The "New Political Correctness," as I came to call it during the aughts (though it is neither new nor correct) is the pressure to reframe discussion by controlling language. In recent years it has come mostly from the political right ("moral clarity," "War on Christmas," "moral equivalence," "homicide bombers," "Freedom Fries," "restoring honor"...) and, I insist, is an insidious menace to society even greater than the old-school institutionalized PC that came from the left, because its motives are transparently rooted in demagoguery rather than civility and altruism.
Back in early 2007, Sarah Silverman's "Jesus Is Magic" prompted me to write this:
I've been arguing for several years now that, especially since 9/11, "political correctness" has evolved into a mostly reactionary phenomenon. The lefty PC that began as a way of showing sensitivity to minorities and those who had been discriminated against for years (women, the disabled, etc.) eventually turned into a form of monolithic, euphemistic denial of reality, where questioning was verboten and anything that could be interpreted as doubt or dissent was denounced as "fascist." Now we see the same thing coming from the right. The terminology has changed but the brainwashed thinking hasn't.
How pleased I was, then, to hear Berkeley professor and linguist Geoff Nunberg's eloquent essay on NPR about the American history of the term "sensitivity," recently employed by opponents of the YMCA-like Park51 community center in Manhattan:
The "sensitivity training" that was originally developed in the 1940s used encounter groups as a path to personal growth. But in the 1960s it was repurposed as a technique to help managers, police officers and others come to grips with the perplexing demands of social diversity. By now, most people associate sensitivity training less with self-actualization than with learning to avoid cultural gaffes and miscues. [...]
But over the long run, the stress on sensitivities probably set back cultural understanding as much as it advanced it. For one thing, it permits people to blur the distinctions between mere thoughtlessness and antipathies that run deeper in the heart. It's only insensitive when Michael Steele uses "honest injun" -- he probably never gave the expression any thought before. But there's a moral obtuseness in talking about the insensitivity of carrying a sign that depicts President Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose. A lack of sensitivity is the least of that person's problems. [...]
And while most people are raised to be polite, it turned out not to be such a good idea for institutions to try to impose deference to the sensitivities of certain groups. In response, a lot of people took to pronouncing "sensitivity" with that mocking tone and derided it under the heading of political correctness.
That actually gave a new life to a lot of the very language the speech codes were supposed to eliminate. When you preface a sentence with "This may not be the politically correct thing to say ..." you can make what used to be mere boorishness sound like a daring defiance of fashionable attitudes.
But it isn't just in the liberal enclaves of the academy that people invoke their sensitivities to trump other objections. People have used that argument to oppose the Islamic center near ground zero, to urge Glenn Beck to move his rally at the Lincoln Memorial, to object to public displays of affection by gays. In fact the controversial cases are usually the ones where honoring the sensitivities of one group involves ignoring the sensitivities or rights of another. Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays -- you're treading on somebody's sensitivities whichever way you go. So these controversies always devolve into squabbles about whose sensitivities should have precedence: "We've been through more than you have"; "We were here first"; "There's more of us than of you."
The sad part is, we humans are overwhelmingly emotional creatures. We know that "emotions aren't reasons," but we don't care. Because we feel that our feelings trump everything else, including your feelings, and reality itself. If only the popular concept of "personal responsibility" extended to people taking responsibility for their emotions, weighing when they are justified and appropriate, and when they are unwarranted and out of proportion.
So, let's say -- just hypothetically -- that I'm offended that someone has proposed building a YMCA with a nondenominational Protestant chapel in it, just a couple blocks from the site of the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing. After all, Timothy McVeigh identified with the white supremacist "Christian Identity" movement (considered a terrorist group by the FBI), and was motivated by the Waco Siege at the Branch Davidian compound (a splinter sect of of the Protestant Seventh Day Adventist Church). First I have to take responsibility for my feelings, which means asking myself: Are they reasonable? My feelings are real, but what are they based on? Just because I feel something doesn't make it right.
I've been known to "correct" (pronounce the word like Delbert Grady in "The Shining") people who use the ugly phrase "confined to a wheelchair." When I was in college a friend in a wheelchair told me what he found objectionable about the phrase: the wheelchair is not confining. It offers mobility. So the term is not only inaccurate, there's an undertone of pity and condescension that many people resent. I understand that, it makes sense, and therefore I've never forgotten it. Sure, it's sensitivity -- in the sense that it shows basic courtesy and respect for another person. I'd no sooner use "confined to a wheelchair" than I would kick a random old lady on the sidewalk.
Now for the depressing part: For most people, facts don't matter. In a recent comment, Kris Pigna pointed out a Boston Globe article that I'd missed, headlined: "How facts backfire: Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains." And then there was this NPR piece, "Facts Can't Trump Politics In Immigration Debate" (the term "debate" being used very loosely, since facts have no part in it).
From the Globe story:
The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
"The general idea is that it's absolutely threatening to admit you're wrong," says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon -- known as "backfire" -- is "a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance."
These findings open a long-running argument about the political ignorance of American citizens to broader questions about the interplay between the nature of human intelligence and our democratic ideals. Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we're right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote.
And from the NPR story:
A major national survey has found that the flow of unauthorized immigrants into the U.S. has slowed dramatically over the past five years, leading to the "first significant reversal" of growth in their population in two decades.
Border security has benefited from an infusion of federal money. Deportations of those in the country illegally are up. FBI statistics point to a consistent drop in violent crime rates in U.S.-Mexico border towns. [...]
Could it be that the country is moving toward what immigration expert Audrey Singer of the Brookings Institution has hopefully noted could be a "moment of reflection" in the emotional and often fact-free national discussion on illegal border crossings?
Maybe not.
Why not? Because how we feel takes precedence over all else. It extends to movies, too. We tend to prize emotion above intellectual substance or aesthetics. We value movies that move us. But critic David Sterritt has argued for a corrective to
the predisposition of nearly all film critics to approach their subject(s) in terms that value the emotional over the intellectual and the descriptive over the intuitive. Good movies touch our feelings, of course, but that isn't the only thing that makes them good; and while [critic Kent] Jones knows this--hence his high praise for masters of film-thought like Hou Hsiao-hsien and Abbas Kiarostami, for instance--he too falls into the commonplace pattern of privileging the feelings that good films give him, and signaling his reactions in telegraphic ways that won't mean much to people who aren't equally familiar with the film or filmmaker in question.
What's needed today is a new paradigm of readily accessible yet rigorously thoughtful prose combining theoretical analysis with intuitive ideas about cinema and the aesthetic world it creates.
As I said about film criticism a while back, I think most of our stabs at rational analysis are noble attempts to overcome the limitations of the human brain. But we are human, and we can make that effort. So, by all means, especially now, let's be sensitive... and be reasonable.
See also: "Moviegoers who feel to much" (2008)
39 Comments
Thx for the link to the Globe story. Over the past 10-20 years, I've noticed a shift in the the operative metaphor of the human (American?) mind. The older model supposed the ideal mind to act like a judge, carefully collecting and weighing facts before rendering a firm decision. Nowadays, most people expect their mind to act like a high-priced lawyer hired to argue a particular viewpoint.
I suspected the talk radio culture would one day make us dumber, but I wouldn't have guessed it would alter our cognitive perception.
Jim, first, I must say thanks, because your posts lately have been so rich that it’s impossible to respond to everything I’d like. I’m sure I’ll have to return with more thoughts later, which is fine because the comments are just as rewarding.
I wholeheartedly agree with David Sterritt's argument here. Not about Kent Jones, specifically, just about the privileging of feeling/emotional reaction over intellectual persuasion in criticism. Is it naming names to cite the popular perception and admitted proclivities of Roger Ebert to the feelings movies evoke in him, especially “elevation?” He’s obviously not alone in this regard.
Me, I tend to the opposite, perhaps to my detriment. Any review I write with a reference to feeling (how funny a scene was or how moving another) makes me wince as I write it. This endeavor diverges from other forms of criticism in that when I describe my emotional response to a film, I’m just giving you my anecdotal case study; perhaps you’ll react similarly. Whereas when I discuss how a director uses all the elements of style to convey something or somethings with a scene or film, it’s empirical analysis, using data we’re all privy to. It’s common ground to a case study’s private room.
Critical thinking and emotional reaction are polar, and criticism ought to privilege the former; it is the root word after all. But I acquiesce that there is certainly room, perhaps demand, for a discussion of a film’s emotional provocations in criticism. After all, directors often intend for you to be near tears in certain scenes or gasping elsewhere; it’s clearly relevant to discuss to what ends.
That said (and winding down, promise), moving people to some emotional reaction seems to me a far easier task than persuading them of your intellectual argument. To me, Gertrud is superior to Ordet, because it manages both where Ordet depends on the former. Loud noises surprise us. Injustice stokes our compassion. Explosions make us bored (or maybe that’s just me). Look no further than Gaspar Noe or Lars von Trier to see how easy it is to provoke. If I let my tears decide, Dancer in the Dark would be a great film. But my neurons get lost once we get to the part where we indict America's justice system because of an immigrant's pride.
"Confined to a wheelchair".
Really, Jim? This is the equivalent of kicking a grandmother?
Here's the thing. Why was your friend so quick to latch on to his reaction of being offended, before considering the point of view that may grant validity to this description, quite apart from being meant to hurt or cause offense?
Yes, a wheelchair does offer mobility to those who would otherwise be immobile. That mobility however is limited, especially as it compares to the natural method of human locomotion, walking. And this is where the "offense" factor comes in, I believe. A handicapped person does not wish to be reminded, or to have the fact acknowledged at all, that they are living within a defective body. I do not see any benefit in pandering to the juvenile emotional state of a person who implicitly believes that his physical condition is the criterion of his self-worth.
P.S. I must confess puzzlement at your attempt to ascribe political correctness to the right via the examples given. Moral clarity, war on Christmas, moral equivalence; these are all reactions against politically correct thinking, not manifestations of it. Freedom fries, and "restoring honor" are incendiary terms, meant to give offense, not refrain from it. The former was meant more as a finger to the French than anything else; the latter being an often-used jab at the incumbent (incidentally, utilized to great effect by the Obama camp during its '08 campaign). The right, generally speaking, has not shown itself to be inordinately preoccupied with refraining from offending others.
These are all examples of demagogy, yes, and as such they cater to the emotions and prejudices of the listener, the desired effect being the reinforcement of same, demonizing the opposition in the process. To label this as political correctness of the right makes no sense, Jim, if the term is to retain its meaning of "minimizing social and institutional offense".
Additionally, it is foolish to assume that the distinction of the left's political correctness is that it is well-intentioned. It is not. Its ultimate goal, much like demagogy, is to eliminate the possibility of rational discussion. Ironically, the stated purpose of the PC movement is to foster harmony and goodwill among society's disparate members. We are expected to surpass our differences by making them, and our awareness of them, the foundation of our interaction together. The end result is, quite understandably, paralysis.
OK, I'll give you the PowerPoint recap:
1) First paragraph, re goals of "Politically Correct" euphemisms: "the pressure to reframe discussion by controlling language." One of the best examples I can think if (though I didn't use it in the original post) is the use of "pro-choice" and "pro-life" for positions on abortion.
2) Re "confined to a wheelchair": This example was to show a way in which language is used to show sensitivity to others. I gave reasons why "confined to" is inaccurate and inconsiderate. Why not just say "in a wheelchair"? Why would you want to deliberately go out of your way to hurt somebody? It's not an overtly hostile insult -- like, say, "towelhead" or "jungle bunny" -- but what is the objection to politeness or common courtesy?
3) "Moral clarity," "moral equivalence," "War on Christmas" -- these are buzzwords that may have begun as a reaction to perceived "PC" from the left, but quickly became the knee-jerk equivalent, often used like Newspeak to mean exactly the opposite of what they sounded like.
Interesting piece, Jim. Of course, we're in a society where, since all of us were created equal, all opinions are seen as equal. That doesn't make fundamental sense - for example, your opinion on film is more informed, and thus more valuable, than mine - but to deny it is to bring elitism to the forefront of all discussion.
I don't really have a problem with prefacing discussion by comparing knowledge levels, but most people do, especially if anything involving religion or politics is brought in.
Do you feel South Park is "politcally incorrect," without falling into the pitfalls of the far right? Of course, at least some times, it actually is "'politically correct" in a good way (the N-word has an effect people can never know, there is nothing wrong with being a homosexual).
"the predisposition of nearly all film critics to approach their subject(s) in terms that value the emotional over the intellectual and the descriptive over the intuitive."
I'm confused- shouldn't that read "intuitive over descriptive"?
This post reminded me of this article from last weeks Onion: http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/
I suppose it's a reflection of fallacy of my feelings that the part of this post that I need to respond to the most is the picture. Is Casablanca being held up as an example of the way filmgoers "tend to prize emotion above intellectual substance or aesthetics" and "value movies that move us"? The film's continued treatment with reverence as an example of critics and moviegoers trying desperately to provide ex post facto justifications for a film that just happens to push most people's emotional buttons?
Or is the picture a reference to the way Ilsa accepts Rick's emotionally-driven (but presented as a logical argument) plea for her to leave so that he can go play hero and get his big redemptive moment, whilst she is given the hardest job of all, to play housewife to an important but humourless man she doesn't love?
I guess people will make of it whatever they like. I needed an image for the top of the post. So I was just trying to think of something from a movie that universally signified "emotion." Then there's the added resonance of Rick's speech: "I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."
Jim, I commend you on your wonderfully thoughtful and nuanced post. But I think you're making a false dichotomy between emotions and intellectual substance. You can't put these two into separate, distinct categories and assume they don't effect each other. They're interrelated. Our emotions have an effect on how we think about something and our thoughts have an effect on how we feel about something. I can't feel the emotional impact of the ending of L'Avventura without understanding the psychology of Sandro and Claudia and their relationship to each other. Just as I can't fully appreciate the technical brilliance of a Chopin nocturne or Fitzgerald's dazzling prose without some sort of emotional response.
I want to say further that you're framing "emotion" simply as a feeling of selfish pride (in the case of right wing political correctness) or sentimentality (in the case of movies). Emotions cover a wider gamut of complexity. They can be petty, like selfish pride motivating one to hold onto false beliefs or they can be legitimate, like your compassion for people who aren't confined to wheel chairs but are liberated by them. I think you would agree.
And, of course, we value movies that move us. If they don't move us, they die. But we're not talking only about tears. They can move us in other ways - awe, wonder, fear, anger, they can even mesmerize us.
I don't give so much weight to emotions because I think we should let them run our lives, but that they are what undergirds all other actions whether we realize it or not, and to truly belief something there must be some sort of emotional foundation. We can't simply rationalize anything (especially when critically dissecting a film) and tuck our emotions away.
"What's needed today is a new paradigm of readily accessible yet rigorously thoughtful prose combining theoretical analysis with intuitive ideas about cinema and the aesthetic world it creates."
I should think that's fairly obvious.
I think a a false conflict is being set up. Art appreciation is not a pair of scales (or a see-saw) where prizing emotional reaction pushes down intellectual reaction and vice versa. The intellectual can be subconsiously processed and have an emotional output anyway.
We are indeed emotional beings - our happiness need not be based on (provable facts).
Jim,
"Thought"-provoking column. Here's the rub from my perspective.
Humans are BOTH intellectual and emotional. We tend to fall into the fallacy that one excludes the other. While I agree the manipulation of language to rationalize injury to others is harmful to the social fabric, there is equal harm in being intelligent without emotion as there is in being emotional without intelligence.
Using films as an example, I often recommend "Mindwalk" with Liv Ullman and Sam Waterston, simply for the pure intellectual experience. Many of my friends (even people I consider "intellectual") can't stand it. Of course, there are days my wife rolls her eyes when I watch something as visceral as "The Wild Bunch."
I enjoy both films. I enjoyed "The Expendables" even though it was completely devoid of any intellectual stimulation (perhaps that is why I enjoyed it, LOL!) as much as I enjoyed the intricate mental masturbation of "Inception." I do not sacrifice one form of film in preference for another.
Politics carries a similar school of thought. The documentary "What's The Matter with Kansas?" exemplifies how people can repeatedly vote against their own self-interest when there is an emotional element (no matter how false) behind their comfort in feeling they are "doing the right thing." Often politicians will craft their message and language ("death panels") to parlay the emotional response of fear into a manipulation of political activism.
The real problem is politics serve the community best when rational arguments propel emotional response. An action is taken that benefits the community (or nation) and makes the populace feel good about what they have supported. But both the intellectual and emotional sides of our nature must be served, ideally. And served honestly.
From my personal experience (and from its consistently high ratings) I am not alone in my intellectual and emotional response to Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird." He does what he feels and knows to be right, and he fails to successfully defend his client. His sense of defeat is heart breaking. But the courtroom scene where the observers in the balcony rise in respect for what this white man has tried to do for the black community - in the face of an overwhelming travesty of justice - always brings a tear to my eye. Because it touches an emotional element as well as an intellectual, and even moral, element to my person.
One of the problems with some of the language used by the Right is that it is simply false. For example they talk about a "War on Christmas" except there isn't one. There is this conspiracy all throughout the Western world, which is in some ways is less about rescuing Christmas, and more about attacking the non-Christians (usually Muslims) who are perceived as targeting Christmas; when nobody is.
"homicide bombers" is equally false, as the term suicide bomber simply diffirentriates the types of terrorism used. All terrorism is homicide terrorism; however in order to differentiate the type of terrorism used, people talk about car bombing, suicide bombing etc... If someone committed suicide, and didn't kill anyone, they wouldn't be a suicide bomber; they would simply be a suicide. Experts and analysts always use the term suicide bombing; the only people who use the term homicide bombing are right-wingers who want to make a point, which does not need to be made (if it wasn't didn't consideredto be murder, it wouldn't be talked about in the context of terrorism), purely for ideological reasons.
Consider that it is impossible for one to choose their own blind spots and delusions, but rather easy to "see" them in others.
And what one recognizes in others is often the very thing one dislikes most about one's own propensities. I know I try so hard to express myself rationally that when I see others saying irrational things it really bugs me... almost to an irrational degree!
Considering the thesis of this essay, can I flip this back on you?
Questioning was verboten? Doubt was denounced as fascist? Is this an observation based in a factual record, or is this how you felt about it?
I'm not asking to be accusatory, but I'm wondering how much of this is based on personal feelings toward the topic (i.e., guilty of that which you criticize) rather than an objective review of some historical process or another. To some extent that may be unavoidable, given how much emotion dictates our beliefs, even those we believe are backed with facts and reason.
I'm not disputing the argument that language can be used - by right or left - as a limiting factor in discussion.
It's based on my being a teenager and going to college in the 1970s. There are plenty of historical examples -- and fictional reflections of that reality in works from, say, "Network" to Philip Roth's "The Human Stain."
I'm not sure I believe this: not that your memory is faulty, but that personal anecdote isn't the way we normally defend this kind of claim. PC culture tends to prompt reactions that are more visceral than factual (heck, just look at the comments section!), and while I'm sure there's an exception for everything, I'm unaware of any real PC culture that turned into fascist [sic] rejection of doubt and disagreement. I'm not still not convinced that this is based on fact rather than feeling.
I take it you haven't had much experience with radical political organizations. ;-) Maybe you hadda be there. Just talk to anyone who was. I learned a lot about these group dynamics covering campus demonstrations and student government for my college newspaper at that time. So I've written plenty of first-hand reports on what people actually did and said. As for the term "fascist" -- that isn't my description. It was an all-purpose insult from the left (like "communist" or "pinko" were from the right) that eventually it, too, became a pop-culture joke. (Teenagers would call their parents "fascists" if they attempted to enforce rules.) You can believe what you want -- and by all means don't take my word for it. Do a little research. You might be surprised at what you learn...
P.S. Just to sample part of the atmosphere, check out this .pdf of a June 20, 1975, newsletter called "no separate piece": http://j.mp/bJv4EB
In particular, check out a story called "UW post-mortem." There's also an item about a bombing of a state office by the George Jackson Brigade in protest over prison conditions at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla: "The George Jackson Brigade
believes that revolutionary terror is an appropriate response to fascist terror." This was not an unusual sentiment at the time in the campus circles with which I was acquainted. I don't know that I know anybody who actually bombed anything, though...
Yeah, and if you think of Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, etc. as basically just people on a television commercial trying to sell you something in that brainwashing passive way that commercials do, then it all makes much more sense.
Here's what I wrote in Roger's latest Palin blog:
Here's an important question Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin forget to ask the American people after their speeches:
"Would you like fries with that?"
"Would you like fries with that?"
"Would you like fries with your moose-burger combo?"
Yes, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, give me some fries with my moose-burger combo: Thank you.
Just let me list everything out for you:
Moose-burger combo, supercries it
Radical Liberal lime soda
Communist-a-cola
Van Jones Jumbo Turkey Sandwich
The Reverend Wright brainwash chicken sandwich
Ayers BFF Burger
Hussein-eyebrow-raise on rye
"Prove you're not an enemy" Muslim sampler
Reconquista nachos
Dirtbag Mexican donuts
and the
Apocalyptic-Empty-Wallet-Mystery Desert
[I spelled dessert wrong on purpose]
Kevin, Stephen, Jeffrey: You're quite right that we can't fully separate emotion from reason (and I've written a few posts on just that -- recently and regarding "Inglourious Basterds" last year). So, I certainly didn't mean to set up a false dichotomy between one and the other. But as William Saletan wrote in that Slate piece I quoted recently, we should at least take a moment to examine where our feelings are coming from and what they're based upon. "Feelings aren't reasons" -- they have to be rooted in something. And then we examine the facts -- what we know and what we don't know -- and see how they relate to those feelings we're having. When it comes to movies, I was noting again that we do tend to privilege emotion, but that (as Sterritt says) movies operate on many other levels as well: "Good movies touch our feelings, of course, but that isn't the only thing that makes them good..." You might say the same think about certain kinds of music or visual art. I suppose some have emotional responses to Mark Rothko or Piet Mondrian, but that's not what they're known for.
I found this particularly apropos of "The American," which isn't a terribly involving emotional experience, but I found it a fairly intense and fascinating visual one. And, while the movie may have other shortcomings (in terms of what we expect from a thriller starring George Clooney -- plot, pacing, character), I think it's worth considering on its own terms. I haven't been able to stop re-playing it in my head for the last week.
The correct thing to say, so I have been taught, is that the person is using a wheelchair. It is the person who is in control, not the wheelchair.
Is it?
Jim,
the real kicker is that sometimes our thoughts and emotions come from a deeper place hardwired into our biology . . . "intuition", which is often more intelligent than the most brilliantly articulated and reasoned argument. Sometimes you just take action because you gotta.
Thought I would share a rather boorish yet hilarious example of "political incorrectness" . . .
A friend was on his cell phone having a pretty subdued conversation while in line at a Starbucks, located near a prestigious liberal arts college. The coffee shop was packed with people reading books, researching on their laptops, etc . . . there was definitely a bad vibe and many evil glares towards my friend, and I honestly felt some of these "enlightened" students felt it was entirely inappropriate for my friend to be having a conversation on his cell phone in a PUBLIC PLACE. and God forbid they were discussing FOOTBALL on a SUNDAY!! He wasn't speaking loudly and I honestly felt he was trying to respect the "space" of the other people in the Starbucks.
So my buddy finished his conversation and puts away his cell phone, and one rather indignant intellectual held up his hands and gave a snide and sarcastic victory clap towards my friend. So my friend stepped out of line, leaned over this guy, and said very sternly:
"Sylvia Plath killed herself, you know."
I don't know why it made me laugh so hard, just this perfect blend of meanness, intellectual reference, and socially aberrant behavior. Ah well, I guess there's a reason we root for Rodney Dangerfield over Ted Knight in "Caddyshack", eh? :)
I realized the depth of this problem many years ago when I became embroiled in an argument over the definition of energy in Newtonian physics. The person I was arguing with had no formal scientific education, while I am a licensed mechanical engineer. Initially, I did not even view it as an argument so much as a correction, similar to that which a teacher might administer to a student who had erred.
How naive that turned out to be! He argued vociferously, stubbornly, and became increasingly agitated at the fact that I would not budge. "I made concessions; why won't you meet me in the middle?" he said.
The problem is that there is no middle. He was simply incorrect about how energy is defined in Newtonian physics, and as he had no education in the subject, he really should have simply accepted my expertise in the subject. Instead, he thought it was some sort of negotiation, like politics, and that I was being unreasonable for not being willing to trade concession for concession. He compared our arguments based on their relative linguistic eloquence rather than their factual accuracy, and deemed them to be roughly equal.
The notion that he could be objectively wrong was obviously foreign to his understanding of the situation. In his mind, he was being "reasonable" and I was being "unreasonable" because he was willing to "negotiate", and I was not. And all of this was because the proper definition of energy in Newtonian physics differed from what his gut instinct was telling him.
I have since noted this same behaviour among anti-science advocates of all stripes, especially as anti-scientific attitudes have become more prominent in politics. It says a lot of things about human nature, none of them good.
"I've been known to "correct" (pronounce the word like Delbert Grady in "The Shining") people who use the ugly phrase "confined to a wheelchair." When I was in college a friend in a wheelchair told me what he found objectionable about the phrase: the wheelchair is not confining. It offers mobility. So the term is not only inaccurate, there's an undertone of pity and condescension that many people resent. I understand that, it makes sense, and therefore I've never forgotten it. Sure, it's sensitivity -- in the sense that it shows basic courtesy and respect for another person. I'd no sooner use "confined to a wheelchair" than I would kick a random old lady on the sidewalk."
Sorry, Jim, but I have to say that I strongly disagree. While this essay is, overall, an excellent-as-usual piece of work, the above paragraph is completely at odds with your own argument because it so clearly illustrates your own propensity for lettig your emotions dictate to your intellect. Consider:
1. While I agree that the phrase "confined to a wheelchair" is a misnomer, it is not for the reasons your old friend stated. The fallacy is the simple fact that no one has EVER been "confined to a wheelchair". People who use wheelchairs get out of them all the time. They lie in bed. They sit on the commode. They often use the provided seating in restaurants, theaters, bars, and, sometimes, public conveyances.
2. Labeling the phrase "confined to a wheelchair" as "ugly" and containing an undertone of "pity" and "condescension" is subjective in the extreme. "Confined to a wheelchair" is a fairly commmon phrase and while I would argue its validity as a description (for the reasons stated above) I do not find ugliness or condescension inherent in the phrase. Of course, any word or phrase can be said in a condescending, pitying or downright mean spirited manner, but it seems to me that you are taking issue with words when you should be taking issue with the speaker(s).
3. Equating the use of any word with an act of physical violence is simply wrong. No word or phrase ever uttered by human mouth and heard by human ear has ever had the same (or even similar) effect as the booting of an elderly woman on the sidewalk.
4. While we're on the subject, I doubt the AARP would take too kindly to the descriptive phrase "old lady".
I believe I already addressed 1 and 2 in the post itself, and I don't think we're at odds there. But I'm not "equating" physical violence with the use of the term -- I'm saying that, because of my early sensitization to the inappropriateness of "confined to a wheelchair" (actually, it now strikes me as more silly than insulting) I would no sooner use it than I would kick an elderly woman (is that term better?). I was going to say "slam a door in an old lady's face" -- with its implication of courtesy vs. rudeness -- but then I thought it might get confusing (if she was a Jehovah's Witness coming to my front door, which is clearly marked with a No Solicitors sign, I might indeed slam the door in her face -- before my dogs went at her). Anyway, I'm comparing (not equating) two acts of discourtesy. As for the AARP, I'm over 50 now and I could probably join it myself. I'm a cranky, unreasonable old man!
Deceptively youthful looking blogger sics attack dogs on Jehovah's Witness. Film at eleven.
This is a particularly favorite passage of mine from television, but unlike most of television packs some reasoning in its emotion to form something greater then almost all television.
Narrator: "Where will he go next, this phantom from another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare--Chicago; Los Angeles; Miami, Florida; Vincennes, Indiana; Syracuse, New York? Anyplace, everyplace, where there's hate, where there's prejudice, where there's bigotry. He's alive. He's alive so long as these evils exist. Remember that when he comes to your town. Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others. Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being. He's alive because through these things we keep him alive."
"He's Alive"
Twilight Zone.
Sorry, I can't find the accomponying footage.
It's actually interesting that this subject comes up on a blog about movies, because Hollywood has been extraordinarily consistent about promoting the value of intuition (emotion-driven, instinctive) over that of rational analysis and (particularly) higher education.
The most well-educated person in a Hollywood movie is virtually guaranteed to be the most bull-headed unreasonable blowhard in the story. Conversely, the least educated person is usually the most intelligent, in all the ways that actually matter. In a contest between "intuitive" and "rational", Hollywood votes for "intuitive", nearly 100% of the time.
In fact, the phrase "there has to be a rational explanation" is a Hollywood code-phrase which means "I'm completely wrong, I'm close-minded, I'm ignoring the evidence, and I will inevitably be proven completely wrong about everything".
Intuition is nothing more than habit: your brain forms habits based on daily experiences. Those habits manifest themselves as feelings which appear when parts of a situation trigger those associations in your brain. Given this fact, it is rather obvious that intuition fails when one experiences an extraordinary and unfamiliar situation, yet Hollywood teaches the opposite: that when faced with the unfamiliar, intuition handily trumps logic every time.
This is a pretty fantastic observation, even if it's a little tangent to the content of the article itself. I've noticed something similar -- the frequent use of the "immature professor" archetype in recent indie dramas, including (off the top of my head) The Squid and the Whale, Smart People, The Savages, and Junebug. I think it's a symptom of the same Hollywood anti-intellectualism that you're talking about, filtering down into indie offerings.
I wouldn't call "Squid," "Savages" or "Junebug" (certainly not Junebug) "anti-intellectual." I think in the case of at least "Squid" it's a matter of the artist (Baumb...Noah) writing about what he knows. A lot of people who make movies are smart, and a lot of smart people have problems, and a lot of smart people who make movies make movies about their problems.
And a lot of people who see movies like "Squid" or "Savages" are smart and have smart people problems, so it makes sense. What would be the sense of someone like Noah Baum... making movies only critical of stupid people?
In the New Yorker tribute to Jon Stewart, there's a quote by Stewart that reminded me of this post. He starts off talking about how he admires Fox News for the way its made the news a narrative with recurring characters (anchors and politicians alike) with pointed positions and simple, larger than life personalities. He goes on to compare it to MSNBC:
"Even the Fox morning show, the way they’re able to present propaganda as though it’s merely innocent thoughts occurring to them: ‘What is this “czar”? I’m Googling, and you know what’s interesting about a czar? It’s a Russian oligarch! Don’t you think it’s weird that Obama has Russian oligarchs, and he’s a socialist?’ Whereas MSNBC will trace the word and say, ‘If you don’t understand that, you’re an idiot!’ The mistake they make is that somehow facts are more important than feelings."
It's only a mistake if popularity is your racket. Why think when feeling is so easy?
Your identification of McVeigh as Christian Racist shows you haven't read much about him, Jim.
He was an agnostic, who openly admitted that if there was a hell, he'd be going there for what he did, but didn't care. And racism didn't factor in at all with his attack.
His real motivation was disgust with our government's violence (against people at home and abroad) that boiled over into expolisve rage. He became what he hated.
Funny how everyone mentions his ties to various "militias," which were obscure at best, but no one asks if perhaps his military training factored in to what he did. I guess that would be "insensitive" to the troops, who have become the new victim group (Yellow ribbons, Petraeus saying that a retard pastor shouldn't burn Korans because it would "endanger the troops", etc.)
Yes, I realize he was more inspired by the neo-Nazi-penned "The Turner Diaries" than the bible, but that is part of my point. All this stuff gets mixed together -- politics and religion and guns and government (including the sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco, which he claims are what set him off). McVeigh was raised Catholic, but split off from Catholicism and mainstream Christianity. So, why should we hold a particular religion responsible for his behavior when he was such an extremist in so many other ways? He even claims to have picked and chosen from "The Turner Diaries" -- saying he didn't endorse the book's white supremacism, but supported other ideas espoused by the right-wing terrorist groups in the novel, including the violent overthrow of the US government. Here's the Wikipedia entry on his favorite book, "The Turner Diaries," in which non-whites and Jews are executed as "race traitors," the protagonist's Organization plots to blow up FBI headquarters, launches nuclear strikes against NYC and Israel, and flies a plane carrying a nuclear bomb into the Pentagon.
You're right that the term "milita movement" has been used to describe any number of armed, extreme-right, racist, anti-Semitic organizations, like Aryan Nations and The Order, so maybe that's what people were referring to. Even though many of these groups with whom McVeigh sympathized claim to be motivated by Christianity (considering other sects apostatical), I wouldn't hold all of Christianity -- or the parts of the bible they seize upon -- responsible for the words and actions of fanatics, whether it's the God Hates Fags preacher or Rev. Yosemite Sam down in Florida.
Something about this post reminded me of Martin Luther King being quoted in support of gay marriage. Maybe it was the part about facts not mattering, or the bit about how we feel taking precedence over all else.
One of our more significant national infirmities as Americans is a zealous self-admiration: when Americans denounce what "we" have done around the world or what "we" are doing to the environment, it is really "they" being referred to. Other Americans, not like us, the pure and righteous. In actual fact, most Americans wouldn't recognize real oppression if it came up and shook our hands, but we like to think we would.
Our notion of justice is heavily informed by our sense of how like us someone else is likely to be. King, being conveniently dead, is excellent for that purpose. If he were alive today, he would naturally be for what we are for. Whether there is any actual evidence that he would have been, or that the idea ever occurred to him, is beside the point. What matters is that we feel he would. If we couldn't feel he would think the way we do, we wouldn't admire him so much.
This is only partially related, but I read a fascinating article in the Skeptical Inquirer a while back. It revealed a tendency for pseudoscientific/paranoid conspiracy beliefs to directly coincide with the release of movies based on those beliefs. For example, during the boom of alien invasion B-pictures in the 1950s, reports of UFO sightings and abductions went up. As the genre declined, so did the reports.
I suspect that this is the same tendency of human psychology as the one described by the political scientists. To convince somebody that something is true (or, at least, plausible), it's often enough to introduce the idea without regard to its factuality. If the existence of alien visitors, the conspiracy theories surrounding JFK, or a Muslim foreigner in the White House are portrayed as a realistic possibility, even under the veil of fiction, natural human paranoia will do the rest of the work.
That makes sense. People tend to assume that we rationally process information, but in reality it takes a great deal of effort to do this. Logic does NOT come naturally to human beings, as proven by the general public's widespread distaste for mathematics: the greatest "pure logic" enterprise ever undertaken by humanity.
Instead of processing information logically, we tend to allow it to imprint itself onto our brains, where it manifests itself as habits of thought. Of course, these habits of thought, operating below the conscious radar, do not necessarily differentiate between fact and fiction. Watch enough movies, and the conventions of movies seem more "real" to you than reality does.
For example, look at all the people who said that the WTC plane impact looked "fake", based on the fact that it didn't look like the way such crashes look in movies. People wondered why you didn't see great chunks of the plane flying away from the impact, as a Hollywood special effects person would have done. In the first week, it looked "strange" because people had come to associate Hollywood's special effects with reality. This was not a conscious decision; it happened because we assimilate information below the conscious level. But today, after countless repetitions of those images, we have had them burned into our brains so that it now looks "correct".
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