Now, of course, I would never compare the clever* Katherine to Donald Luskin, obsessed fellow that he is. And I myself find it amusing that Brook’s Op-Ed is guilty of the same mass generalizations that he’s complaining about. But I do want to note something he said that may get lost in the shouting:
There’s something else going on, too. The proliferation of media outlets and the segmentation of society have meant that it’s much easier for people to hive themselves off into like-minded cliques. Some people live in towns where nobody likes President Bush. Others listen to radio networks where nobody likes Bill Clinton.
In these communities, half-truths get circulated and exaggerated. Dark accusations are believed because it is delicious to believe them. Vince Foster was murdered. The Saudis warned the Bush administration before Sept. 11.
You get to choose your own reality. You get to believe what makes you feel good. You can ignore inconvenient facts so rigorously that your picture of the world is one big distortion.
And if you can give your foes a collective name — liberals, fundamentalists or neocons — you can rob them of their individual humanity. All inhibitions are removed. You can say anything about them. You get to feed off their villainy and luxuriate in your own contrasting virtue.
There is something to this, even if it was made by a man who just might be seeing anti-Semites hiding under his bed and souring his milk for him.
Ironic, no?
Moe
PS: Please insert a snort of derisive laughter as the response to all But It’s Different When We Do It posts. I’ve got a bunch of things to do tonight, you see.
*Seeing as we’ve never met and I actually have no idea what she looks like, calling her ‘fair’ might be one of those verbal minefields that could explode messily in my face… for that matter, so could this footnote.
Just Can’t Win.
I noticed that nobody, pro or con, paid much attention to the latter half of Brooks’ column. The last paragraph you excerpted was one of the reasons I didn’t think it a hack piece. Oh well, this isn’t one of his better columns regardless. Moving on . . .
Moe:
Agreed: this is the only part of the column that’s not horseshit masquerading as horsesense. The problem is that instead of examining the polarizing effects of all this media inbreeding on political discourse, Brooks engages in it himself, and fatuously.
He creates seemingly out of whole cloth, or at least with no examples given (though we can just imagine from which deep orifice he’d pull these if made to), one presumably large group who oppose the neo-cons simply because they’re Jewish. (And everyone on his side shakes their heads knowingly.) Then, as if that image weren’t absurd enough to stand on its own, he goes on nearly to deny that neo-cons even exist. (And everyone on his side raises an eyebrow, and then happily shakes their heads.)
Now, since anyone who has been paying attention to anything but talk radio over the past two years can tell you, there are, of course, neo-cons, albeit of all stripes, and they have been very influential in, if nothing else, making Iraq central to the terror war. One has to conclude that Brooks is not conducting an analysis of the discouse, but is using such an analysis theme (esp. where he appears to concede so generously that the designation, “liberal,” has similarly been misappropriated) to waylay the discourse for his own ends.
My guess is that the neo-cons didn’t get this pet project of theirs done with sufficient haste and savings, so they’re dead weight to those like Brooks and Bush in campaign mode. What better way to loosen their influence than to deny it ever existed? Of course, Brooks has managed here only make us all shake our heads.
By the way, I’ve very much enjoyed Katherine both here and at Tacky’s, and from what I can read, “fair” is quite appropriate.
“The problem is that instead of examining the polarizing effects of all this media inbreeding on political discourse, Brooks engages in it himself, and fatuously.”
So stipulated in the second sentence. Well, that was the intent anyway. 🙂
(snip)
“By the way, I’ve very much enjoyed Katherine both here and at Tacky’s, and from what I can read, “fair” is quite appropriate.”
(bow) A point with some wit to it, sir.
Moe
I have a nitpick–first pointed out by Jesse at Pandagon–about Brooks’ example. Brooks says “Some people live in towns where nobody likes President Bush” (emph. added). Had he said “read magazines,” “frequent websites,” even “teach in departments” I would not complain. But where are these towns? I wanna go.
Seriously, Brooks’ main fame is as a progenitor of invidious geographical distinctions. Here he’s up to his old tricks again. The most liberal places will tend to be cities, and any city by sheer force of numbers is going to have some people who like Bush–even, I reckon, Madison, Ann Arbor, or Berkeley.
Here is Jesse’s post that I stole it from, added double quick since the man himself is in the house.
Wow, the ombudsman’s reply was unbelievable.
Labeling critics of neocons as anti-Semites is a “writerly device” to illustrate that critics of neocons believe they’re Jewish? If I call someone a veritable Hitler is that a “writerly device” to indicate that I believe they’re German?
Is ombudsman Anglo-Saxon for ‘comedic apologist’?
Huh. I’d just have said that critics of neocons nearly always have no idea what a neocon is. “Writerly”? I don’t think that’s a word.
The point is real, but hardly new, so there’s no point dipping for gold in that sewage. What makes the new paradigm interesting isn’t that you can stew around with other like-minded people and spew conspiracy theories — people have always done that — but that you can fall into the trap of solipsism even if what you’re reading is all factually accurate and thoughtful, given the startling ease with which this network categorizes and filters information.
“Seriously, Brooks’ main fame is as a progenitor of invidious geographical distinctions”
As a New Yorker/Cantabridgian/Somervillean with a chip on my shoulder, this is how I first came to know and loathe him.
Madisonian checking in (albeit from out of the country right now)… and yes, there are plenty of people around town who like Bush, including some of my best friends and officemates.