Corporate Detox

We, the ordinary people, are forced during every waking hour to see the world from the perspective of villains. We accept that perspective as reality as much as it suits us and as little as our intellect allows us to penetrate the veil.

Similarly, there are those who watch The Sopranos and, seeing the world through Tony’s eyes, start pulling for him. His fans gloss over his faults. They focus on his struggles with his enemies. They hope he succeeds in evading the law. They cheer for murder.

Then there are those who ingest mainstream news, corporate TV, advertisements, government provided history textbooks, etc., and start pulling for the corporate interests that run America. They root for successful air strikes on Iraqi villages, think poor countries should be happy to receive exploitative loans, and get pissed off at Russia for not wanting American missiles in its backyard.

The following is a brief overview of ways to build consensus by providing perspective through discussions with fellow countrypeople on some key topics. In the end, using refined arguments may be the equivalent of decorating the pebbles you throw at Tony Soprano’s advancing tank but…(I don’t know, but I don’t know).

Nationalism

Emphasize the distinction between U.S. government and U.S. citizens.

• Ask “What is America?” (best source: common sense; correct answer: it’s us.)
• Demonstrate that the United States is not a functioning democracy. (best source: public opinion polls)
• Explain U.S. imperialist history in terms that convey the difference between normal American citizens and the decision makers who claim to represent us. (best sources: Zinn, Chomsky, etc.)
• Emphasize the Constitution. It does generally side with the people, after all, in spite of being written by rich racists. Sure, no one’s read it, but it’s good in the same way that freedom and justice are good. (best source: The Constitution)
• When Americans think about war they generally think of sexy machines nobly conquering bearded evildoers. This is a lie. For every vanquished evildoer, there are hundreds of vanquished innocents. The American people do not approve of killing civilians. They never have. Studies show it. (a source: Tom Engelhardt analyzes the U.S. government’s use of air power against civilians here.)

Religion

Corporate/government behavior is the cause of most major problems social conservatives blame on the left.

• Abortion– a socio-economic problem, the main causes being the wealth gap, the so-called drug war, and dehumanizing corporate TV programs, among other things.
• Hollywood and MTV are not pushed on us by wacky hippy liberals but by amoral corporations. You know, the rich people who own all that stuff and make the actual decisions? Dumbasses like Tom Green wouldn’t have careers without rich corporate assholes.
• Video game violence– hmm…who’s behind that? Rich corporate assholes? What do you fuckin know!
• The breakdown of the family? Rich corporate assholes.
• Homosexuality? Oh whoops, never mind. Let’s forget I mentioned it.

Economics

Kill Horatio Alger.

• Demonstrate that objective and subjective factors in SES determination are not mutually exclusive. In other words, when Mariah Carey claims to be living proof that believing in oneself and following one’s dreams (subjective factors) are sufficient to achieve superstardom, she neglects to mention the causal role played by musical DNA and the high demand for singing prostitutes (objective factors). Both are important. Similarly, confident, driven athletes are more likely to perform than self-doubting, don’t-give-a-damn athletes while genetically gifted athletes are more likely to perform than less gifted athletes. Sounds pretty obvious, no? Pathetically, the (sometimes complete) denial of objective factors’ causal role in SES determination is one of the major pillars upholding our faux meritocracy.
• Being born into poverty is the primary cause of poverty. Bad character is not.
• Objective factors such as the drug war (waged by corporations for profit) and poverty (which is what happens when corporations have all the money) are indisputably more relevant and readily addressed causes of crime than bad character, which in turn is a major cause of corporate success.

Tribalism and the Beast

Allison Kilkenny writes a critique of liberal tribalism, pointing out how emotional-comfort-thinking is not limited to racists, nationalists, and W. Her liberal friends often divide themselves into liberal sects to avoid the discomfort of clashing ideas. This anti-social posture results from emotional insecurity and reflects a disregard for the kind of community-building necessary to counteract Republican idiocy, she argues. Great article, and in the discourse-encouraging spirit of same, here’s where I disagree.

Kilkenny is apparently speaking only to liberals, telling them to unite against Republicans. “We can build a foundation of unity even if that means defining ourselves by what we are not. We are not racists, we are not bigots, and we do not deny respect to any decent human being. In other words, we are not Republicans. And that is good.”

I’m not sure why the line should be drawn between conservatives and liberals. That’s a line that’s been drawn for us by the rich and powerful. A more relevant line is that between the corporate forces waging war on Americans and the Americans who are suffering as a result. This takes another form as a civil war between the rationally inclined and the rationally disinclined who fall for the convenient comfort offered by the lies of the rich and powerful.

Ways to deal with true-believer neocons

1. Them Angry Liberals

There’s outright hatred, sometimes coupled with death wishes and sadistic verbiage, a childish wish for the complete disappearance of the hated object. No discussion is possible, they think, with the morons, idiots, assholes, etc. on the right. If your grandma is a neocon, that’s too bad — fuck your grandma. They seem to be pursuing tribal catharsis after taking the abuses of an insanely irrational political climate. This is common on message boards, where an angry liberals can get solace from their tribe without actually confronting the people they attack. They see a propagandist dumping horse shit all over the American public and are helpless to stop it. They can’t penetrate the absurdity, don’t have the time or willpower to think of a rebuttal that would shut the propagandist up and have a lingering nugget of doubt “I’m not crazy, they’re crazy, right?”.

2. The Krugmans

There’s a belief in rational discussions with the rationally disinclined. The fruitlessness of this approach is the cause of the visceral hatred prevalent in group 1. If you have to explain that W is a criminal, you shouldn’t be worried primarily about facts and arguments.

3. Beasted

At buffalobeast.com, where I found Kilkenny’s article, there’s a self-assured, condescending mockery of the rationally disinclined.  Fundababble is viciously ridiculed rather than treated as refutation-demanding theses.  Confident that even if they’re not right, they’re far less wrong than Corporate Vocal Defecator X, they offer the kind of intellectual conviction sorely needed by the Krugmans and Angry Liberals who, vicariously relishing CVDX’s initial pummeling at the hands of the Beast, shriek “Let him up! He’s had enough!” as the intellectual severing of limbs and tendons leaves any decent human feeling ethically nauseous.

Save the juvenile noses!

In previous posts, I’ve advocated treating conclusion-first argumentation as a distinct species of political discourse. In this post, I’ll try to further clarify.

For the sake of community and democracy, it’s necessary and advisable to communicate with individuals who steadfastly adhere to rationally indefensible political positions. It’s not, on the other hand, effective, necessary, or ethically sound to actually argue with them.

Time and again, one finds absurd positions treated by rational people as legitimate arguments. It’s not that rationally inclined people think it might be true that for example, GWB is the greatest U.S. President ever, but they do generally feel inclined to argue that he’s not.

In academic discourse, holocaust deniers aren’t taken seriously. In American political discourse, people who argue that the U.S. government’s motives are 100% benevolent are taken seriously. More accurately, they never have to explicitly make this self-evidently absurd claim. They simply replace U.S. government — by any reasonable account, at the very least, strongly influenced by corporate interests — with the vague, emotionally charged “America” (Mellencamp version) and find their position unassailable. Now, in attempting to speak accurately about the intentions of the U.S. government, you’re attacking the collective ego. You’re attacking the good people of Lansing, MI, Reedville, VA, and Austin, TX, as well as their ancestors, Olympic teams, and McDonald’s.

Presenting facts and evidence of neocon imperialist ambitions is one way to deal with the severely rationally disinclined (SRD). If however, as is generally the case, they’re seeing the world through the red, white, and blue lenses placed gently on their still-growing noses in their pre-critical years, they’re seeing your facts and evidence in red, white, and blue as well.  In red, white, and blue, there are lots of facts and evidence that look like evil, because there are lots of facts and evidence that counter the notion that America is 100% good.  Better to concern oneself with the glasses, how they got there, how they can be removed, and how their placement on future juvenile noses can be prevented.

Rule #1: Avoiding the unmentionables is the best way to make them mentionable

Rule #1: When talking to severely rationally disinclined (SRD) people, don’t let them put you in a category.

Reason #1: Avoid the soundproof box.

If you tell someone you’re a liberal or a libertarian or an Al Franken fan or that you’re voting for Senator X, it’ll be very easy for them to find a soundproof box for you. There’s little if anything to be gained, from an argument or persuasive standpoint, from such a move.

SRDs use simple, formulaic 2 or 3 step reasoning processes, often pre-packaged by propagandists. These are vacuum-like in nature and are best avoided. Examples: Democrat=godless, godless=bad, Democrat=bad. Republican=rich assholes, rich assholes=bad, Republican=bad. Don’t tell your Republican neighbor you’re a Democrat or that you once voted for Bill Clinton.

Reason #2: You don’t get credit for Obama’s good points but if there’s anything about him you can’t defend, you’ll suffer for it. Of course, if your whole point is to convince someone to vote for Obama, this doesn’t apply.

Reason #2 is strategery-based only, which makes it a bit dirty. Reason #1 is legit, assuming you’re not using it in a salesman-like way, to bring someone to a specific viewpoint.  It facilitates discourse by avoiding language poisoned by propagandists.

beyond good and saddam

Let’s say someone murders your best friend. (Now that’s how you start a blog post.) Your outrage overcomes you and you want the murderer hanged from the highest thing that you can hang a murderer from. Understandable, sure. In such a case, your ability to consider the series of causes that led to the murderer’s actions is limited, to say the least.  It’s inhibited by strong emotional forces.  To approach the matter with an inquisitive mind involves crossing into a state of empathy with the killer.  Your feeling of outrage toward the killer, on the other hand, is comforting.  It reaffirms your somewhat shattered world picture, that it was right and the killer’s violent intrusion wrong.  Hate of the other is glue for the self.

The concept of evil, on the other hand, doesn’t require empathy.  It doesn’t require understanding either, as it’s simply the explanation given to what can’t be understood.  It also happens to be ridiculous.

Saddam Hussein had people killed habitually because the pleasure it afforded his ego (by helping him maintain power over millions of people, among possibly other things) outweighed the displeasure it forced on his conscience.  The events of his childhood, in combination with his DNA, a number of bad habit-forming decisions, etc., culminated in an antisocial menace with a conscience smaller than his balls.  The iron law of decision making – the (un)pleasure principle – doesn’t take plays off.  It doesn’t tell the coach it needs a breather and that evil should get his ass in the game.

Even suggesting this much in mainstream American discourse is unacceptable.  It breaks the no empathy rule.  You do have to, in a very abstract way, see the world from the madman’s perspective to understand him.

The goal of Propagantidote is to analyze the emotional points of resistance that prevent people, including myself, from thinking clearly on political issues and cause them to vote against their own interests.  More on evil and the us versus them mentality in the future.