I haven't got anything to add beyond what Mister Smith has already said:
The great American culture medium seems to nourish, every few years, a person who just can't sleep at night until he's blown away a dozen or so strangers.Except, I guess, to add a grim laugh to the idea that all this is caused by "violent rhetoric" in politics, which I gather to mean that Sarah Palin has told some fox on Fox that we oughta hog-tie and duck-slap those democrats like an elk on a tick on a frozen lake, as they say in the great nation of Vladivostok from whence she hails. Now, when I think of violent political rhetoric, I think more along the lines of:
The review resolved to "look hard" at what more could be done to improve economic stability, particularly on tax policy and Pakistan's relations with international financial institutions. It directed administration and Pentagon officials to "make sure that our sizeable military assistance programs are properly tailored to what the Pakistanis need, and are targeted on units that will generate the most benefit" for U.S. objectives, said one senior administration official who participated in the review and was authorized to discuss it on the condition of anonymity.In one case, you have some vague mutterings "creating a climate" somehow conducive to violence; in the other, you have the actual verbal commission of horrific violence. "Violent rhetoric" in the former case seems to me to be exactly the sort of argument ad slippery-slope that liberals usually abhor, no different in kind from the idea that legal abortion leads directly to cannibalism and concentration camps, that letting the gays get gaymarried leads inevitably to widespread interspecies copulation.
As far as anyone can tell from his own writings and ravings, the guy who shot up the Arizona meet-n-greet was less dittohead than wild-card line on Coast to Coast AM, less Glenn Beckee than Alex Jonesian. The idea that he did what he did because Sarah Barracuda put a gunsight graphic on her homepage is just silly.
51 comments:
Last night I took a look at Gifford's website, hoping to find out what kind of fun murdery things she has voted for to point out to my friends on FB.
Turns out I didn't need to go to her voting record. Her banner at the top had images of some of her favorite things. Right there at the top was an F16. That's what Gifford feels represents this country best: A fighter jet! WOOT!
It does seem odd that no one has suggested Gifford brought this assassination attempt on herself by her promotion of killing people with automatic weapons.
Maybe we should send a suggestion note to Michelle Malkin?
You know, I certainly can't believe that rhetoric creates lunatics. Lunatics are created by persistent feelings of powerlessness in political, economic, or social spheres.
I do believe, however, that rhetoric can direct those who are already looking for a scapegoat.
Awww, Cuney, you're so cute. If we had anarchy and/or equality, then mental illness would cease to be!
See, the problem with scapegoats is not the specific goat, actually.
Well, to be honest, we're all lunatics, and mental illness is a descriptor applied by those who have wrested or been granted interpretive power over behavior. But...
Rhetoric is precisely what creates lunatics. Assume three people shoot someone else for no damn reason. One of those murders is criminal, i.e. unjustifiable by dominant social conventions. One of those murders is lunatic, i.e. inexplicable by dominant social conventions. And one of those murders wins the person who committed it a Silver Star.
So what's the difference? There is more rhetoric in heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy, et cetera.
Don't equivocate. You don't mean that rhetoric creates lunatics in those cases, but rather that rhetoric describes some of those acts as acceptable and others, not. Or are you saying there is nothing but what we say there is?
Degradation breaks a personality. Words between opponents representing blocs of power aren't the proximate cause. Degradation is.
Read this link, Zoz, and weep.
http://www.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/4431517.aspx
Weep because you didn't think of it first.
Look at how it masterfully puns on two of your favorite things - Bach's genius and Goldberg's lunacy.
As I said, Zoz, read it and weep.
I find the obsession over the wounding of a congress critter and near silence over the death of a federal judge interesting.
Goebbels realized that: "Just silly" was the essence of the "Big Lie". And oh, that led to about 6 million, not related, deaths.
to mandt @ 1:38pm:
You think that no one here knows that "mandt" is SAP's abbreviation for German "mandant" = English "client" ?
So of whom are you a client, mandt?
BY the way, completely off-topic, but the thought just occurred to me: if you (that is, Monsier IOZ) don't like lots of interiority (and especially don't like proponents of interiority, like James Wood), how the fuck did you get through Proust?
note to Myles @ 2:17pm
Your comment reminds me of a question once asked of Chomsky during the height of the famed Chomsky-Piaget debates. The question was how Chomsky could presume to debate with Piaget, given his lack of of any formal training in cognitive psychology.
Chomsky's response is apocryphally reported to have been "Travel light, go far".
The point being - whatever makes you think that IOZ has ever actually read Proust?
Damn! I had "Palin" and "Pakistan", but I needed a specific reference to "Obama" (with or without the "reptilian" qualifier) to get IOZ Bingo.
Seriously, dude, change it up a little. Prolly everyone here knew as soon as they saw this story that you were going to trot out the standard "oh yeah well pwoggies don't care about nine-yr-old girls in Pakistan, so..."
I think the point is simply that maybe, given how many unhinged dumb fucks constitute the fanbase of people like Palin and Beck, they could stop screaming about violent revolution in response to every trivial policy difference. Yes, the guy may be more crazy than ideological, but that's the point: crazy people don't need constant encouragement. Stop egging them on. Why is that so hard to understand?
I know it's all part of your utterly predictable contrarianism, but it actually is possible to condemn state violence while also holding that encouraging aimless violence over political differences is not a good thing. No, really, I swear.
ye gods, 2:55 and the like. almost every blog is predictable in terms of it's pov after a while. like, dislike, agree, disagree, but don't complain of predictability on this front. you think we can't guess t-bogg's view?
Ha, oh, Lord. Sarah Palin is Goebbels? Talk about unhinged fucks. Robert Gibbs is a lot closer, obviously.
I'm not equivocating. I mean that the lunatic is identical to his act, since we know nothing else about him. And the taxonomy of his act is rhetorical. Lunacy is therefore rhetorical. Ergo, rhetoric causes lunacy to come into being.
Apples and oranges.
anon 2:25,
Proust is too snoozy even for use as a sleeper assassin trigger (dig Laughner's fave book list - me, I pin this tragedy on Homer). Ioz seems to like reading the unreadable, taking one after the other for the team, as it were. If he skims and disses sometimes, can you really blame? That said, I bet he's read at least S&G - which, say what you will about interiority, least it's not WaPo.
So Proust is Goebbels? I JUST knew it!
De Mann -
Regarding S&G, I have it on good authority that he's read it at least 120 times ...
"So of whom are you a client, mandt?"
Irony , don't anarchists have a sense of humor?
"Irony?"
That's the "in" word for douchey smugness?
Capt'n Obvious
yes
Now IOZ ( talking down with douchi smugness) If you watched FOX, you would know that Gibbs is not Goebbels. The correct answer is Rebecca Mansour.
terrible words. safety is important.
Did you know that 20 year old hero intern Daniel Hernandez - who saved Giffords from bleeding to death and/or choking to death on her own blood before the EMTs got there - is a gay activist? Fact.
those fucking amateurs. our President can get you a toe, with nail polish.
All this being said, if pundits stopped referring to a President who would have run to the right of Eisenhower as a "socialist," this sort of confusion could easily be avoided.
I think this article was probably a good kick off to a potential series of articles about this topic. So many writers pretend to know what they’re talking about when it comes to this topic and in reality, very few people actually get it. You seem to grasp it though, so I think you ought to take it and run. Thanks!
dead white people!
freak out!
round the clock coverage!!!!!
everyone line up with their hot and edgy take!
someone put the clues together and make sense of it all!
the machine demands it.
By the way, can we all point fingers and LOL at "formal training"?
Have you never been formally trained by a cognitive psychologist?
I tell ya, nuttin' tops it.
i'm a formally trained lawyer
anon@11:30: IOZ holds a special place in his heart for "psychology", which he prefers to call "advertising".
he should take psychology more seriously. If you want to control the world, you need to understand how to manipulate the irrational masses. And that conditioning works, but it must be maintained, like any other muscle. People do "regress" a little absent regular contact. So here we are keeping people distracted with this shit.. and the war goes on. An itty-bitty 9/11.. a chance to outlaw guns and "hateful rhetoric". This spells doom for theater and restaurant critics *cough*
"This spells doom for theater and restaurant critics."
It's always all about Eve, isn't it?
As usual, coach outlet has the most cogent and insightful comment on this thread.
formal training: whatever it is that convinces you "formal training" has epistemological meaning.
informal training: whatever it is that convinces you any sentence would be better with the word "epistemological" in it.
I like to think that "Anonymous" is all the same dude.
faf, I have been operating under that assumption since I entered the wonderful world of the blog.
why can't we all just agree that Palin, Giffords and whoever the fuck it is that shot up this rally are all homicidal maniacs and stop haggling over price?
"I think more along the lines of:"
its more or less the same rhetoric, "crafted" for a different audience. jeeezis i hate the word "crafted" now. Its all "2 minutes hate". Heges is right when he points out that deranged, sociaopathic American culture combines the most effective parts of Orwell and Huxley's nightmare states. Most of us have been willingly neutered by the entertainment/spectacle/ignorance society,(for those who deviate there are drugs and tens of thousands of prisons) and for the rest of the world the millitary forces of oceana have a bird cage and a starving rat for you.
"The idea that he did what he did because Sarah Barracuda put a gunsight graphic on her homepage is just silly."
and putting glocks with high capacity magazines into the hands of paranoids, or machine pistols into the hands of 8 year olds
http://forum.ebaumsworld.com/showthread.php?t=282240&page=2
is the 'murrican. But what does that make the piped in 24/7 sound track of ranting foaming hate rhetoric, (both international and domestic)? The libertarian way?
@anon 12:27
should read "murrican way"
why can't we all just agree that Palin, Giffords and whoever the fuck it is that shot up this rally are all homicidal maniacs and stop haggling over price?
here here
@ Cüneyt
yes but what is meant by rhetoric?. The rehtoric of a right wing history proffesor at a podium in a nearly empty conference room at xxxxx state college? or the massive corporate/government program of endless hand in hand, advertising/propaganda. the advertising and propaganda is not controlled by something called the inner party, from a single giant walnut table in a massive concrete ministry building designed by albert speer, but it is controlled and directed at us, with intent. to say that "rhetoric" is not to blame, is to say that propganda and advertising dont work, when they do work.
you think we can't guess t-bogg's view?
It probably involves a free Mumia joke and sparkle ponies.
@2:52
"Faithful husband, soccer dad, basset owner, and former cowboy".....
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