I guess I am going to break my rule about avoidance of politics (and only sticking to political philosophy) again.
From YouTube and various blogs a lot of people are outraged that Sarah Palin used the term "Blood Libel". How dare she say it, these opponents ask, this is an insult to the Jews that were condemned by the Church for murdering Christian babies.
This story actually makes me laugh. Just another reminder of what stupidity and how meaningless politics is. Politics, in America, is just a form of entertainment. It is not enough that celebrities are shown on TV all day long. Now there is politics, which is another form of celebrities. Where the public watches the politicians say one thing, which is not even that bad, and then complain and scream about it for days to come. Politics is not a serious intellectual discussion in philosophy, it is just a game, a show of politicians and the crazy outrageous things they say. Why ever talk about the dead people in Iraq, or the ever increasing debt, when you can spend the next few days being entertained about what a politician said or should have said and think of yourself as educated? I am not some sort of conspiracy nut (I am a different nut in other cases though) to believe that the media is controlled by some illumanati elite. But I really can see why the conspiratists believe in this. It really feels like someone is trying to blind the public from the important issues so they can continue to fuck the public in the ass with a big giant hard cock called "freedom" that shoots in an orgasm the colors of red, white and blue.
Stupidity of politics is one thing that, the other thing, I do not even know how to call it. I have struggled to find a good term for it but I just cannot. I just call it "groupthink" for lack of a better term. I see this all the time in politics. And not just in politics but in all other issues, though especially in politics. Groupthink is when you say viewpoints so that you can identify yourself to belong to some group. If you have a liberal following audience then you need to constantly make videos or posts about Sarah Palin and how dumb she is. You need to get accepted by your group. You will repeat obvious and boring points-of-view just so that you can score some more audience points and get more accepted. The same goes to any other kind of an audience, but I just singled out Sarah Palin because it is a post devoted to her.
How many times does Bill Maher need to make another Sarah Palin moose shooting joke? How many times did Bill Maher need to continue to make another George Bush IQ joke? He does it to be accepted by his crowd. He needs to make a rather empty point-of-view, that we heard, or assume he will make, so that his audience can praise him for doing so.
You see this on blogs too. When you want to score some victory audience points pick a really really easy topic and then refute it. This is why Sarah Palin is so popular to discuss. Not because there is much to discuss about her but because it gives vloggers and bloggers an and excuse to score more audience points. The audience will tell him, "omg, u are so brilliant!", and he will get more accepted.
I call this "groupthink", since I fail at coming up with another term. And everybody does this groupthink. Even strict individualists end up making this mistake at some point. It is a disease we inherited from tribal primitive cavemen. How many times you seen libertarians make fun of the post office? They seem to have some sort of strange fantasy about the post office that they need to make fun of how terrible it is. Even though the post office is the one thing the government does semi-right. Yes, I know, it is going bankrupt. And yes, I know, mail delivery would be more efficient in a competitive market. But out of all the things the government does, this is like the one thing they do right. I use the post office, I am quite impressed with their complex information system that you know exactly where your mail is. If anything the post office should be an example of government "working", but libertarians will forever laugh at the government by using the post office example that at this point is so over-repetitive. So as I said, everybody, even individualists, end up falling into groupthink.
Why do I hate groupthink? Because it contributes absolutely nothing to discussion. What is the point of saying a point-of-view that everyone already agrees with? How does repeating the obvious or the well-supported contribute anything to discussion? Nothing. People already know this and believe in this. Intelligent discussion always needs to be about rebellion. Because it is only the rebellious ideas that contribute something new. Even if they are wrong, they are at least now considered. Nothing will ever change if the same old ideas are repeated over and over again in the pursuit of groupthink for gaining audience victory points.
So I will take the opposite view for arguments sake. What is so wrong with what Sarah Palin said? She said that people use her as a blood libel against what happened. I think that was a good metaphor. Blood libels are false cries of guilt on the innocent. When Palin used this metaphor she was, for once, making a good point. People who put blame on the shooting on her are putting false crimes on her, for which she is not responsible at all. This is why "blood libel" is an appropriate term. Now some people would say it is exaggerated and so it is not politically correct to say this because it involves Jews. Fuck political correctness. Might it have been an exaggeration? I can see that. But so what? It was a good metaphor. She did nothing wrong with using this metaphor. The people who are wrong here are the ones who need to use her as an instrument of hatred by putting blame on her.
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It's the continual distraction game. Don't pay attention to questions about the legitimacy of government actions, look at the crazy guy shooting people! When Sarah Palin complains that she is accused of absurd things, make fun of a phrase she uses so that you don't have to address what she says. (Or explain why the Daily Kos isn't just as guilty - more so since the guy is a leftist.)
ReplyDeleteThen there's the Jewish whining that they own the phrase. It seems to me most likely that she didn't know the history of the phrase, had heard it batted around her whole life, and made up her own meaning, then used it in accordance with that. So she's ignorant about Jewish history. Big news there.
The whole issue is insane. Palin does use violent rhetoric that can predictably lead to violent outcomes - but isn't called on that - for example, her comments about Julian Assange. For that matter, she used to be the head of a violent organization, and wanted to be assistant head of another one. On the other hand, the government does use real violence - in fact, Congress does little but sit and discuss who they should be violent towards next - but that's ok. So the idea is: violent rhetoric or imagery bad, real violence good.
The other thing I want to say about Sarah Palin is that I do not hate her. She is irrelevant. Yes, she is a politician (which is the most useless job in the whole world). But as a person she is not a bad person. I am sure she is just like most parents. I am sure she is a good person because most people are good people. She does seem to have a nice personality. Yes, it is true that because she is in politics she does influence the direction of violence towards groups of people, but I doubt that she is smart enough to realize this - which is why I do not hold this against her.
ReplyDeleteI ignore the politicians. They are unimportant, they just create the illusion that people have a freedom of choice. So I see them as illusions, as if they are non-existent.
It seems to be standard human nature to look for scapegoats. The Nazis blamed the Jews. The Marxists blamed the businessmen. The liberals blame the conservatives. The conservatives blame the liberals. The KKK blames the blacks. The Westboro Baptist Church blames the homosexuals. And this keeps on going and going and going.
Looking for scapegoats is not very useful at all. The fundamental source of much problems in the world is the use of violence. That is what we need to be arguing against. It is free from any group of people, it is free from a scapegoat. It is the idea, and a system based around this deeply flawed idea that creates so many problems and so much suffering in the world.
Politics is a blame game. What did the Democracts say? What did the Republicans say? That is a discussion for the masses who do not think deeper than that. Politics is a distraction, like you said, from really important concepts that need to be discussed but are not.