Palin-Free February?
That's what Dana Milbank wants. We can obviously all sympathize with Dana's exhaustion over the almost-weekly national convulsions over Sarah Palin's latest tweet. Milbank's idea is that if we stop wasting our time having a civil war over the former governor, "we might suddenly become experts in the federal budget or Medicare reimbursement rates."
I like being contrarian, so consider my half-serious argument for why we should keep talking about Palin:
Milbank's column is just one incident of the perennial calls to leave aside the divisive debates of the “culture wars,” to overleap our disagreements about abstract morality and land on the solid and uncontested ground of plain facts, as established by substantive social science. Social-scientists believe that their data are so compelling they will be persuasive to anybody, regardless of her first principles; keeping a debate “substantive” and fact-based while working within the broadest possible normative framework allows us to establish policy consensus without resorting to civil war.
That’s the idea. But I think this gets it wrong. To me, the cultural hot spots are actually the more important debates for the very reason that they are hot spots — they are the locations in which the national moral consensus breaks down. So debating them is the way we refine, move, test, and either break or reestablish a collective morality. And a true and good public morality is, it seems to me, more important than a refined policy consensus.
Debates about Palin aren’t really about Palin. She is a talisman, a symbol, a shortcut for conversations about more fundamental issues. (I recommend thinking about how politics is not actually about policy, and how "symbolic politics" may be a redundancy — our political affiliations and passions seem to center more strongly on cultural identities than on the provisions of H.R. XYZ.)
So discussing Sarah Palin is a shortcut to national conversation about all the things she symbolizes — that is, about the status of Middle America, of evangelical Christianity, of children with Down syndrome, of folksiness, of hunting, of anti-cosmopolitanism, of all the doings of all those people out there who flaunt the status cues of coastal America. And that's why America has Palin on the brain — because her existence pushes us to confront fundamental questions about what the people in our country should be like. Talking about Sarah Palin may not be the ideal way to collectively talk about the good life, but right now maybe it's the closest thing we collectively have: it’s our national philosophy seminar and her tweets are the required reading. So I say we keep arguing (though we should obviously do so more intelligently and more modestly).
- Comment (18)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments :
Oct '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
A Palin Free February? Can the Liberal Media really do it? Obama needs all the distraction he can get right now.
Jul '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin.
Jan '11
Re: Palin-Free February?
I can't get past the notion that we should avoid "divisive" debates. What other kind of debates are there?
Milbank's method is to stop paying attention ... to a prominent opponent of liberalism. He thinks it's a call for sanity. Putting those together tells you what Milbank thinks of opponents of liberalism.
_________
Facts! Such a nauseating concept ...
Willard Quine, my favorite philosopher, did humanity a favor and threw the rhetoric of "facts" into the dustbin. Calling a belief a fact merely measures how strongly you believe it. When someone throws down "and that's a fact!" it only shows that he's unwilling to listen to counterargument.
May '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
Try March, instead. February is the Reagan Centennial, which will provide cover to talk about Palin. So, March...
Dec '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
Matthew Shaffer, Guest Contributor:
Milbank's column is just one incident of the perennial calls to leave aside the divisive debates of the “culture wars,” to overleap our disagreements about abstract morality and land on the solid and uncontested ground of plain facts, as established by substantive social science. Social-scientists believe that their data are so compelling they will be persuasive to anybody...
If my choice is to talk about Palin endlessly or develop policy based on the assumption the social scientists' facts and data, and their implied conclusions, are compelling, inarguable, rock solid, and incontrovertible, I choose to talk about Palin endlessly.
There are reasons why the social sciences are called soft sciences. Social scientists who makes absolutist claims about their data and analysis should fall under suspicion, including by other social scientists. Their facts and data are the softest of the soft, and so must be their hypotheses and theories. Much of it has value and is worthy of study, but much skepticism, criticism, analysis, and time must pass before basing policy affecting hundreds of millions on any of it. We cannot assume it can ever be as solid as most of 19th and 20th century physics.
Jul '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
Nickolas
If my choice is to talk about Palin endlessly or develop policy based on the assumption the social scientists' facts and data, and their implied conclusions, are compelling, inarguable, rock solid, and incontrovertible, I choose to talk about Palin endlessly.
There are reasons why the social sciences are called soft sciences. Social scientists who makes absolutist claims about their data and analysis should fall under suspicion, including by other social scientists. Their facts and data are the softest of the soft, and so must be their hypotheses and theories. Much of it has value and is worthy of study, but much skepticism, criticism, analysis, and time must pass before basing policy affecting hundreds of millions on any of it. We cannot assume it can ever be as solid as most of 19th and 20th century physics. · Feb 1 at 10:33pm
Huh?
Edited on Feb 1, 2011 at 10:42pmRe: Palin-Free February?
Matthew,
Terrific post. I agree entirely (as much as I find it disquieting to think of Sarah Palin's tweets as required reading in a national seminar of any kind).
Milbank's column is irritating because it represents the ne plus ultra of sloppy opinion work: dedicating an entire column to wishing people would stop talking about something. As you rightly note, the fact that they are talking about it is an indication of its meaningfulness, even if it's only as a gateway to a broader debate. But Milbank would apparently rather complain about the strike zone than try to hit a pitch.
I also find Milbank's glib assertion that a Palin-free month would make us all "experts ... on Medicare reimbursement rates" galling. You don't have to be a Palinite to recognize that the woman has galvanized some very serious policy conversations in the last few years -- on everything from end-of-life counseling to quantitative easing. That's more than we can say for Dana Milbank.
Jul '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
Kenneth: I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. I will not comment about Sarah Palin. · Feb 1 at 10:02pm
Glad to see that self discipline kicking in. I know it can't be easy.
Maybe if you posted on Governor Moonbeam to distract yourself.
Jul '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
Troy: Could not agree with you more about Milbank, he is a classic example of the descent of the Washington Post, a once almost mediocre paper. Dionne and Cohen are nothing to write home about these days, neither.
In this obvious example, he chose to write a column emptier than cotton candy on a topic that has no end of substantive approaches available, including principled response to any number of Palin's positions. Move past the scape goat ad hominum echo chamber rubbish and say something? Would the Post even pay for something like that? He had to stop, though. Sarah has only tweeted four times in the last two weeks, and one was a retweet of Michelle Malkin. No fresh grist.
Take George Will. George has never wasted my time with something like this, nor Krauthammer for that matter.
Matthew: The social sciences are in their infancy, and I am pretty much done with changing diapers. The broadest possible normative framework is Soylent Green. Or worse. Education should be about what your values are and why, not about stripping you of your norms to render you into a nice, flexible goombah for the next whim of the technocracy.
Jul '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
In its simplest form Palin Mania (positive or negative) stems from the same source as the reactions to Ronald Reagan.
Essentially, She Means What She Says!
This is why the Left is so completely irrational where she is concerned, and many on the Right also cannot contain themselves.
From Newt, to Romney, to Huckabee, folks know they speak right, but when they do speak right they will deal to get Legislation accomplished.
But when Sarah speaks right, she means it. Add to that, she will not see the passage of something (anything) as success. And to some, THAT is unacceptable.
Jul '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
Actually, not to overlook a possible opportunity, a Milbank-free rest of 2011? I won't mind.
Sep '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
There are a lot of people and things Dana Milbank and the Washington Post ignores already, what's one more? I just wish he would be as forthright about those other things he and his newspaper willfully ignore.
Nov '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
I hate it when I agree with Kenneth.
Jul '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
The problem is Milbank fancies himself an Algonquin Round Table caliber (Careful!) wit and he's run dry on jokes about Palin. But don't look for him to turn his sights (Oops!) on a far fatter target (Gasp!) for satire, the dangerous nincompoop in the White House.
Oct '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
Hey Dana, stop trying to shape the news and instead just report on it, you presumptuous, self-important Democrat-Party-mascot.
If we go a month without Sarah Palin news, it should be because we went a month without anything Sarah-Palin-newsworthy happening, NOT because a bunch of D-P-m's like Milbank imposed a blackout simply because they wanted to.
Re: Palin-Free February?
This is, indeed, an excellent post. Millbank is a progressive who wants everything left to "the experts." The culture wars are a consequence of changes shoved down the throats of ordinary people by the courts and the administrative state. The last thing that the left wants is an open, public debate that turns on questions of right and wrong.
Sep '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
Codevilla's article and book on The Ruling Class could not have been more apt.
Aug '10
Re: Palin-Free February?
I agree with the author. It is the things that we have the hardest time talking about that we most need to be talking about.
It makes us uncomfortable to discuss certain topics. Good. It is better to feel the discomfort of having to acknowledge that we don't know it all (that's usually the reason why we become reluctant to discuss some topic -- we feel threatened by a sense that our long-established views are not so solid as we once believed) than to feel the far greater pain that will otherwise someday result from our unwilingness to engage in the discussions that can lead to learning experiences.
Do we have a First Amendment to encourage people to engage in easy discussions? No. You don't need a First Amendment for that. The gains are to be had by taking on the tough ones. There is obviously something in the Sarah Palin phenomenon that is hard for many people to take. We need to figure out precisely what that is and what we need to do to change it.
Rob