Category: demagoguery

What it’s like when you’ve been reading Nuremburg Interrogations, Tapping Hitler’s Generals, Shattered Genius, The End, The Wehrmacht Retreats, and Trump Administration officials saying they’re protecting America by standing by Trump

A recent anonymous editorial says, “We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.”

This author, call them Franz, wants the Trump administration to succeed, and believes the administration is significantly damaging to the US. So, Franz wants an administration to succeed that he believes is damaging to the US. Wait, wait, that isn’t what Franz meant at all.

The problem with Trump is that he is basically a fascist. He doesn’t want a government accountable to the people through a critical press; he wants (and, to a large degree, has) a media that will repeat in a fawning way anything he wants said, that will defend him through any sophistries and casuistries and outright falsehoods necessary (how tall is he? how much does he weigh?).  Trump wants to be a one-person government, he wants to be head of a one-party state, in which there is nothing but fawning adoration of him, and a government of charismatic leadership. Franz thinks all of that is bad, and yet Franz does everything he can to keep Trump from being held accountable for how bad Franz thinks Trump is.

The sensible (and honorable) thing  for Franz to do would be to step outside the administration and call for impeachment. But Franz isn’t willing to do that honorable thing. Why not? Notice that Franz never explains that point. Franz wants to be seen as a hero without actually explaining why he hasn’t engaged in the genuinely brave action his beliefs would imply–openly condemning an administration he thinks is (sort of–he likes the political agenda, sometimes) bad, but not really, because not bad enough for him to take a hit to his political career.

Basically, this coward has done an anonymous negative Yelp review on Trump.

He says he likes the Republican, not Trump’s, policy agenda. Even without Trump, the GOP has Congress, a reliable propaganda machine, and an increasingly and openly Republican judiciary, and impeaching Trump would put Pence in power. So, why not do it?

Because, and this is what Franz doesn’t want to say, without rabid Trump supporters, the GOP wouldn’t have Congress. Franz wants the political energy and power gained by fomenting Trump’s fascism, but Franz thinks he doesn’t actually want fascism.

Oh, yes, he does. Franz doesn’t want the end product of fascism, but he wants the support of fascists. Franz supports fascism. Franz needs fascists. Maybe Franz should rethink his political agenda since 1) it depends on fascists, and 2) it depends on his hiding his ethical agenda from the public.

The German generals disliked Hitler from the beginning, recognizing him as pretty much a shallow thinker and an idiot about military affairs, and many of them were not Nazis, but they were reactionaries, and they loathed what they thought of as Bolshevism (which included liberalism and democratic socialism). They stuck with Hitler because they believed that “many of [his] policies have already made [Germany] safer and more prosperous.” They would have said that they supported his “effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.” Because he did all that. Seriously, Hitler did that. Franz would have liked Hitler. Hitler undid the socialist agenda of the Weimar democracy in regard to regulations about labor, he promised industrialists all sorts of things, and he promised the military what it wanted.

Am I saying that Trump is Hitler? No, because I really don’t think he is, but I do think he’s a fascist (not in the loose way it’s thrown around in the media, but in the way scholars like Paxton describe it). I’m making a more complicated point: Franz is presenting himself as a hero and savior. Is he? And the way to answer that question is to ask whether we would praise the same behavior on the part of other people who made the same arguments Franz is. Franz’s way of defending Trump is how supporters of Hitler defended him. It’s a bad way of defending someone.

That was complicated, so I’ll try to be more clear. Franz says that he has to try to mitigate Trump’s awful behavior because he likes Trump’s policy agenda (and he thinks the two are separate). He can’t leave Trump because then he might not get that agenda. And that is exactly the way that various people justified working with Hitler.

Is Franz’s defense a good defense? No. Not because Trump is like Hitler, but because Franz is like the people who supported Hitler. Had Hitler had to rely only on true believers like Himmler and Goebbels, he would have tanked. He succeeded because of people like Franz.

It isn’t about the policy agenda. It’s about the world you create in the course of getting that agenda. That’s what supporters of Hitler didn’t understand, and it’s what Franz doesn’t understand. You’re supporting a toxic process because it will get you the momentary political gains. The momentary political gains don’t matter. The process does.

So, Franz, your desire to hold on to a GOP majority—that is, your tribalism—means you’re throwing the US under the bus. You’re trying to present yourself as a hero, but you’re an enabler. The kindest thing I could say about you is that you’re Franz. Were I less charitable, I’d point out that you’re Wilhelm.

The image is from here: http://ww2today.com/24th-september-1942-hitler-sacks-his-chief-of-staff-franz-halder

Niemoller and the “atheists are bad because Nazis were atheist” argument

A lot of people love to quote Martin Niemoller, thinking he was a poet who wrote a poem that functions as a metaphor for complying with evil.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

There are various versions of it, some of which begin with the Nazis coming for communists first, and some with the Nazis coming for the Jews first. But, it wasn’t actually a poem. It was something that Neimoller said in lectures, because it wasn’t metaphorical—it was his narrative of what actually happened to him, and how he actually responded. And his whole point was that he was okay with what the Nazis did as long as he thought their policies didn’t hurt him. It was only when he ended up in jail that the problem with Nazis wasn’t their outcomes (which he liked till they hurt him), but their way. Their process was one to which he should always have objected, but he didn’t because he liked the outcome. Till he didn’t, and then he realized the process had been wrong all along.

Those processes were ones that could be used to hurt him, and so he should have paid attention to them.

I think that’s where we are. I think a lot of people are okay with Trump’s processes because they like the outcomes and they don’t realize those processes could hurt them. Niemoller realized, once he was in jail, that the ends don’t justify the means—because the means remain.

Here’s what Hitler promised: I will protect the in-group. I will institute a government that is not about fairness across groups; my policies will be entirely about promoting and protecting the in-group. That is a way  of determining policy: the government should protect and support people like me, and it’s not my business if official policy is something I would be outraged if applied to me.

Hitler said (and had always said), there are true Germans, and the German government should protect and promote their interests. That’s an argument (I will protect true Germans), and a way of arguing (laws should be applied differently depending on identity).

That second level is the one Neimoller bungled: he was fine with how the Nazis treated people until and unless it hit people like him (the Christian churches in Germany never objected to the treatment of Jews—they only mildly objected to the treatment of converted Jews; in other words, they only protected am in-group). Niemoller accepted the premised that, as long as your in-group is okay, the government is okay. Let’s think of that as the “argument from in-group/out-group” level. People might support Nazism because it seemed to support their in-group, and the hostile actions were against an out-group.[1] The way that Nazis operated—laws should be applied differently for in- versus out-group—was bad, but Niemoller was okay with it till he was a victim of that way.

This is what is important about Niemoller: his way of thinking was wrong. He was wrong because he was fine with a set of policies that applied to people that he didn’t want applied to him.

In other words, Niemoller was fine with other groups being treated in a way he would not want to be treated. It isn’t about what you’re doing; it’s about how you’re doing something. Are you treating others as you would think fair were you treated that way?

There’s a guy. He said in-group/out-group membership didn’t count. He said fairness across groups matters. Niemoller’s mistake was ignoring what that guy said, and that’s the point of his quote. People shouldn’t judge the actions of another (or a government) on the basis of whether we are harmed or benefitted at this moment, but whether we would think those actions just if applied across groups.

Hitler said (and all demagogues say), “I am you. You and I need to expel/exterminate this group that wants to exterminate us. Because they want to exterminate us, anything we do is justified.”

What Hitler did (and, to be blunt, all authoritarian demagogues do) is equivocate on the construction of that in-group. In-groups are often defined in the negative—we are this because we are not that. We take pride in not being that (to give a personal example, ELCA taking pride in not being Missouri Synod). In a culture of demagoguery, there is an out-group (Jews, communists) and any violence against that out-group is justified because they are toxic to the body politic. You demonstrate your commitment to the in-group by how much hate you express about the out-group.

When Hitler was coming to power, Niemoller was a conservative Lutheran pastor who thought the Nazis might be useful allies in regaining some of the ground lost under the socialist democrats, both in terms of the power of the church (especially Protestant) in material and cultural ways. He thought he was in Hitler’s in-group. And he thought that because there was so much rhetoric that said that there were only two sides: you could be an atheistic communist, or you could be Nazi. Hitler never argued against the many parties in the middle (including Democratic Socialists, who were not atheist, nor fascist, nor communist).

The socialists had been in favor of a separation of church and state, and so allowed secular public education, and Niemoller (and other religious figures) were worried about possibly additionally losing the substantial amount of money they got from the state. He believed, correctly, that the Nazis would not allow for the separation of church and state (whoops on how he read that belief), that they would insist on religion in the classroom, that they would have a government with an openly religious mission, and he thought he could work with them on the money issue. As far as cultural issues, Niemoller’s politics were far closer to the Nazis’ than to the socialists. He believed, correctly, that the Nazis would reinstate conservative policies regarding homosexuality, abortion, birth control, women’s rights, and religious intolerance. Niemoller was pretty typical in that regard. What that means, and this is important, is that Niemoller and people like him, because they weren’t willing to deal with a mild cutting back on their privileges, actively supported a regime that would eventually exterminate them.

And they did it because they were so obsessed with getting certain policy points–abolition of homosexuality, abortion, and birth control; a judicial system that (they thought) would promote their political agenda; financial benefits for the churches; protection of rabidly religious education—that they were willing to overlook how those policy goals would be attained.

But it’s the how that matters. Not just how policy was attained, but how people reasoned.

There is a talking point now that Nazis were atheists, and therefore atheists are bad, so, as long as we keep atheists out of office, we could never have a Holocaust. Hitler talked a lot about God, almost certainly sincerely, and, while he had some higher-level supporters who espoused atheism, most of the higher-ups were some kind of theist (even if neo-pagan), and, overwhelmingly, supporters of the regime were avowed Christian. Nazism was openly genocidal from 1939, and the genocides were not some kind of secret activity on the part of a few people. Genocide was the official and open policy of the Wehrmacht—the orders were to kill everyone who might be a political or ideological threat, and that “threat” was determined racially. People who identified as Christian stood by the side of a ditch and laughed as blood spurted from the layers of people they were killing. Had all the Christians refused to engage in genocide, the war would have ended in 1939. They didn’t. The Nazi regime was a Christian regime because most of the people enacting Nazi policies were Christian.

People who want to argue that being Christian makes someone a better person (really bad theology) and that, therefore, we should only have Christian judges and politicians, try to use Nazi Germany as an example as to why leaders should be Christian. The Nazi regime was atheist, they say, and it was bad, therefore regimes should be Christian. Not everyone in the Nazi regime was atheist, however, and most of the people who voted for, supported, and enacted Nazi policies were Christian. But, that argument is that Hitler’s entourage had a disproportionate number of atheists, and therefore atheists are dangerous. Or, Hitler’s entourage had a disproportionate number of non-Christians, and therefore this is proof that a predominantly Christian government is safe.

Here’s the problem with how people tend to argue (and it’s the problem Niemoller was trying to point to): it isn’t what you argue; it’s how you argue. For a long time, all he cared about was what people were arguing, and then he suddenly realized that what mattered was how they argued.

Milton Mayer’s troubling book They Thought They Were Free describes ten people who submitted to Nazism cheerfully, and who continued to believe that Hitler was good (but had bad advisors). It has a brilliant explanation as to why they continued to believe in Hitler, and one part of the explanation is that people tend to think in the short term as to whether they are, in this moment, better, and not whether the way they got the things they like is a good way. Mayer says that they believed “Adolf Hitler was good—in my friends’ view—up until 1943, 1941, or 1939, depending on the individual’s assessment of his strategy” (69-70). In other words, he was good for Germany until things started to go bad, but Hitler’s strategy was bad from the beginning—his was of deliberating, his plans for world domination, his racist policies. It’s as though they thought that drinking arsenic was great till the moment it killed someone—they didn’t acknowledge that the way Hitler ruled was always going to end up in an unwinnable war, racial extermination, and a devastated Germany.

There are a lot of ways to assess an argument; here I want to mention three. First, it’s a good argument because it’s made by someone you thinking is good. Second, it’s a good argument because it confirms your beliefs, and so it intuitively feels right. Third, it’s a good argument because the way it’s argued would be, you think, a good way to argue even if you didn’t like the outcome.[2] There is a similar division in terms of thinking about politics: you can decide that a policy is good because it’s advocated by someone you like; or it’s good because you’re benefitting from it here and now; or it’s good because the way it was argued and enacted and applied would be, you think, good even if you didn’t benefit from it.

The argument that Nazism was atheist fits into the first and second categories, but not the third. It is probably made by people you like, and it gets you a conclusion you like (Christians are good and Nazis are bad). But the way it’s argued—if you consistently applied that logic—would lead to your endorsing Nazi policies.

I say, “Kale is bad because I threw up after eating it.” If I sincerely believed that was a good way to argue, then I’d be willing to stop consuming anything that made me throw up. [In rhetorical terms, the enthymeme has a major premise I’ll support in other circumstances.] But, what if I threw up after drinking tequila? If I’m going to stick with the premise established in regard to kale, then I’d also conclude that tequila is bad (personally, I’d support that conclusion), in which case my argument about kale is logical. But, what if I ever want to drink tequila again (and, really, I’d say you should think about that), then my conclusion about tequila has a different premise from my argument about tequila.

In other words, the major premise of my stance about kale (things that make me throw up should be avoided) is not one I hold consistently, so it isn’t actually helping me make decisions about what to consume. It’s only helping me rationalize decisions I make for other reasons.

If I like tequila (really, why would you do that?), I’ll find lots of reasons to exempt it from the “it makes you throw up” argument I’m willing to make for kale. And that’s the important point, if I’m not willing to reason across kale and tequila, then I don’t have a logical argument. I’m just looking for reasons to hate kale and like tequila (don’t—don’t do that).

If my way of making decisions is to protect my commitments, then I will start with a premise (kale is bad), and I will just look for datapoints to support that premise. And here’s what’s important for thinking about how people reason—I will feel that I am logical in my feelings about kale since I can find lots of evidence to support my claim. You can find lots of evidence to support any claim, after all. What you can’t find (and this is where Infowars and conspiracy theories get it wrong), is evidence that you apply with consistent premises. But that’s a different pot. Here’s the point I’m making: if I’m not actually willing to apply my reasoning about kale to other things that make me throw up, then I’m not being logical; I’m just neck-deep in the swamp of confirmation bias.

It might be true that kale is bad, but kale being bad doesn’t confirm my way of reasoning. What I mean by that is that it might be true that Nazis are bad political leaders (they are), but that doesn’t mean that Christians are good political leaders. Nazis weren’t bad because some of the Nazi leaders were atheists; Nazis were bad because they were entitled authoritarian racist fascist militarist German exceptionalists who rejected any notions of universal human rights. The Nazi way of reasoning never changed, but its outcomes did—what Mayer shows is that, when that way got people what they wanted, it seemed good; when it didn’t it got bad. They didn’t see that the bad was the inevitable consequence of the apparently good.  The Nazi way of reasoning initially seemed good to Niemoller, because it got him what he wanted. But it wasn’t a good way, because it got him in jail. And then he saw it was bad—it was bad all along, but he didn’t see it till he was in jail.[3]

What the Nazis should teach us is that our group succeeding is not a good reason to support a politician—we should support politicians who advocate policies we would support regardless of whether they benefit us personally. And we shouldn’t just judge an argument as to whether it gets a conclusion we like; we should think about whether we would consider it a good way of arguing for everyone.

And that’s where the “Atheists are bad because the Nazis were bad” gets awful. That argument assumes that you can and should take disproportionate representation of some group in a bad power structure as proof that the group as a whole is evil. Nazis were evil, you reason, and a disproportionate were atheist, and so all atheists are dangerous. So, if that’s a good way to argue, then if a disproportionate number of leaders of Pol Pot’s revolution were left-handed, we should consider left-handed people evil. Or, if a disproportionate number of people in Lenin’s group were Jews, then Jews are bad.

And that is exactly how Nazis did (and do) argue. So, if you think that the presence of atheists in the Nazi regime is proof that Nazism is essentially atheist (regardless of the religious affiliations of the people who enacted Nazi policies) then you’re a Nazi. Lenin’s group had a disproportionate number of Jews, so, your logic says the Nazis were logical to say all Jews are essentially bad. That’s how you reason.

I’m not saying that you think Jews are essentially bad. I’m saying you’re Niemoller. Niemoller didn’t think Protestants should be jailed. But he didn’t like communists or socialists or Jews. And he knew that the Nazis would violate laws and act in authoritarian ways to exterminate out-groups. For a long time, he was only concerned with the outcome of their policies, and not the way they enacted their policies. Hitler was a liar, and had always been a liar, but, when Hitler told a lie Niemoller liked, Hitler’s way of arguing or administering didn’t matter. It was only when Niemoller ended up in jail that he realized Hitler’s way was wrong, and it had always been wrong.

The way matters. If you think that atheists can’t be trusted because leading Nazis were disproportionately atheist, then you think the Nazis were right about the Jews. Or, in other words, you aren’t really thinking.

[1] And here I have to stop and explain that sociologists use the in-group/out-group distinction in a very specific and useful way. People often use “in-group” to mean people in power, but sociologists use it to mean the group you’re in. So, while pitbull owners is not a politically central group, it’s an in-group for people who believe that owning a pitbull is an important part of their identity.

[2] I am in an intermittent state of rage as to how scholars in rhetoric talk about Aristotle’s ethos/pathos/logos—it’s read in light of logical positivists logic/emotion binary. If you read what Aristotle says about politics and ethics, however, I think you end up with something much more like what I’m saying here.

[3] I’d also say it matters because all scams—ethical or monetary—rely on getting people to ignore major premises. If you want to scam someone, you get them to reason the wrong premises. Someone sells you a bad car on the grounds that he’s a nice guy; someone gets you to vote for her on the grounds that she is like you; someone persuades you to buy property on the grounds that he’s sold other property that made money. Those are all arguments that rely on major premises that are obviously invalid.

How trolls get played

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-8-prototypes-for-trumps-border-wall-photos

There are many ways in which working class people have the same political “interests” (the term used for goals, needs, policies). Concerns like good public schools, good roads, good police protection, affordable housing, affordable access to good healthcare, and so on aren’t limited to one kind of working class group. But they are necessarily class issues in two ways: first, rich people aren’t as dependent on the government to provide various services and so, if they only think in their short-term narrow self-interest, they can think that a strong social safety net isn’t a high priority. Rich people don’t need to care whether public schools are good, since they can send their kids to private schools. They can set up gated communities with good roads and private security forces. They don’t have to care whether there is low-income housing or affordable health insurance since they can pay for the expensive versions of both. Second, if all the working class got together—regardless of their membership in various sub-groups (religion, race, region)—it’s likely that they would advocate for stronger social safety nets, and it might end up with rich people and corporations having to pay higher taxes than either do now.

So, if rich people didn’t want to have to pay money to help working class people, what they would need to do would be to persuade working class people not to band together, not to think about their issues in policy terms. They would try to persuade some large part of the working class that their interests are the same as the rich.[1]

And the easiest way to do that (and the way it’s always been done) is to create an “out-group” (Those People) and persuade some large number of the working class that, as long as they’re doing something that harms Those People, they are winning. You can also tell them that their superiority over That Group would be threatened by [a policy that would actually benefit them]. It’s awful how well that works.

What a lot of people don’t realize about how slavery worked was that it enabled rich planters to exploit poorer whites. Proslavery rhetoric identified slaveholding with “being white,” as a wonderful life possibly available to every white man. Proslavery rhetoric also told poor whites that, no matter how poor they were, they were better than the richest or most successful non-white. Proslavery rhetoric guaranteed honor to every white man.[2] Conditions were pretty bad for poor whites in the South, with less access to public education, less industry, and various other issues, than people like them in some other areas, but proslavery rhetoric thwarted poor white political action by very rich people claiming solidarity with the poor whites they were underpaying, overworking, and often screwing over.

The same thing happened in prosegregation rhetoric (as the very Southern WB Cash pointed out in the 40s): rich whites could prevent any kind of labor action by pointing out that unions allowed non-whites to join. They created a kind of “herrenvolk democracy“–a race-based democracy that, instead of material gain, gave poor whites whiteness as a prize (a prize only meaningful if denied to others).  A lot of poor (and screwed-over) whites would rather get screwed over by rich whites than admit they had common cause with African Americans (a point Cash made). Segregation (white supremacist) rhetoric said that, no matter how poor you are, you are better than the richest or most successful non-white. In other words, pro-segregation rhetoric didn’t argue the really complicated policy issues about segregation (especially the significant harms for all working class people of the rejection of unions, hostility to support for public schools, aversion to good science education, and shoddy labor laws). It got assent by redirecting policy issues to simple zero-sum Us v. Them arguments.

In other words, white supremacist rhetoric (proslavery or prosegregation) meant that people voted on issues entirely on the basis of whether they were voting for something that would preserve their racial status. And, if the policy harmed the “other” race, that was good enough. Thus, they could often get tricked into voting for something that preserved their racial status, and harmed them in every other way—poor whites supported employment laws, laws about schools, restrictive laws about literacy that hurt them because they were happy that those laws hurt non-whites more. That’s the next step in this process of getting citizens in a democracy not to argue politics—reframe all policy issues into the question of whether the policy hurts (yay!) or helps (boo!) the out-group, regardless of what it does for the in-group.

It’s a really Machiavellian way to go about getting support for a policy, and it works far too often. If you persuade your base that every political issue is us v. them, and that the world is a zero-sum of us v. them, then you can persuade your base to support policies that hurt them as long as they believe it hurts “the other group” more.

The term for this is a “wedge” issue. You get a wedge into a group that really should be allied (such as the Irish and the freed African Americans in the early 19th century), and you separate them, and race is a great way to do that (so is religion). Poor people (regardless of race or religion) generally have the same policy goals; working class people have the same political needs regardless of race. It wasn’t just the South that did this. In the nineteenth century, Jacksonian Democrats gained the support of the poor Irish for policies that didn’t help them purely on the grounds that those policies hurt African Americans more.

Putting politics in terms of us v. them enables the screwing-over of people rests on first creating a lot of resentment of the out-group, and often scapegoating, including scapegoating the out-group for the consequences the in-group policy will have. Sources on every side of the American political spectrum agree that the American skilled working class has been hurt, and sensible sources agree that the causes are complicated. Mechanization, globalization, and union-busting have significantly hurt the skilled working class, and yet immigrants are scapegoated for unemployment (immigrants didn’t cause jobs to leave the US, and immigrants didn’t take union jobs). But, once that resentment against immigrants (or any other group) is created, and a base is persuaded to think that it’s a zero-sum between Us and Them, then all a party has to do is get its base to vote and behave in ways that hurt Them.

Under those conditions, it seems unnecessary to argue policies, and that may even be the intent. Slaveholders didn’t want slavery debated—at all. They wanted it to appear that you either fully supported slavery in every possible way or you were actively advocating race war against whites. Any restriction of slavery would hurt them after all, and any reasonable and thorough debate of the institution of slavery would lead to restriction. And so, slaveholders were so committed to prohibiting deliberation of slavery that they talked themselves into unnecessarily aggressive policies that alienated people who didn’t really care about slavery (through things like the Gag Rule, Bleeding Kansas, assaulting a Senator in the Senate, the Fugitive Slave Law, the war with Mexico, the Dred Scott decision, pushing “black codes” on “free” states, the open advocacy of forcing “free” states to allow slavery). The South would have done better to have allowed open debate about slavery. But even people who didn’t own slaves were persuaded that it was either “us” (advocating unrestricted slavery) or “them” (rabid abolitionists who wanted race war). So, any violence against “them,” any policy they hated—that was good enough.

There are lots of examples in history when communities were dominated by this kind of “as long as it makes Them unhappy, I’m good with this policy” thinking. That’s worth considering—if this is a good way for people to make decisions, we should be able to point to times it worked out well. And I yet to find an example of a time it did work well for any length of time as a way of a large group making policy decisions. I can think of lots of examples of times it was disastrous—it’s what motivated Athenians to send troops on campaigns that were guaranteed failures, or support campaigns that were failing (as in the Sicilian Expedition). The whole philosophy is captured in the saying, “cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

But, in the short run, it can seem like a good idea. It’s a great way for a TV channel, organization, radio show, politician, or political party to build a base (after all, you probably said to yourself, “THEY DO IT TOO!”), and it’s more fun to engage in the two-minute hate about the other group than get into the weeds of the various political options available. In the long run, though, if you make decisions purely on the basis of whether it pisses someone you hate off, you’re making bad decisions, often ones that hurt you.

And, if all you try to do in social media is piss off the other side, you were persuaded to do that by someone who knows how useful it is for them. Trolls think they’re just doing it for the lulz. They aren’t. They think they aren’t earnest. Their refusal to think very clearly about their actions is carefully and earnestly encouraged by media, political parties, and interests that find their mindless resentment of Them very profitable. Trolls might think they’re in it for the lulz, but someone is into their activity for the bucks. Bucks the trolls aren’t getting.

Trolls think they’re playing earnest people earnestly involved in political deliberation; on the contrary, they’re getting earnestly played.

 

 

[1] What’s interesting about the current attempt to keep working class people from seeing their concerns as shared with others in their economic system is that it’s only in the short-term narrow self-interest of corporations and rich people to thwart discussion about what would help the working class. After all, it benefits everyone in a nation if the populace is well-educated, scientifically literate, if they have access to good healthcare, a strong infrastructure, low crime, and public servants (teachers, fire fighters, police, public defenders, social workers) who are well-paid, well-trained, selectively hired, and enjoy helping the public regardless of class, race, religion, and so on. That’s a good world for everyone.

[2] Another thing a lot of people who admire the institution of slavery and the CSA don’t realize is that whiteness was actually not what we now imagine it to be—for instance, neither eastern Europeans nor Italians were considered white, and Catholics also had a shaky claim on the term.

Argutainment, bias, and democratic deliberation

I was talking with a colleague who exclusively consumes right-wing media, and mentioned a study, and he said, “Is it a good study? A lot of those people are biased.”

I was stunned. He doesn’t mind bias; he consumes nothing but biased media. I mentioned this to him once, and he said, “Oh, so the Communist News Network is better?”

When I’m arguing with someone on the internet, and persuade them that they’ve been repeating something entirely false (and, yes, it is possible to do that), I try to point out that they are getting their information from an unreliable source. If the person is repeating Fox/Limbaugh/Savage talking points, they’ll often say, “Oh, so you think I should watch MSNBC instead?” as though that ends the argument. If they’re repeating a DailyKOS/Mother Jones talking point, they’ll often say, “Well, at least it isn’t Fox News.”

I think their responses are important, and indicate just how far we are from a world in which we argue together. All of these responses above assume that you either get all your news from “conservative” sources or from “liberal” sources, and, however much conservative sources might botch things, they’re better than “liberal” ones (and vice versa). I’m not going to defend liberal sources; I’m going to argue that the underlying assumption (you either get your information from conservative or liberal sources) is the problem.

To make that argument, I’m going to have to set out a hypothetical example about a country whose public discourse is divided into Chesterians and Hubertians

And here’s why I have to use a hypothetical and deliberately silly example. There are a lot of people who believe that politics is entirely a question of whether the good people (their party) or the bad people (THAT party) triumphs, and so every political question turns into which group is better and/or whether a politician is us or them. You trust people who are “us” and you mistrust “them.” The second you smoke someone out as “liberal” or “conservative,” then you can dismiss everything they say. And you spend the whole time reading or listening to someone looking for the cues/clues that would tell you which side they’re on That’s bad for democracy. Very bad.

It’s bad because it’s inaccurate (no issue only has two sides) and it keeps people from thinking about in-group flaws (no side is entirely right).[1] That way of thinking about politics means you never hear criticism of your in-group[2] If I tried to use real examples to talk about our political discourse, most (all?) of my readers would spend all their time trying to figure out if I’m in-group (trustworthy) or out-group (unreliable). That’s how reading works in a polarized public sphere.

Because our current political situation is so polarized, and people are so trained to look for “bias” as “signs of group membership,”[3] I think it’s helpful to talk about two political figures: Chester and Hubert. Chester and Hubert agree that there is a squirrel conspiracy to get to the red ball (because duh), but they disagree as to whether little dogs are reliable allies against the squirrels.[4] Chester argues that all little dogs are evil, and Hubert argues that all dogs are potential allies, and rather likes a lot of little dogs.[5]

These were real dogs I had, huge, both of whom were obsessed with keeping the red ball from squirrels, and they really did have different attitudes to little dogs. Chester’s hostility was confirmed (for him) by some bad experiences. In other words, Chester assumes that every out-group member is hostile, aggressive, and must be handled with aggression (and he had reason to do so), and so he used his larger size to dominate others. Chester assumed a world of conflict, in which opposition had to be crushed even before it showed itself to be opposition. Again, it’s important to emphasize that he came to that conclusion because of experiences.

Hubert assumed that his larger size meant that he was safe, and that, if things got ugly, he would be fine. He came to that conclusion because of experiences—that he had been able to defuse potentially explosive interactions. Interestingly enough, he also had had bad experiences with little dogs, but he didn’t generalize to all little dogs from them (a point pursued elsewhere).

So, assume a world in which the voters are choosing between Hubert and Chester, and therefore we have a world of Hubertians, Chesterians, and the undecided, who sometimes vote one way and sometimes another.

Once you frame it that way, then any one of us can generate all of the political rhetoric while still half asleep: policy arguments reframed as identity arguments; treating bad in-group behavior as incidental but bad out-group behavior as essential; different standards for in-group and out-group; we’re rational, and they’re irrational; we have good motives, and they have bad ones, and so on. I won’t go into all those, but just want to emphasize four connected ones that aren’t always obvious: the explanation of all politics as a zero-sum conflict between good (in-group) and bad (out-group) so that every argument can be settled through evidence that the in-group is better than the out-group (even if in ways completely unrelated to the issue at hand); once that is the stasis for every political argument, then a kind of retroactive fairness can get invoked (more on that below); finally, the in-group = good/out-group = bad means that people choose to live in informational enclaves thinking they’re getting all the information they need (via inoculation); fourth, and finally, that means that the solution is not to try to find the single right source. It means looking for reasonable sources that will critique your views.

1. The explanation of all politics as a zero-sum conflict between good (in-group) and bad (out-group) so that every argument can be settled through evidence that the in-group is better than the out-group (even if in ways completely unrelated to the issue at hand)

The basic assumption is that the entire world can be divided into good and bad people and that all the good people join the good political party. There is also an assumption that good people always make good choices, and therefore support good policies. So, you can end all political arguments by pointing out that the other group supports a bad thing (any bad thing, even if completely unrelated to the policy under discussion). And, if any policy benefits the other side is any way (or is supported by them) it must mean it hurts us, and is therefore bad. Because the out-group members are all the same, anyone not in-group is out-group and so can be used to characterize what the out-group really is.

There are a lot of problems with that view, including that there aren’t two oppositional sides in a zero-sum relation.

In this world—in any world—there are multiple disagreements. There might be, for instance, Chesterians who think little dogs should be expelled from the nation, although that isn’t what Chester thinks or says. There might be Hubertians who think that, since little dogs and squirrels are kind of alike, we shouldn’t be worried about squirrels.

Chesterians will use the existence of squirrel sympathizers to condemn Hubert as a squirrel sympathizer. Chester TV will do nothing but quote squirrel sympathizers when they represent Hubert’s views, and they will give endless publicity to any Hubertian squirrel sympathizer. If they can, they will clip Hubert’s speeches to make him seem like a squirrel sympathizer. They won’t show Hubert disagreeing with sympathizers (or, if they do, they’ll frame it as dishonesty).

Hubertians will use the existence of Chesterian expulsionists to condemn Chester as an expulsionist. Hubert TV will quote Chesterian expulsionists when they represent Chester’s views, and they will give endless publicity to any Chesterian expulsionist. If they can, they will clip Chester’s speeches to make him seem like an expulsionist. They won’t show Chester disagreeing with expulsionists (or, if they do, they’ll frame it as dishonesty).

Chesterians who only watch Chester TV and Hubertians who only watch Hubert TV will be deliberately misinformed about Hubert and Chester, while firmly believing that they aren’t because they have evidence. They can point to Hubertians and Chesterians (or Hubert/Chester quotes), and so they will believe that their position is rational and true.

The moment you believe the lie that there are only two sides is the moment you agree to drink Flavor-Aid. You might choose your flavor, but you’re drinking.

2. Once we agree that all political debates are about which group is better, then a kind of retroactive fairness can get invoked

Imagine that, in this rabidly factional world, Chesterians storm Hubertian rallies with bricks and bats. In response, Hubertians do the same to Chesterians.

Chester TV will cover the later violence of Hubertians as proof that the former violence of Chesterians was justified.

One of the more confusing talking points I ran into on the Michael Brown shooting was that Brown had committed a crime and therefore whatever the police officer did to him was justified.[6] The police officer didn’t know that Brown had committed a crime at the time of the shooting, something people making this argument granted, but didn’t think it was relevant. Their point was that Brown deserved what he got because he was a bad person, as shown by the later revelation of his shoplifting.

Of course, death is not the penalty for shoplifting, and we are supposed to be in a world in which people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but what was done to him was just because of information not known at the time.

This has puzzled me a lot, but I think I now understand it. The Chesterians don’t see their violence as having provoked the counter-violence on the part of Hubertians. They see their violence as a kind of pre-emptive revenge. They were right to have engaged in violence because the Hubertians were going to have engaged in  violence someday anyway.

The later violence on the part of Hubertians was proof that they were hostile to Chesterians all along.[7] This explanation will make sense to viewers of Chester TV because Chester TV has presented Hubertians as essentially violent all along. When Chesterian political figures and pundits say, “The best cure for our politics is to shoot a few Hubertians every day!” Chesterians interpret such statements as metaphorical and hyperbolic (regardless of the number of Chesterians who proceed to go out and shoot Hubertians). But, when Hubertians say, “The best cure for our politics is to shoot a few Chesterians every day!” Chesterians interpret such statements as literally calling for violence against them. Thus, they can justify literal violence against Hubertians on the grounds that it is self-defense, regardless of the actual chain of events.

Viewers of Chester TV will have heard an uncountable number of Hubertians calling for violence, so their view of Hubertians as essentially violent will seem to be entirely rational—they can easily recall lots of evidence to support that perception. Their perception of Hubertians will seem to be entirely rational and true.

3. The in-group = good/out-group = bad means that people choose to live in informational enclaves thinking they’re getting all the information they need (via inoculation)

And here I’m back at the beginning: why do people who consume nothing but rabidly factionalized media criticize other media for being biased? Clearly, they have no objection in principle to biased media.

There are, loosely, two reasons: first, they’re naïve realists, who believe that they (and they alone) have unmediated perception of The Truth; second, inoculation.

As to the first, if Hubertians believe that The Truth is always obvious to good people, and, of course, they think Hubertians are good people, then anything on which all Hubertians agree is The Truth. Duh. Hubertians believe that Hubertians are justified in anything they do, and so it is simply a reality and a fact that Hubertians’ values should be the basis of all judgment. So, Hubertians should have free speech to say anything any way they want in any circumstance, because Hubertians are objectively right, by virtue of being Hubertians. Hubertian protests are justified; Chesterian protests are disruptive. Hubertians who destroy property and disrupt processes are freedom fighters; Chesterians who do that are terrorists. Hubertian protestors who wear masks are justified because oppression; Chesterian protestors who do so are villainous. How do you know? You just ask yourself. A viewer of Hubert TV, who had been told that even listening to Chester TV or thinking Chesterians might have a point is ridiculous and disloyal, would be able to recall dozens of examples of the inherent and essential goodness of Hubertians, and therefore know that zir stance on the inherent and essential rightness of what Hubertians are doing is just simply and obviously true to anyone willing to look at the facts. That is naïve realism.

In case it’s unclear, I’m saying that both Chester TV and Hubert TV are propaganda. But, no one willingly consumes propaganda, so why wouldn’t the respective viewers go for a non-propaganda source?

Because really effective propaganda presents itself as giving “both sides.”

Notice the “both sides” move. Propaganda reduces the complexity of available positions to “us” versus “them.” And it then presents itself as being “fair” by claiming to present an accurate version of what “they” think. On the contrary, it presents four views of the “other side:” 1) quotes (sometimes strategically clipped, but not always) of extreme and generally marginalized positions that can be presented as perfectly representative of “the other side;”[8] 2) bad paraphrases, strategically truncated quotes, or humorless repetitions of things major figures have said; 3) broad generalizations about how they hate us; 4) weak versions of “their” criticisms of in-group policies and candidates. The third one is interesting—any criticism of an in-group policy or individual is reframed as an attack on all of “us.” Once an audience is trained (and the whole point of propaganda is to train people), then the audience looks for signs of someone being out-group, and then, if they determine the rhetor is out-group, they don’t even notice what argument that rhetor is actually making, because they believe they already know what any member of the out-group has to say.

So, Chester TV has some “Hubertian” pundits (they probably aren’t), and they’re idiots, and they make stupid arguments. The “debate” between them and the Chesterians has three parts: first, Chesterians making arguments that fit with the claims and values Chester TV always promotes (so, to Chesterians, those speakers would seem to be “objective” and saying “true” things); second, “Hubertians” (they aren’t) making weak arguments ; three, the Chesterians pundits summarizing the Hubertian arguments (thereby creating a kind of vocabulary—here’s how to talk about Hubertian arguments; here are the words that signal a Hubertian). There might be other parts of the show in which marginalized out-group members are shown saying outrageous things (but are identified to the audience as representative of the out-group) and mangled or truncated or willfully misinterpreted quotes of major out-group figures.[9]

This process is called inoculation.[10]

Inoculation works by giving people a weak version of a virus they will later encounter. When they encounter the strong version of the virus, the body, having been prepared by its encounter with the weak version, doesn’t even let that shit in the door.

Rabidly factional Hubertians don’t want Chesterians to get any votes or support, and won’t grant that any of their concerns might be legitimate. But, really, once we’ve divided all possible political positions into two groups, we’ve almost certainly included some positions in the out-group that have some merit.

Chesterians might be wrong about little dogs, but still might have some legitimate concerns about whether little dogs can really effectively protect the red ball from squirrels. And they might be able to make good arguments about those legitimate concerns. A Hubertian committed to democratic deliberation would want those concerns voiced, heard, and interwoven into the public deliberation.

A rabidly factional Hubertian wouldn’t want anyone to think that Chesterians might ever be right, so they’d need to try to train their audience to dismiss unheard, not only any Chesterian argument, but any criticism of Hubertians. And, so, rabidly Hubertian media would engage in the four moves above—they’d inoculate their audience against listening to anything a non-Hubertian might say.

That’s how political inoculation works (when it works). Chester TV and Hubert TV present their viewers with weak versions of the out-group arguments, and some cues as to out-group identity. Thus, when a Hubertian, call her Emma, hears anyone say something that could be interpreted as negative about little dogs, she thinks, “Ha! A Chesterian! They think all little dogs are squirrels, and that’s a stupid argument, so this person is stupid, and I shouldn’t listen to them!”

Emma sincerely believes she’s being fair in that dismissal because she sincerely believes she’s listened (with an open mind) to Chesterian arguments. Hubert TV, after all, has a show that she watches regularly in which Chesterian and Hubertians debate. What she doesn’t know is that she’s only exposed to the stupidest Chesterian arguments.

And she will never figure that out if: 1) she thinks all argument can be reduced to Chesterian and Hubertian, and 2) she doesn’t actively seek out the best Chesterian arguments. Just changing the channel to a Chesterian one won’t work because she’s been inoculated.

4. Fourth, and finally, that means that the solution is not to try to find the single right source. It means looking for reasonable sources that will critique your views.

If Emma decides to see “both sides” for herelf, and tunes in to Chesterian propaganda, she won’t go away with a useful understanding of the realm of possible political views.[11] In fact, it will confirm for her that Chesterians are all idiots since what she’ll see will be stupid versions of Hubertian arguments..

Personally, I think no one should rely entirely on TV for information about politics. And here I should engage in full disclosure. I stopped watching TV news a very, very long time ago. I did the math and realized that 30 minutes of news was 22 minutes (at best) once the ads were taken out. Then take out sports, weather, the cat in a tree (aka human interest), and you’ve got at most eleven minutes of actual news, or around 1500 words, with no sources. In 30 minutes, you can get through between 3750 and 7500 words, depending on your reading speech. Turn off the TV and pick up a newspaper, in other words. Or, better yet, go to an online version that has links to the original sources.[12]

I think a lot of political TV is just the two minutes hate, but I also think that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the two minutes hate, if you know that’s what you’re doing. Political TV is infotainment, and as long as we remember it’s a subset of entertainment, that’s fine. The two minutes hate is about believing that your in-group is entirely right, and therefore you can feel deeply certain that you are entirely right, and you are always and in every way better than the out-group. If you need to spend more than two minutes believing those (very false) things, then there are some very concerning issues, and I’d like to sell you shares in the Brooklyn Bridge, because you’re poised to make a lot of really bad decisions. Basically, all cons appeal to that premise, and so you’re easy to con.

Here’s the important point about making decisions: your decision is wrong. You are wrong. I’ve said a lot of things in this piece that are wrong, but I don’t know it now.

We’re always wrong on little things, because there is no decision that is entirely right, but we’re also necessarily going to be wrong about big things. We have all made bad decisions, wrong assertions, and unjust accusations. It’s just that some of us are willing to admit it, and other aren’t.[13]

Cognitive psychologists emphasize cognitive biases. There is no human who can look at the world without bias or prejudice (there probably isn’t any animal that can do that): you look at this experience in the light of previous experience. You are “biased” by what you have already done, what you believe, and who you are.

There are two biases that are particularly important for the point I’m trying to make: what social psychologists call the fundamental attribution error (the notion that other people are transparent to us) and in-group favoritism.

I’ll start with the second, since it’s actually the cause of the first. We think we’re good people with good motives, so we think that people who are just like us (and who like us) are also good people.[14] When you watch Hubert TV, you’re predisposed to agree with everything if you’re Hubertian, because you believe deep in your soul that you’re getting your information from good people, no matter how much you tell yourself you’re being objective.

However, imagine that the Hubertians fling themselves around about a prominent Chesterian whose wife has appeared in public with bare arms. And then imagine Hubert TV  goes on to support a Hubertian whose wife has porn photos. How does Hubert TV manage the cognitive dissonance? They got their base worked into a frenzy about bare arms, and now they have to deal with porn photos?

Inoculation. Hubert TV  never shows the photos, and they have sufficiently inoculated their base against any site that says anything about the photos, so that they would never click on the link. Their base can continue to feel moral outrage about Chesterians who had a wife with bare arms while they support a Hubertian who has a wife who actually has porn photos.

And I can say, from experience, that, when confronted with that information, Hubertians will dismiss it on the grounds that Hubertt TV hasn’t shared it. They say, Chester TV is presenting this information because they’re out-group. The source of the information means the information can be dismissed (the genetic fallacy). That’s in-group favoritism.

Imagine a slightly less dramatic example (moral outrage over bare arms versus justifying porn photos),. Imagine two candidates for President who face accusations that they groped women. Imagine that there is plausible evidence that the Chesterian candidate groped women (although there is dispute about consent). Imagine that Hubertians made political hay of this, and tried to get that President impeached. Imagine that they then thoroughly supported a candidate who bragged that he groped women without their consent.

At this point, Hubertians have to admit it’s entirely tribal. There is no logical world in which their outrage is principled: it’s factional.

Hubertians could try to claim a sort of retroactive vengeance (Chesterians said adultery was okay, so it’s okay if our candidate had rapey adultery), but the fundamental attribution error enables a different strategy: give bad motives to the out-group and good motives to in-group members. An out-group member who lies about his adultery is evil, but an in-group member is protecting his family.

And motive is the Bermuda Triangle of argument, where everyone is lost, because it just ends up being a reiteration of in-group=good and out-group=bad.

As long as the question (what rhetoricians call the stasis) of political discourse is: is the person making this argument in-group or out-group, then democracy is gerfucked.

As long as people get all of their information from a source that says that THIS source is all you need, then they are suckers.

As long as people think that political issues are really identity and motive issues, and it’s a good idea to get all their information from in-group sources, they’ll end up drinking someone’s flavor-aid. Instead of trying to pick whose flavor-aid, it would be better for us to try to get away from tribalism and move toward a sense that we are a democracy. All citizens matter, and so genuinely good public policies aren’t grounded in some notion that only in-group members are really citizens—maybe we should all try to find the solutions that, on the whole, honor the needs of all current and future citizens. Maybe, instead of trying to do down the other, we should try to think about what makes the US a city on a hill for how democracy can find good and inclusive solutions.

[1] “In-group” doesn’t mean the group that’s in power—it means the group you’re in. So, for fans of Limbaugh, other fans of Limbaugh are the “in-group;” for fans of Maddows, other fans of Maddow are the “in-group.”

[2] You can think you are. Cunning versions of one-party propaganda include what appears to be criticism of the in-group, and a lot of descriptions of Their criticism of in-group politicians, so people who are completely in an enclave genuinely think they’re not. More on that later. Here I’ll just mention that one of my favorite examples of this is how the Weathermen engaged in a lot of self-criticism, for not being radical enough. That kind of self-criticism made people feel that they were “objective” about their practices.

[3] A practice encouraged by way too many argumentation courses and textbooks. But that’s a different rant.

[4] Yes, I said there aren’t issues with two sides, and then seem to have presented an issue with two sides. Of course, this controversy would have far more than two sides: those who argue that the red ball doesn’t matter, that albino squirrels are allies, that we should distinguish between small dogs and toy dogs, that cats have a role to play, but I put it into two because, in the US, it will come down to two candidates for President who will ask for a vote.

[5] And here I have to explain the origin of this example (since the Chester FAQ—probably the single-most read thing I’ve ever written—has disappeared). Chester was a Great Dane/shepherd mix, built for comfort and joy, who loathed little dogs. And while it’s true that big dogs are astonishingly often attacked by little dogs (especially when the big dogs are on leash), and while it’s also true that the whole experience of the little dog who went under Chester and bit his scrotum would be traumatizing, it’s also true that Chester unfairly assumed that all little dogs had bad intentions. Hubert (a Great Dane), who agreed about squirrels being evil, and who agreed about the importance of the red ball, got along fine with little dogs. He got along well with all dogs, including ones who attacked him. Sure, he got attacked by little dogs a lot (seriously, anyone with a big dog can tell you this is common), and a couple bit him and drew blood, but he always responded by looking at them with a kind of, “Really? You want to do this?” He broke up fights in dog parks by running into the midst of the fight and looking at all the dogs in the fight with that same, “Really? Do you want to go there?”

[6] This was not the argument that Brown had assaulted the police officer. The people I came across making this argument were saying that the officer was justified in shooting him because Brown had shoplifted.

[7] This makes sense if you don’t think of groups as evolving, but as ontologically-grounded and therefore permanent identities–actions as signs of those identities.

[8] Rush Limbaugh gave Andrea Dworkin more attention than she ever got in feminist theory classes; he loved quoting her out of context, as though feminism = Dworkin. I still run across references to her as though all feminists believe everything misogynists think she is supposed to have believed. Lefties regularly quote the “we create reality” as though it means something the speaker clearly didn’t mean. That is a meme that won’t die.

[9] At this point, you’re probably thinking of examples of out-group media doing what I’m describing, and you’re right, it does. But you have liked, shared, retweeted, or believed something that made all these moves, regardless of your political affiliation. If you think you haven’t, you’re just that much more of a sucker. I’m not saying everyone is equally suckered, or “both sides do it just as much” (I keep saying there aren’t two sides, so I’d never endorse any “both sides” argument).

[10] Seriously, I think, second to the notion of philosophical paired terms, it’s the most important rhetorical concept for understanding what’s wrong with our political deliberation.

[11] I think tuning in to opposition propaganda is useful, in that it helps one recognize the current talking points, but it doesn’t help a voter think effectively about policy issues.

[12] It’s also useful to try to find the smartest version of various policy positions—instead of watching Fox News, read The Economist or The Wall Street Journal (or studies published by the Cato Institute or the Heritage Foundation); The Nation is good for social democratic policy advocacy, New York Review of Books for third-way neoliberal. Reason is generally the best source for Libertarian—the list could go on.

[13] Propaganda says your only bad decisions involved not being committed enough to the in-group. Really cunning propaganda invites you to be slightly attracted to an argument they then identify as out-group, so that you then are more fiercely committed to the people who will tell you what to believe (the Weathermen were really masters of this; so is Fox—honestly, it’s kind of breath-taking it’s so skilled).

[14] This is why douchey salespeople will compliment your taste in whatever they’re selling, and will try to find a way to bond with you quickly; they’ll often do it by bonding with you about how much the both of you look down on some other group, but that’s a different post.

How abusers negotiate

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-8-prototypes-for-trumps-border-wall-photos

I really wish more people read Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Granted, it gets into the weeds about various battles, but the meta-arguments about argument are brilliant. There is, for instance, what’s typically called “The Melian Dialogue.”  The Melians were neutral, a stance that the Athenians (in a “you’re with us or against us” attitude) took as hostile, and “plundered” the area, thereby completely alienating them. Then the Athenians decided to conquer the area, and offered two choices: surrender (and be conquered), or fight (and be conquered). The Athenians reject any possibility of deliberation, any appeal to higher values, and insist on a crude might makes right ethic. The Athenians refuse public deliberation (something they had been famous for loving), denigrate rhetoric, and begin the negotiations by saying persuasion is impossible, and the Melians should just be realistic: “the question of justice only enters where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.”[1] Justice, then, isn’t an overarching principle that applies in all situations, but only something you consider if you must.[2] The Athenians, famous for their love of argument, rhetoric, and deliberation, refuse to listen to arguments.

Instead, the Athenians tell the Melians that they should submit to what would likely be a brutal surrender because the Athenians are going to crush them either way. The Athenians frame the Melians as irrational because they choose not to submit, and the Athenians present their offer to let the Melians surrender as a kindness. The Melians, not the Athenians, are responsible for any violence or cruelty on the part of the Athenians.

That’s how abusers negotiate. There are two really interesting moves that abusers make in negotiating: first, they insist that they are entitled to what they want; second, and connected, since they are entitled to what they’re demanding, the other person (or group) is at fault for refusing, and is responsible for whatever the abuser does as a consequence of being refused.

Victims of their abuse are at fault for having “brought it on themselves,” and by “brought it on themselves” abusers mean that their victims didn’t do exactly what the abuser wanted. Abusers negotiate by doing anything they can to win, including violence, for which they don’t take responsibility. The victim is responsible for the consequences of the abuser not getting their way.

It’s also how they think. They believe they are genuinely entitled to whatever they’re trying to get, that their right to the thing they want is grounded in the fabric of the universe and God/Nature’s will, and therefore they are also entirely right to do anything to get their way: the ends justify the means when it’s their ends.[3]

Hitler did this a lot, and it always played with his base. He said that Germany was entitled to Czechoslovakia because reasons and if people refused him, they were responsible for the consequences of not letting him have his way—that is, a war he would frame as justifiable pre-emptive self-defense. The victim is responsible for the consequences of the abuser not getting his way.

Hitler was never willing to negotiate on a reasonable basis about whether Germany really had a right to Czechoslovakia—he was Athens screaming at Melos. He did the same with Poland. If England and France didn’t allow him

to take Poland, THEY were responsible for the ensuing war. If they didn’t let him get what he wanted, they were responsible for what he would do.

And, as Shirer describes, it went over beautifully with his base. Hitler’s base did believe that Germany was entitled to European hegemony, and so, when Hitler described his invasion of Poland as a counterattack, they were willing to see it that way. They didn’t want war, so they said, but they were willing to support war to get what they wanted. All they wanted was to get everything they wanted without having to go to war, but they wanted it enough to go to war. England, France, and Poland could have stopped him anytime by simply surrendering, so the war was their fault. And, oddly enough, Hitler’s rhetoric throughout the war that Germans were the victims of the war played well. Germans were victims because they hadn’t been able to get what they wanted.

That’s how abusers “negotiate”—they say they want everything, and anyone who doesn’t give the everything they want is responsible for the negotiations breaking down. They aren’t responsible for making unreasonable demands. They want the premise of the negotiations to be that they will get everything they want.

Trump promised a wall to his supporters. He is, and has always been, unwilling to deliberate about whether the wall is likely to be effective, good in terms of cost/benefit analysis, or in any way reasonable. He promised it; he wants it; and he will choose to do extraordinary harm to get that wall. And, when he chooses to do the harm for a wall he chooses to support, he will blame others for the choices he has made, on the grounds that they are responsible for his choices.

That’s how abusers negotiate.

 

 

[1] Another translation is: “since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

[2] This stance is often, inaccurately called “realist” (since it’s typically very divorced from reality, it seems to me strategic misnaming), and it’s often attributed to Thucydides by people who obviously didn’t read the whole book. He is condemning the attitude—Athens’ coming to reject deliberation in favor of power politics is, he is clear, a tragedy—a bastardization of the emphasis on expediency of rhetors like Pericles and Diodotus.

[3] Arguing for a “might makes right” ethic, social Darwinism, the miracle of the market, the prosperity gospel, or any other version of the “just world model” involves mental gymnastics when the in-group is not succeeding. When the in-group is succeeding (or has succeeded), success is proof of being entitled to success (the fittest survived, might made right), but when the in-group is failing, that isn’t disproof of the basic principle of might makes right, nor is the success of the out-group proof that they deserved their success. Success of the in-group is proof that the in-group is entitled to success, but success of the out-group is never proof that they were entitled to success.

What I have to say about civility (selections from Fanatical Schemes)

[Selections from Fanatical Schemes: Proslavery Rhetoric and the Tragedy of Consensus]

[The argument that the Civil War was caused by the extremism of “both sides”] typifies one conventional way of understanding conflict, exemplified in the saying that “it takes two to make a fight.” According to this view, if there is a violent conflict, it is the result of at least two parties who refuse to compromise, so both parties are to be equally blamed for their intransigence. This sense of a public sphere of compromise and concession is often connected to privileging civility, a powerful, but very vague, concept. “Civility” tends to be defined through negation: it is not emotional or abusive; it does not involve personal attack; it is not offensive. Offending one’s audience, it is argued, alienates them, and persuading them necessitates moving them to one’s side, not pushing them away:

When the ebullitions of passion burst in peevish crimination of the audience themselves, when a speaker sallies forth, armed with insult and outrage for his instruments of persuasion, you may be assured, that this Quixotism of rhetoric must eventually terminate like all other modern knight errantry and that the fury must always be succeeded by the impotence of the passions.  (John Quincy Adams, Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory I: 365.)

The hope is that a rhetor can find a civil way to make any argument–including dissent. Yet, dissent is inherently disruptive, and necessarily upsetting to anyone who identifies with the current system. Hence, as various scholars have noted, privileging discourse that is not upsetting necessarily furthers the disenfranchisement of the already marginalized (see especially Darsey).

This notion of the power of civil discourse is wonderfully optimistic, as it suggests that there might be a discursive solution to every conflict, that violence happens when only rhetors make their arguments badly. In its most extreme form, this theory of rhetoric makes an absolute distinction between the content and form of an argument, so that abolitionists were not wrong to want slavery abolished, but in how they made their case. Had abolitionists tempered their rhetoric, had they not armed themselves with insult and outrage, they might have persuaded slavers to free their slaves; this was the argument that Channing made in Slavery. Condemning abolitionists for their vehemence, Channing promises a different kind of criticism of slavery: “I propose to show that slavery is a great wrong, but I do not intend to pass sentence on the character of the slave-holder” (16). As demonstrated by the reaction to Channing’s book, his readers did not see the distinction; his book was characterized as “pouring oil on a conflagration” (Austin 11), and, despite Channing’s claims to reject violence, “it is insurrection that he preaches” (Austin 14). The 1836 anonymous response insists that, although Channing may not have intended “to excite the blacks to take ‘vengeance,’ and free themselves,” “no work has appeared (so far as I know) so well adapted to produce precisely that attempt” (11). Proslavery readers saw no difference between his rhetoric and the rhetoric of the people he condemned.

As will be discussed in the seventh chapter, the issue of civil language came up continually in regard to the anti-slavery petitions presented to Congress. When a Representative from Massachusetts, George Briggs, pointed out that the language was respectful, James Bouldin (from Virginia) responded that the very nature of the petitions–their criticizing slaveowners–meant that they were inherently disrespectful (40). If “civility” and “respectful” are seen as synonymous, there is no such thing as civil criticism of people higher in any hierarchy. Criticism is only permitted when it is superiors criticizing inferiors, which means, necessarily, the hierarchy itself cannot be criticized; substantive social change is impossible. It is equally impossible if “civility” is defined by the reaction of the audience–that is, if it is assumed that “uncivil” and “upsetting” are synonymous, then civil disagreement on central issues is impossible. Under such limitations, rhetoric cannot solve political conflicts.

I do not mean to suggest that the narrative of proslavery forces provoked by abolitionists is obviously false; it is clear that anti-abolitionism significantly increased in the mid-1830s, and proslavery rhetors certainly blamed abolitionists for their actions. Although I will argue that seeing abolitionist rhetorical stridency as the catalyst for anti-abolitionism is a mistake, it occurs naturally from the sensible project of looking at what participants in a debate say about their motives in getting uglier. In addition, our habit of imagining issues as binaries, coupled with how difficult it is to articulate the relation between rhetoric and reality, means that there is a tendency to assume that discourse either really is or really is not about the purported issue. To suggest that proslavery rhetors were not really provoked by abolitionist rhetoric seems to imply that that rhetoric did not really bother them, and that’s an absurd proposition. People argued about slavery because they genuinely (and vehemently) disagreed about it.

[….]

If “civility” and “respectful” are seen as synonymous, there is no such thing as civil criticism of people higher in any hierarchy. Criticism is only permitted when it is superiors criticizing inferiors, which means, necessarily, the hierarchy itself cannot be criticized; substantive social change is impossible. It is equally impossible if “civility” is defined by the reaction of the audience–that is, if it is assumed that “uncivil” and “upsetting” are synonymous, then civil disagreement on central issues is impossible. Under such limitations, rhetoric cannot solve political conflicts.

[….]

Abolitionist rhetors were no more emotional than proslavery ones, and they were far more rational. Emotionalism and rationality are not at opposite ends of a spectrum; they are only tangentially related (unless one has the circular, and useless, definition of each as the absence of the other). William Lloyd Garrison, whose writing style I personally find irritating, engaged in rational argumentation insofar as he accurately represented his oppositions’ arguments and engaged them. He strove for internal consistency, his paper presented multiple sides of various arguments, he published arguments with which he disagreed. Harriet Beecher Stowe, another author often condemned for polemicism, demonstrates deep knowledge of proslavery rhetoric in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Passionate, sentimental, committed, and assertive, these authors still managed to represent proslavery arguments clearly and accurately. Abolitionists were not more histrionic than proslavery rhetors, but they did have more uteruses among them, and I would suggest that the extremely sexist tendency to perceive women as more emotional, coupled with a desire to shift the stasis away from slavery, facilitated the creation of a political, and then scholarly, consensus about the fanaticism of abolitionists. Women were excluded from public discourse because they would be emotional and irrational; they would, in other words, behave the same way proslavery rhetors already did. Whether we are to understand histrionic outbursts as a point of white male privilege, or to see proslavery rhetors’ condemning abolitionists for doing what they themselves do as yet another instance of cunning projection, is unclear to me. But it is clear they did it.

A famous exponent of an extreme version of this tendency is Frank Owsley, who blamed “egocentric sectionalism” for the war, a flaw practiced more by the North than the South: “The people in one section failed in their language and conduct to respect the dignity and self-respect of the people in the other section” (Stampp, Causes, 56). It is striking the extent to which this echoes proslavery rhetoric. By “the people” of the south Owsley means slavers–if anything, abolitionists had far more respect for the dignity and self-respect of slaves and African Americans than did slavers–and the war was caused by not respecting their feelings. Owsley does not condemn the south for failing to respect the feelings of the north; this is not, despite his concluding sentence (that unity is in danger when “one section fails to respect the self-respect of the people of another section” 58), an image of mutual respect.[i] Less extreme versions of this explanation arise in Tise and Faust, both of whom still accept that there was something provoking in abolitionists’ rhetoric. What one wonders is just what Owsley, Tise, and Faust think abolitionists should have done instead–there was, as made clear in the gag rule, no way to criticize slavery that was not provocative; slavers took any criticism as a personal attack.

To blame abolitionists for incivility is to preclude abolition. My grievance is not with the notion that public discourse ought to have certain standards, and that billingsgate should be avoided–I hope it’s been clear that I consider proslavery rhetors’ reliance on smear tactics was juvenile, hypocritical, and destructive. The problem is that conventional notions of civility, which tend to emphasize whether the audience is offended, inevitably put an impossible burden on dissenters. That latter point cannot be emphasized enough. While calls for social change might themselves call for more or less violence, they always necessarily involve criticism, and no one likes to be criticized. To prohibit anything other than “civil” political discourse, as long as “civil” is defined as discourse that does not upset anyone, is to prohibit social change.

 

[i] It is also interesting that Owsley asserts that “The language of insult which the so-called fire-eaters employed, however, was not usually coarse of obscene in comparison with the abolitionists; it was urbane and restrained in a degree–but insulting” (58). This is simply not the case.

Why we should stop arguing about civility

Too often, when there is some controversial public action, we have an argument about civility—whether the action violated norms of civility, and whether there should be more or less civility. That whole argument is a red herring.

The civility/incivility binary is what people in rhetoric call ultimate terms (or, more precisely, binary paired terms). It’s fallacious all the way down, first by assuming that actions can be divided into that binary (even making it a continuum doesn’t help), and then pretending that there are objective measures of civility/incivility—that it isn’t a judgment strongly influenced by in-group/out-group thinking. The civility/incivility argument gets us nowhere, and we need to walk away from it. There are two other arguments worth having: one about fairness, and one about strategy.

1. Why the civility/incivility argument is a waste of time

In rhetoric, we talk about “ultimate terms” which are terms where arguments go to die. They are terms that are all connotation and no denotation (freedom, terrorism, rights, political correctness, fascism).[1] People think they know what those terms mean, but they get really mad if you ask them to define those terms. They’ll say, “You know what I mean.” Ultimate terms are generally defined by opposition to an equally imprecise term (civility is not incivility).

Ultimate terms are often loyalty terms (by using those terms you’re showing your membership in some group), and so asking for a precise definition shows you aren’t loyal to that group. (If you ask a certain kind of person to define terrorism precisely, they’ll get really mad; if you ask another kind of person to define neoliberal precisely, they’ll get really mad.) A lot of times, an ultimate term means “not loyal to in-group” (that’s what “politically correct” means, for instance). Ultimate terms are in some kind of binary, with a good ultimate term (what one scholar of rhetoric called God terms) associated with the in-group and the bad one (Devil terms) with the out-group (conservative v. liberal or progressive v. neoliberal). Again, people get really mad when you say they’re using something as an ultimate term.

Another sign that something is an ultimate term is that it is either only used for the in-group or only used for the out-group. So, for instance, no one says that their in-group engaged in incivility and that the out-group engaged in civility. They’re terrorists; we’re freedom fighters.

There is another problem with the concept of civility, and I wrote a long and pedantic book about it: people tend to assume that civility is an objective standard, but we think civility has been violated when we feel offended. (This is a version of complementary projection, when we project our own feelings and reaction on to someone else—I feel offended, so you were offensive.) When the in-group is hostile to the out-group, we don’t feel offended, so it isn’t incivility.

In other words, people in power always control the rules of civility. The rules of civility never apply equally to all groups.

As a side note, I will say that the ignorant nostalgia about civility really gets on my nerves. No, people did not used to be more civil. Charles Sumner was beaten into unconsciousness on the Senate floor. So, just stop clutching your pearls.

The civility/incivility argument is toxic at the base. Walk away from it.

2. The fairness argument

One characteristic of a rational argument (that is, a useful, not necessarily unemotional) argument is that people are willing to listen to one another, and that the rules of the argument apply equally to all parties.

Sarah Sanders has actively advocated allowing private businesses, such as restaurants, to refuse service on the grounds of ethics.[2]

That just happened to her. She has no right to complain about it.

That is the argument we should be making. Not the civility argument, but the fairness one. On what grounds is she saying that the Red Hen did anything wrong?

There are four.

People have tried arguing that the two cases aren’t comparable because discrimination on the basis of religion is prohibited but it’s okay to discriminate on the basis of politics–that’s exactly reversing what the ruling meant. A private business is allowed to serve or not serve anyone, unless their choices about serving are discriminating against a protected class. Anyone can throw someone out of their business if it isn’t discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion (unless it’s done for religious reasons–at least that’s now the argument being made by people who lost this argument once before).

There is a second argument, which is that discriminating on the basis of religion is okay, but not on the basis of politics–and that’s a really interesting one. This is, in fact, the argument the neoconservatives and fundagelicals use a lot. They believe that they have sincere religious convictions for their actions, but other people don’t. It’s why they put “sincere” into the “religious convictions” criterion. They sincerely believe that they are right, and that everyone knows they are right, and some people pretend they aren’t. (I also wrote a really pedantic book about this.) One really important aspect of sloppy Calvinism (and there’s a lot of it around) is the assumption that the truth is obvious and so people who are acting on sincere religious belief will always be GOP. They think it’s a violation of their religious beliefs that they have to pay taxes to support abortion, while ignoring that it violates the religious beliefs of Friends, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and various others to pay for war, and a violation of many Christians’ beliefs to pay for the death penalty. The people who cheered the cake ruling don’t actually want religious freedom for everyone; they want the freedom to force their religion on others.

The third argument is the consequence of inoculation. A lot of conservatives believe that “liberals” believe that we should be entirely tolerant and never judge anyone. The neocon propaganda machine has been really effective at spreading three messages: 1) “liberals” have contempt for anyone who does manual labor; 2) Democratic candidates promote abortion; 3) “liberals” advocate complete tolerance and therefore are total hypocrites when they criticize anyone. All three of those are wrong, and rely on a lot of false equivalencies–no, calling someone racist is not just as bad as being a racist.

The fourth one is important for understanding why so many people are repeating the argument that Sanders is a victim of incivility (which is all part of the snowflake right whingeing about being victims of everything). It enables a kind of preemptive hostility and discrimination. The narrative is that “liberals” (a devil term) promote total tolerance of anyone, and so something like the Red Hen incident show that liberals are just as intolerant as the right AND don’t have God on their side. Any and all incivility on the side of the in-group is wiped off the slate because we just did it too. (This is another red herring, but it’s one we need to point out, and that’s tricky.)

If the argument is civility/incivility then the neoconservatives can dodge the fairness argument. The “you’re not tolerant” is also a red herring. The fairness argument is where we need to keep the debate.

3. Effectiveness

Are lefties justified in shouting neoconservatives out of restaurants? Yes. Absolutely.

Is it rhetorically savvy? No. This article  explains why, and the books in the links are really good and worth reading.

Whenever someone makes this argument—that it’s rhetorically unwise to shout people out of restaurants–, there tend to be three responses. First, a lot of people respond with “But it’s justified to respond with deliberately outraging protests.” It is. I agree. That isn’t the argument.

Second, a lot of people respond by saying that doing nothing or trying to please the extremists on the other side doesn’t work. I agree. But that’s an instance of trying to think about this issue from within the civility/incivility binary, linked to a binary of “us” and “them,” and we need to get away from both of those binaries. I don’t think we can persuade Sanders, or die-hard Trump supporters. But there are others who are open to persuasion—not immediately, and not easily, but it’s possible. And there isn’t a binary between being “nice” to Trump administration members and shouting at them in restaurants. Both of those are bad choices, and they aren’t our only ones. We have more choices.

Third, a lot of people present deductive arguments as to why deliberately outrageous arguments should work. I don’t care whether they should work; I care whether they do. I’d love for them to work; a part of me cheers every time someone shouts a homophobe out of a business, and I’ll admit to enjoying seeing Nazis punched. But I honestly can’t think of any times that it’s worked well for the left. It can sometimes work for the right, in that it gets what is inaccurately called “the middle” (not really the middle, but the intermittently authoritarian) to want more law and order because they fall easily into the “both sides are just as at fault” narrative and increased order would seem to be a solution to that problem. We should do what has worked.

Neoconservatism has made an unholy alliance with fundagelicals to promote unrestrained capitalism and authoritarian neo-Christian policies in the US, and to support an openly apocalyptic foreign policy (that is, one explicitly oriented toward nuclear war in the  Middle East). That’s bad. And as long as we argue about civility, they’ll win the argument.

They’ll lose the argument if it’s about fairness, and that’s the argument we need to have.

[The image is from MLK’s debate with Kilpatrick on NBC, available here.]

[1] In some circumstances, the terms can be used precisely. “Fascism” and “neoliberal” are, among political theorists, very precise terms, for instance. If the term is not being used as an ultimate term, then the person using it can define it without getting mad.

Migration to Hope: A Call To Action

[This is a guest blog post by Michelle Castillo]

I remember it like it was just yesterday: we had been learning about racisim and discrimination in Ms. Moxley’s fourth grade class. We had read a picture book about Rubi Bridges, and I had been reading Number The Stars – a book about a girl living through Nazi-occupied Denmark- as my take-home book on the unit.

And I was deeply affected.

I went home and at night in my prayer, I cried. I demanded that God tell me how people – how adults – could do such horrible things to other people, to hate so deeply without knowing them, just based on the color of skin or a different belief system. I promised God I’d do everything in my power to change that. And, as all little girls should, I felt I would.

In undergrad, I was blessed to have taken Trish Roberts-Miller’s class on the rhetoric of racism that helped me answer the “how” that comes down to, simply in my mind, fear. Fear of the “other,” that allows us to strip the “other” of humanity and project fear’s progeny of anger and hate into the unthinkable things we do to “others,” like enslave, hose, beat, bomb, and destroy.

Today, our government is tearing children, in some cases toddlers, away from their parents for seeking asylum in our borders. These are families that are fleeing violence and persecution from their countries, and the only way — let me say this again — the only way they can seek asylum is to present themselves at the border. And for doing that, our government is taking their children away. They could be us. Some of us are them. Some of us, our parents or grandparents or great grandparents were them. We could have been them had we been born in another place.

This administration is weaponizing the most powerful feeling on Earth, that many faith traditions use to explain God,
that of a parent’s love for a child — that would literally walk a thousand miles to protect their children from violence only to have that child ripped from their arms — to achieve its twisted immigration ends of deterrence.

Their message: “if you come here with your children fleeing violence, we’ll take your children, so don’t come.”

And this government is getting away with doing this state sanctioned violence towards children – today, right now – because 1) we’ve allowed Trump and his enablers to call immigrants “animals,” to strip all of us, really, that don’t see the world as they do of our humanity, and 2) because of the silence of some of our friends.

Friends that don’t like to talk politics.
Friends that voted for him because he was “prolife” but are now silent in condemning this torture of children.
Friends who, yeah feel bad this is happening, but it’s not happening to them, doesn’t impact anyone they know, so they’re staying out of it.
Friends that see this as a partisan issue and they’re Republican so even though they’re morally repulsed by the idea, they’re uncomfortable speaking out.
Friends that don’t yet know the power of their voice in creating change.

Friends, I realize this has been a long post, but since you’ve stuck with me this far, I’m here to ask you to break your silence. If you haven’t called your elected officials, if you haven’t donated for the legal defense of these children and their families, if you’re a person of faith and haven’t prayed for these families, please do.

As fourth grade Michelle quickly learned, she can’t change the entire world. But you can impact those around you. And that’s a hell of a start.