Vice-presidential debate between Biden & Palin, October 2, 2008. Debate munchies, 2/3 Alaska-made... ... & the other third comes from folks as funny as Tina Fey. Speaking of Tina Fey: satire is one thing, but outright insult & contemptuous treatment of people — even Palin — is another.
Crossposted at Progressive Alaska where there is lots more discussion.
See also Steve Aufrecht’s post at What Do I Know?
I didn’t watch Sarah Palin’s Tea Party speech this past weekend, just as I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. But I do stay in touch with the news, so I know the Saints won, & I have the gist at least of some of the remarks Palin made. And of course I heard about the now-famous “Palm Pilot” crib notes she wrote on her hand for the Q&A session following her speech. I found it funny, ridiculous, and — particularly since she apparently went after Obama’s use of teleprompters — extraordinarily hypocritical.
But if we are critical of the ugly tactics from those we disagree with politically, does that justify our using some of the same ugly tactics? Does our constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech make unrestrained use of uncivil speech & namecalling wise or useful?
Phil Munger of the blog Progressive Alaska is someone I admire & respect a great deal. And so I was disappointed late Saturday night to read the title of the blog post he wrote about Palin’s “Palm Pilot” crib notes: “Saradise Lost – Book 4 – Chapter 43 – What a SLUT”. Today he reiterated the namecalling with a poll & an accompanying post entitled “Saradise Lost and Found – Chapter 12 – Saint or Slut? – A New PA Poll”. The poll asks readers to register their vote for “Which Term More Accurately Defines Sarah Palin to You?” with two possible answers, Saint or Slut.
I privately wrote to Phil about the problems I have with the poll earlier today. At lunchtime I went back to read comments.
After seeing what other people had to say, I felt no choice but to register, publicly, my objection to Phil’s pejorative description of Palin, & the way other self-identified progressives in comments defended it. So I wrote my own comment. Here’s what I wrote:
I am a woman, consider myself a progressive (though not a Democrat), am more-or-less a member of the Alaska progressive blogger community (though I’m trying to focus my blog on writing nowadays) & have already registered my dislike of Phil’s terminology & this poll privately to Phil. And now am doing it publicly.
As I wrote privately, I won’t vote in this poll. Given a forced choice between “saint” & “slut” is far too reminiscent of the “virgin” versus “whore” typology that women have been relegated to for centuries. I don’t see Sarah Palin, however deluded she is or creepy her views, as either. As ridiculous as I find her political posturing to be, & as scary I find it that anyone takes seriously her potential as a leader, I have less & less confidence that namecalling from “our” side is any more productive or useful than the namecalling from the Palin supporters.
I am disappointed that Phil used this terminology, especially because there is so much else I find to respect in his work — as a composer, as a teacher, as a blogger, & as someone supportive of the work of other progressive people. I am further disappointed read many of these comments & find so many other self-identified progressives defending his use of this language — in pretty much the same hypocritical way that Palin condemned Rahm Emanuel for how he used the word “retard” but defended Rush Limbaugh’s use of the same word.
It’s clear that just as much on the left as on the right, too many people are willing to excuse their “own side” for employing the same tactics that they condemn the “other side” for. As scary as I find extreme people on the right to be, I find this behavior by people who are presumably on my side to be just as scary. You might as well be on two sides of a wall lobbing grenades at one another, for how likely these tactics will lead to any kind of peace or good for our nation.
Can we find some way to engage with our political opposition without just creating more hostility — none of which is likely to encourage our opposition’s better nature & better thinking, any more than their namecalling & disrespect towards us encourages our better nature & thinking?
I want to support other progressive Alaska blogs & bloggers, but I’m growing ever more worried by the propensity of some of “our” side to demonize the “other” side with namecalling & insults. It’s no more helpful than when the “other” side does that to “us.”
At the same time, it’s this kind of polarized incendiary stuff that seems to attract the most hits on blogs, & encourages bloggers to keep blogging that way. I don’t think that high hit rates is necessarily a good measure of the quality of blogs — but it can be an excellent measure indeed how polarized & contentious our political culture has become. And how much more likely we are to enflame our political culture into some kind of outright civil war.
Which is not at all the kind of civil we need.
Update:
After more comments came in on Phil’s post about his “saint v. slut” poll, I added another comment, reading as follows:
In essence, most of the progressive rationalizations for Phil’s use of a sexist & demeaning word to describe Palin amount to “Palin & her supporters use demeaning insults to describe us & our leaders, so that gives us the okay to do it to her & her supporters.” This is hypocrisy.
In essence, most of the Palin supporters who are visiting this blog to criticize Phil for his use of this sexist & demeaning word to describe Palin are correct that his use of the word is sexist & demeaning, but have no compunction about using equally demeaning language to insult Phil, Obama, or other people with whom they disagree. This is hypocrisy.
Both sides are being equally destructive to our social fabric as a civil culture. I’m a progressive, & yet I don’t want to be on the side of anyone who simply stands in their corner lobbing insults at their opponents. If we want a civil culture in which everyone’s rights are respected, we’re not going to get it by refusing dialog with those who disagree with us — which is what this oh-so-very-witty (not) lobbing of demeaning insults amounts to. It’s all fine & nice to feel righteous about how intelligent your own side is & how horrible & stupid & purposely perverse the arguments of the other side are — but in reality, you’re only making yourselves mirror images of one another.
And leaving no room for people who really want this country to work. For everyone, not just “our” side, no matter which “side” that may happen to be.
Amen.
Would you accept “clown”? I’m being — sort of — serious.
See, the thing for me is, at the heart of my own name-calling is
a) while I can intellectually understand why she has an attraction to some folks, her *painful incompetence* is so obvious to me that I can’t in the main react to her in any other way than dismissively;
b) I find her positions on nearly everything in all seriousness evil. Not name-calling evil, not jokingly evil, but actually, factually evil. She advocated bombing Iran; she’s whole-hoggedly advocating the torture of human beings; etc and so forth. The positions she mouths are plain and simply evil, the more so because she cloaks them in cut-rate, worthless Christianity.
Christianity with any guts would never advocate torturing people.
However, I find myself unable to adopt the over-the-top posturing of the Christianist right that I associate with throwing around terms like “evil”, so I’m left with disdainful mockery — to wit “clown,” et al.
0whole1, I don’t particularly have an issue with clowning or satire, etc. — the issue for me is when people are demonized or attacked at a very fundamental, personal level. Calling someone a slut does that. But notice how, say, Tina Fey was able to effectively satirize Palin without that kind of personal namecalling or attack. Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert do it routinely (& thereby help keep me sane). It’s possible to mock someone without using the kind of language Phil used there.
And wow, the comments over there. Do I think that the Palin supporters who are showing up over there to get on Phil’s case about this are acting hypocritically? Damn right they are — they’re making the same kind of personal attack insults about him over at C4P, & probably at other pro-Palin sites. But are they right that his use of slut is sexist? Damn right they are. Are the progressives who are defending Phil’s use of that characterization of her being hypocritical? Damn right they are. And by behaving that way, they’re doing every bit as much as namecalling C4Pers are to polarize this country & tear apart our civil fabric.
I agree completely with you that Palin’s Christianist political agenda is evil. I think that anyone who summarily dismisses the fundamental personhood of other people simply because they don’t agree with them or understand them is acting in service of evil. But nothing new here: fighting evil with evil doesn’t eradicate evil — it just creates more of it. And if we can do our little part by at least naming things as evil without resorting to evil ourselves — naming, not namecalling — then we’re doing that much more to preserve or increase good.
Or at least that’s how I see it.
This kind of namecally stuff is part of why I get sickened by politics & a lot of political blogs. So many people display so much contempt for anyone who disagrees with them that they leave no room for dialogue. If I thought Palin was great (& no, I don’t, but just as a f’r instance), why would I want to discuss anything with someone who calls my heroine a slut? Anymore than someone who really likes Obama (& actually I do, though I’ve been disappointed with some of his stuff) wants to discuss anything with someone who calls him by the N-word or carries around photographs of him with Hitler mustaches added. But, y’know, if we’re going to do anything to improve this country or the world, we’re going to have to learn to talk with people we disagree with. So why make it harder to do that by calling those people, or their heroes, with contemptuous names?
Hear, hear! Using empty, inaccurate, incendiary insults does nothing but give the “other side” ammunition, not to mention make “us” look as hateful as “them”.
Quite concur. Thanks for writing it.
Well said gentle lady (ok pretty much gentle at least in my opinion).
I have not read the post with the survey and I could not vote, given those two choices either.
Tnx
I absolutely agree with you. I did not vote for the ‘saint’ or ‘slut’ title either as neither tem was acceptable regarding my opinion of this woman.
I commented @ Phil and I also alerted him to what was said about him at C4P. I am a African-American woman also. I wasn’t disturbed by $P being called the “S” word. I understand how it may come across as too personal…but I can imagine her and have read some of the things her so-called supporters have called Liberals. Of course two wrongs doesn’t make it right.
Unfortanetly, I can believe this is what $P enjoys the most. People “fighting” over her. And that is so disgusting to me. IMHO
Thanks for you comment, GinaM. Yep, I’ve seen plenty of examples of the demeaning insults her supporters have used against liberals — but nope, two wrongs don’t make a right.
And there is just the general reality that slut is a word that has been used against women for a good long time, particularly against women who exercised any form of sovereignty over their own sexuality & against those who have been victimized sexually (as with rape). I’m pretty sure Phil is fully cognizant of this, & sorry but I don’t buy his rationalization for using it in this case. I’m talking about where he used it in his first post using this term to characterize her, when he wrote,
Whatever the heck that means: for what in this definition are “the morals of a man”? I know lots of men with all kinds of different morals — I don’t think I can paint all men with the same brush.
Well, we all know that Palin has used sex appeal to sell her message — we all remember her famous wink at the vice presidential debate (part of why I used the photo I used for this post — the other reason being that its one of the few photos of Palin I have in my Flickr account) — but so what: that can be stated without use of a pejorative word that’s been used historically to sexually demean women as a class in order to keep them in line. One question that came up several times in comments on his post about the poll was “aren’t you liberal women insulted by this term?” I can only speak for myself & say: yes, I find it insulting. I would have though Phil knew better. I can only attribute it to his extreme frustration & anger at the political posturing of someone who is positioning herself as a central figure in dysfunction of our political culture.
I have no idea if Phil’s thinking about this has changed since he posted the original blogs. If it has, I can only say — apologies can help. If it hasn’t… well, that’s important to know, too.
Interesting discussion. I think that the definition I would have linked to in reference to slut would have been one of the older English ones (slut used to mean a dirty, untidy woman, a slattern, in modern terms, a “hot mess”). Not to the urban dictionary. I think the original term applies. Frankly, I don’t like either, but the earlier meaning is at least metaphorically accurate.
thanks for taking the time to speak your piece on PA. I have read and admired the blog but never signed up to comment; today when I saw the poll it was so disappointing I just left the page.
(Course I am guilty of name-calling. I like Granny Quittypants best. I will try to do better.)
Mel – Thanks for having the guts to bring this up. It is a conversation that needs to occur.
[posted on PA’s blog comments, and re-posted here at Mel’s request]
I’m a proud Democrat and I consider myself a progressive. I have not much use for Breiflygovernor Palin, and will happily admit to having had some online fun at her expense. Nevertheless:
As a high school teacher (in AK), I hear the word “slut” from time to time, and I never let it go unchallenged. Like the N-word, or the F-word for a gay man, it’s just never okay. It carries connotations, not just around the person being spoken about – bad enough – but around all members of that group (women, in this case). As Mel has eloquently explained, it says more about the speaker’s assumptions about women (that it’s possible to *be* a “slut,” for instance) than it does about the spoken-about. Students will sometimes – you try not to let them go into too much detail – try to make the case that the object of their derision has made wardrobe or relationship choices that justify it. But the problem is *with* the label, and with the power one assumes when one feels entitled to use it: the right to pass judgment on another based on her sexuality. It’s one of the most anti-woman – and anti-progressive – terms one can employ. It’s never fair.
About respect, I tell my students that there are four kinds, and it’s important to know which one you’re talking about. You owe human respect to every human being on the planet: you don’t steal from them, you don’t cheat them, assault them or insult them. Just because they’re people; it has nothing to do with who they are or what they do. Status respect goes to the position, not to the person; you stand up when the jury enters the courtroom, you call the mayor “Mr. Mayor.” Personal respect, that’s the only one you get choices about: you choose your own criteria. If you particularly admire someone, or especially dislike them, that’s up to you, and you can find appropriate ways to say so, so long as you remember that that doesn’t cancel out the ethical imperative of the first two. And self respect means that you value your own humanity, and you expect others to acknowledge your role in the community, and you know your own strengths, and you challenge your own shortcomings – and you never, ever let someone else’s choices be the justification for your own. You’re better that that.
I’m posting here [on PA’s comments] because I very much liked Mel’s take on this (on her bolg), but so much of the above commentary reads like a bad day in ninth grade (“Oh yeah, well, HE said ‘retard’ FIRST!”) – of which I get more than enough – that I’m reminded why I pretty much never read the anonymous comments to anything.
Note from Mel: Thanks for reposting it here, Barb. Anyone who wants to read the full context that led Barb to post this at Progressive Alaska can read all the comments on Phil’s post about the poll here. I also wrote some additional comments over there.
problem child: Point taken on the definitions, but I disagree that the earlier meaning of slut is any more accurate in reference to Palin. One might dispute the wisdom of some of her wardrobe choices (as Phil & some other folks have done), but she’s not dirty or untidy. Metaphorically, her thinking seems sloppy, & her sentences are famously incomprensible — but it would be lots more accurate to say that than to “metaphorically” describe her thinking/speaking/writing as being sluttish. I can’t find any usage of these words to characterize Palin to be defensible.
Georgia & BS: Thanks. I think it’s important too. It’s been gradually getting worse & worse in the blogosphere, on both sides. And it’s tough as a progressive to see people with whom I am allied doing it as much & sometimes worse than the Tea Partiers & Palinistas.
Georgia, my favorite nickname for Palin has been Palinocchio, because she has such a long & well-documented history of telling whoppers. Similarly, of Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple — Dr. Prevaricator. (The only time I’ll ever use Dr. in reference to him — both his “doctorates” are honorary doctorates of divinity from institutions that don’t give out doctorates of divinity, one of which isn’t even an accredited educational institution at all.) I’m don’t believe that either of these, or Grandma Quittypants either, are quite at the level of demeaning that slut is, & I believe that all of them have substantial basis in reality — but I’m trying to rein in all the same. Insults just don’t serve well when one is trying to have a political culture in which all sides need to learn to talk civilly with one another, even when they disagree.
I guess it’s the very difficult among us who require our better angels. Palin is a guilty pleasure isn’t she? someone who makes us all feel better about ourselves. But she is also the face of our fears – that someone so uninformed and malicious can succeed, could be “the boss of me” – and that she’s a woman – yes, I’m one of those women who expect more from us – makes it even more infuriating. But I am so very dis-eased these days from the full force of the patriarchy and the screaming hatred from the right that gendered language / ideas like the “saint / slut” thing are scraping nerves already raw and bloody. Like explaining why it hurts to have CBS running FoF ads or why it’s wrong for Wallace & Imus to snigger about Palin sitting on Wallace’s lap or why they should put Polanski under the jail….
Mel,
I concur with what you have said. I have also been disheartened by the vituperation and derision found in comments [and posts] in Alaskan progressive blogs and have commented myself saying essentially what SAS said above: ‘ …incendiary insults does nothing but give the “other side” ammunition, not to mention make “us” look as hateful as “them”.’
I believe it is counter-productive, no matter how cathartic, to demonize those with whom you disagree. I anticipate it from the ‘other side,’ but cringe when it is perpetrated by progressives who by definition should embrace inclusiveness and show a greater acceptance (not tolerance) of others. Name calling and insults closes the ears of those with whom you disagree, feeds their stereotypes, and destroys any possibility of finding a common ground you both can (and since we share the same country, must) occupy.
After someone commented on Immoral Minority during the MLK celebration that people with opposing beliefs should be “mocked, ridiculed, and spat upon at every opportunity,” I responded that “For those who are disturbed as I am by the hate in our country, whether racial, religious, xenophobic, or political, hating the haters or calling them names is the wrong road…it will never lead to the ‘promised land’ of a better future America. King provided multiple lessons in [his] speeches and sermons […]on the difficult process of learning to love your enemy…”
Some quick bullet points from his speeches and sermons:
*we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but to win his friendship and understanding
*An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy.
*hate scars the soul and distorts the personality
*Hate is just as injurious to the person who hates.
*Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit.
We don’t need to attack in order to advocate. If we seek a nation that isn’t so politically polarized, we have to be the change we seek in the world rather than contribute to the polarization.
More of Dr. King’s thoughts on Loving Your Enemies can be found at:
http://www.salsa.net/peace/conv/8weekconv4-2.html
http://www.mlkonline.net/detroit.html
http://www.mlkonline.net/enemies.html
Mel- I appreciate your serious attempt/work here to turn folks back to work on our problems .
Having worked non-traditional-jobs-for-women for over 30 years I have a pretty thick skin about a number of name calling insults and can’t get excited about the slur “slut’ anymore , though I recognize the slur.That’s a fact about me, not a general statement about the word. However, I can get pretty excited about it not being an accurate ( whatever definition one uses ) or useful description of Ms Palin.
At whatever level I forgive Phil ( and I do ) for caving in to anger publically, I don’t want Alaska, America, people to stay stuck in Chapter 5 endlessly arguing in ever decreasing circles . We have so much which needs attending to.
SP is obscurantic, hypocritical, and dishonest. That’s enough to brand her with.
Oh, and she was an increasingly, distracted and an ultimately incompetent administrator as our governor…
That’s a biggie.
All those words describe her more thoroughly and clearly than any insult.
I think they are also defensible.
We have raised competition beyond it’s useful place in our list of cultural values – competing insults and oneupmanship are great fun at some level but as a way of life it will tear us apart.
Mel, I completely understand you and agree with you overall. The “Madonna/slut” mentality is something women have fought against for centuries and after watching the mysogynistic Super Bowl commercials this weekend, I’m not in much of a mood for it. Also, I don’t think that the word “slut” accurately applies to the points Phil is trying to make about Palin. The non-sexual definition of “whore” fits much better, as it does to many politicians male and female. However, using such an explosive term muddies the waters. I’ve learned that not editing myself often causes the one thing I should have removed to dwarf the actual message I was trying to get across.
On the other hand, I can’t control what anyone else writes nor do I want to. I don’t have time or energy to pay that much attention on either side. If I did, all I’d do all day is respond to the stuff that pops up on “Google Alerts.”
It’s true we are all frequently painted with the same brush when the folks at the Palin blogs find ammunition on one Progressive blog. However, I have yet to see any evidence of lefties initiating the kind of threats and intimidation I and my fellow Progressives receive from the Palin teabaggers. Plus, it doesn’t matter whether you are actively writing anything about Palin or not. Once you are on their radar, they will continue to send regular messages with hate, insults and threats. I get about 10 a week even if I’m just writing gardening posts–more if I’m writing political ones.
Also, getting on their radar frequently has nothing to do with whether or not you are insulting…it has more to do with if you are effective and people are actually paying attention. Then, if you’re not truly being insulting, they start making stuff up.
Let’s be clear…the insistence on “civility” is like every other rule in Palin’s world…only meant for us and not for her or her followers. We could stop all negative posts about Palin (no matter how civil) and the insults and threats would continue because they would believe that’s why those posts had stopped…because it’s important for them to take credit for everything…because it’s important for them to think they are “God’s chosen ones” and we are evil.
Let’s be very clear, folks, that’s what these people believe…that by the very fact we call ourselves Dems, Libs or Progressives we are evil…all going to hell. Therefore, they do not have to treat us as if we are human beings.
An example is part of an email I received today:
You poor dear, God turned his back on your very existence and Satan stepped in. Now we know from whence all your vitriol, evil compositions and repugnance originate.
We will all pray for your soul, although it surely is already lost forever.
Making us the “ultimate enemy” gives them license to do whatever they want…and we have “earned” that not because of anything most of us have ever said, but because of what we believe.
So while I admire your ethics and your humanity, Mel, I believe that caring about how something somebody else writes may or may not effect Palin’s followers out there is a waste of time. It’s also an argument they’d love to watch us have with each other…just one more distraction.
Now, talking about how it effects you, that’s a completely different story. I think you handled that part of it beautifully.
Wow Linda….what you wrote was the best description I have read so far that accurately describes the Grifter’s follower’s or as they think of themselves “God’s Chosen Ones”.
Linda, I admire your strength and toughness that you exhibit on your blog and comments…I also heard you yesterday on Shannyns Show. Keep your head up. I guess I should put this comment on your blog instead of taking up space on Mel’s wonderful blog. LOL. Sorry Mel. 🙂
Linda, thanks for you comment. But no, I don’t think you understand me clearly. Or, at least, you & I appear to have a different understanding about a couple of things.
I do not derive my beliefs about civility from a Palin rulebook. Indeed, Palin would be among the last places I’d ever look for guidance about civility or any other characteristic of a humane & democratic world. But civility is still important to me — & given the comments both here & on Phil’s blog, seems like its important to a lot of other people, because of what happens to us when we behave with ugliness.
Here’s what one woman wrote today at PA, where Phil (with my permission) crossposted my post:
Simple thing: behaving with ugliness ourselves makes us feel ugly. That Palin promotes evil — & yes, I’m with this woman that that’s what Palin does — is doesn’t mean we have to surrender to it ourselves. I get just as sickened when I see “my” side spew ugliness as when I see the other side do it. I get even more sickened when I catch myself doing it. And none of it helps any of us.
Ron posted this bullet point from his understanding of Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Which as I read it includes that horrible yuck I feel inside myself when I heap abusive language on people I disagree with.
I’ve got to refer back to what Barb wrote about the four different types of respect:
Few of us here or on Phil’s blog or on yours have much personal respect at all for Palin — but I’m with Barb: no matter how much we disrespect her personally, she — & all her followers — deserve basic respect as human beings. That’s what I mean here by civility. And it’s not only because they are human beings. It’s because we are. By treating other people as nonhumans, we erode our own humanity. It sickens me to see people do that, especially people I care about. A couple more bullet points Ron posted from MLK, Jr.
Substitute the word “incivility” for hate if you want. Still applies.
Nothing in what I’m saying or what Barb said means that we can’t criticize, mock, or satirize people whose views we abhor. If you particularly admire someone, or especially dislike them, that’s up to you, and you can find appropriate ways to say so, so long as you remember that that doesn’t cancel out the ethical imperative of the first two [human respect & status respect].
Here’s another point of disagreement between us —
I think absolutely that there are some Palin supporters who see us this way & treat us this way. But I’ll bet that there are Palin supporters who are every bit as sickened by the ugliness they see coming from some members of their camp, as I am by the ugliness coming from some members of my own. You know how much difference there is between us: you might agree with a lot about what Phil or Shannyn or Gryphen or Jeanne or I say, but disagree with a lot else — all of us are individuals, after all. So are all those people over on the other side. Half the reason people on one side paint the people on the other side “all with the same brush” is that both sides have painted themselves into a corner — why bother talking with THEM — they’re all the same! — when they’re not. But the same as us in that they’re saying the exact same stuff about us.
Instead of bonking people on the other side over the head, we need to be able to talk with them. Maybe not all of them en masse, but one at a time. Sitting across the table with them, having a cup of coffee with them. I’ll tell you, I’ve been sitting at the same table now for a couple of years (through NaNoWriMo) with evangelical Christians who believe that homosexuality is wrong, but who know I’m a lesbian, & y’know one of them has become a really good friend — she’s the one who turned me on to Glacier Valley Farm CSA (making another pickup tomorrow). She still things homosexuality is wrong, but I’m pretty sure some part of her is changing, because she knows I’m a human being not just some faceless pervert destined for hell. And while I don’t agree with her religious views, I find myself having changed too, because I know she’s a human being not just some faceless Christianist homophobe. Both of us are far better than how our “sides” demonize each other, something other those labels. And so are those C4Pers.
And here’s Ron again, with a couple more bullet points from MLK, Jr. —
You wrote,
But making them the “ultimate enemy” gives us license to behave in the exact same way.
So there again, we just become a mirror image of the yucky behavior we see coming from the other side.
I think that most Palin followers are people who are frustrated about the state of their communities, the country, & the world who have no answers, & have latched themselves onto false hopes in demagogues like Palin & propagandists like those on Fox, who are backed by the some of the very same psychopathic corporations who were just granted more “free speech” than we ourselves have. They want an answer, & Palin & co. has given them one — no matter how wrong that answer is. But they’re not ever going to believe the answers we provide are better if we’re just bonking them on the head & calling them names. Any more than we’re going to be convinced by them doing the same to us.
Alaskapi, very glad so see you here!
Yep. They sure are.
Ron, those MLK, Jr. bullet points are exactly to the point. So is this —
That’s really the thing. We occupy the same country — how can we do so without being at war with each other? I think we’ve got to stop communicating through “leaders” like Palin & sit down directly with the people “on the other side” & learn how to listen — not just talk — to each other. We keep making the same mistakes that quarreling couples make in arguments: to assume that those we disagree with are being perverse, stupid, & obstinate on purpose. But if we sit down & listen, & ask, & listen, & remind ourselves as we listen that “this person isn’t just purposely trying to be a jerk, she or he really believes what s/he’s saying” & give them ear with respect, & ask questions, & get down below the level of ideology — & get to know each other as human beings with common fears & worries & ambitions — well, then maybe we might get somewhere.
Go to the table with each other, but keep both Palin & Obama out of the room, or anyone else who is a “leader” so we can talk with each other. (Personal attacks & other incivility left outside the door too. That means Eddie Burke can’t come.)
I remember one night when my Mom & Dad were still alive visiting them in Montana. We usually avoided talking politics because my parents thought Reagan & Bush Sr. & Bush Jr. were wonderful, & I did not. But one night after Mom fell asleep Dad & I talked politics, except we got down below the level of ideology — if only because, as I told him, “Just because I’m not a Republican doesn’t mean I’m a Democrat” which kinda took him by surprise. So instead of butting heads on party or ideological ground, we just talked about the things we thought were important, vs. the things that drove us nuts. And we found that we agreed on just about everything.
So why should there be enmity between me & my Dad over which big high muckety muck leader we thought was great? Why can’t we organize things based on what we the people think is important, instead of having imperfect representatives imperfectly represent us?
Georgia, you wrote,
Exactly. This kind of language coming from our side hurts us.
Thanks for all the comments. It helps to know that I’m not the only one whose been frustrated by this.
Mel,
As you are finding, you are not alone in your frustration. I remembered this morning what first got me started writing comments about this topic: It was the common use of terms such as knuckle draggers, mouth breathers, ankle biters escalating to various scatological, profane, or obscene expletives as descriptors and labels for fellow humans we disagreed with, which I was finding too often on progressive blogs.
Your posts and others have well delineated many of the arguments for abstaining from responding in kind.
Yes, it can be cathartic to vent among like-minded readers and writers.
Yes, it is very frustrating to watch the truth skewed over and over again by hypocrisy and lies: an eight-member Republican, four-member Democratic legislative panel finds that Palin abused her power and she say’s she was exonerated from a politicized witch hunt; Obama says the Palin family is ‘out of bounds’ and she twists it by claiming that he was saying only his family was ‘out of bounds;’ Rahm Emanuel calls an IDEA ‘retarded’ and Palin claims he called PEOPLE ‘retards.’ She repeats her frame of things over and over and soon they are picked up as being ‘true.’ We all know about and have reason to fear ‘the big lie,’ the propaganda technique Hitler cited in Mein Kampf: For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
Still, I believe repeatedly hammering home the truth about these things is much more powerful than indulging in frustrated name-calling.
Two important points to remember:
** 99.9 percent of human DNA is the same in everyone, meaning that only 0.1 percent of our DNA is unique!
Similarly, our human commonality is far greater than our human differences. We needn’t focus only on the 0.1 percent that differentiates us.
** Linda wrote in her well considered and expressed comment that “caring about how something somebody else writes may or may not effect (sic) Palin’s followers out there is a waste of time.” But we shouldn’t consider that only Palin’s followers are the one’s reading these blogs: A great mass of independents in the middle and a small coterie of journalists may also read these things from time to time. Do we wish to differentiate ourselves in their minds from screeds [see, the word is powerful enough without prefacing it with ‘rabid’ to further dehumanize others by conjuring the image of dogs foaming at the mouth] written elsewhere?
I would be remiss, Mel, to not note that you wrote – Ron posted this bullet point from his understanding of Martin Luther King, Jr. – which highlighted my further remissness in neglecting to put new quotation marks around those bullet points. Rather than my understanding of Dr. King, they were his words. I had attributed them properly in my original post elsewhere, but in an effort to be concise, I bullet-pointed them here and neglected to re-insert quotation marks.
That earlier comment I made on MLK’s birthday drew a response, and at the risk of belaboring a point, I will repeat it in full here, because I believe it further attests to your goal (without necessarily providing a plan) for getting un-likeminded people talking around a common table. Thank you, Mel, for starting this conversation. I hope you are finding here that yours is not a lone voice in the wilderness and that perhaps from all this discussion, something new might grow. The discussion has spurred me to begin writing in my journal under the heading of Hope and Fear, looking for better ways to both understand the fears and concerns of the disaffected among us and to bridge the chasms that separate us.
From my MLK Day response in the comments to another commenter on The Immoral Minority blog:
An article today on Huffington Post speaks to this issue:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-schroeder/sarah-palins-tea-party-sp_b_455708.html
Would that more of us could accomplish what Huckabee appears to succeed at doing. I stumbled on his show one Sunday and Bill Maher was his guest. You know there was little they instinctively agreed upon, but their discussion was civil, jovial, yet substantial.
That’s a great article, Ron, thanks for pointing it out. I’ve seen Huckabee a couple of times on Daily Show, & I liked him a great deal, even though I’d never vote for him (unless maybe he was running against Palin) because of his stand on stuff like LGBT rights, or his Christianist views. But he was good humored & also has a sense of humor, & treated his host with respect. And him with Bill Maher? — that musta been a real trip.
Interesting that the writer saw his amiableness as a “rhetorical maneuver,” which imparts a kind of Machiavellian character to it. Just seems to me that it’s Huckabee’s nature to be amiable, much as it was Reagan’s & still is Clinton’s. But I think people can cultivate a happier more amiable nature if they want to. I guess Palin doesn’t want to, nor do a lot of her followers — they cultivate a pissed-off nature instead. As does some of “our side.”
I can see it happening in myself sometimes: easy to anger, & then having to take a second look at myself & ask, why am I assuming that I need to be angry? I watched myself do that on the bus a few days ago — some guy with earphones on who was still playing it so loud that we could hear it throughout the bus: annoying. The bus driver played out some recorded message about you’re not supposed to play the radio on the bus, which he didn’t hear because of his earphones. So I called out loudly and angrily, could you please turn that down? — & he looked up in startlement & immediately turned it down, & I realized, this poor guy wasn’t trying to bug anyone, he just didn’t realize it was loud enough for us to hear, & I didn’t actually have to be so angry.
Here’s another reason I think for us to learn how to be more civil when we think about our opponents: anger is infectious. Palin specialized in rousing anger, & the Tea Partiers seem to want to be angry. What good is it? How many of them have high blood pressure because of it? Does everybody want to be addicted to high levels of stress hormones? I don’t. Today on Phil’s blog I could see some of the commenters who insisted on Phil’s right to say whatever he wanted to say on his blog (of course!) & to their own right to insult Palin as much as they want metaphorically start popping veins in their foreheads… it was like they were flogging themselves to greater heights (or lows) of vituperativeness. Does that actually feel good? I don’t think it does. On the contrary, it makes me feel bad.
Mel…I’m not arguing FOR namecalling, as I stated in the very first paragraph of my comment. From a writing standpoint, it’s in the very least impractical as it detracts from the message. It most certainly perpetuates an antagonistic mindset which shuts down actual discussion in its tracks.
Also, nowhere did I say that I made “them” the “ultimate enemy.” I have definitely not, though the reverse has been established by an overwhelming abundance of evidence. Quite the contrary, I understand quite clearly, probably better than most, about the delicacy of one-on-one interactions between conflicting forces. Both my side of the family and my in-laws are hard-core right-wing Christians. As a matter-of-fact, it was one of my in-laws who talked about people with Progressive beliefs “automatically” going to hell.
That’s not “going to hell” for our actions…but for our thoughts and beliefs…
I get along well with my in-laws, in large part because we don’t discuss those issues when we are together. At the times we have, it was clear that their beliefs were unwavering and it caused great strife to the people around us…they were unable to debate the issues. All I can do at this point is be around them enough so they look upon me as a human being…as family…and hope it causes dissonance in their thinking that reaches beyond me.
I don’t agree with Phil’s poll. While I know that Phil is not a sexist, using those words in anger allows others to paint him as such, which is sad because he is probably one of the few true Renaissance men I’ve met in my life. Also, from a standpoint of logic, the choices in that poll don’t make sense.
However, Mel, there are also some flaws in your logic.
You and a number of others make a compelling argument about carfully choosing words so as not to inflame the other side. Yet, you said this:
…my favorite nickname for Palin has been Palinocchio
…and this:
I agree completely with you that Palin’s Christianist political agenda is evil. I think that anyone who summarily dismisses the fundamental personhood of other people simply because they don’t agree with them or understand them is acting in service of evil.
The first name is calling Palin a liar. I think it’s cute and funny and accurate, but it would probably make discussion with even a moderate Palin supporter impossible. You acknowledge that in your comment but I wanted to emphasize it a bit more.
I strongly agree with you on the second comment. However, people who agree with Palin’s beliefs (or more accurately, what they think her beliefs are) consider themselves deeply religious. It would probably offend pretty much anyone who called themselves evangelical and would halt further investigation into whatever you were actually saying. That paragraph would be considered just as offensive…just as explosive…to that crowd as any mention of the word “slut.” It just so happens, as a non-Christian person, it doesn’t effect you the same way.
This is why I’m not going to fall into the trap of using space on my blog to tell anyone what he/she must or must not write that 1) might make us look bad 2) is not “Progressive enough” 3) is embarassing, or for any other reason. We all have words that trigger us and we’re NOT going to agree what those words might be. While I may disagree with what Phil posted, I’ve disagreed with many other things on many other Progressive blogs…some much worse than his. I write for my audience…which is not Palinistas. There are definitely things I’m going to write that will offend them and as I’ve discovered when I’ve called Dems to task, will also offend my fellow Progressives and yes, I get angry mail from them as well. However, I’ve never gotten anything from a Dem that came anywhere near what I get from the Palinistas.
I also refuse to embrace the mindset that just because someone lives in the same state, is my friend, is in the same political party, etc…we should be careful what we write because folks who view themselves as our enemies will use what we say against all other Lib blogs. The fact is, our blogs belong to the individuals who write them and if the rest of you are like me, you started them to express themselves, not express a “group-think.” I do my best to maintain a level of credibility I’m comfortable with. People get to vote with their feet…if they don’t like what I write, they’ll go somewhere else.
However, let’s say we all became perfect and laundered our blogs of all “offensiveness” as much as possible. My experience is that even when we DON’T write things that give them red meat, the wingers make it up–ex: the photoshop of Eddie Burke last June. (Hell, I now get email from people (like the one I posted yesterday) who just read Palin’s book and searched to discover that I was the “Trig -hater.” ) Ask Gryphen (Immoral Minority) what horrible things they made up about him, just because he suggested that Sarah and Todd were having marital troubles.
And what disturbs me a little is that the outrage seems to be saved for Phil. Yet, I see NO outrage over the fact that Palin’s #1 blog, Conservatives4Palin, posted comments that encouraged folks to use physical stalking, taking pictures and other forms of intimidation and PEOPLE SHOWED UP AT PHIL’S HOUSE TO DO JUST THAT. I’m sorry, that is not in the same friggin’ category as calling a woman a slut, as offensive as that may be. NOT making that distinction is about as wrong as the namecalling.
Once people actually come to your house, especially as a group or mob, there is NO TELLING what can happen…especially if alcohol is involved. It crosses a line that can never be uncrossed. As someone who now sees comments from folks threatening to come to my house and do such “prankish” things as “set a fire,” that alarms me much more.
Anyway, Mel, this is the last comment I’m making on this. I hope I have not damaged our relationship in any way–I deeply respect and adore you, your writing, your spirit. However, I feel like the last year-and-a-half has been trench warfare and I lost most of my naivete about politics and both parties. I’m sure that comes out in these comments.
I assure you I still very much consider myself your friend and ally and I hope you do the same.
I so agree with you! I’ve come to enjoy several blogs that I discovered in an attempt to get more information about Sarah Palin when she was tapped as the VP candidate. But in the past few months, I’ve seen the increasing use of quite ugly names in reference to Palin, her family and her followers. These are uncomfortable to read, because even if I agree with the main point of the author, I am turned off by the language.
This whole discussion makes me think of the torture debate. Is it okay to torture them because they would torture us? No. Our position is that we do not torture. As others have said before, two wrongs do not make a right. If they call us horrible names and say we are haters, we should respond with reasoned arguments, not hateful comments that prove their point and diminish ours.
John Stewart and Stephen Colbert have shown that it isn’t necessary to be uncivil to make your point – you can even be quite ribald and funny without resorting to using these kinds of names, especially if you use their own words against them. My favorite line from last night – “Palin 2012 – Abandon all Hope!” You can say you don’t like what they do or what they stand for. But when you demean them as human beings, it reflects more on you than on the person to whom you refer.
I don’t want to say I read something on xyz blog and have someone say, “How can you believe anything you read there? Have you seen some of the vicious things they have written?” It diminishes credibility to be connected with that kind of language.
I struggle to be able to look in the mirror and feel good about the person I see there. When you surround yourself with anger, hatred and bitterness, it invades your entire life. You become desensitized to it, until suddenly you realize that you are writing and saying the same kinds of things. It is contagious. Frankly, I don’t need the ugliness in my life.
Excellent post and discussion. I find I do stray into profanity and anger on occasion. I have also found over the years that anger does make me ‘feel’ bad or at dis-ease and try more all the time to avoid it.
Oh no Linda, no relationship damage at all! Hey, I’m like just like Huckabee (except that I’m not a conservative or Republican or antigay Christianist): I’m not mad at anyone. The operative phrase even re: Phil is “dismayed” — esp. because I know damn well he’s not sexist either, but made a bad choice out of frustration….
Anyway, whatever else this is, it’s been a good discussion. Whatever people decide to do with their stuff, is up to them. When I say I’m sickened by the namecalling, I mean that very literally — & I’ll make my own choices from that. But never to write off my friends, which you (& Phil as well) are counted among.
Mel-
This conversation has reminded me of the peculiar ( in the sense of singular ) experience I had of being the only so-called liberal on a jury.
Initially, I was the only one calling to convict the accused.
The trial lasted a day. Deliberations lasted two and a half. The process was marred at some level by folks calling me names and more than a few poorly veiled threats got flung across the table at me, but in the end the group fell to discussing the actual facts presented instead of voting within their prejudices.
It was an enormously stressful situation for me , trying to push to stay on track with facts and the law amidst the namecalling and insults . The shifting alliances within the group are fascinating in retrospect but were almost bizarre as they unfolded.
In the end, we convicted ( I think very rightly ) the accused person for ALMOST the right reasons. However, the struggle to establish civility amongst jurors was the hardest work done in that jury room. I didn’t convince anyone by force of personality nor political view that it was necessary. Some of the jurors told me afterwards that by hanging onto the core of the issues we had to look at and staring down the easy-way-out name callers I allowed them the space to really think about what we were charged with accomplishing and not giving into pressure by others.
This speaks to the core of what true civility can do…not namby pamby go-with-the-flow-be-nice-to-everyone notions of civilty, nor watered down notions of compromise, none of that stuff can be the tool true civility gives us in stepping up to do our most difficult work.
Steve Aufrecht over at What Do I Know? has now weighed in — his post is called Blogger Tourettes.
He also refers to an older post of his on blogging guildelines where he laid out the guidelines he was going to do his best to follow in his own political blogging. The lengthy discussion on labeling & namecalling is especially worth a read — here’s an excerpt:
I find myself in the course of these discussions (here, on Steve’s blog, on Progressive Alaska) rethinking some of my own past behavior in posts, comments on blogs or the Anchorage Daily News website, etc. I can’t control other people’s civility or lack thereof, & some people are obviously unconvinced that namecalling & contemptuous behavior towards people who aim the same kind of behavior at them is at all wrong. Oh well. But I can at least exhibit control over my own behavior.
So I’m rereading Steve’s personal blogging guidelines, & thinking about my own.
Meanwhile —
Alaska Pi — the way I figure it, hanging on with tenacity to your own integrity — in this case being tenacious about being civil even while the other people were lambasting you with names — might not be easy, but sure does a lot more to sway people than resorting to namecalling yourself would do.
SofyaDeb & Bones AK — My attitude about anger & incivility is very much informed with what it does to me when I go off in a rage. A friend of mine told me a few months ago that she couldn’t watch Prevo’s sermons because they made her so made she’d be up by the TV yelling & screaming at it. Well, I can do that too… but for me, explosion is almost always followed by implosion. It’s like that quote of MLK’s that Ron pointed out — “Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit.”
There’s an ethical statement, often called the Wiccan Rede — it’s frequently found in Wicca & other neopagan circles, & while I’m not neopagan it works well for me — that goes like this:
It’s always seemed to me that the goal is to keep oneself balanced on that comma in the middle. And that there are a couple of corollaries:
I think Jesus’ statement, Love thy neighbor as thyself has much the same meaning — except that unfortunately a lot rests on how the person who claims to live by that defines neighbor. Not to mention that if people don’t know how to love themselves, they’re also going to be pretty lousy at treating others with love. Still, Jesus was aiming at the same idea. It’s a big challenge to see people who are treating you or people you care about meanly & contemptuously as “neighbors,” but I’m pretty sure that’s what he was asking people to do. We all have the Kingdom of God within us (per Jesus), we all have Buddha-nature, other religions have other ways of saying it.
Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t defend ourselves when we’re attacked. The way I reckon it, if I allow myself to be treated as a doormat, then I’m not only permitting myself to be harmed, but I’m also harming the person treating me that way by letting them think they can get away with it. So yeah, if someone slaps me in my face, you can damn betcha I’ll let them have it right back, & I might even call them names as I do so in the heat the moment. But that’s in physical circumstances: in verbal contexts, like on a blog, there are other ways to fight back that are more effective than namecalling to begin with.
Alaska Pi: your experience was probably one of the most intense posts I’ve read in a while: testimony to how hard it can be trying to stay clean mucking out a dogyard. There’s a weird mental bifurcation I sometimes get when running up against a deeply held conviction that contrasts starkly against a student’s in a classroom setting: training oneself to be objective but still true, fair and honest is a skill that needs constant monitoring for me.
Mel’s recounting of times spent sitting at the same table with other folks who have diverse and differing positions reminds me of many conversations had in bars with people I normally wouldn’t interact with – that’s the great equalizing influence Interior Alaskan weather can have: at fifty below, *everybody’s* cold.
The flip side is drawing editorial cartoons: I’ve recently been doing some mulling over the issues and how effective caricaturing the opposition is – or isn’t – with some other cartoonists on another site. Not pulling any punches, taking a stand and potentially offending people is part of the job description, or at least an occupational hazard, and it calls for the same sort of constant self-questioning of motives.
Unapologetically playing a part in the ratcheting up of rhetoric is a conscious choice with consequences, and after returning several times to this one comment thread I’ve learned a lot from some new and different perspectives.
Many thanks.
Cross-posted from my comment on Progressive Alaska:
Mel,
I was watching today the 1964 film Seven Days in May when I saw this great exchange in the Oval Office between George Macready as Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Todd, and Fredric March as US President Jordan Lyman. The exchange about ‘the enemy,’ the ‘lunatic fringe,’ and disenfranchisement is so germane (particularly to the idea of your upcoming blog post {and this topic as well}) 46 years later:
Christopher Todd:
I think it’s time we faced the enemy, Mr. President.
President Jordan Lyman:
He’s not the enemy. Scott, the Joint Chiefs, even the very emotional, very illogical lunatic fringe: they’re not the enemy. The enemy’s an age – a nuclear age. It happens to have killed man’s faith in his ability to influence what happens to him. And out of this comes a sickness, and out of sickness a frustration, a feeling of impotence, helplessness, weakness. And from this, this desperation, we look for a champion in red, white, and blue. Every now and then a man [or a woman] on a white horse rides by, and we appoint him [or her] to be our personal god for the duration. For some men it was a Senator McCarthy, for others it was a General Walker, and now it’s a General Scott [and 46 years in the future, it might be a Sarah Palin].
Thanks, Ron, that really is germane. Doesn’t seem like people’s behavior has changed a heckuva lot in the years since 1964, eh?
Jamie I’m really glad you came by. Have seen lots of your work — I can see where editorial cartooning would really put one continually in the middle of these kinds of questions. Yesterday while beginning research on the real history of the Tea Party movement (as opposed to the “received wisdom” I’ve gained through by means of my own particular filters in the mainstream & progressive media, including blogs), I came across the NPR Ombudsman’s discussion of Mark Fiore’s controversial “Learn to Speak Tea Bag” animation, which appears on NPR’s site. Talk about your thorny: satire, stereotype, funny to a large segment of the population — the NPR Ombudsman opined that “It’s actually not that funny”, but I remember laughing when I saw it — but tremendously offensive to Tea Partiers. While the comments I’m seeing especially at Phil’s & Linda’s blogs indicate that some progressives have come face to face with behavior that seems well-reflected in Fiore’s cartoon. For example, someone commented at Phil’s blog (where he crossposted Linda’s article):
But I’m wondering how much of that nasty behavior comes from flocking or mob behavior. Would each of those same people act that same way were they to sit down at a table with this protester, have a cup of coffee, talk? How much of our ugly behavior stems from seeing it enacted all around us?
I don’t know, really. I’ve seen more than my fair share of ugliness from the right — remembering all the “Truth is Not Hate” hate speech at last year’s Assembly hearings on AO-64. But I don’t like any more seeing that kind of ugliness issuing from the mouths or pens of my friends & allies.
Thank you, Mel, and AGREED. One of the reasons my own blog has been floating rather silently in the ether for the past few months….
Thank you, Mel, from the bottom of my heart for addressing this issue. I have been reading the AK blogs since SP was introduced as John McCain’s running mate, and I am dismayed and sickened by the comments from people supposedly on my side. I, too, find it hypocritical that many feel it is justified because the “other” side does it.
I recognize that we cannot control the behavior of others; I am just glad someone cares enough about civil discourse to take a stand on the issue. There is so much more I could say, but many of your commentators already have expressed quite eloquently similar thoughts to mine.
Thank you again.
Judy