Critical Race Theory And Terry Mc Auliffe Postmortem

(Cross-published here with comments section:https://dispol.blogspot.com/2021/11/critical-race-theory-and-terry-mc.html#comment-5607133553  )

 

 Critical Race Theory (CRT) is, among other things, a label. Labels matter. When Terry McAuliffe brushed off complaints about the Dept. of Ed. in his state teaching CRT, he did so with unequivocal statements like, "It [CRT] is not taught in Va. and never has been taught in Va.," adding, "“And as I’ve said this a lot, it’s a dog whistle. It’s racial, it’s division and it’s used by Glenn Youngkin and others, it’s the same thing with Trump and the border wall, to divide people. We should not be dividing people in school.” Based on this one would not expect the label CRT to be recommended in Dept. of Ed. memorandums, lesson plans, reading lists, etc. So when a single-minded conservative activist, Chris Rufo,  with investigative skills took the time and trouble to unearth evidence contradicting McAuliffe, he was stupidly ignored. I won't profile Rufo here, though he's been profiled by New Yorker and WaPo, and though they judged him to be only partly reliable and plenty ideological, Dems should have been much more prepared to deal with the allegations and evidence this man marshaled in making the case against CRT in our schools in various states, not least Va. 

 

According to exit polls, https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/politics/virginia-exit-polls/index.html    ~25% of voters considered education to be the number 1 issue. For most it was among the top issues, coming after the economy which another 33% pegged as the top issue. Now, if you only read the NYT, WaPo and watch only MSNBC and CNN; and if you systematically avoid Fox News, conservative radio, and local newspapers (e.g. in my city the NY Post which covered this election and the CRT issue), you will hear only McAuliffe's line that this is race-baiting based on fake information. I've seen it on this blog, "CRT is only taught in grad schools," and so on. Paul Krugman, an economist and opinion columnist I happen to like, seems to have assumed this talking point is correct as he dismissed the CRT issue as "bogus" and "a lie wrapped in a scam." But how many of us broadly left-leaning folk get out of the echo-chamber and do what even a good opposition researcher in a campaign does, viz., assess the evidence the other side has amassed?  Well, here are a few inconvenient facts for team McAuliffe (in retrospect) and a warning to all of us determined to defeat the GOP who plan to make this a major wedge issue next year and beyond..

Three days before the people of Va. voted, Fox News ran this story (reiterating other stories and claims they had made previously). 

 

Published October 30

Virginia Dept. of Education website promotes CRT despite McAuliffe claims it's 'never been taught' there

Virginia voters will decide their next governor in three days

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/virginia-dept-of-education-website-promotes-crt-despite-mcauliffe-claims-its-never-been-taught-there

 

Is it bullshit?  A lie within a scam? No. It is embarrassingly true. The article states, 

"On the Virginia Department of Education website, several examples of the department promoting Critical Race Theory can be found, including a presentation from 2015, when Terry McAullife was governor,  that encourages teachers to "embrace Critical Race Theory" in "order to re-engineer attitudes and belief systems."

 

Click on presentation, and you'll be brought to a 30 page memo from the Commonwealth of Virginia Dept. of Ed. (DoE).  https://www.doe.virginia.gov/support/virginia_tiered_system_supports/resources/2015_fall_institute/Legal_implications_of_discipline.pdf  After several pages identifying problems regarding race relations and inequities targeted for rectification, there is a section on "Culturally Responsive Alternatives" to the status quo  approaches to school discipline (suspensions, expulsions, penalizing various behaviors-- all of which are described in terms of institutional racism). Starting on p. 22 we read the following:

_

Culturally-Responsive
Alternatives (Continued)
 

 Incorporate Critical Race Theory (CRT) Lens
 

 Critical Race Theory
Townsend Walker, 2015

 

Culturally Responsive Teaching
(CRT)
 

Teaching practices that use:
cultural knowledge
prior experiences
performance styles
 

CRT makes learning more appropriate and effective for students
from diverse backgrounds
(Gay 2000).
 

Townsend Walker, 2015 Culturally responsive
strategies
 

 Engage in self and institutional critiques

  Reconstruct imagery of African American males
Re-engineer attitudes and belief systems [emph. added, as Fox quoted this]
 

Adopt ethics of care and respect
Raise expectations and motivation
Use strength-based teaching and
communication techniques
Townsend Walker, 2015

 

Now, Fox shows like Tucker, and their regular news shows, as well as local newspapers, radio et al., point out, this memo a) comes from the Superintendent Virginia's DoE, and b) was written and circulated to K-12 educators throughout the state while McAuliffe was Governor. When parents who know that their kids are being taught about white privilege, internalized racism, and the need to "do the work" to become anti-racists hear these denials, and when there is objective evidence that CRT IS an element in K-12 education in the state, how should they feel towards the candidate making flat-out denials, despite archival evidence contradicting his claims? And then when that candidate goes on to say "I don't think parents should be telling schools what to teach," at a time when school-boards have become loci of parental activism, what might be an expected outcome at the polls? It's a gaffe. He was clearly unprepared to answer these questions, even though Rufo's campaign against CRT (which is what got Trump's attention when he wrote an executive order "banning CRT," had been identified months earlier (he advises multiple members of congress, and is the "point man" on the issue.

I know, I know. The GOP takes this information, and then on that basis starts to ban books by Toni Morrison. Yes. That's why I despise today's GOP (never liked it that much to be honest, but esp. now it's the political dregs). But there is something going on in the schools that is upsetting a lot of parents, and it does have something to do with contemporary applied CRT which overlaps with the so-called "Anti-Racist Movement" speer-headed by Ibram X. Kendi, among others. But this is not really a piece on what CRT today looks like, and its relation to Antiracism (that would require a whole separate piece). Even assuming it is all great stuff, the question is WHY DENY THE LABEL IS BEING USED IN K-12 PEDAGOGY MEMOS??? A few more examples (from Va., as there are plenty of other examples from other states too) just so you don't think this one memo is a fluke.

 

In 2019, the State Superintendent, James Lane,  sent a memo to all school districts in Va.,   promoting critical race theory, and describing it as  “an important analytic tool” for addressing “power and privilege” in schools. See https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21084733-resources-to-support-student-and-community-dialogues-on-racism

 The document ends with Lane's Recommended readings, including his blurbs endorsing 5 or 6 of the books he considers most important for people in the DoE to read. The first entry is Beverly D'Angelo's controversial, and largely hated book, White Fragility (plenty of liberals have criticized that book. A WaPo book critic complained about the concept itself writing, 

"As defined by DiAngelo, white fragility is irrefutable; any alternative perspective or counterargument is defeated by the concept itself. Either white people admit their inherent and unending racism and vow to work on their white fragility, in which case DiAngelo was correct in her assessment, or they resist such categorizations or question the interpretation of a particular incident, in which case they are only proving her point." https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/18/white-fragility-is-real-white-fragility-is-flawed/

This is a very common criticism of the book. Nevertheless, this book which asks students and employees in Diversity and Equity workshops to face and admit to their internalized racism, a sort of ongoing "soul-search" according to DiAngelo, heads the list of readings in the document. Even more troubling, in terms of McAuliffe's denial of CRT having no place in Va. public schools, is  the inclusion of the title, Foundations of Critical Race Theory in Education, by Edward Taylor, et al. 

"Dr. Lane’s February Reading List:I have received several inquiries and requests for the latest literature that examines the issues associated with racial inequities in education. Below are several pieces that I and other members of the VDOE staff are reading this month based on recommendations that we have received. 

-White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo. Antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility. Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively....

 

Foundations of Critical Race Theory in Education, by Edward Taylor, David Gillborn, and Gloria Ladson-Billings The emergence of Critical Race Theory (CRT) marked an important point in the history of racial politics in the legal academy and the broader conversation about race and racism in the United States. More recently, CRT has proven an important analytic tool in the field of education, offering critical perspectives on race, and the causes, consequences and manifestations of race, racism, inequity, and the dynamics of power and privilege in schooling. This groundbreaking anthology is the first to pull together both the foundational writings in the field and more recent scholarship on the cultural and racial politics of schooling. A comprehensive introduction provides an overview of the history and tenets of CRT in education. Each section then seeks to explicate ideological contestation of race in education and to create new, alternative accounts. In so doing, this landmark publication not only documents the progress to date of the CRT movement, it acts to further spur developments in education."  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21084733-resources-to-support-student-and-community-dialogues-on-racism

 As I said at the outset, labels matter. If a politician says unequivocally "CRT has never been taught in Va." and documents like these surface predictably (as Rufo's research is well known among political strategists right now), you better have your defense well-prepared or it may cost you. The issue in this piece is not the value or lack of value attached to CRT, but rather the fact that in Va. (and also several other states including my own) CRT pedagogy and antiracist offshoots of it are fairly pervasive. One of the more controversial practices of Diversity/Equity training for classrooms today includes "affinity groups." This involves getting whites to discuss their internalized racism only amongst themselves, while blacks discuss the trauma of living in a racist society in a separate, all-black group, often in a separate room. These "safe spaces" for "doing the work" have offended many teachers and others who then contact Rufo with leaked documents. I'm not sure that came up in Va.,  but I can promise you it WILL be coming up in the 2022 elections, and we better be prepared. Perhaps in another post I can (if anyone is interested) discuss the actual content of earlier and contemporary CRT, related antiracism and Diversity/Equity/Inclusion models of social justice, as I believe the general public have been misled by the media on this. These are not simply accurate historical descriptions of racist practices in the past (i.e. history), but very much on the ground, and ongoing forms of racial justice activism, the contents of which are controversial and deserve to be aired out in public. But for now, I'm pointing out what happens when you tell voters that there's nothing to see or know; and that anyway, it's not your place to question curriculum, as McAuliffe ineptly said in a debate. Evasion and denial of facts in the face of contradicting evidence is always a losing strategy.

 

 

Is Liberal Hypocrisy Fueling American Inequality?

The following NYT video asks why Democrats who argue for increased equality consistently fail to make the kinds of changes in local laws and regulations that are necessary to rectify the very inequalities they oppose. For example, zoning laws would have to change to build affordable housing. Education laws would have to change to allow the less privileged to enjoy equal opportunities and life chances, etc... The video shows that such bottom-line changes are resisted when democrats discuss the laws and regulations governing their own backyards. Is it unfair to call these local politicians and board members "hypocrites?" Are there good reasons for their reluctance to act in these areas that the video journalist neglects to mention? What do you think?

(Also, for those interested in this topic, I recommend the slim paperback, Dream Hoarders by Richard Reeves (2017), which claims that we should think of the main divide in this country not as the 99% vs. the top 1%, but the top income quintile (top 20%) vs. the rest. The reasons have much to do with the facts in the above video, which show these 6-digit earning households protecting their privileges relative to the rest of society, thus effectively stifling upward mobility in less affluent groups.You can read more about Dream Hoarders here, if interested: https://www.brookings.edu/experts/richard-v-reeves/  Reeves also heads up the Brookings Inst. Future of the Middle Class Initiative, which  deals with the issue of inequality and obstacles to upward mobility: https://www.brookings.edu/project/future-of-the-middle-class-initiative/  )

Democrats and Republicans for a Pro-Democracy Coalition?

The NY Times published an op-ed piece by former Republican Governor, Christine Todd Whitman and Miles Taylor (a former Trump employee who published an anonymous critical article about Trump while working for him). They suggest a strategy that may sound familiar to those who remember the Lincoln Project and similar groups of Never-Trump Repubs that threw their lot in with the Dems to elect Biden last year. Their idea is simple: the best we to make sure the House does not end up in the hands of Trump loyalists next year is for moderate, center-right Repubs to become part of a pro-democracy coalition  with the singular goal of s defeatingTrump-loyalists who have made embracing The Big Lie  about Trump's "stolen election" a litmus test for GOP races. In the abstract, the idea sounds promising as a strategy to minimize chances of a pro-Trump GOP ascendancy. But we've seen this movie before in the form of the Lincoln Project and other similar ones that spent millions on ads, but didn't seem to have much of an effect on Republicans. As a matter of fact, 92% of them voted Trump, an increase from the 2016 election. The Lincoln Project says that it had more impact on undecided independents, but I haven't seen any evidence of this. Meanwhile, the fragile Dem coalition is already having a hard time maintaining unity among moderates conservatives (e.g. blue dog types) and progressives like "the squad."

The article generated close to 3,000 comments at the NYT, an unusually high number there. Readers' responses range from enthusiastic support to firm rejections of such a coalition. Some think we should throw out all purity tests and build bridges wherever we can to contain and ultimately defeat the pro-Trump GOP. Others point out how much trouble we already have on our hands trying to deal with the so-called "moderate" dems, esp. Manchin and Sinema on the one hand, and the no-compromise Justice Democrats https://justicedemocrats.com/  like AOC and "the squad"  on the other. I tilt towards being a single-issue voter right now, because the issue is, I believe, defeating Trumpism, which amounts to rejecting an autocrat with a tight grip on a party willing to abandon constitutional principles in order to win elections. In other words, as many, including Whitman and Taylor have warned, we stand to lose democratic governance with free and fair elections if we can't defeat the Trumpists. This does seem like a once in a lifetime emergency, and if it were possible to unite people around this idea I would support it. But unfortunately, many people do not share this fear, or at least not enough so to overlook intra-party differences within the Dem party, as made evident by the disputes between Dems who have failed to pass Biden's signature bill in any form thus far. Such a failure, if not remedied, could result in losses in 2022.

I'm posting the article here, and hope it will stimulate thoughtful debate on the idea of a broad anti-Trumpist (or put positively, pro-democracy) coalition. Also, here's a link to the NYT article for those interested in the many and diverse opinions expressed in their comments section today: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/opinion/2022-house-senate-trump.html

 

Guest Essay

We Are Republicans. There’s Only One Way to Save Our Party From Pro-Trump Extremists.

Oct. 11, 2021

 

By Miles Taylor and Christine Todd Whitman

Mr. Taylor served at the Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019, including as chief of staff, and was the anonymous author of a 2018 guest essay for The Times criticizing President Donald Trump’s leadership. Ms. Whitman was the Republican governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001.

 

After Donald Trump’s defeat, there was a measure of hope among Republicans who opposed him that control of the party would be up for grabs, and that conservative pragmatists could take it back. But it’s become obvious that political extremists maintain a viselike grip on the national and state parties and the process for fielding and championing House and Senate candidates in next year’s elections.

Rational Republicans are losing the party civil war. And the only near-term way to battle pro-Trump extremists is for all of us to team up on key races and overarching political goals with our longtime political opponents: the Democrats.

This year we joined more than 150 conservatives — including former governors, senators, congressmen, cabinet secretaries, and party leaders — in calling for the Republican Party to divorce itself from Trumpism or else lose our support, perhaps with us forming a new political party. Rather than return to founding ideals, Republican leaders in the House and in many states have now turned belief in conspiracy theories and lies about stolen elections into a litmus test for membership and running for office.

Starting a new center-right party may prove to be the last resort if Trump-backed candidates continue to win Republican primaries. We and our allies have debated the option of starting a new party for months and will continue to explore its viability in the long run. Unfortunately, history is littered with examples of failed attempts at breaking the two-party system, and in most states today the laws do not lend themselves easily to the creation and success of third parties.

So for now, the best hope for the rational remnants of the Republican Party is for us to form an alliance with Democrats to defend American institutions, defeat far-right candidates, and elect honorable representatives next year — including a strong contingent of moderate Democrats.

It’s a strategy that has worked. Mr. Trump lost re-election in large part because Republicans nationwide defected, with 7 percent who voted for him in 2016 flipping to support Joe Biden, a margin big enough to have made some difference in key swing states.

Even still, we don’t take this position lightly. Many of us have spent years battling the left over government’s role in society, and we will continue to have disagreements on fundamental issues like infrastructure spending, taxes and national security. Similarly, some Democrats will be wary of any pact with the political right.

But we agree on something more foundational — democracy. We cannot tolerate the continued hijacking of a major U.S. political party by those who seek to tear down our Republic’s guardrails or who are willing to put one man’s interests ahead of the country. We cannot tolerate Republican leaders — in 2022 or in the presidential election in 2024 — refusing to accept the results of elections or undermining the certification of those results should they lose.

To that end, concerned conservatives must join forces with Democrats on the most essential near-term imperative: blocking Republican leaders from regaining control of the House of Representatives. Some of us have worked in the past with the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, but as long as he embraces Mr. Trump’s lies, he cannot be trusted to lead the chamber, especially in the run-up to the next presidential election.

And while many of us support and respect the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, it is far from clear that he can keep Mr. Trump’s allies at bay, which is why the Senate may be safer remaining as a divided body rather than under Republican control.

For these reasons, we will endorse and support bipartisan-oriented moderate Democrats in difficult races, like Representatives Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, where they will undoubtedly be challenged by Trump-backed candidates. And we will defend a small nucleus of courageous Republicans, such as Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Peter Meijer and others who are unafraid to speak the truth.

 

In addition to these leaders, this week we are coming together around a political idea — the Renew America Movement — and will release a slate of nearly two dozen Democratic, independent and Republican candidates we will support in 2022.

These “renewers” must be protected and elected if we want to restore a common-sense coalition in Washington. But merely holding the line will be insufficient. To defeat the extremist insurgency in our political system and pressure the Republican Party to reform, voters and candidates must be willing to form nontraditional alliances.

For disaffected Republicans, this means an openness to backing centrist Democrats. It will be difficult for lifelong Republicans to do this — akin to rooting for the other team out of fear that your own is ruining the sport entirely — but democracy is not a game, which is why when push comes to shove, patriotic conservatives should put country over party.

One of those races is in Pennsylvania, where a bevy of pro-Trump candidates are vying to replace the departing Republican senator, Pat Toomey. The only prominent moderate in the primary, Craig Snyder, recently bowed out, and if no one takes his place, it will increase the urgency for Republican voters to stand behind a Democrat, such as Representative Conor Lamb, a centrist who is running for the seat

 

For Democrats, this similarly means being open to conceding that there are certain races where progressives simply cannot win and acknowledging that it makes more sense to throw their lot in with a center-right candidate who can take out a more radical conservative.

Utah is a prime example, where the best hope of defeating Senator Mike Lee, a Republican who defended Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede the election, is not a Democrat but an independent and former Republican, Evan McMullin, a member of our group, who announced last week that he was entering the race.

We need more candidates like him prepared to challenge politicians who have sought to subvert our Constitution from the comfort of their “safe” seats in Congress, and we are encouraged to note that additional independent-minded leaders are considering entering the fray in places like Texas, Arizona and North Carolina, targeting seats that Trumpist Republicans think are secure.

More broadly, this experiment in “coalition campaigning” — uniting concerned conservatives and patriotic progressives — could remake American politics and serve as an antidote to hyper-partisanship and federal gridlock.

To work, it will require trust building between both camps, especially while they are fighting side by side in the toughest races around the country by learning to collaborate on voter outreach, sharing sensitive polling data, and synchronizing campaign messaging.

A compact between the center-right and the left may seem like an unnatural fit, but in the battle for the soul of America’s political system, we cannot retreat to our ideological corners.

A great deal depends on our willingness to consider new paths of political reform. From the halls of Congress to our own communities, the fate of our Republic might well rest on forming alliances with those we least expected to.

 

 

 

 

 

A Few Thoughts on Social Dynamics of Online Communication

I started a little channel on Disqus in 2016, and have participated in discussions on various platforms for over a decade now. It has become very common to criticize social dynamics online, whether discussed in terms of "trolling," cyber-bullying, the dimunition of "civility," the frequently observed obsession with being "liked" and "followed" as a source of self-esteem and validation, or other related issues that have received attention in social discourse. While the resulting literature is often thoughtful (Sherry Turkle's Alone Together and Jaro Lanier's manifesto,  I Am Not A Gadget, come to mind), the problem that I'm concerned with here is more narrowly focused.  My focus here is on only one of the many problems mentioned above. To keep things simple, I'll  describe the problem in terms borrowed from  educational theorist, Alfie Kohn, in his book, No Conflict (1991). He coined a useful acronym to get at the basic issue, "MEGA."  MEGA stands for MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE GOAL ATTAINMENT, and the psychology underlying it has deep roots in theories of cooperation and conflict.

 

 

The underlying core-belief in MEGA is that when people discuss issues on which different and strong positions/viewpoints exist, it is generally the case that it can best be understood as a "conflict" or "debate" in which one party's gain entails the other's loss (as in a zero-sum-game). Like our adversarial legal system, it presupposes that there must be a "winner" and "loser" on any issue of importance. The binary of "win" and "lose" carries with it an attitude (ranging from subtle to overt) of basic enmity. This comes up again and again whether the  mutually exclusive categories are framed in terms of  political affiliation, musical taste, philosophical theories, religious beliefs, sports or even seemingly innocuous topics like TV shows and favorite celebrities.

 

 

Back in the noughties, I began to notice youtube philosophy vids (youtube was still new then) formatted as "point-counterpoint" debates. My academic background was largely in philosophy, and so I was, at first, intrigued. One person would post a thesis or argument,  and another person would publish a rejoinder in which he or she (usually he, by the way) tries to "defeat" the other party. If Sam argues for, say, free will, then the response by Bill will be the most forceful attempt to show that Sam's view is dead wrong in no uncertain terms. Such debates have a place in traditional philosophy, but they also have limits. Both parties may have insights, for example, and neither may have a full and adequate account of the complex concept of free will. So there's a potential loss in terms of learning from one another or engaging in cooperative inquiry. This can be generalized to most complex conceptual discussions. If my sole focus is on "winning" an argument (where that means the other party "loses") then I will selectively attend to what I see as the "weak points" in the other's presentation, and vice versa. I may (subliminally or consciously) skip over those portions of the content that might otherwise spur healthy *discussion* and exploration, rather than win/lose debates. It's like reducing all political discussion to Crossfire, the old show pitting "Left" and "Right" against each other. I still remember when Jon Stewart went there to satirize these hosts (esp. a young Tucker Carlson), which contributed to CNN canning the show. But the "Crossfire" mentality was never "canceled," and no matter how erudite the topic, one finds a similar interactive and cognitive style at work in many online venues, including "academic Twitter," where professors and grad students are free to express themselves in ways not entirely compatible with the classroom. 

 

 

The collapse of discussion into binary debating patterns carries more serious threats to culture than the loss of learning opportunities, though. When watching those vids back in 2006-7, I was put off by the hacker/gamer slang being used in the content, comments and titles. Typical examples might be "Sam OWNS Bill," or the offshoot, "Sam PWNS Bill" on the Question of Free Will/Existence of God/fill-in-the blank-debate. Gamer slang had colonized online public philosophy and other "erudite" realms of discourse online. According to  a Wikipedia article, "the term ["pwn"] implies domination or humiliation of a rival, used primarily in the internet gaming culture to taunt an opponent who has just been soundly defeated." https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/0940_pwned.pdf It was taken by teenagers and young adult from the world of hackers where pwning basically meant controlling or compromising another computer or server. So this is more than winning a binary debate, it has a *hostile* connotation, to put it mildly. Ownership of another person is, by definition, chattel slavery. While this is obviously not what is being endorsed online,  the meanings of words have consequences, and as authors like George Lakoff have argued, the "metaphors we live by" say much about our underlying cognitive and social structures. (see his book with Mark Johnson,  Metaphors We Live By: U of Chicago: 1980).

 

 

More recently, during the 2010s, we've seen the strategical application of these terms, as in the case of "owning the libs." Self-described "liberals" and "progressives," on the other hand, tend to use more generic insults including "moron," "loon," "loser" and "idiot" to label opponents on the Right. https://qz.com/291533/this-is-how-liberals-and-conservatives-insult-each-other/  There are certainly high-stakes conflicts in policy, but depicting them in terms more appropriate to a grade-school playground than town hall meeting actually obscures and emotionalizes matters, generating more heat than light. It dumbs down political culture ever more drastically, and engenders a culture of round-the-clock toxic hostility. While it's true that in politics the history of this hostile style of discourse owes more to Right Wing radio shows than it does to Left Wing culture, this doesn't explain the appeal of the hostile MEGA interaction style now pervading discussions in domains as "refined" as philosophy, or religion among people across the political spectrum. For example, the New Atheism debates-- both pro and con-- of the noughties were characterized by much of the "pwning" and "owning" tropes; and discussions in that domain are still largely fought in crudely insulting and aggressive terms, even if the slang has changed. 

 

 

I think it's easy for most of us to spot these behavioral traits and patterns in others, but how carefully do we evaluate our own output? Why does a blog-site like this one need to state, as a "rule," no less, "Don't be an asshole?" I'm not criticizing the rule, but questioning the conditions that give rise to it. Surely it is addressed to the actual and potential users of this site. To me, to you, to all. We think nothing of such "rules" at this point. It's a perfectly reasonable reminder given the state of interaction these days, right? I find it telling that such a "rule" blends into the background of consciousness like wallpaper. That is, it does not appear to jolt, jar, surprise or confuse anyone (correct me if I'm wrong and it has surprised you in the past). In a sense, it is an acknowledgment of one of the most serious problems we face today in culture and politics, and it would be interesting to see a calmly written post on exactly what it is that makes one an "asshole" online. What are the criteria? When did the traits in question become so omnipresent as to require such rules and warnings? What have we let ourselves become? How might we move towards more humane encounters with one another? 

 

 

I have not answered those questions here. This is intended more as a spur to further thought on the issue. I think it's important to note that from the beginning of Web 2.0 in the noughties to present, this mentality or interpersonal style was not originally linked solely to politics, but came from a gamer (win or lose) MEGA mentality, in which others are experienced as adversaries to be dominated and humiliated rather than potential partners in prosocial dialogue and discussion. So, while this has certainly been evident and toxic in our politics, the mentality is deeper. Perhaps, in another OP, I will explore socio-historical roots of the problem. But for now I'm more interested in hearing from others. 

 

 

Questions: 

 

Am I exaggerating the problem?

 

 Do you think the problem is unique to a certain ideological/political/cultural groups that you oppose, or do you see it as a pervasive aspect of communication in culture and society? 

 

Have you ever insulted others in the heat of the moment while writing comments? Have you ever been hurt or upset as the recipient of such insults? What do you think are some of the causes of this phenomenon, and how might it be diminished and/or counteracted?

Rhetoric, Republicanism and Democracy

 Plato had little praise for rhetoric and oratory. He also had little praise for democracy.  The 2 were, for him, essentially linked. Most of his early dialogues, and indeed The Republic, feature Plato's Socrates showing the Sophists (who were largely focused on Rhetoric and oratory) that their teachings lead to impasse, contradiction and folly. It's true that in one dialogue, The Phaedrus, he has Socrates leave open the possibility of a productive and ethical rhetoric directed towards the apprehension of truth. But more generally, he sees rhetorical arguments as a form of flattery, a way of appealing to irrational elements in an audience to exercise influence on others. Dialectic vs. Rhetoric thus aligns with the Philosophy/Sophistry and Reason/Emotion dichotomies in Plato. Real philosophers are lovers of truth and wisdom; Sophists are only "philodoxers," or lovers of doxa-- i.e. opinion. They also love to influence opinions without necessarily getting closer to truth.

Sophists were professional traveling teachers that had emerged largely to meet needs of litigants. As such, many of them were less committed to finding truth than winning arguments. Some (e.g. Protagoras) denied objective truth altogether, though Plato may exaggerate according to more recent scholars. But he is responding to this aspect of sophists, and seems to assume that all or most rhetoric instantiates these perceived deficits. But Plato also thinks only philosophical elites need to worry about public life  and significant speech in politics. Both in Republic and Laws, there's really little, if any room for most people in the polis to exert any influence over the polity.

In a democracy, or even a mixed constitution that gives citizens a role in public life and governance, rhetoric and oratory are valuable skills if placed within the context of shared civic virtues and constitutional principles. Hence Aristotle, who favored a mixed constitution not too different from Republicanism, is much more supportive of rhetoric as an integral part of public life. Since the kind of polis he endorses leaves room for all citizens (free members of the polis) to play some role in public life, it is important that citizens refine their communicative abilities so that they may discuss and argue cogently and persuasively about policies, laws etc. In a top-down society-- whether headed by philosopher kings or tyrants-- there is little room for argument and persuasion. Coercion and rule by decree is preeminent. So, we can see how the need to communicate well becomes more important when people are given a greater voice. This underlies the rise of rhetoric in those societies in Greece and Rome that invested citizens with not only the right but the obligation to participate in civic debate and policy formation. The rise of trial by jury of fellow citizens, as opposed to authoritarian courts, also made effective argument important in these societies.

For Aristotle governmental, educational (Paideia) legal, philosophical and political communication should be enacted with excellence (arete). He lays out 3 key elements in his rhetoric: ethos, logos and pathos.

Appeal to ethos is the speaker's  appeal to that which is likely to result in the audience conferring trustworthiness and credibility onto that speaker. For example, if one says, "I speak from years of experience as a professor of medicine," this invites the audience to attribute credibility to that speaker.  In cultural and political context, credibility may have less to do with credentials than values and beliefs shared by the speaker and audience. Thus an appeal to religious norms and values when addressing a congregation, or widespread patriotic ideals when addressing a nation show that gaining respect has much to do with ethos in the sense of shared ways of life.

Logos is the element of rationality associated with dialectic or logic. It includes such things as ability to gather relevant info, and finding and presenting good evidence for your claims via well reasoned arguments. Rhetoric without logos can degenerate into baseless propaganda or invective. But any genuine Rhetoric, on the classical model, must be grounded in empirical facts and carefully structured inferences.

Appeal to pathos to the emotions of those you address is crucial if we want to motivate the audience to not just believe an argument but take action based on it. A classic example would be appealing to emotions associated with patriotism, and fear of insecurity in order to motivate people to fight in a (presumably just) war. We also see appeal to pathos in more peaceful campaigns such as the Space Race of the 1950s and 60s that led to the moon landings. More troubling, appeals to resentments and xenophobia may fuel, say, anti-immigration invective which can lead to scapegoating (not that we should assume all immigration should be tolerated as legal; rather the issue here is the possibility of dehumanizing and villainizing out-groups) .

Aristotle and the Romans who expanded on his Rhetoric, viewed appeals to ethos, logos and pathos as something akin to the 3 legs that support a stool. All are equally important. Attention to logos makes what used to be called the "pathetic fallacy" (arguments that rely almost solely on emotions) much less likely. Of course, manipulative speakers may violate the precept of appealing strongly to logos-- but that is not in keeping with classical rhetoric. Ethos is important in a complex society. We don't all know the intricacies of, say, medicine, engineering or physics, and so when speakers appear on, say, TV with their titles and academic affiliations we usually attribute basic credibility to them in a way that we would not if they were just ordinary people with no training or credentials in the domain about which they speak (medicine, cybersecurity or whatever else). Though we are currently seeing decreased trust in putative experts and increased populism, this is still only a matter of degree. We don't ask strangers if a certain pill has any side effects or poses a risk to the body; we look for some type of expertise.

Roman Rhetoric emphasized  the importance of having other people on board with you-- recognizing their importance as fellow citizens (egalitarian bent here, though this won't extend to non-citizens). Another non-elitist aspect is the belief that you can be taught to speak well and govern, that rhetoric is not necessarily an innate talent. Thus a myriad of handbooks on rhetoric and oratory emerged in Republican Rome. Cicero and later Quintillian made important contributions to the field.

The Roman systems divide rhetoric up into 3 branches. 1. Judicial or Forensic  rhetoric appeals mostly to reason in order to judge things that happened in the past. Establishing the guilt or innocence of an accused person is an obvious example of forensic rhetoric. 2. Epideictic or  Demonstrative rhetoric appeals mainly to pathos/passions often in order to make a speech of praise or condemnation. Speeches at weddings, funerals, graduation ceremonies, et al., all concern appeal to the sentiments of the audience. A formal denunciation of a traitor or criminal relies equally on moving the audience. Still, logos must be operative or else we can fall into mere flattery or ad hominem (mere insult). There should be logical reasons based on empirical facts when we speak of a criminal or traitor. 3. Deliberative rhetoric is aimed at influencing actions to be taken such as whether members of the audience will vote X or Y in an election. The interest here is in future outcomes, and the means by which they can be influenced by speech and argument. Again, we can see that in authoritarian systems, this is much less important than Republican and Democratic systems in which citizens have input. So in Republican Rome many handbooks and pedagogical systems for constructing variations and combinations of these 3 branches emerge, which in turn rest on the principle of showing roughly equal concern for appeals to ethos, logos and pathos.

This very short history of Classical Rhetoric should indicate why rhetorical practice is important to thriving democracies and free republics. Rhetoric ultimately rests on some (varying) degree of free speech in public life, which has been rather rare historically. In order to use such freedom of speech with care and skill, we should take some kind of interest in evaluating and making arguments based on the categories of logic ( logos), trustworthines/credibility (ethos) and awareness of emotional factors at play (pathos). Once we learn to analyze the contents of free speech in this way, we are less easily manipulated by others and more capable of expressing ourselves effectively. But does any of this insure that free speech will be used ethically?

No. This is not possible. Rhetoric can be used for good and ill. Free speech always leaves open the possibility that those who use it may do so in ways that are injurious or destructive. This is why both Aristotle and Cicero emphasized that Rhetoric was just one element of a good education. It's proper use depends, for them, on the cultivation of virtues consistent with shared political values such as those enshrined in constitutions. Civic virtues, as the founders of the US liked to say, are necessary to any government that grants a wide range of liberties to citizens. It would be necessary to write another post to explore various paradigms of virtue ethics (which is currently very topical in contemporary ethics and political theory). But clearly, the idea was always that rhetoric be bounded or even constrained by widely shared societal norms and values. When these begin to break down or become fragmented, as in our own time, it is most important to carefully examine the content of speech and journalism for exaggerated appeal to contentious (widely unshared) premises, beliefs, values and norms. An awareness of rhetorical methods, strategies and tropes can help the citizen to be less vulnerable to the machinations of propagandists, ideologues and demagogues. Hopefully, in time we will be able to employ rhetoric constructively within the context of widespread societal values and goals-- in other words within the context of a widely shared political vision of what kind of people we as a nation want to be. For as it says in Proverbs, "Where there is no vision the people shall perish."
--------------------------------------------------------------

Sources/Further Reading:

Aristotle:

The Art of Rhetoric: Penguin Classics, trans. Hugh Lawson-Tancred

The Nicomoachean Ethics: Oxford World Classics, trans. David Ross

Cicero:

De Inventione- available free via Internet Archive--  https://archive.org/details/cicerodeoratore01ciceuoft

De Oratore-  at  Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/ciceroonoratoryo00cice  and good wikipedia summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Oratore

Edward P.J. Corbett and Rosa A. Eberly:

The Elements of Reasoning (2nd Ed.)-- a short but comprehensive and useful overview of both classical and modern rhetoric with lots of examples from contemporary media and politics..