Gurdur

This one's for you, ElwoodBlues, since I've often expressed ideas on this subject, and they're being crystallized by your own remarks on your "Demonizing SUV owners" thread, and on another thread etc..

It seems to me (speaking as a benighted heathen foreigner ), that a great problem with USA culture which flows into politics is stridency.
People from all sides of the political spectrum seem determined to demonize the opposition, and make their own positions as radical as possible.
I stress this happens on both the USA left and right.

It seems to me that the value of moderation and accomodation is simply held in contempt, and semi-religious imagery is used by all, together with a wannabe-macho stance.
As you've noted yourself, it only poisons the entire game; it's one reason why I personally tend to steer clear of "SUV/Hummer owners are possessed by the Devil", or "We must not be immoral but must adopt immediately Objectivism to wash us clean of our sins".
Well, I stay clear of some threads.

These cultural values of stridency, non-accomodation and demonization seem to me to be a little caused by material plenty --- i.e., not enough people are willing to talk real issues, but want to get hung up on pseudo-theology.

A penny for your thoughts.

beyelzu

well gurdur,

seems to me that you are confusing different groups of people. for example in recent years presidential canidates hae steered to the middle in the hope of not pissing off the voting public. lobbyists are fond of using such emotive langauge because it is easier to make their case using pathos then it is to use logos. i think the american public probably also use such rhetoric . i wonder if the us vs them syndrome is alive and well. perhaps it is an outgrowth of ethnocentrism(which imho is needed at least in a small degree).

beyelzu

give me another penny, i just had a cool thought


demonization is necessary because of the apathy brought on by material plenty.

i am not claiming its a fact, i havent thought it out completely. its just a thought.

mecca777

I think you may have hit close to what many politicians believe. It may not be what the electorate want, but that's not the same thing, especially when you have such huge advertising budgets - it's easier to slam your opponent with catchy ads or memorable images than debate them in front of politically-aware audiences.

I remember here in the UK, before the 1997 General Election, the incumbent Conservative Party ran an ad campaign entitled "New Labour, New Danger". Billboards and TV spots showed Tony Blair, with a "torn" bar across his eyeline revealing glowing red "Satanic" eyes - literal "demonisation" if you like.

The public response was certainly not what the Conservatives wanted - the biggest landslide election in generations, in Labour's favour. Plus, about 130 members of the public complained to the official advertising monitor, who agreed that the advert was defamatory and had it pulled.



So I don't believe that politicians have to go down the route of personal attacks, demonisation of opposing viewpoints, etc. But I believe that a lot of politicians (and normal people) enjoy it, and that they'll stoop to it whenever they can.

elwoodblues

That's damned odd. I had a conversation with my girlfriend just last night that touched on this.

I surely agree that this happens. And, at least in my experience on this board, it tends to be much more pronounced with Americans of all political stripes. That may be confirmation bias at work, though.

I think there's both pushing and pulling going on here. People tend to demonize the opposition, yes, for the same reason we use names like 'Jerry', 'Charlie', 'Johnny Reb' and 'Billy Yank' in war. To dehumanize the opposition, make the cheap shots easier. If the opposition can be made to seem faceless, duplicitous, naive, foolish, trollish, misguided, or just plain evil, then it's much easier to oppose them.

Also, there's the pulling. I've seen this in particular at work on my own position here. Someone makes some damned wild allegation about the President or his administration, either through frustration or animosity. No one else will play devil's advocate, so I stand up and do so, even though I'm not a huge fan of the administration. That pulls my apparent position that much farther to the Right, which makes it easier to yell at me, etc, etc...

This I'm not so sure about. First is the definition of 'real issues', which seems fuzzy at best. It seems like you might simply be defining it (intentionally or not) as 'issues I think people should care about'. It's going to be different, wildly different, for various people. A fisherman from Maine might think that North Seas fishery conservation issues are a life-or-death matter, and not give a damn about education because he doesn't have kids.

Also, it looks like you're making a division between 'practical' matters (like education and fishery conservation) and 'abstract' matters (issues of principle, like capitalist or socialist). Myself, I think they're both damned important, and inter-dependent. If you don't identify some principles, you'll be stuck with a muddle of mutually exclusive concrete issues. And if you don't know anything about the concrete issues, you're going to have a tough time finding a realistic, workable set of principles to work from.

Lastly, the reason you're giving for all this. Material plenty leads to stridency, at least in part. Well, material plenty also leads to any discussion in the first place. If you're living hand-to-mouth, without a moment or a dollar to spare for frivolous matters like political discussion, you won't have any discussion at all (or, at least, very little, and that almost exclusively from the extremists, with even less chance for concession or accomodation).

Gurdur

heh. OK, I'm caught out on a few things; oddly for me, I was being mostly Socratic in my OP, that is, tossing in ideas to prompt thoughts willynilly.
I know that runs counter to my usual practice, which is to remain tightly focused and always aim for the eventual truth of the matter, but hey, everyone needs a holiday every now and then.


Adding more points to the mix (!):
---- while it is true that, say, Congressional members are forced to greater accomodation (and thus moderation), they often then in public hide that by indulging in hyperbole

--- and hyperbole seems to me to be a major marker of American discourse

--- while of course what is true for American citizens in general, or for Americans on this board, or USA Congressional members, is not true for each other

Thoughts ?

beyelzu

i think that congressman have less need to actually engage in compromise, because they can be from districts that are more polarized than the average. but hyperbole certainly plays a role. after all while they are might be middle of the road on most issues if they try to get elected that way whats to separate them from their opposition.

Vorkosigan

People from all sides of the political spectrum seem determined to demonize the opposition, and make their own positions as radical as possible.

Compared to what? European politics is mostly fighting over who gets what subsidy. When one is handing out money, cushy agreement is no problem -- see our very own US Congress on this issue, for example. There's nothing at stake in European politics, just as long as the $$ are handed out and the US is properly bashed, everything's fine.

No European nation is a global power, with a global reach, global responsibilities, global influence and global ideology like the US is. In a very real way totally foreign to European nations, the US is the postwar world. The stakes are much greater in US politics than in German or French, since the US shapes the world in a way that Europe either refuses to or cannot. People tend to be a lot more tough-minded when the issue is "Should we take a stronger line with China?" and not "How big a check should we write to Greece this week?"

Vorkosigan