Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 11:43 AM
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I'm on the other side of the world, and so I didn't get to see President Obama's speech in Arizona. I gather that he did well. I'm glad to hear it because one of the things presidents can do at times of crisis is to provide us with sentiments that most of us can readily embrace, at a moment when our unity as a nation is in some doubt.
I've tried to keep up with at least some of the blizzard of commentary that has followed the Arizona shooting, and although a lot of it has been thoughtful, I'm also disappointed (though not surprised) by the reflexive "who us?" reaction from a lot of conservative pundits. The most prominent example was probably David Brooks of the New York Times, who devoted an entire column to explaining why violent political discourse had absolutely nothing to do with a violent assault on a U.S. congresswoman. Brooks took this position, I suppose, because he knows that most of the hateful and violent rhetoric in America today comes from the right-hand side of the aisle. I'm not saying he agrees or endorses the worst rhetorical excesses of the American right (i.e., Brooks is often wrong but rarely openly hateful), but it was a pretty lame attempt to exonerate his ideological fellow-travelers.
One problem, of course, is that causality in a case like this is always murky. When someone arrives at a public event and starts shooting people, how do we determine the relative weight of mental illness, personal experience, opportunity, lax gun-control laws, and the toxic soup of violent rhetoric to which he had been exposed, when we try to figure out how something like this could have happened? Granting that Rep. Giffords's assailant was by all the evidence a deeply disturbed individual, it is still true that his madness manifested itself as an attack on a politician. He didn't shoot up his workplace, or a school, or even a random shopping mall: He chose a political target. And whatever his personal motives or internal dialogues may have been, he did this at a moment in our history when self-interested hatemongers have combined violent rhetoric and political polarization to an unprecedented degree. Yet for the American right, the violent, and frequently Manichaean, rhetoric that has been the stock in trade of some of their most prominent spokespeople (including Sarah Palin) is totally irrelevant, and anyone who says differently is just playing partisan politics.
Needless to say, there's a striking dearth of consistency in a lot of these arguments. If you believe that Palestinian "incitement" is a powerful impediment to peace in the Middle East, then you think words matter in that context and you ought to acknowledge that they probably matter back here too. If you're worried about the dangers of nationalist rhetoric in the Chinese media, then you recognize that what elites and major media figures say can affect what masses perceive and what some individuals do. If you are one of those people who think that what madrasas in Pakistan teach is a source of terrorist violence, then you understand that violence sometimes arises because of what other people have written or said (sometimes over and over and over). If you believe that Mein Kampf had something to do with convincing Germans to commit genocide, then you've acknowledged that words do matter and sometimes they pave the way to unspeakable acts. So why deny it in this most recent case?
And here's the central point to remember: Violent language and hateful political rhetoric don't make most of the people who hear it run out and kill. Rather, the problem is that it makes it more likely that a handful of more fervent, less stable, more susceptible, less socially connected individuals will hear the message and take it to heart. And in a world where guns are cheap and plentiful, all it takes is one.
The solution, needless to say, is not censorship. The solution is to view those who favor violence as a way of dealing with one's political opponents with contempt, and to treat entertainers who use such language and tropes as moneymaking devices as beneath even that. I don't want the government telling Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, or any other xenophobic whack job what not to say; I just want sensible Americans to switch the channel and confine them to the obscurity that they deserve.
It is a pleasure to see that a neo-realist such as you, professor Walt, is falling into the murky waters of social constructivism.
Best,
Interesting...Steve deleted a post where I made an analogy between the cause and effect of this political rhetoric and potential of his inflammatory anti-"Lobby" rhetoric to set off anti-Jewish violence in mentally unstable people.
In both cases I opined that there is no cause and effect.
Also, that if a copy of The Israel Lobby had been found in the belongings of this or any future sicko, that Steve would respond with a blog entry diametrically opposite to this one.
Truth hurts or what, Steve? Any comment on the deletion?
Montgo - you stole the very words from my mouth and arranged them in a more eloquent fashion.
David in DC - your experience is unsurprising but very interesting.
I implore you to read David Brooks's article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/opinion/11brooks.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. And Stephen Walt, please re-read it.
Brooks's does NOT argue that hateful discourse had "absolutely nothing" to do with the shooting. Rather, he lays out the causes - which are numerous and complex, to be sure - as he sees them. Unlike Walt, he does not place the rants of Rush, Beck, Fox or Palin as a significant, and somewhat proximate, cause.
On a recent road trip to the South, I allowed Rush Radio to dominate my driving time - not for pleasure or intellectual stimulus (that FP's job!), but to assess what the big deal is. Yeah, he goes on about rubbish, some points are valid (ie gov't size, bailouts and spending) - but he and his station are simply railing against the philosophy and thinking of the left.
I'll happily live without Rush et al, but their rants against the left are well within the parameters of valid democratic discourse. In other words, they are intellectually on par with Moore, Maddow, Stewart, Colbert, Mathews, Olbermann, etc, and no more dangerous to anyone's personal safety.
I suspect that Walt and the left-of-center are really just trying to park the political blame for the shooting on the other side of the political divide as quickly as possible - before people settle in with the knowledge that the perpetrator had a penchant for socialist philosophy.
Stephen, if that is your game, then it's 1 - 0 for David Brooks.
Bravo!! & thanks!
Words do matter, a lot. Hopefully your words as well will reach broad audience.
All the best
"The solution, needless to say, is not censorship. The solution is to view those who favor violence as a way of dealing with one's political opponents with contempt, and to treat entertainers who use such language and tropes as moneymaking devices as beneath even that. I don't want the government telling Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, or any other xenophobic whack job what not to say; I just want sensible Americans to switch the channel and confine them to the obscurity that they deserve."
.
.
One can only hope that Steve Walt follows his own advice and soon joins those he admonishes in the obscurity he deserves.
In this context David Brooks is more right than you (a rare occurrence, I know). There is as yet no demonstrated connection between Loughner and any right-wing politician or media figure. We do have the testimony of old friends of his who describe him as very liberal, far left, or apolitical (because he was so out there). If you're going to accuse people of some degree of responsibility in murder, you'd better have evidence to back it up and you've got none.
Also, "Mein Kampf" didn't convince Germans as a whole to commit genocide. The regime didn't permit a free press and didn't care to let its activities become common knowledge (and anything they might have heard from the BBC was denounced as enemy propaganda, correctly in the case of Katyn). The holocaust was carried out by agents of the state according to orders they had received from their superiors (admittedly with some degree of autonomy for anti-partisan activity). As Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram showed, Americans showed a similar capacity to follow orders to the point of cruelty. As for your other examples, neoconservative wig-flippers are often wrong.
Finally, if you think the present situation is "unprecedented" you are more ignorant or less honest than I believed.
TGGP,
I have to agree. I generally don't think much of Brooks and I have a very high opinion of Walt, but there has been a lot of superficial cause-effect analysis of this shooting. I think conventional "right-wing" rhetoric had little if any role as a causal factor.
Loughner essentially possessed his own ideology which was anti-government in his words but really anti-establishment. He gave no indication of being a Dittohead, etc. In fact, given his esoteric question to Rep Giffords: "How can there be government if words have no meaning?" you have to believe he would despise someone like Sarah Palin if he even gave any thought to her and her ilk.
Loughner's behavior was driven by:
1. Mental illness whose development has by now been traced in its essentially apolitical detail.
2. By the atomized and isolated nature of his existence, a type of existence rife in American society/culture. I think Walt and many others have cause and effect confused here. They see "right-wing" rhetoric as the cause of violent individual behavior. In reality, what we have here in the US is a culture that has stripped people of meaningful identity and tradition and produces inherently high levels of alienation which can and often do express themselves in violence. The "right wing", ie operatives of the Republican party ARE opportunistically trying to co-opt and sometimes amplify this alienation and vector it against the "left" for their own purposes, it's true. But the anomie and consequent nihilism exist independent of these attempts at co-optation and are fed by a much deeper well-spring than our shallow politics. And in the case of Loughner, this Republican/right co-optation seems to have had little to no bearing on the planning and execution of the crime.
Finally, if you think the present situation is "unprecedented" you are more ignorant or less honest than I believed.
Others including myself have noticed the increasing way that Americans isolate themselves, either as a nuclear family unit, a couple or one person. Americans are so attached to a fantasy of rugged frontier individualism that we keep forgetting that no one is an island, that we are social creatures, that studies on solitary confinement show that such prisoners go mad fairly quickly.
But Loughner is largely irrelevant to political discourse in this country (and vice versa). If he were a member of an organization inspired by said discourse, Walt's points would apply here. The real violence has been perpetrated on the American populace for the last 25 years, by rich people who want to keep their power and money by dividing Americans, pretending to be Christians and telling whatever other lies they think they need to (like DeLay's whining about his conviction being politically motivated).
The solution? Get to know our neighbor, our gardener, our opposite-party-affiliation coworker, our gay bartender. Take off our earbuds and look at people, smile at your checkout clerk and greet people on the street. Put a human face on the people around us and soon one realizes that the vast majority of us generally want the same things - equal opportunity, a family, a say in our own destiny, and to protect American freedoms - the vitriolic crap these TV nuts spew stops making any sense at all.
Oh Heavens, If these whack-job commentators have not been publically forsaken by their minions by now, any faith in "sensible Americans" to abandon the ineffable moral bankruptcy of the "Talk Right" is irrationally optimistic.
Remember the song that goes, 'where have the children gone?'
Now it's, 'where have all the sensible Americans gone?'
Too many brain dead people listen to Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, and will always have a willing partner to express those moronic views on FoxNews.
When in traffic and I see someone do something incredibly dumb or inconsiderate I have a need to see what they look like. Do they have strange lumps on their head, are they waving their arms or shouting?
When I read those who deny the connection between the hateful rhetoric from this particular ideology (Regardless of the well documented systematic targeting in word and overt action towards their opponents, this woman included) and the Arizona incident (among many others) I want to hire a phrenologist to read the bumps. Who are you kidding (besides yourself). of course there is a connection.
Go to Fox News, NewsMax, Washington's #2 rag, Drudge let alone the talk radio zealots and you hear the same message repeated over and over. They are out to get us, they will destroy our country, the second amendment is our last refuge. They are socialists, they are communists, they are Nazis they are socialists commie Nazis. pederast atheists; any fearful image is used regardless of how nonsensical. Good Grief open your eyes to the reality of life in America. We are violent and ignorant and l throughout history that group returns to conservatism and fear. Mix and bake and what you see is what you get.
There is no rational explanation because the actions, like the rhetoric MEANT to stir these crazies to action, is irrational.
Interesting...Steve deleted a post where I made an analogy between the cause and effect of this political rhetoric and potential of his inflammatory anti-"Lobby" rhetoric to set off anti-Jewish violence in mentally unstable people.
In both cases I opined that there is no cause and effect.
Also, that if a copy of The Israel Lobby had been found in the belongings of this or any future sicko, that Steve would respond with a blog entry diametrically opposite to this one.
Truth hurts or what, Steve? Any comment on the deletion?
hmmmmm. So, while the jury is still out on whether or not this shooting had ANY political motivations, right or left, I think a different issue has been raised. Which, in my view, is what Walt is talking about. It doesnt matter whether or not this guy says he was directly motivated by media outlets and their crazies, what matters now is the issue has been raised...should mainstream Media outlets continue to allow commentators like Glen Beck, Kieth Olberman and Shawn Hannidy to spew rhetoric that could easily send a nutjob over the edge? We are not talking about fact based arguments with these guys, I mean, they are proven to be liars and factually inaccurate again, and again, and again, and yet we STILL go to them for "news"...? This wouldnt be censorship, this would be, "you are lying to us, and calling it fact. so now you are cancelled." Like Professor Walt says, we should just change the channel.
Glen Beck serves as the perfect lightning rod in this instance. In the past, I have given Glen Beck a try to see why people seem to like him so much. I found myself saying "yep, yep, okay, i can agree with that, go on...annnnnnd, you lost me." He is a certified nut job. A recovering substance abuser, highschool dropout, shockjock, and he wants to LECTURE us about history, and government, and what we should fear...? Are you joking me? This isnt about right or left, it's about right or wrong, stupid v.s. smart, ignorance v.s. education. Why can't people just admit that both Liberals and conservatives have their own disgusting pundits? Why cant we all just agree that we can clean up the rhetoric without being censored? What is the deal with you people? Get over it: Obama was born in the USA, he is not Hitler, Socialism is not inherently bad (people are), our country isnt slowly slipping into an "escape from New York" cataclysm , Muslim does not equal terrorist, liberal does not equal smart, and conservative does not equal stupid, europe is a friend, immigrants are not out to destroy us, the VAST majority of scientists agree that climate change is real, we SHOULD have an adult, public conversation about the economy, China, Israel, Gitmo, etc...What are we so afraid of? Are we afraid we might find out that; "oh damn, Im more conservative than I thought on that issue" or "im kinda liberal deep down, and never really realized it"...it's okay, most people are not robots who strictly believe in one core set of principles, we have more common ground then we can possibly imagine. Why do we have to let pundits and politicos tell us we are drastically different from one another...we are not.
Negativity, broadcast on TV 24/7, WILL have an affect on your psyche, whether you acknowledge it or not doesnt matter, you ARE being affected.
and the greatest crackpot adopted her best sincere wise guy expression to say "You have to question the timing of [this event],"
This is what the so-called greatest crackpot said? And this is what got your undies in a bunch? Moronic, to be sure, but if this is the worst they and you could dig up I will venture to guess the Republic will survive.
And is your point that questioning the timing of the event will lead to violence (the point of Steve's blog post), or are you simply taking Steve's cue and gratuitously piling on conservatives?
So you highlight a video of "presidential foes" and take a swipes at Fox News and Ohioan Republicans...and want us to believe that you are making a general, non-partisan statement because these "presidential foes" might not be conservatives? Really??
Yes, Yes, Yes words do count. This country has become two nations not one. Yes we have a problem. But let’s be consistent. I am not a fan of Glen Beck or Ed Shultz but all of us have begun to miss a very important point.
You can’t say you stand for the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and then in the same sentence say that we should exclude people like Glen Beck or ED Shultz or any individual who has an extreme opinion or curb what people can say in public. I don’t like it at all what makes this country great, greater than all is that regardless of where you stand on the fence your rights are protected. We are looking for excuses to justify the actions of an individual or a small group. We should only encourage them to say what they want it is that which makes us better we can always choose not to listen.
Here is what I find interesting we know the names of the people who died in Tucson. My hart goes out to all the families who are suffering so much pain. Can any body name me the names of the fallen soldiers who died today in Afghanistan? How about the victims of gun violence in Chicago last year?
In case anybody cares his name was Benjamin Moore.
It is amusing when people who are paid for purveying words argue that words don't matter.
But it's always a stretch to assert how much words matter in any particular case.
Even when Loughner's main complaint seemed to be that the government was manipulating grammar sound words no longer had meaning. (How meta can you get?)
Palin as a case in point - my words had nothing to do with this, but liberal's words are inciting hate and violence. (I guess the death-threats gave her some evidence. Did she ever pay equal attention to the death threats directed at Obama?)
Loughner is not the only evidence, however. The Southern Party has tracked increasing domestic terror threats in the past two years. Attack on federal workers are up. The number and membership of right-wing militias has increased drastically, and member of one group were arrested by the FBI last year for plotting the political murder of policemen in order to trigger a revolution. A man stopped by police, with a violent confrontation following, was armed and armored and planning to attack the Tides Foundation, a target of Glenn Beck over some weeks.
So, let's tone it down just a touch.
Oh no, the New York Times is giving aid and comfort to right-wing-rhetoric denialists!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/opinion/15blow.html?hp
The term that they used the term "no connection" to describe what was really "no direct connection".
As similar as they sound, they are very different usages.
"no connection" implies that nothing more can be said, that the tone of political discourse is of no consequence, that the selections of options suggested to a psychopath are of no consequence.
But, the tone and suggestion of options ARE important, and are within individuals' and communities of individuals control.
I would like to suggest that internet forums provide social support to a wide variety of individuals, including those with beliefs similar to Loughner's. It is possible to find individuals/forums on the net that agree with and encourage anti-social behaviors of all types. As one poster has mentioned, attacks against government representatives is on the increase--the role of the net should be considered.
Loughner did not give a rat's butt about any political rhetoric and such rhetoric had precisely zero to do with his motivations. Everyone on the planet knows this by now except Mr Walt and possibly Paul Krugman.
Further, Walt's claim that such rhetoric comes predominantly from the right is pure and utter rubbish.
One reason the leftwing is being disregarded so overwhelmingly in America now is precisely this tendency by its elites to make ridiculous and unfounded statements substituting their personal biases for facts.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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