e-mail discussion group on personal ideology. I first stumbled across it in the heady/depressive days after my return from my Martinez job assignment, when I found that (a) I was so burned out on Oracle DBA work that I’d have rather gouged my eyes out that do the things I needed to do, and (b) the company had Internet access all of a sudden, and I could make as much use of it as I could manage.
E-mail groups are only a step removed from Usenet, and conversations sometimes flowed fast and furious, as discussion of every ideological position and question and issue under the sun could be slapped about over, and over, and over. After a couple of years, I was asked to take on the role of being one of the List Managers, to help with meta-issues, to assist in keeping the peace, and to help backfill for the List Owner when he was out of touch.
It’s been a wild nine years. We had some personal get-togethers, where some of the core members actually travelled to one spot and hung out for a weekend. Some good friendships were developed. Some bitter flame wars were, with difficulty, quenched, sometimes by lighting backfires, sometimes by banning one or more of the participants.
Traffic has slowed down on the list over the last few years. For old-timers (some of whom are older-timey than me), it’s because the Big Issues have already been done to death, and we’re not likely to run across anything new. For newcomers, when they show up (and e-mail lists are so passe these days), they’re usual amazed that the old-timers are not automatically in awe of their fresh, new perspectives on subjects that have been debated by mankind since we had words to express them — after which realization, they usually leave, muttering about cabals.
My own participation has gone way down, too. This blog has been a big reason. I feel a bit guilty, a bit intellectually dishonest about that, because it’s a hell of a lot easier to rant and rave and make all sorts of wild assertions on your own blog, where you might get a comment or two back, than to throw your ideas up into the air, where any number of rigorous minds will seize upon them and rip them apart. That sort of environment makes you really think about what you’re saying, consider opposing views, be ready to defend your words and thoughts and beliefs.
But in the last year, it feels like the rhetoric in this country, both online and on that discussion list, has changed. It’s all become so polarized, and personalized, that it’s nearly impossible to have an intelligent conversation, because the premises are so incompatible.
The deepest underlying premise, as far as I can tell, that simply cannot be argued against because it is considered axiomatic, is this: George W. Bush and his Administration are utterly evil and corrupt.
By extension, any action proposed by Bush & Co. is also, automatically, evil and corrupt. The war on Iraq? No matter the reasons I think it’s justified, the fact that it’s being carried out by the Bushies means it’s utterly evil. If it’s not obviously evil, then that’s only because we don’t know the Secret Plan, the cabals supporting it, the Real reasons behind the war.
It may be that this axiom is itself derived from some related assertions (the GOP is evil, America is evil, Western Culture is evil, Humanity is evil). But it seems to be the main wall these days against which all these discussions run into.
I feel (justly or not) obliged to point out that I think that the Administration’s acitivies and policies on a number of things, from Homeland Security to ANWR drilling, are stupid, misguided, and/or possibly corrupt. I think there is plenty to criticize Dubya and his appointees for.
But I prefer to address individual issues. If the Administration puts forward a policy, then I think it stands or falls on its merits. Assuming it’s a Bad Thing because it came from the Administration, or that, even if we can’t find anything significantly wrong with it, it’s still some sort of some Master Secret Evil Plan, and so should still be opposed, seems counterproductive and intellectually dishonest.
But all conversations seem to founder on that rock. The Iraq War is evil because it’s all about oil, or all about Halliburton contracts, or all about oil, or all about distracting from the economy, or all about people being able to drive big SUVs (with oil), or all about American Domination of the World, or all about oil, or all about Christian Millennialism, or all about oil, or all about personal revenge for (or against) Dubya’s father, or all about oil, or …
If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Or it’s all of them. The assertions are impossible to prove, but they don’t have to be, because George W. Bush and his Administration are utterly evil and corrupt. Anything you can think of that would point to the venality and diabolical nature of him and his cronies is fair game — it’s probably true, or, if not true, the truth is even worse — because the axiom is right there.
And if there’s information that the Administration claims it has that convinces it that this war is justified — well, at best that’s simply delusion, at worst it’s a deliberate, evil deception, and proof of their perfidy.
(I will note, for fairness sake, that much the same was true, in the other direction, for Bill Clinton. If Clinton had gone to India to personally praise Mother Teresa and hand her a check for a billion dollars, his critics would have claimed he was trying to get into her sari. If he had embraced Newt Gingrich, his critics would have claimed he was courting the gay vote. If he had admitted every charge against him, his critics would have claimed he’s doing that to distract from even worse things he’s probably done.)
Part of this is understandable. Governments, and governmental officials have lied to us before. And certainly, as I noted, Bush’s Administration has pursued policies that are dubious at best.
And part of this is politics, of course. Vilifying your opponent is a long and — well, not honorable, but certainly traditional way of political life. But it really seems that it’s gotten worse over the last year or two. It colors everything that is said, everything that is argued. And it’s egged on by the media, both on the Left and on the Right, either for their own ideological warfare, or to sell more papers/commercials/bandwidth.
It may well be that there are a lot of folks who are in the middle of a lot of these things. But you don’t hear much from them, because either they get accused of being on the Side of Evil if they don’t embrace fully the Side of Good, or else they’re so turned off by the rhetoric from one or both sides.
If Michael Moore sudddenly gave the Sermon on the Mount, people would still say he was an “asshat” — and he probably would be, since he’d almost certainly slip in there, “And blessed are those who actually got a majority of the vote, UNLIKE YOU, GOVERNOR BUSH!”
I’ve tried discussing Bush, and the War, with folks on the discussion list I’ve mentioned. There’s not much else to discuss these days, frankly. And 9 out of 10 of them, subscribing to that axiom I mentioned, simply cannot be talked with. Not only that, but they’re willing to get uncharacteristically nasty about it.
And so I’m not talking with them all that much these days.
I’m honest enough to admit that I probably have blind spots, too. I probably have some axioms that I’m unaware of that cause me to stare blankly when people mention something that challenges them.
I do try to maintain a bit of intellectual honesty, to be sure. While the majority of the folks on my blogroll are pro-war (which is probably a misnomer for a number of them, since being pro-war is like being pro-abortion — most folks I know see it as the least bad of the options available to us with Iraq — but I digress), there are quite a number in the middle, and even a few who make my teeth grind to the gums when I read them, but I at least try to read them nonetheless because I think they are sincere and thoughtful and even if I can’t bring myself to comment on much of what they say, I can at least say that I’ve heard it (the reverse is, I suspect, true as well).
But it’s not the same. And sifting through comments (on this blog, or on others) is not the same as e-mail threads on ideological discussions. The give or take is not there. Nor is the intellectual rigor. Blog comments tend more toward sound bites than discourse, thought there are exceptions.
I don’t know where we’re going with all this, or where I’m going. I’m not happy about it, though, and I just thought I’d vent.
Now back to our regularly scheduled warmongering and apologetics for the utterly evil and corrupt Dubya Administration …
Went ahead and bought a new microwave oven today, to replace 