Moving Up, Diagonally, In the World

From what I'm told, an interview with me will appear on KOMO AM 1000 tomorrow morning. People who wake up earlier than I do should take note.

The Makers of Fashion

Digby asks:

If people object to superdelegates deciding who our nominees should be I would certainly think they'd object to Maureen Dowd and the kewl kids, of all people, doing it. Do they really have our best interests at heart?

No. I'd say they've never given the slightest thought about our interests. They're much more interested in their own.

The rules for modern punditry aren't really anything new. Court gossips have been around as long as there have been courts to hold them, and I'm willing to bet that, once upon a time, pundits stood in the Roman forum to say, "Well, Cicero's second Philippic needed to get around the Circus Maximus in record time. Did it?" "I don't think so, Decius. I mean, it may have won the race by a nose, but it's still not enough to break Marcus Antionius's momentum. It was too shrill, I thought, too angry." Established pundits, like their Renaissance courtier ancestors, sit in a comfortable social position, not high enough to face disaster from ordinary political shifts, and not low enough to suffer the consequences when most political decisions go wrong. (Barring of course the collapse of their country or empire, but how often does that happen?). They see themselves as guardians of the world of power and prestige. And like the doorman at Studio 54, they bar entry to people who don't have the right look, who aren't trying hard enough, or are trying too hard to get inside the club.

The rules of punditry are simple and time-tested, and can be translated to any situation or political moment.

1. Never acknowledge that any event is new or unexpected. Admitting this would demonstrate that the pundit is out-of-touch, unaware, unfashionable, fallible. In the event something new does pop up, the pundit should have a ready excuse for his failure to notice: the weather, a stomach flu, or the CIA. Alternatively, the pundit should employ a tortured line of reasoning to explain that the new thing was always predictable and that he did in fact predict it, then swiftly change the subject or attack a convenient scapegoat: see Gellar, Uri or Friedman, Thomas.

2. When interviewing a politician on television, a pundit must be sure that the question he's asking will enhance his reputation as a tough, brash, ruthless truth-seeker. The exposure of actual truth is incidental. What matters is that the question makes the politician appear uncomfortable on camera. In the event that the politician comes off well, the pundit should immediately declare the politician to be an honest, straight-talking sort who holds up under rough questions, thus enhancing both reputations.

3. While a pundit should always appear to be in good humor, he should, like Sweeney Todd, seldom laugh but often smile. Actual jokes should be left to safe subjects--politicians already judged to be on their way down or who make the mistake of demonstrating obvious ambition or expertise, entertainment figures, and people who can't defend themselves. For guidance, read The Book Of the Courtier (Book II, page 117 of the Wordsworth Classic edition, for those following along.)

Next I will try to tell you , as far as my judgement shall show me, what the means are that the Courtier ought to use for the purpose of exciting laughter, and within what bounds, because it is not seemly for the Courtier to be always making men laugh, nor yet by those means that are made us of by fools or drunken men, by the silly, the nonsensical, and likewise by buffoons. And although these kinds of men seem to be in demand by courts, yet they deserve not to be called Courtiers, but each by his own name, and to be held for what they are.

Moreover, we must diligently consider the bounds and limits of exciting laughter by derision, and who it is we deride; for laughter is not aroused by jeering at a poor unfortunate nor yet at an open rascal and blackguard, because the latter seems to merit greater punishment than that of being ridiculed, and the mind of man is not prone to flout the wretched, unless they boast of their wretchedness and are proud and saucy. We ought also to treat with respect those who are universal favourites and beloved by all and powerful, for by jeering at these persons a man may bring dangerous enemies upon himself. Yet it is proper to flout and laugh at the vices of those who are neither so wretched as to excite pity, nor so wicked as to seem worthy of capital punishment, nor so great that a touch of their wrath can do much harm.

Remember that in America, and particularly on American television, vices include being caught thinking in public, showing an interest in policy, or demonstrating actual knowledge of a subject other than baseball or American Idol. An appetite for too much knowledge is a like an appetite for too much chocolate or alcohol, the sign of a seriously unbalanced and unpleasant personality.

4. A pundit's true loyalties aren't to principles or ideologies, they are to other pundits and the maintenance of their status as a class. Like the Soviet nomenklutra, pundits must always guard their fellows against demands for accountability and responsibility. While it is true that some crimes, murder, child molestation, or an overindulgent sympathy with the poor, can result in expulsion from the class, at no point should a pundit be blasted from the class for spouting nonsense, however laughable or bigoted it may be. It is this feature of pundit life that explains the longevity of William Kristol, Maureen Dowd, and Don Imus.

5. Because pundits, regardless of the ideological livery they wear, are well-heeled and insulated from the effects of most political policies, they judge political activity on the basis of stagecraft and deportment. For them, it is acceptable for a nation's fate to turn on a candidate's laughs, sighs, or smirks, and their criticism of a candidate's perceived faults as actors enables them to burnish their own credentials as mavens of campaign fashion.

6. The pundit class's attitude toward a person in power varies between abject sycophancy and sneering condescension. Sometimes this depends on whether the politician is up or down in the opinion polls, but there are longer term preferences to explore. Because pundits generally like to picture themselves as soap bubbles floating above the world's drabness, they tend to prefer politicians who, on some level, match or exceed their indifference. Politicians who succeed with the pundits are typically those who express a certain nonchalance in the face of what the base vulgar call life. Should these politicians express any interest in the world around them at all, they do it in small gestures, executed gracefully. The rest of the time, they maintain the kind of detachment that allowed George W. Bush to say, during a golf game, "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive." Sneering condescension, by contrast, is reserved for those who show any excess of passion, intelligence, or wit. Such qualities, in a powerful person, might lead that person to do damage to the status quo, or to call silly and hackneyed ideas by their proper names. Anger and indignation,regardless of provocation, are especially frightening, and bring swift condemnation from the pundit class.

There are more rules, but these are the chief ones. I can't say I know how to break the grip of these people on the national discourse, but I don't feel too bad. No one else in the history of civilization has either. So just sit back, relax, and accept that as the U.S. slides into its decadence, the pundits' voices, always in search of a powerful patron to flatter or a threat to slander, will only grow louder.

Hmm, I think I may have written a play about this...

Amy Sullivan, Pro-Choicedness, and Converting Evangelicals

Kevin Drum, who's gets along with Amy Sullivan better than many in blogworld do, offers this defense of her reluctance to accept the "pro-choice" label in an interview with Salon. (I'll quote Sullivan first, then the criticism, then Drum's defense.)

Sullivan:

Well, I don't like the [pro-choice] label. I guess the reason I wrote about abortion the way I did in the book is because I have serious moral concerns about abortion, but I don't believe that it should be illegal. And that puts me in the vast majority of Americans. But unfortunately, there's no label for us.

Amanda Marcotte:

Yes, there is. If you think abortion and other forms of contraceptive birth control should be legal—i.e. that women should have the legal right to decide when they have children—you are pro-choice. Even if you still reserve the right to judge them for it. This entire interview with Amy Sullivan, like all her talk on getting the evangelical vote, makes me tired. She appears to have a definition problem, basically, characterizing evangelicals as if they are all Bible-believing Christians, when most self-identified evangelicals are patriarchy proponents with a thin veneer of Christianity over everything as a moral justification.

And finally, Kevin Drum:

Actually, I think Amy's point is precisely the opposite. In the rest of the interview, she basically suggests that about 60% of the evangelical community is politically conservative and won't ever vote for a Democrat. But the other 40% will, and those 40% are worth trying to appeal to. And one way to appeal to them is to acknowledge their moral qualms about abortion even if you don't happen to share them yourself. Like this guy:

"I think that the American people struggle with two principles: There's the principle that a fetus is not just an appendage, it's potential life. I think people recognize that there's a moral element to that. They also believe that women should have some control over their bodies and themselves and there is a privacy element to making those decisions.

"I don't think people take the issue lightly. A lot of people have arrived in the view that I've arrived at, which is that there is a moral implication to these issues, but that the women involved are in the best position to make that determination. And I don't think they make it lightly."

That's Barack Obama, likely the next Democratic candidate for the presidency. All he's doing is acknowledging the moral dimension of abortion, while remaining solidly in favor of abortion choice, reducing unwanted pregnancies, and encouraging responsible sexual behavior.

Now, I don't know why Amy rejects the "pro-choice" label, and it's pretty likely that I don't agree with her reasons — largely because I don't have any moral qualms about early and mid-term abortion in the first place. But then, I'm not an evangelical, am I?

Okay, I don't have a problem with people trying to label themselves as they like, within the limits of logic, but Sullivan does lose me here. I'm pro-choice because, whatever my moral qualms about abortion may be (I don't actually have any, but bear with me), I don't think they should be the basis of legal restrictions on women's control of their bodies. Sullivan expresses more or less the same idea, so, well, I guess she's pro-choice, whether she wants to call herself that or not.

This does point to something larger, though. Sullivan wants to convince secular Democrats that they should allow their politicians to reach out to evangelicals, and maybe that is an option worth exploring. Considering that our last two Democratic Presidents, and almost certainly our next one, will be evangelicals, while secular Democrats have had, I dunno, Pete Stark of California, I wonder just how much more outreach to evangelicals we frigging need, but let that pass. To get evangelicals and secular Dems talking, Sullivan has to overcome a good deal of mutual suspicion. Speaking from the secular side of things, I can say that most of us are aware that we're a minority in the Democratic party, just as we are everywhere else in the U.S. outside The Skeptics Society and the Center for Inquiry. We're not especially well organized. We've seen one political party overwhelmed by religious zealotry, and we worry that the other one will be too, leaving us nowhere. The seven years of George Bush that evangelicals helped inflict on us have rubbed us raw. We worry that, in order to get the evangelical voters Sullivan wants to attract, the Democrats will easily and gladly sacrifice our interests.

Hair splitting on being pro-choice won't help allay those fears or establish trust. Trust begins by calling things by their proper names. If Ms. Sullivan is by any sensible definition, pro-choice on abortion, where does she think the harm is in saying so?

My Play's Trailer (Belatedly Added I Admit)

Idiocracy

Warner Crocker writes about Susan Jacoby's new book:

Great read with, I'm sure, some controversial facts. Susan Jacoby in the Washington Post takes on "The Dumbing of America." She looks at this from several angles including the march of technology and how it impacts politics. She lists three points along the path of anti-intellectualism: video, lack of general knowledge, and an arrogance about the lack of general knowledge. She's right to a degree that no one would want to tackle these issues in an election year. Where she misses is that, sadly, no leader anywhere will touch this at any point before or after an election.

She also misses, what to me is a crucial fourth point as to why we continue to dumb things down. Money, or rather the pursuit of more of it or the fear of not making any. In my business of the theatre we are in fact our own worst enemies, when it comes to the dumbing down of our audiences. We don't play certain plays because they are deemed elite or will be a poor seller because we have to protect the bottom line. And of course that begins a downward spiral that in the not-for-profit world was supposed to be taken care of by donations, which then became sponsorships, which then got strings attached, which then led to keeping the sponsors happy, which essentially kept the spiral moving ever downward.

As much as I agree that anti-intellectualism, which involves not just general ignorance, but also a pride in that ignorance, is spreading, and that certain people exacerbate the trend by dumbing things down, there's something else here. As much as I, or people in my social circle, value art, science, and intellectual pursuits, the sad reality is that most people feel as if they can get along just fine without them. In our culture, incentives to acquire knowledge beyond the math required to fill out a tax form or the English needed to follow an office memo are paltry. Ignorant people find jobs, make livings, meet spouses, and produce offspring. They can become TV stars and talk show hosts. They can be upwardly mobile, and they can, at times, make substantial fortunes. Sometimes, they even become Presidents of the United States. Given all this, I can see why people don't feel they need to put in any extra effort to learn more than they already think they know (even if they don't know very much).

That said, while the decision for ignorance over knowledge doesn't cost much individually, it is devastating collectively. Societies that can't tell bad ideas from good ones tend to lead the world in the manufacture of corpses. Considering the damage that we can do to ourselves and our planet in the 21st century, we need to find some way to motivate people to learn. Otherwise we might find life very soon becoming, once again, brutish, nasty, and short.

Hmm, I think someone wrote a play about this...

I've Returned

Why? Because there's such a thing as the right tool for the right job.