by hilzoy
I’m trying to get a handle on conservatives’ views about virtue. I’ve been puzzled for a while, but I only entered full bewilderment when Bill Bennett published his annoying book The Death of Outrage, which argued, iirc, that the fact that more people weren’t willing to impeach Bill Clinton just showed that we had completely lost our moral compasses. I said to myself: huh? The mystery deepened when I heard such moral paragons as Rush Limbaugh going on and on about liberals and our lack of concern about morality, and when “moral values” started to be used as though it meant not generosity, decency, kindness, courage, and honor, but a willingness to deprive gays of everything from civil rights to ordinary human kindness.
I mean: I, an ethicist, was baffled. I read and reread Kant and Aristotle and even Edmund Burke, but it still didn’t make any sense.
I was particularly puzzled by conservatives’ views on courage. When Max Cleland lost his limbs in Vietnam, “there was no bravery involved.” Despite having volunteered to serve in Vietnam and receiving a bronze star and three purple hearts, “John Kerry is no war hero.” Apparently, conservatives do not count physical bravery as courage, for conservatives. Nor do they seem all that enthusiastic about moral courage — the willingness to stand up for what you believe in, even when it’s unpopular — to judge by their treatment of apostates in their own ranks.
So what, exactly, do they mean by courage? It’s a puzzlement. Luckily for me, a RedState diary explains all. I will display my own bravery below the fold.
Sometimes I’m so courageous, I scare myself.
Can I have my medal now?
What stupid posting. It is simply a risible string of straw-men. You really need to stop preaching to the choir.
Hilzoy you are sweet, but I find all this X-mas* stuff so tiresome. I could care less what anyone in a commercial establishment says to me this time of year. I suppose I might start paying more attention if I started hearing things like, “CHRISTmas uber alles”, or “Jesus says you will buy an iPod. You will but nothing but iPods. Your eyes are getting heavy.”
Otherwise, people can wish me just about anything and I won’t care (and most of them that are wishing don’t either).
You do have thunderballs almost as large as Goldfinger’s for speaking in a language other than the one true.
*and what happened to Xmas? he never comes around anymore.
a,
You might think you have made a point, but it is unclear what it is. Which choir? The choir of not so obvious is not very compelling and they are not appropriate for the season.
Boy, someone is getting coal in their stocking…
You were doing so well until you got that frr’n stuff in there. Such language is an assault on the great foundation of our country: the freedom to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus Christ as the story was given to us in the language of the great King James. To stray from this standard is a great failure indeed, and I am quite disappointed in you, hilzoy.
Truly you are brave, you radical you. I just hope that the ACLU doesn’t catch wind of this. I’d miss your posts while you were at the re-education camp.
Oh, boy. Here I’ve been signing my real name on all my comments and you go and do something crazy like this. Nice for pseudonymous you (even if everyone knows who you are), but do you have to place your readers who sign their names in a position where we either have to denounce you or go into hiding?
I’m trying to get a handle on conservatives’ views about virtue.
Yes, because there is a single “conservative” view on courage. Or, as the posting rules put it:
Nice concern trolling, von. Really, that was masterful.
Lenin’s Mausoleum on line 1…they want the decoder ring back.
From the comments on the BW diary, “Gamecock” passes along a message from Jews for Christmas:
This may seem an odd way to get into the matter of the murder of Christmas, but to me it has that same quality of utter ambush out of nowhere. The attack on Christmas is nothing like the campaign for a woman’s right to “choose,” the embrace of racial quotas in college entrance, or the right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms. Those efforts go ploddingly along forever.
This is more like The Night of the Long Knives, or a 9/11 against Christmas, or a Pearl Harbor against Christianity itself.
I’d never thought of it that way, and now I will never be able to think of it as anything else. Thank you, Gamecock and Jews for Christmas.
Thank you.
Nice concern trolling, von. Really, that was masterful.
The point is that this particular diary at RedState is as representative of the views of “conservatives” as any single diary at DKos — which is to say, not at all.
ObWi was created to avoid the kind of gross generalizations and us-v-them mentality that this particular post represents. I recognize that I bear some of the blame for that, since (as the putative moderate), I’ve been long absent from the front page. But I do intend to return, and I certainly can express disapproval of a post by another front-pager (just as Hilzoy can and should express disapproval of my own posts in the past).
Finally, I’m not sure if it’s possible for one of the founders of a site to “troll” its comments. Mayhaps my comment is inappropriate or ill-advised, but “trolling” I ain’t.
Something got cut out/misplaced in the middle paragraph of my comment during my editing process. It should read:
ObWi was created to avoid the kind of gross generalizations and us-v-them mentality that this particular post represents. I recognize that I bear some of the blame for the lack-of-balance at ObWi, since (as the putative moderate), I’ve been long absent from the front page. But I do intend to return, and I certainly can express disapproval of a post by another front-pager (just as Hilzoy can and should express disapproval of my own posts).
ObWi was created to avoid the kind of gross generalizations and us-v-them mentality that this particular post represents
but Hilzoy gives specific examples of what she’s talking about. you just gotta read past the first sentence!
love the comments over there – “Happy Holidays” is great in sales situations, where you don’t know the ethnicity or religion of the prospective client and you don’t want to offend him/her and risk losing a sale… but libeals have “stolen” the phrase for their own nefarious uses, like not wanting to offend children of mixed ethnicity !
One vote for von. I’d rather see posts about policy than easy nutpickery of RS. Also the Xmas stuff above hurts my eyes.
– We went out for Thai food last night and the background music was Xmas themed (made its bearable by bluegrass-inflected country). Maybe I’ll stay at home the next month.
I’m not getting the subtlety. Is it a put down on the French, or what?
The diary is incredibly stupid. The store policies listed permit or encourage employees to use whatever greeting seems appropriate. What’s wrong with that? Is the point that “Merry Christmas” should be mandatory? That’s insane.
Finally, I’m not sure if it’s possible for one of the founders of a site to “troll” its comments.
What exactly do you think trolling *is*, von? (I *might* buy the argument that a site’s founder has the right to do whatever he or she feels like on it, regardless of whether someone else would get banned for it or not. But that doesn’t change the essential nature of the founder’s behavior.)
I would just like to note that my local Walgreen’s had Christmas-themed merchandise and Christmas muzak three weeks ago. I felt like I’d entered a Lovecraft novel.
Bernard, it struck me that he was pleased with Best Buy, when as far as I can tell their policy was useless to his agenda. This was amusing for a bit when Al Franken was beating O’Reilly all around the town for pushing such nonsense – its having been regurgitated by someone random at RS doesn’t add to my morning.
“I felt like I’d entered a Lovecraft novel.”
A Lovecraft novel … with Xmas music?!? [Shudder, visit to liquor cabinet]
Shudder.
Von,
I don’t see the problem with poking a little bit of fun at Limbaugh, Bennett, et al. If we can’t laugh about this stuff, we’ll cry.
I thought the comment by Amanda on “furrin” stuff was right on point. Ultimately, this school of thought values conformity over everything.
The point is that this particular diary at RedState is as representative of the views of “conservatives” as any single diary at DKos — which is to say, not at all.
This is incorrect. It is not a priori representative, true; whether it is not representative is another matter.
I shouldn’t admit this, but a number of years ago at XMAS time I went into a porn store to find a joke stocking stuffer (don’t think about that phraseology), and the place was festooned with Christmas cheer, including a creche with fully clothed wise men and there she was, the Virgin with baby. The clerk wished me a very Merry Christmas.
Which just goes to show that you can have the death of outrage and in-your-face Xmas non-diversity simultaneously. Not to mention libertarianism, commercialism and social conservativism all in one lollapalooza.
The slightly odd thing about the original Red State post, followed by Hilzoy’s mild flagging of it, and then Von’s mild objection to Hilzoy’s generalization, is that we have, at Red State, an original objection to politically correct diversity in favor of total generalization, followed by an objection (Hilzoy’s) to Red State’s demand for total generalization and their condemnation of politically correct diversity in Xmas greetings, followed by an objection to a generalization that the original generalizers are not generally representative of anything among Republicans, generally speaking, except of course for constant whining about the generally diverse XMAS greetings store clerks use these days.
To which I say: may God go with you except to Wal Mart and Winn Dixie.
As to Bill Bennett and Rush Limbaugh going on about the death of outrage and liberals’ lack of morality, I think what they were really doing is claiming they are on a steady diet of moral outrage viagra and they are proud of their 24-hour a day moral outrage jones and their moral outrage jones is bigger than mine, especially around election time.
They don’t mean a word of what they say, being diverse in their hypocrisy, which from my point of view as a liberal, is not outrageous at all, but, you know, generally speaking, human.
They’d be right at home at that porn shop, especially if it had slots for Bennett and pain-killer gummy bears for Limbaugh in the shape of Jenna James.
“You were doing so well until you got that frr’n stuff in there.”
Indeed, Amanda, if English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.
“Concern trolling” is a very specific thing, and can happen anywhere, not just in comments, von. It’s the sudden, fearful clutching of pearls and fluttering of handkerchief over some alleged gross violation of behavior/mores that one would normally turn a blind eye to when committed by those who share the clutch-and-flutterers politics.
Phil, it isn’t obvious which side of the hilzoy/von question you are on from your comment….
von: if I hadn’t written the entire post tongue-in-cheek, I’d be right there with you.
For the record, I was initially going to write the whole post about RedState, rather than about conservatives — RedState is a site about which one can generalize, imho, since they enforce agreement — but as best I can tell the RedState search engine doesn’t go back far enough for me to find the RedState versions of the quotes I wanted, which I remembered pretty clearly, so I opted for Coulter and the SwiftVets instead, which required a change to conservative (and prompted the addition of Bennett and Limbaugh, just for kicks.)
hilzoy: “the RedState search engine”
For searches of site x I recommend using google over the local search engine in most cases – e.g. “[idiocy] site:redstate.org”.
rilkefan: yeah, but I think in this case it might have had something to do with them having switched site names.
Although, on reflection, Google would have helped there too.
Nevermind…….
Hilzoy, check out AcidSearch, a free Safari plugin which lets you use the Safari search bar to search specific sites without having to memorize Google’s syntax.
Among a hundred other search-related things it does, of course.
I shouldn’t admit this, but a number of years ago at XMAS time I went into a porn store to find a joke stocking stuffer
Must have been an interesting xmas morning.
🙂
Rumsfeld’s memo. Not sure if I’m furious or numb.
Uncomfortably numb?
but Hilzoy gives specific examples of what she’s talking about. you just gotta read past the first sentence!
I object not to the specifics, but to the generalizations. And, to the commentator who wants to poke fun at Limbaugh, et al.: poke fun at a specific person’s idiocy.
“Concern trolling” is a very specific thing, and can happen anywhere, not just in comments, von. It’s the sudden, fearful clutching of pearls and fluttering of handkerchief over some alleged gross violation of behavior/mores that one would normally turn a blind eye to when committed by those who share the clutch-and-flutterers politics.
I don’t think that describes at all what I did, Phil. I pointed out that the generalization (re: “conservatives” was false).
Anarch, your concession that it is not a priori correct is also a tacit concession that it is not a posteriori correct, given that no one has submitted evidence that this is a position held by all “conservatives”. Only specific examples of specific actors are given. (The burden of establishing a point a posteriori is on the would-be establisher; or, to point out the inverse: We generally don’t require someone to prove a negative.)
Hilzoy, tongue-in-cheek or no, the gross generalizations are deployed for political pointmanship. I respect your right to do it — indeed, I have not doubt that I’ve done it myself at times — but don’t find it very helpful or useful.
I don’t think that describes at all what I did, Phil. I pointed out that the generalization (re: “conservatives” was false)
Is this something you’re known for being terribly concerned with? If not, what prompted this particular objection?
Anarch, your concession that it is not a priori correct is also a tacit concession that it is not a posteriori correct,
Neither of those is a “concession”. I flat-out stated that it wasn’t a priori correct and your latter supposed concession is simply wrong: the truth value of hilzoy’s original premise (such as it was made) remains unascertained, not ascertained incorrect a posteriori. If anyone were to care about the truth or falsity of the claim, I agree that some effort would be needed to establish its truth value definitively; I, however, don’t.* My only dog in this fight was addressed at your (implicit) declaration that this specific diary was inherently unrepresentative of conservatives, as would “any single diary at dKos” be of liberals. That too is incorrect: there could easily be diaries which are representative* of liberals at dKos, or conservatives at RedState, or libertarians at Samizdat, or SF fans at Making Light, or what have you. If you’d confined your point to something equivalent to “assuming facts not in evidence” I wouldn’t have said anything; it was the stronger, and false, declaration that drew my attention.
* If I had to, I would guess that a more correct way of phrasing this would have been to call the diarist “representative of a large and powerful faction within movement conservatism” but like I said, I don’t care enough to determine whether or not that’s actually the case.
** Part of the problem here is that “representative” is a slippery word. Does an item need to possess commonality with the entire set? Does it need to possess sufficient commonality with only a sufficiently large proportion of the set? Is there a measure of heterogeneity beyond which a set cannot possess a representative member? And so forth. Which itself raises an interesting subquestion: if a person X is a member of class which a) does possess representative members yet b) those representative members do not represent X, how does one address the issue?
Yikes. It’s cr*p like this that makes me hate Christmas.
I’d say Von is known for being concerned about generalizations about conservatives, but is there a rule that one has to be known for pointing something out before one can point it out?
it seems to me that you guys are wasting far too many calories mincing semantics over a post that is lightheartedly mocking specific conservatives for failing to live up to what conservatives generally claim to be all about.
it’s ridiculously pedantic, IMO, to fault Hilzoy for not being logically perfect when she’s making fun of people who think there is a war on Christmas.
in other words: at long last, have you no sense of humor, sir?
when she’s making fun of people who think there is a war on Christmas.
Even now as we speak, sinister liberal operatives wait patiently for the words “Tora, Tora, Tora”, the signal to simultaneously call each other on their cells during screenings of The Nativity Story.
The very strict Christians in our protestant country celebrate Xmas without a tree – since the tree is an adaption of the heathen feast of light…
Von:
Yes, because there is a single “conservative” view on courage. Or, as the posting rules put it
I thought this comment was spot on. It is absolutely ridiculous to assume there is a single “conservative” view on courage. Of course, everyone knows that liberals are fundamentally incapable of condemning evil; that’s just an intrinsic feature of liberalism.
And who could forget the other intrinsic characteristics of liberalism:
shrinking the millitary, losing wars, and negotiating from a position of weakness?
Von thank you so much for reminding us all about the dangers of generalization; I don’t know what we’d do without you.
Wait! Let me understand this. You want a medal for saying Merry Christmas?
But you said Merry Christmas in those other languages. Languages which I note are NOT ENGLISH. They are probably heathen tongues for Christ’s sake. It’s like singing the national in Spanish or worse – MEXICAN.
Geesh everyone wants a freakin’ medal for being a Christian(tm) these days.
Ain’t that easy pal.
Common Sense,
In your first citation of alleged generalization, you may have wanted to pick one that was not a specific instance of Von attempting to honestly degeneralize previous statements.
Also, substituting his conditional language for absolutist rhetoric is disingenious. See your replacement of “modern liberalism” to “liberals”; “frequently finds it difficult” to “fundamentally incapable”; and complete elimination of this courteous qualifying statement: “Whether this holds true for individuals who self-describe as liberals will, of course, vary.”
I happen to agree with Common Sense. Anyone who wrote this post should have nothing further to complain about persons making unwarranted generalizations.
How can you question the great Bill Bennett, when he’s so helpfully oversimplified the “moral” of Greek myths in the past? How can you question the deep courage of wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” in this overwhelmingly non-Christian nation? Besides, my goodness, everyone knows the essence of morality is intolerance for the unworthy. I’m sure that’s in the Bible somewhere. 😉
Dantheman,
Von’s statement “there aren’t a lot on the left who should walk away from this one feeling proud” was worthy of 342 comments of scathing condemnation and constant clarification from Von; whereas this post which attempts to make a joke out of the notion of conservative virtue is supposed to be no big deal.
whereas this post which attempts to make a joke out of the notion of conservative virtue is supposed to be no big deal
I think you answered your own point: because one was a joke and the other wasn’t.
Jonas,
I will agree with the scathing condemnation, but not the constant clarification part, of your comment. To the contrary, von, in spite of herculean efforts, especially by Gary Farber, could not be made to understand that he had insulted nearly half of the blogosphere in one line.
Anarch,
Fair enough. But I seem to recall Charles Bird’s dumb jokes falling flat in quite the spectacular manner on more than a few occasions 😉
Dantheman,
My apologies, because my blindspot is that when someone says “the left” I don’t identfy with it (as opposed to liberal), so I’m less prone to grasp the offense as personally.
If it’s a matter of apology and a lack thereof that warrants the ill will towards Von on this matter, that I can comprehend. I’m not quite willing to audit that entire thread to get to bottom of the issue.
If I may attempt to take things down a notch, the terminology we all use is very confused, and has been for sometime. I liked Anarch’s suggestion for Hilzoy to use “movement conservatism” to describe unsavory characters like Limbaugh & Bennett; perhaps the corollary of “movement liberalism” can accomodate conservative complaint without offense?
(I’d prefer “movement leftism” and “movement rightism,” as I think more antiquated definitions of both liberalism and conservatism have their respective merits as opposed to left vs. right, which I find to be pointless ideologies. But, sadly, that’s just me.)
Anarch: “because one was a joke and the other wasn’t.”
Seems to me the joke would have been just as good without the first three paragraphs. And, really, how can it be a joke to when one mocks the right about the abhorrent treatment of Cleland? I at least am still not in a humorable mood in regards to that. Or to Bill Bennett’s bloated hypocrisy. Or to the Swiftboating of Kerry.
“to when”
My editing has gone to heck. I blame the xmas season.
I wish everyone would wait until Advent to start displaying all this courage; it’s only a day away.
I wish everyone would wait until Advent to start displaying all this courage; it’s only a day away.
I was about to start another rousing chorus of:
O, Advent
O, Advent
I love you,
Sweet Advent,
You’re Only A Day AWAY
&c &c
ad nauseam
. . . when I realized that Nell posted her comment before midnight, and it’s already well after, so I’m
Too Late once again.
In contrition and compensation, let me add to Hilzoy’s compendium of seasonal greetings:
MALIGAYANG PASKO
Why no French? The RS vibe really has gotten to you, Hil…
Fröhliche Weihnachten!
Which I partially cancel out by singing the pagan ode to trees: O, Tannenbaum.
Other than that, I find Phil’s concern trolling of von even more annoying than any concern trolling that von might actually be doing. Even though I (only on request, mind you) loathe Phil, I suspect that he’d be a genuinely likable guy when he’s not jumping on other posters.
I only wrote that last because Phil wants me to hate him.
Hilzoy: I just wanted to say that this post made me laugh, hard, at a time I really needed a laugh yesterday. So thanks.
Reading this thread makes me think we should all be like the paganlike Christmas trees and lighten up.
At least Slarti appears to be in the spirit.
Late to the party, but just wanted to chime in that I’m with Von on this one, and was so on reading the post before getting to the comments. I’ve objected in the past to right-wing posts here that make generalizations about the left, and Andrew was certainly drubbed a few times for doing so.
Three words:
crunchy
and screamy
Crunchy
and
screamy
?
Deck us all with Boston Charlie…
Slarti on a Pogo shtick
life imitates art!
And as for the Vonzoy back and forth, I will only say this: It may be true that “conservatives” are not monolithically engaged in a by-turns cynical and hopelessly credulous war on the war on xmas, but I sure do see an awful lot of actual conservatives riding this particular hobby horse, from media bigshots like O’Reilly and his ilk, to media littleshots like the RS diarist, to the guy in my office two weeks to whom I said “happy holidays,” and who snapped “what, you can’t just say ‘christmas?'” And to whom I replied “I’m talking about Thanksgiving, you dips**t.” Anecdotal? Sure. Undeniably widespread and emanating entirely from the right? You betcha.
st: the guy in my office two weeks to whom I said “happy holidays,” and who snapped “what, you can’t just say ‘christmas?'”
Yeesh, I thought this was just kind of a game between O’Reilly and his audience. I take it the guy in the office isn’t a maroon, an ignoranimus, a generally belligerent jerk?
What does this Xmas stuff actually have to do with the more pertinent part of hilzoy’s question – namely, the right’s sense of outrage and how misplaced it is at the least, and how cynical it is at its worst? The pertinent part is something much larger than the xmas – oops, holiday – issue that is trotted out around this time of year like the real ornaments; namely, that the right’s sense of outrage seems always to be centered around questions of private moral deliberation and others which either don’t advance the rightist agenda, or seek to uncover home truths about it so many on the right don’t want people to think about too much.
In their universe, any schmuck can get his balls blown off in Vietnam; the signs of real leadership means getting others to do your bidding, or being smart enough to get yourself a cushy berth while other poor schmucks get their balls blown off. It’s what enabeled the smear campaign to work so effectively against Max Cleland and the Swift Boat lies to hold against Kerry. Somehow, by some rhetorical set of tricks repeated to oneself over and over a la a mantra or a bizarre reading of Strauss and a nightly jackoff to a Henry Kissinger pinup (hey, he DID have better legs than Hitler and bigger tits than Cher, after all), one’s moral consciousness is clean so long as moral dirtiness is kept away from it – on that basis, Clinton’s lie about a blow job signifies such dirtiness while Bush’s obviousness fecklessness with regard to the Air National Guard question at the height of Vietnam doesn’t.
All this is the far more important part of hilzoy’s question. All of us know, both on the left and the right, that the Xmas rheme isn’t anything a lot of people lose all that much sleep over. (Hilzoy – you probably set yourself up for this by appending the Xmas stuff at the end, but i’m willing to overlook it because the first two-thirds of the thing was dead-on).
Off Topic –
More evidence that the United States is the source of all the sweetness and light in the world.
I thought this was just kind of a game between O’Reilly and his audience.
It’s an audience of millions, rilkefan. They don’t lose their sense of being permanently aggrieved and persecuted when they turn away from the TV (or leave their cars, where the radio’s tuned to hate-talk).
Off topic, sorta: still, a nice winter present for those who celebrate the turning of the year by gift-giving – John Bolton’s going, going, almost gone.
Can we say “rats leaving the sinking ship” yet?
@Ugh: While he was held in Amsterdam, Krekar said, he was questioned by FBI agents on two occasions, even though he wasn’t wanted on U.S. charges. “They wanted to talk about al-Qaeda,” he recalled. “I didn’t answer anything. I said, ‘Just ask about me and my group.’ ”
Krekar was released in January 2003 after Jordan failed to provide detailed evidence against him. He flew to Oslo, where authorities weren’t eager to let him return but didn’t have a legal basis for refusing him entry.
We actually had to pay him 45.000 euro because he was held in prison without sufficient proof of criminal acts…
We actually had to pay him 45.000 euro because he was held in prison without sufficient proof of criminal acts…
Obviously the Dutch government is financing terrorist activities, invade the Netherlands!
Can we say “rats leaving the sinking ship” yet?
Don’t insult rats.
As far as I’m concerned, these idiots on the right can keep blogging about Christmas. It’s that sort of thing that distracts them from, well you know, actually winning elections, and gives us a chance to fix important things that are wrong with this country.
I’ve been reading the news about Jose Padilla.
Where did all these authoritarian thugs come from? How did the audience develop? The thugs I mean are, of course, the spectrum from Limbaugh to Bush himself. I suppose every society has its proportion of mean, nasty people but how did ours grow so many mean, nasty people that they’d have their own political party?
OT: Even by Bizarro World standards, this one’s a new benchmark in base demagoguery. The time to send in thoughtful debaters is past. Send in the psychiatrists.
U.S. military building it’s own star chamber at Gitmo.
Hilzoy, you daring, daring person, you.
Is it more or less courageous to wish everyone a Happy Hanukkah, than a Merry Xmas? What about a Sinful Satanmas? I would ask at Red State, but I don’t have posting privileges there, and don’t really feel the urge to get them and then have them revoked after my first couple of posts.
BTW, I never seem to run across liberal blogs as heavily moderated and selective as many conservative blogs. Has anyone else noticed this?
A suggestion for all the easily-offended xtians over at Red State — if they so ardently desire a non-anonymous, personalized greeting in their shopping experience, why don’t they take the first step by making themselves non-anonymous? I have often wished a random Jew on the street a happy holiday or Shabbat — I can do this because our religion requires us to wear distinctive outerwear. If xtians want to hear “Merry Xmas” wherever they go, why not wear a big shiny lapel button that says “I am a Xtian, please greet accordingly!” Or just a big cross.
Somehow, tho, I sense this would not please the RS blogger you linked to, who is apparently offended that he, as a member of the majority, does not automatically get things done his way.
rilkefan –
He was just a guy in the elevator (I have seen him before, I think he’s an attorney in a different group from me), so I don’t have much to go on. Based on our 20-odd seconds of acquaintance, however, I’m comfortable calling him a maroon, an ignoramus, and a generally belligerent jerk.
And, in all honesty, I didn’t really call him a dips**t, I just said the thing about thanksgiving, and stood there as 10 or so seconds of uncomfortable silence went by until we got to the lobby.
In further all honesty, I don’t really have any basis beyond this exchange for presuming he was a conservative, republican, or other right-leaning sort, so citing him as an example is sort of circular – “he said it, and only republicans say nonsense like that, which proves he’s a republican, which proves that lots of republicans say things like that.” Which may, in the end, be the root source of Von’s (and the posting rules’) concern with generalizations of this type. An unlicensed fully automatic weapon loaded with copkiller bullets may be entirely safe in the proper hands, but that doesn’t mean that rules against such things aren’t sensible.
That said, I will bet a week’s pay that the guy in the elevator was politically conservative.
For the love of God, DtM, the original comment was “not a lot on the left” — not the entire left. And then I repeatedly clarified that my statement was overly broad even though I qualified it in ways Hilzoy, here, did not.
Common sense, the examples you cite of my lumping all of “the left” together in fact show the opposite.
“That said, I will bet a week’s pay that the guy in the elevator was politically conservative.”
Sure. I’m just a bit surprised you ran into someone nominally smart who bought into this nonsense enough to hit a random real-world stranger with it. I had imagined this was a “bash the funny pathetic liberals” issue – something the audience knew wasn’t really fair but found amusing or rousing because of the target – not something non-idiots considered an actual substantive issue.
I do understand that e.g. fundamentalists are concerned about their children being indoctrinated in atheism in the public schools (I certainly think science education does lead to the questioning and often weakening of faith). But anyone with any exposure to the country knows that xmas is all-pervasive, that there can be no war on it, that if there is a social war it’s against those of us who aren’t xians.
von,
“the original comment was “not a lot on the left” — not the entire left.”
You wrote “Save for our own Hilzoy, who characteristically took the high road, there aren’t a lot on the left who should walk away from this one feeling proud.” In other words, other than hilzoy, and maybe a few others, nearly 50% of the blogosphere should hold their heads in shame for their vicious actions in denouncing Domenech. As Gary and others pointed out, you were taking the actions of a few persons who wrote extremist rants, and used them to slam everyone on the left side of the aisle.
“And then I repeatedly clarified that my statement was overly broad even though I qualified it in ways Hilzoy, here, did not.”
No, you didn’t, despite numerous requests. That was the point of Gary’s comments. To the contrary, when Gary wrote:
“I’m trying to get you on record as revising your unintentionally offensive statement to something inoffensive.
I’m trying to get you — though the quicker this could have been done, the better it would have been — to close this out so that those of us who are friends of yours can respond, when you’re mocked for having said an unjustifiable slur, “no, he revised his hasty words, which he wrote over-quickly.”
We’d prefer to be able to make that sort of statement about you when you’re mocked by people such as The Editors, simply by quoting your remarks.
We can’t do that if you don’t revise your remark.”
your response was “Gary, I appreciate that you’re trying to be helpful. I also reciprocate the respect and friendship you offer in your comment. However, I still don’t think you’re really reading what I wrote, and I can’t give the response that you think is appropriate.”
My starting assumption is that smart guys like von, be they liberal or conservative, roll their eyes at the notion of the “War on Christmas.” I think most of us feel that way. It’s rather shocking when someone, as in the anecdote recounted above, actually takes offense at “Happy Holidays.”
But that doesn’t change the fact that this so-called war, and the broader topic of the “secular liberal assault on Christianity,” are common subjects of demagoguery by high-profile right-wing pundits. When they say these things, I don’t take it as an indication that all conservatives agree with them; but they are the face of the movement, and folks like von are not.
When people with huge audiences like Rush and O’Reilly go on and on about this, it’s not much of an answer to say “not all of us believe that.” Of course most intelligent people don’t believe it. That’s not the point. The point is to ridicule the rank demagoguery in the vanguard of today’s conservative movement.
Let’s try and give von a break by playing a round of the “both sides do it” game. Surely there are some cheap slogans repeated by high-profile left-wingers that all intelligent liberals would repudiate, right? What might the liberal equivalent to “the War on Christmas” be? No candidates are coming to mind at the moment.
When they say these things, I don’t take it as an indication that all conservatives agree with them; but they are the face of the movement, and folks like von are not.
I hate it when people on the right say that certain individuals (Ward Churchill comes to mind) are the true face of the ideology, and they are therefore allowed to make sweeping generalizations about the left. This sounds similar.
What might the liberal equivalent to “the War on Christmas” be? No candidates are coming to mind at the moment.
The cringe-inducing defense of the Dan Rather memos comes to mind.
But yeah, nothing approaching the bogus war on Christmas.
There’s some kind of sick desire to be seen as persecuted running through some of the less bright right-wing pundit class.
There’s some kind of sick desire to be seen as persecuted running through some of the less bright right-wing pundit class.
and then there are those who are simply fncking crazy.
(note the linked author is practicing psychiatrist)
“(note the linked author is practicing psychiatrist)”
Charles Krauthammer does not practice any more, but the link is hardly stranger or more offensive than Krauthammer’s clinical diagnoses of various Democrats as suffering from specific forms of mental illness.
ah, but does Krauthammer have a whole book about “THE LIBERAL MIND: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness” ?
A wingnut religious fanatic coworker of mine says embittered things every Christmas about the persecution of Christians. She’s mad because we have a Winnter celebration (held halfway between Thanksgivinng and Christmas), mad because, even though Christiann religious songs are featured, so are Samoan and Hindu dances. She was really pissed because some kids sang “Imagine” annd thhe inclusion of traditional carols didn’t satisfy her. So there are real people out there that believe in the war onn Chhristmas. Real people, but not IMHO normal people.
Musically speaking, I can live without so much of John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
I’d prefer “You’re Going To Lose That Girl” of a “A Day In the Life” over “Imagine” or “Jingle Bells”.
(note the linked author is practicing psychiatrist)
Well, it’s obvious from reading the linked screed here that Dr. Rosseter ought to keep practicing – cuz he hasn’t got it right, yet!
I wonder if the good Dr. actually knows any real liberals: or has he just culled out the Top 30 cliches about “libruls” off of right-wing blogs?
(to quote myself, hopefully this clown’s a better psychiatrist than he is an analyst of human motivations.
I have to agree with those unhappy with this post. Not so much for the generalizations, although I do think von’s point is apt, but because it seems to mock the notion of different kinds of courage. It takes courage of a sort to speak up in a class and contradict a professor — calling someone courageous for that is not wrong. It takes courage to demand a cop’s badge number at a protest. Making a point of saying “Merry Christmas” when there’s people who will be offended, and there may be negative consequences, involves some amount of courage.
Courage is not a precious resource that can only be assigned to people in military or life-and-death situations. Courage is out there aplenty, and I think it’s morally shaky to deny it because the cause it’s in the service of is silly.
Brian: Making a point of saying “Merry Christmas” when there’s people who will be offended, and there may be negative consequences, involves some amount of courage.
Yes. In countries where Christians are persecuted – which would inarguably not include the United States – it might take courage to wish people a Merry Christmas.
In the United States, presumably, making a point of wishing people “Happy Holidays!” when there’s inarguably people who will take offense and there may be (minor, as far as I know) negative consequences, it may take a minor amount of courage to wish someone “Happy Holidays!” but really, even in the United States with all these easily-offended Christians who think that their right to religious freedom includes suppression of your right – how much courage would it take?
True dat. My Jewish homies are liable to pop a cap in some goy’s Jesus-loving ass if the ‘C’ bomb is dropped in their presence. Takes balls of brass to survive the holiday season these days.
[Insert Inigo Montoya quote here]
(I thought Hilzoy’s post was very funny. If I haven’t commented OT till now, it was because too much explanation/comment spoils the joke.)
Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You wished me Merry Christmas. Prepare to die.
Well, Brian, we’ll just have to disagree. Because, in fact, what people have to face when they say “Merry Christmas” is not a reaction that requires courage. Of course there’s such a thing as non-physical, moral courage, and it’s quite a slight to hilzoy to claim she doesn’t recognize it. Describing this ridiculous right-wing campaign as ‘courage’ cheapens the whole concept of moral courage exactly because it is so counterfactual, silly, and entitled.
Demanding that one’s majority become total: not courageous. Arrogant, self-centered, entitlement. Not courage.
There is a quote from someone or other that goes: courage is just lack of imagination.
I don’t agree but I think the abiity to control one’s imagination must be part of courage.
The amount of control over one’s imagination that is required in order to say “Merry Chhristmas” is considerably less than the amount of control needed to report abuse at Abu Graib or to face life with three missing limbs from a war wound while being slimed by chickenhawks.
In fact the person who needs courage to express Christmas greetings must have an over active imagination in order to conjure up a reaction worth worrying about. Which is the opposite of that definition of courage.
OAS I’m bored with “Imagine”, too, and I love traditional Christmas carols. I put up the tree yesterday to Emmylou Harris’s “Light of the Stable”. God, can she sing!
I wasn’t meaning to disparage courage, physical or moral. My entire feigned perplexity, in fact, was (feignedly) produced by the fact that RedState et al did not seem to recognize either physical or moral courage as forms of courage at all.
Fwiw.
Also: apologies for not posting more. Several deadlines have decided to interfere with blogging in the most annoying fashion. Drat that actual full-time job!
I wonder what Bill O’Reilly and co. think about Christians who don’t celebrate Christmas?
(Courage, Great White North style.)
I hate it when people on the right say that certain individuals (Ward Churchill comes to mind) are the true face of the ideology, and they are therefore allowed to make sweeping generalizations about the left. This sounds similar.
Similar in the sense that Ward Churchill is similar to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, which is to say, not remotely similar.
I didn’t mean to leap upon a pedastal and denounce you, hilzoy; I can only blame my writing for inflating my posture.
As for whether there’s negative consequences, Jesurgislac: of course there are. Stores (who are the ones the diary is advocating courage for) are in the business of selling things; most of the time they seem to just want to avoid controversy. If they make a point of saying Merry Christmas to all, then they’re injecting themselves into the controversy. (That 80% of the country is ostensibly Christian doesn’t matter; try talking to the home office about why your sales just dropped by 20%, or even 5%, or even 0.5%, for something which is tangential at best to the store’s purpose).
I used the example of asking questions in class for a reason. In class, there are some who don’t have a problem speaking. But for others, it’s quite a process to speak up, particularly if it’s to disagree with something (or attack the premise). When they do, they are exhibiting some courage — despite the fact that students are supposed to it, probably no one would remember it after that day, and they may be right.
Courage in small matters remains courage.
If they make a point of saying Merry Christmas to all, then they’re injecting themselves into the controversy.
If it’s now controversial in the US to be polite to non-Christians, even for commercial purposes, then I suppose you’re right: the same kind of “controversy” created by conservatives howling that an anti-Constitutional religious test ought to be imposed on a Muslim elected to Congress.
Courage in small matters remains courage.
It’s still hard for me to understand, however, why you see being rude to a minority in order to publicly side with the majority as courageous.
I’m trying to get a handle on conservatives’ *views* about virtue.
Yes, because there is *a single “conservative” view* on courage.
Am I the only one who can’t find the sequitur here?
Jes: “It’s still hard for me to understand, however, why you see being rude to a minority in order to publicly side with the majority as courageous.”
Unless “courage” has to be “doing something scary that’s good”, I think you’re missing the point, Jes. Unless I’m mistaken Brian is talking about people like me, who don’t want to be Merry Xmas’d when shopping. If store X and store Y sold the same stuff at the same prices but store X’s clerks said “MX” while store Y’s clerks said “Happy Holidays”, I’d definitely go to Y. (If store Z’s clerks just said “Thanks for shopping at Z” that’s where I’d go.) The store at which I bought the vegetables I’m about to turn into stew just started “HH”ing me; standing in line last night I was a touch apprehensive it was going to be “MX”. Surely the store’s manager has made a decision about what phrase to use; at least in my neighborhood I suspect it was the expedient choice, the choice dictated by fear of a bad reaction from people like me. If the manager thought it right to “MX” the majority Xian shoppers (who I take it like to be “MX”ed), that might be said to require courage. (Though my neighborhood may not be majority Xian in which case imagine another.)
Judging by the context of the RedState diary and, by extension, Hilzoy’s satirical post, “courage” is meant in this case to describe a virtue. If by “courage” we mean simply overcoming fear of negative consequences, there are all manner of stupid or atrocious acts that require some degree of courage. It takes courage to rob a bank, or to eat bugs on TV, or to try to hand the President a chocolate revolver, a la Jack Handy, but I don’t think this is a sense of “courage” you’ll find popular on RedState (their idiosyncratic view of courage being one of Hilzoy’s main points, after all).
Bill Maher got into trouble for saying, “It took courage to fly those planes into the WTC”.
I imagine from the RS point of view it would be acting virtuously to celebrate xmas in a xian nation, so I think “courage” is the right word even in the hilzoyan POV. The point is that they’re wrong about the premise – chiding them for reaching a logical conclusion is mistaken.
Rilkefan: Unless I’m mistaken Brian is talking about people like me, who don’t want to be Merry Xmas’d when shopping.
Then I still say that “courage” is the wrong word to describe “commerically expedient decision”. It doesn’t take courage to make your employees use one greeting or another: it’s done for sales.
‘Then I still say that “courage” is the wrong word to describe “commerically expedient decision”. It doesn’t take courage to make your employees use one greeting or another: it’s done for sales.’
I take it the RS POV says that to MX people whether they like it or not is the right thing to do, and may hurt sales, hence “courage” makes sense. The wacky part is thinking it’s right to MX me. Maybe it’s wacky for RS to be telling companies how to run their businesses – I thought that’s evil liberal meddling – but I’ve now thought more about RS than I have any reason to and will quit.
Rilkefan: I take it the RS POV says that to MX people whether they like it or not is the right thing to do, and may hurt sales, hence “courage” makes sense.
No, it doesn’t. “Courage” is not a word that can be used to describe a business decision, even if I were to accept for the sake of argument that RS are right and saying “Merry Christmas” to customers will hurt sales. I gather it’s WalMart who have made this decision? The notion that WalMart would do anything to hurt sales is ludicrous.
Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You wished me Merry Christmas. Prepare to die.
You’ve just given me my new sig.
Dunno – if red-state-based company X made the business decision to give domestic partnership rights to all its employees, although some customers would likely move to company Y, we’d call that “courage”, wouldn’t we? If upon hearing of a boycott by Dobson, X rescinded the policy, wouldn’t we say that showed a lack of courage?
I think it’s not a question of WalMart or BestBuy or whatever – it’s a question about the entire service industry.
If you’re going to say a company can’t show courage, I’m going to switch to arguing that since there’s no free will there’s no courage period.
Rilkefan: if red-state-based company X made the business decision to give domestic partnership rights to all its employees, although some customers would likely move to company Y, we’d call that “courage”, wouldn’t we?
Well, you might. I would call it a sensible business decision based on not wanting to lose good employees. 😉