[Peace-discuss] Against Civility

[C. G. Estabrook]

[From Doug Henwood]

The horrendous shootings in Tuscon have certainly inspired a lot of drivel from 
the commentariat. They were heartbreaking, but please let’s not draw stupid 
conclusions from them.

Perhaps most annoying has been the call for a return to civility. Well, no, I 
don’t feel like being civil. I like being rude. The problem with the rudeness in 
American political discourse is that it’s often so stupid, not that it’s so 
rude. The idea that politics can be civil is a fantasy for elite technocrats and 
the well-heeled. I’m reminded of something that Adolph Reed once said to me, 
characterizing a mutual acquaintance as the kind of person who thinks that if 
you could just all the smart people together on Martha’s Vineyard, they could 
solve all our social problems. Obviously they couldn’t.

Margaret Atwood once wrote that politics is about “power: who’s got it, who 
wants it, how it operates; in a word, who’s allowed to do what to whom, who gets 
what from whom, who gets away with it and how.” There’s no way that could be 
rendered civil. The field of politics is constituted by vast differences in 
interests and preferences. Much of the time, we don’t talk about those things 
directly or explicitly. We talk about them in caricature or euphemism, or take 
it out on scapegoats.

Some of the so-called left, such as it is, is using Obama’s speech in Tuscon the 
other day as an excuse for rediscovering their crush on Obama. On The Nation’s 
website, always a rich source for high-mindedness, John Nichols wrote this 
(Don’t Tone It Down, Tone It Up: Make Debate “Worthy of Those We Have Lost”):

It has been said that Obama strives for a post-partisan balance. But this was 
Obama speaking as a pre-partisan, as an idealist recalling a more innocent 
America — and imagining that some of that innocence might be renewed as shocked 
and heartbroken citizens seek to heal not just a community but a nation that is 
too harsh, too cruel, too divided…. [F]or a few minutes on Wednesday night, we 
dared with our president to answer cynicism with idealism, to answer tragedy 
with hope, to answer division as one nation, indivisible.”

Really, John, when was this nation ever innocent? When we were trading in slaves 
and killing Indians? What act of “healing” will make this nation less divided? 
The rich and powerful have a lot of money and might and they’re not going to 
give it up easily.

Elsewhere on The Nation website, Ari Berman actually used the phrase “better 
angels” to characterize the pres’s rhetorical targets (In Arizona, Obama Appeals 
to Our Better Angels). (Uh-oh, I said targets.) This reminded me of Alexander 
Cockburn’s great characterization of the role of the mainstream pundit: “to fire 
volley after volley of cliché into the densely packed prejudices of his 
readers.” But clearly it’s not just the mainstream pundit—so to alternapundits. 
It’s not just that these stock phrases grate on the ears—their use is a symptom 
that their speaker evading some complexities.

http://lbo-news.com/2011/01/15/radio-commentary-january-15-2011/