Pointless Politics
Most of what passes for politics these days is a waste of time.
- Rob Long has an interesting post about how a petition to ban conservatives was eagerly embraced by a bunch of people at a college, of all places.
- Yesterday, I saw a post about some gay activist dumping glitter on Newt Gingrich.
- Troy Senik has a post up about California teacher unions staging rallies.
Petitions. Media stunts. Rallies. My first reaction to these staged events is to wonder who’s swayed by them? I know I’m not.
* * *
MY EXPERIENCE
Full disclosure: when I was a Jesuit, I went through a period of attending marches and doing civil disobedience. I was protesting the execution-murder of a community of Jesuits in El Salvador, some of whom I knew personally. I was outraged that our government had trained the Salvadoran battalion that carried out the execution. My outrage was personal. I knew those Jesuits. I was heartsick that our government tolerated and often supported those murderers.
However, having gone through the experience of American political protest, I learned (the hard way) to draw a distinction between the cause and the method. The cause was defensible. The methods to protest government policy were stupid, pointless, and embarrassing. Someday, I’ll tell a few stories of my protest days; the experience wasn’t political drama. It was comedy, farce, and often slapstick. It was demeaning. And it was utterly pointless.
* * *
DAY TO DAY POLITICS
In politics, you have elections. In our country, these happen every two years. What do you do in between the elections? How do you advocate or oppose policies? In other words, how do we conduct our day to day politics?
These days, I argue, most of our politics is conducted through the media. Rallies are just media events. Marches are just media events. Dumping glitter is just another media event.
Back in the days of Rome or the French Revolution, when a crowd or mob appeared outside your door, they didn’t care about the media. The crowd was there to beat the [redacted] out of someone. They weren’t attracting attention. They needed big numbers to defend themselves, not to appeal to the cameras.
These days, the media has transformed political assembly and protest. And while it’s great that huge mobs don’t assemble to inflict vandalism and violence, the alternative is that political protest is hollow and frequently childish. It amounts to a bunch of people stamping their feet. The whole exercise brings out the prank skills of seventeen year olds. We’ll dump glitter. We’ll create snarky signs, and if we make some reference to Hitler, sure, that will be effective!
The contemporary practice of politics has devolved into glorified pranks.
* * *
PERSUASION
Stunts aren’t compelling.
Arguments are. If you can lay out a train of thought that gets your listener safely from Point A to Point Z, then the rationality of the thought process can persuade and change minds. The thought process (i.e., the argument) does all the work. You don’t need to push or pull. A solid argument is like an electrical circuit. All you need to do is open it, and the electricity will course through it without effort. A good train of thought moves along all on its own.
A media stunt doesn’t offer an argument. It’s just a bunch of people who shout at you about what they believe. A rally doesn’t offer an argument. It doesn’t give you a reason to agree. They’re just shouting at you: they believe! That’s just a narcissistic indulgence, hoping that you’ll join them simply because they say so.
Persuasion is a deal, an exchange, and a trade. I’ll give you my support, but only in exchange for a good reason. You give me a good reason, I’ll support you. But if you want my support, you’re going to have to pay for it with reason.
* * *
POLITICS
The only effective and mature way to conduct politics is through reason. If you want someone to support you, you have to give them a reason.
Do any of these media stunts persuade anyone with an ounce of sense?
God, I hope not.
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Pointless Politics
What do you make of the Tea Party rallies, then? Are they useless media stunts as well?
Nov '10
Re: Pointless Politics
If only it weren't for the ohms created by American public education.
Jun '10
Re: Pointless Politics
Where's the media in this? The MSM does all sorts of stunts to go against the Tea Party. Seems an odd question considering KC's discussion.
Jun '10
Re: Pointless Politics
I think some stunts do work. You and I and the people at Ricochet are generally of a different type where we do want our actions to follow a notion of rational thinking. I often ask people who voice strong opinions about a topic but who don't really follow a rational process (like most liberals): if I could prove such and such is (or is not) true then would you change your mind? Not once do they just go down the thought experiment logic branch and affirm that the point they are making is so important that if proved untrue then that would change everything. Instead they just jump to a new topic.
WMDs and Bush is a perfect example. They first have learned to hate Bush and then to pretend to have a rational explanation for why they hate him. It wouldn't matter a wit if I proved to them that Bush didn't know about WMD before he went into Iraq.
Now, here's why: In my example, the idea that Bush (and Kerry) believed there were WMDs is really an unprovable thing to them. They have no means for evaluating it's veracity.
Jun '10
Re: Pointless Politics
Larry Koler
Where's the media in this? The MSM does all sorts of stunts to go against the Tea Party. Seems an odd question considering KC's discussion. · May 20 at 4:55pm
KC said: "A media stunt doesn’t offer an argument. It’s just a bunch of people who shout at you about what they believe. A rally doesn’t offer an argument. It doesn’t give you a reason to agree."
That seems to be a sweeping indictment of rallies: they don't offer arguments, they are not persuasive, they are not effective. I'm asking: does that include Tea Party rallies too? If so, perhaps we on the right have pinned too much hope on them. If not, then perhaps the indictment of rallies is too sweeping and needs some further qualifications. Perhaps left wing rallies merely seem unpersuasive to those of us disinclined to agree with them in the first place.
Jan '11
Re: Pointless Politics
That's a fair question.
Yes, to be honest, I think the rallies are unpersuasive. They may console fellow conservatives, but I don't think they persuaded anyone who didn't already believe in the same political perspective.
For me, the rallies are a small part of what makes the Tea Party effective. The strength of the Tea Party is a loud and insistent demand to abide by the Constitution, and the Tea Party expresses it in several ways. I loved the confrontations at the town halls. What made those confrontations so persuasive was that they exposed politicians who ignored the Constitution. Think Arlen Specter. Now that was effective.
I joined rallies and marches because I had no alternative. There was no other forum for expressing dissent. There was no other way to participate in politics. Their only advantage is that they're slightly better than absolute nothing.
The Tea Party has other means at their disposal.
Jun '10
Re: Pointless Politics
Joseph Stanko: You're right about what KC said. I guess my point is that the Tea Parties don't count on the media to help them like the left wing rallies do. But, whether helped or not, I take your point. I disagree with KC on the effectiveness of the rallies. To call things stunts is to imply that they only are done to get attention from the media outlets. The Tea Parties are trying to get attention over the heads of the media and to the other people who may want to join or support them. Whereas, stunts are to punish or embarrass someone and to then force them into compliance. It's more bully tactics. The Tea Parties are emphasizing using the power of elections and adherence to the Constitution. The Left wing seldom convince a large number of people. Rather they just want to bully and intimidate -- be it the governor, the dean, the president, Ken Starr or John Yoo.
Re: Pointless Politics
I've been asking myself whether the rallies and protests that we've seen in Turkey lately mean anything--will they be translated into voting behavior, into better governance? Or are they just in effect big block parties? In the Turkish context, yes, I think they're significant: They tell people, "You're not alone in your opinions and you need not be afraid of expressing them: Look, other people are saying it, too."
May '10
Re: Pointless Politics
Here in Ohio we're getting images most every day of police, firemen, and teachers protesting Gov. Kasich's Senate Bill 5, which he signed last month and which rolled back some collective bargaining rights of public sector unions.
It's having a huge effect, I'm afraid: The latest Quinnipiac poll has support for a repeal referendum in the fall at 54%.
When ignorant independents are bombarded with images of outrage, eventually many come to think the outrage is justified -- even while maintaining their complete ignorance of the facts. Oy.
Jun '10
Re: Pointless Politics
Experience is a key here. Many a college kid has had his passions inflamed for a cause by emotional rhetoric and later regretted it for one reason or another. He didn't have the experience to realize the need to look beyond the passion to the logic.
Jun '10
Re: Pointless Politics
The Tea Party rallies are different in one crucial respect; the American middle class doesn't normally engage in such activities. It tells us that this very large and important demographic of the voting public is aware and engaged. Fiscal inslovency and creeping socialism threaten our property and our liberties. The backlash against incumbents that resulted in sixty-three House seats changing hands was not a stupid prank. Unlike the left, a march from the right means something. It's true that our entrenched elites from both sides of the political spectrum consider the Tea Party to be a nuisance. But then, we knew that it would take more than one election cycle before they got the message.
May '10
Re: Pointless Politics
Rallies and media stunts may not persuade anyone with an ounce of sense, but that leaves all those people bereft of sense.
There are several objectives of rallies and media stunts. Gaining publicity and making it seem like "everyone agrees with us so you should too" is one. Intimidating weak-willed politicians is another.
Re: Pointless Politics
I agree that persuasion is central to politics. Demonstrations can be effective in this regard if they dramatize a cause and crystallize public sentiment not yet fully formed. They can also backfire.
There is another dimension to politics that needs attention. It is constituted by coercion and force, and Barack Obama's Democratic Party is especially sensitive to it. The demonstrations in Wisconsin were designed to intimidate, and I suspect that the same is true in Ohio.
In a democracy, this sort of thing is dangerous. It brings us to the edge of civil strife -- which is what the disciples of Saul Alinsky want.
Jun '10
Re: Pointless Politics
Paul A. Rahe: There is another dimension to politics that needs attention. It is constituted by coercion and force, and Barack Obama's Democratic Party is especially sensitive to it. The demonstrations in Wisconsin were designed to intimidate, and I suspect that the same is true in Ohio.
In a democracy, this sort of thing is dangerous. It brings us to the edge of civil strife -- which is what the disciples of Saul Alinsky want. · May 21 at 5:54am
Here again we see the difference between left and right. The town hall meetings of two summers ago exhibited a fair share of in-your-face intimidation from the right. But the threats were expressed as a warning that we would take our displeasure with us to the polls. And we did in an historical landslide.
The left, on the other hand, reacts with nihilistic rage. A harbinger of bad things to come when Mr. Obama is voted out of office.
Mar '11
Re: Pointless Politics
Protests, marches and other visible signs of demonstration are effective. If the question is whether protests and marches are effective at persuading others, I would answer in the affirmative but with a caviat: They are effective in bringing attention to whatever it is that is the bases for said demonstration.
KC's assertion that demonstrations are unpersuasive in and of themselves may be true. People usually are not changed by the rally themselves. The value of the protest is that the media gives a group attention that it would not otherwise have had access.
Though I am an avid political junkie, just consider that a significant portion of people are apolitical or at least minimally involved. Demonstrations that bring attention to a cause are at least effective in starting the conversation. There was a Tea Party rally in Metairie Louisiana. Several thousand people were rallying and they had speakers, including local and national politicians. Many people driving down the main thoroughfare saw this gather and did what most people do nowadays: went home and searched for the more information on it. What I saw from my car was significant and I know that others who saw this thought the same.
Feb '11
Re: Pointless Politics
I think your basic premise is that political matters are decided by reason. I certainly think reason plays a role, but I think emotion does as well. The theatrics of demonstrations are important for that reason and for the reason Claire Berlinski stated -- to show that you are not alone. Reason and emotion are balanced differently within every individual while different issues will elicit different balances, so you can't make hard and fast rules about it. Or such is my opinion as unhelpful as that may be.
Edited on May 21, 2011 at 7:20amMar '11
Re: Pointless Politics
Claire, this is how I think the Tea Party rallies helped: I no longer felt like the only conservative in Seattle, WA. Keri Callendar organized the first Tax Day rally right here, and it heartened me to see a broad spectrum of people: libertarians, social and fiscal conservatives, Republicans, veterans, etc. gather. The message "You are not alone" is powerful.
Oct '10
Re: Pointless Politics
I think there are at least two distinct types of political gatherings.
One type of gathering (or prank) attempts to force a small number of people to act, usually via intimidation. It's the 'negative' or reactionary event. This would include throwing glitter or a pie at someone, or trying to force a bank to give a loan to a homeless person.
Another type of gathering is the 'positive', or, dare I say, 'classically liberal' type of event (or prank), which attempts to change or shape public opinion by publicizing an idea or set of ideas, and hopefully make people aware that a particular idea has a large number of supporters.
I think rallies are more effective when they're for something than against - it's a way of boosting the amperage of an idea, to continue with the electrical metaphor.
May '10
Re: Pointless Politics
KC Mulville:
Stunts aren’t compelling.
Utterly wrong.
Were the civil rights demonstrations of the sixties ineffective? No. TV film of cops beating up peaceful demonstrators were very effective. Gandhi's "stunts" against British rule were also effective. And so on.
Tea Party rallies "narcissistic"? No, they have been highly effective at showing people across America that they were not alone; that contrary to the propaganda of the main stream media, there were many other people who felt just like them.
Persuasion by reasoned argument is of the highest importance, but you are deeply mistaken if you think that that is all that matters.
You write "The only effective and mature way to conduct politics is through reason." Only "effective" way? Many political movements have risen to great power without much of any recourse to reason. Only "mature" way? That arrogant and contemptuous dismissal strikes me as, well, immature, as does your labeling of the Tea Party rallies as "narcissistic."
Jul '10
Re: Pointless Politics
Protest and other demonstrations play a vital role in strengthening group identity. They are like pep rallies for sports teams. If the public is swayed any that is icing on the cake.