We had a debate party tonight for the Biden-Palin debate. It’s nice to watch it in a group of like-minded people. Taking the Democrat/Republican debate seriously is a bullshit game and I don’t have any desire to bring this farce into my normal life.
After the debate was over, I wanted to discuss the debate. After all, it’s weird to watch something for an hour and a half and then just ignore that we spent that time watching it. The problem is that I hate the punditry. No one actually said "did Palin do what she had to do?" (I probably would have screamed) but it’s just really hard not to talk about "what will people think of this debate?" And part of that is because we all know what we think. We saw through Palin deliberately ignoring the questions and reading her already-prepared speech. We all had a basic understanding of what is fact and what is a lie or misrepresentation. It’s nice to share little stories (like stories from the article about how McCain is a jerk). But it’s so damn hard not to fall into a discussion about the horserace, about what other people will think. Why is it so hard to talk about what we think? Not what we analyze, but what we actually believe? Instead of predicting something that will come to pass regardless of our predictions, shouldn’t we be developing our own beliefs? That seems far more relevant to our lives.
There’s probably a lot of reasons for that. It’s intimidating to be entirely genuine, to speak without irony. And all the news is about the horserace, so we are all well informed, it makes it easy to talk.
I think a large part of the problem is that the spectrum of opinions is so narrow (even if also bifurcated) that it’s hard to have an interesting discussion of political issues. Lacking anything of real substance to discuss, we discuss the discussion, we make predictions instead of forming real opinions. While I’m willing to blame many things on the Republicans, this is the product of both parties, of the narrow ignorance of "conventional wisdom." For instance, the debate about the economic bailout has been rich with rhetoric but starved of any real ideas. I didn’t even realize how limited the debate was until I listened to this interview where Steve Fraser kind of says, well, we can do whatever we want. That is to say, we can actually make collective decisions about the direction of our economy, instead of the impotent position that is assumed in all current debates, where we can only poke lightly at the economy (and it’s implied anything more would destroy it).
We can’t really talk about what kind of healthcare system we’d like, because the system nearly everyone wants is not an acceptable part of conventional wisdom. Socialized healthcare is the only reasonable option, but of course there’s lots of ways it could work, there’s lots of room for genuine and important discussion. But instead we have a staggeringly horrible proposal, and a merely not quite as bad as the current situation proposal. Given this set of options you can’t have real discussion.
In the end our own happiness is mostly in our own hands. The choices we make for ourselves are more significant than the choices made by the government (the choices we make collectively). But our collective choices do matter. We certainly haven’t figured out happiness. And maybe government does best when it has the least effect on our lives, but while that’s one end of the bifurcated conventional wisdom, as an idea it remains largely uninspected. When I consider many of the pleasant conveniences in my life, government is part of a lot of them. It doesn’t do much to make me more spiritually fulfilled, but the idea that government is a hopeless place to look for our collective happiness is a truism that lacks real consideration.
Political discussion is stuck in a terrible intellectual rut. Blame falls equally on both parties. They hold on greedily to their monopoly of political thought. It’s like religious doctrine, something to which politicians must submit before being allowed to progress, a sign of submission to a larger system of power. I have this hope that Obama is going through the rites with discipline but without true belief, that he is being subversive, diving straight to the belly of the beast. But this is only speculation, perhaps a naive dream, a desire to project my hopes onto a figure of vague and general hope.
I don’t really want to spend too much time discussing all the things that are wrong. This is the depressing comfort zone of the left. I want to talk about how things could be right, about how we can make a world that isn’t just less unjust but a world that is more beautiful, more wonderful, more full of life and freedom and passion. I want to exult in the potential of the future.
No related posts.
I’m not sure I can follow the thread that your lack of political debate with like-minded friends is the fault of the two parties. That’s not in defense of recent politics, but you’ve defined the issue long before you stated it. If you’re going to sit in a room of like-minded individuals, you can’t expect much diversity in thought.
Similarly – though not on purpose – I found myself in a packed bar in Brooklyn, surrounded by people cheering Biden and booing and laughing at the obviously scripted and well-trained Palin. Everyone was proud to react as such and I found very little difference in the crowd.
Like-minded groups are not the place for honest discussion.
Our politicians and our media have their parts in this, but so do we – Every last one of us. Without us, the members of politics and the media can’t feed their loved ones. Feeding their families and feeding their BS are one in the same.
Nice post!
Narrowing the spectrum of the political discussion is a very conscious decision of the US government, achieved by tight control over mass media.
I’m currently reading [Hegemony or Survival](http://www.democracynow.org/2003/10/22/noamchomskyonhegemonyor_survival) (which I much recommend), in which the author suggests that the narrowing of the spectrum, or the “taming the beast” (the public), is a key weapon of the ruling class of any type of government, from despotism to (fake) democracy, to keep themselves in their position. In dictatorships this is more easily achieved by means of force, in democratic countries it happens by means of [propaganda](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda).
The author also suggests that both Democratic and Republican parties, during their election campaign, stick to an arranged script, which makes it hard for the issues that really matter to enter the public discussion. The public is trained through the media to be like-minded. People with opinions outside the spectrum are easily dismissed.
We were like-minded insofar as we disliked one side and liked the other. That this is what passes for “politically like-minded” is what I have a problem with. In fact I’m quite certain we’d all disagree on lots of other things, but the mainstream political discussion is so narrow and the spectrum of ideas so small that there’s little room for diversity among well-informed people. Yeah, I could go out and seek someone who really likes Palin an discuss politics. But that person is almost certain to be ignorant, disingenuous, or just deeply wrong-headed, and I can’t have a reasonable discussion. I could try to understand that person, sure. But understanding another person’s position isn’t the same as having a constructive discussion.
The absoluteness of this statement disturbs me, Ian:
“But [someone who likes Palin] is almost certain to be ignorant, disingenuous, or just deeply wrong-headed, and I can’t have a reasonable discussion.”
I do not pretend to like Palin, or even to be informed enough to have an opinion. But the idea that the opposite side is so ignorant or deeply wrong-headed that you can’t have a constructive discussion with them…
Frankly, I think the potshots at Palin and McCain in your article detract from the more interesting point of your article, which I agree with. Also, the comparison to religious doctrine offends me, as I do not subscribe to any religious doctrine for the reasons you mention. Dogmatic and institutional doctrine has those properties, but the idea that all religious doctrines are dogmatic or institutional is wrong.
Again, I really appreciate the main thrust of the article. Political debate in this country is completely stagnated, as is religious debate. Unless you happen to find someone with whom you can be open (a rare treasure, indeed), both debates belong to certain institutional views that no one is allowed to challenge. What disappoints me is the degree to which you broadcast those views in this article.
I feel like making offerings to some “non-partisan” stance is falling into the two-sets-of-ideas mindset. I’m not interested in a Republican/Democrat debate, because I think the Republican stance completely lacks credibility and is disingenuous. I don’t particularly believe in the Democratic stance, but at least there’s room to discuss. All of which is not to say that conservative values lack credibility, or that holding those view is a disingenuous stance. But in letting the parties serve as placeholders for ideas, we discard genuine discussion.
I also believe that a useful discussion needs to start with some common understandings between the people. Finding the person I disagree with most and debating them serves no point. Finding them and trying to understand where they are coming from is interesting in a kind of scientific way, but without some common understandings it isn’t constructive. It might tell me about the world as they see it, but it does little to inform my own opinions.
As to political specifics, I think McCain is a very troubling figure, but Palin is beyond the pale, and I can’t respect anyone that with genuine and well-informed support of her. At some point I feel the need to set aside positions I find despicable — I can rail against those ideas, but it doesn’t improve my own ideas. And I’m not going to hide the fact I find the Republicans despicable. The whole idea “the truth is somewhere in the middle” is wrong. That’s the entire point I was trying to get across. First: there are no ends to the lines of thought so that you can measure to the middle. Second: there is no single line of ideas that can have a middle (it isn’t even 2D or 3D). Third: truth and falsehood exist, and all perspectives are not equally valid. Also, debating with lies is a losing game — you can’t win the debate, and you won’t come out any smarter trying.
As to religion, it was not my intention to disparage religion. It was more my intention to allude to, say, the medieval politics of the Catholic church. To practices and philosophies that are enforced but not put to any consideration, that are accepted without critical thought but still made a requirement of “true belief.” And… well, that could describe certain religious doctrine, and I suppose I’m okay with that, as I do not have respect for intellectual obedience. But that’s certainly not all religion, not even most religion, and if I implied that I’m sorry for the offense.
the VP debate was stunning. Palin did a decent job faking about 20% of the questions and didn’t even bother answering the other 80%.
i couldn’t help thinking of the end of the movie Billy Madison, when the debate moderator says to Adam Sandler, “Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
It’s unfortunate that there is no alternative to Obama Barack, but the system makes it impossible to have a real choice. Certainly the Republican ticket is not a choice for informed individuals.
The notion of a non-partisan stance is, as Ian points out, simply not possible when it comes to these two parties; as an editorial in today’s nytimes points out, mccains choice of palin is either very cynical or an unforgivable blunder; this isn’t some government position up in alaska, it’s the vp position of a country that is not only the most important economic power in the world, but one that’s been warmongering for five years.
I think the frustration you are feeling has to do with the fact that we are allowed choices on most every thing in our lives except who we vote for. All of the “candidates” who end up in the “horse race” are vetted, bought and paid for by the moneyed elites in this country. A “choice” between 1 of the two wings of the single “American Political Party” is not a choice at all. Mass media “political discussion” is tightly framed and only allowed to reach so far by the media, pundits and candidates themselves.
I tell everyone when asked who I will vote for that I will not vote and give the above reasons why. As well as the fact that it is not the people who cast votes that decide these contests, it is the people who count them.
Modern life is a return to serfdom. I do not think there has been a clean election in this country in 60 years. Most “progressive” people tell me I am doing exactly what they want me to do by not voting, but I think the opposite is true. First off, by voting you are giving a completely corrupt and criminal government recognition and validation. Secondly, if more and more people chose not to vote, and this brought down the number of eligible voters down to a laughable number, that would create more political upheaval than if even more people validate the “choices” thrust upon us.
I don’t know, I’ve really given up on any kind of political “change” here. Really step back and think about this: As the white house moves from GOP to DEM and back, what real changes are there in foreign policy and most domestic policy that is not window dressing like tax rates and other minor things? Clinton killed almost as many people in the middle east as Bush. (Of course we get more dead and maimed for our money with the GOP in charge).
In other news, Feline Lukemia still has no cure.:)
[Kathleen Hall Jamieson](http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/Bio.aspx?myUsername=kjamieson “bio”) and [Brooke Gladstone](http://www.onthemedia.org/about/brooke.html “bio”) provided insightful and fair commentary about the VP debate and the debate format in general during the [opening segment of the 3 Oct 2008 Bill Moyers Journal](http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10032008/profile2.html “PBS”). You’re wondering “how how things could be right.” Dr. Jamieson has some advice, as regards presidential debates anyway.
Nice post Ian.
“I feel like making offerings to some “non-partisan” stance is falling into the two-sets-of-ideas mindset. I’m not interested in a Republican/Democrat debate, because I think the Republican stance completely lacks credibility and is disingenuous. I don’t particularly believe in the Democratic stance, but at least there’s room to discuss. All of which is not to say that conservative values lack credibility, or that holding those view is a disingenuous stance. But in letting the parties serve as placeholders for ideas, we discard genuine discussion.”
To my mind, this is the real insight that you article could benefit from stressing further. Swap the positions of Republican and Democrat in the paragraph, and I could see myself saying it…but then that’s really the rub, isn’t it?
I think the bigger issue at stake here is the fact that presidential elections steal the voters’ collective focus from the (still somewhat effective) representation they should expect from Congress. Local representatives, in most areas, have to campaign with a much more tangible agenda. Neither Obama nor McCain will accomplish 90% of their “platforms”, and that’s by design. “Party platforms” are an all-you-can-eat buffet, there’s something there for everyone, but if they made you eat some of every dish, nobody would eat there.
If I were the king of the forest…. I would make the presidential ballot a multiple-choice survey that asks the voter where they stand on the top 5 issues (pick any 5 really) and casts their vote for the candidate they are most aligned with. It would be a terrible system for choosing the next president, but is arguably more accurate in choosing the one who the majority of the people “agree with”. This could eliminate the primaries as well as the first 2 years of campaigning. I suggest we use the free air time to show reruns of Fraggle Rock.