House of Eratosthenes

Yep I’m absolutely cracking up here…because it seems to me it’s the same people who were criticizing the Republicans four years ago for having way too many white male faces in front of the camera, are criticizing them this year for exposing the brown and female faces. The criticism is about prejudice being revealed by some kind of consistency, and the criticism itself is consistent, yet the observations on which it’s based are diametrically opposed from each other.

I was corrected in my use of the phrase “left-wing,” read that word “corrected” as “put on notice that someone with access to the Internet disagrees.” There followed a bit of silliness: Left-wing has to do with a search for equality, right-wing with an acceptance of or even laudatory praise for situations involving inequality. Adolf Hitler, furthermore, was right-wing because with that whole Final Solution thing, he clearly had no problems with inequality…

It doesn’t work because actually, Hitler was just as obsessed with equality as any other left-wing dictator in the twentieth century — once the undesirables had been culled from the herd. And it also turns out that the other dictators commonly accepted to be left-wing, also had their own plans in place to trim the gristle from the steak before leveling out what remained. So with those observations, the distinction is largely erased, which effectively nullifies the definition because it no longer defines, and defining things is something definitions are supposed to do. But there’s more: If you’re enchanted with the idea of forcing or upholding or establishing or preserving some notion of “equality,” but only within a scope you get to define by eliminating everything that doesn’t fit in it, then you really aren’t about equality when all’s said & done. In fact, it could be said that what you mean by that word is actually: “I don’t have the attention to detail to differentiate statuses within this block of people, which I have separated out from that other block of people over there.” That isn’t a belief in equality, that’s actually a belief in inequality basted in a micro-management neurosis and served up with a generous side dish of laziness.

And that in itself might be a suitable definition of “left-wing”: Trim and tenderize. Get rid of the undesirables and even out whatever is…well…left.

Does it work in 2012? Well, we made reference to that joke told by Jodi Miller: “…President Obama said he doesn’t think anyone would suggest He’s tried to divide the country; at least, not anyone from the half of the country that matters.” Bingo. That is precisely what we’ve been seeing for the past four years, a so-called “leader” who might be big enough to be President of some of us, but nowhere near big enough to preside over all of us, since He doesn’t think in those terms. There are just people who are supposed to count, and people who are not supposed to count. So this definition would work today…it would work during the Storming of the Bastille, or shortly afterward when Napoleon took over…unfortunately, it would include Hitler among the “left wing” and it would include the southern democrat slaveholders from the Civil War era in that crowd as well.

But that’s probably fair, because it would include the pro-choice crowd with precisely the same logical justification: “We are actually supportive of basic human rights, we simply object to them being applied to those people, over there, because we don’t recognize that they’re actually people.” Um, who am I talking about, the slave-owners or the pro-choice crowd? I seem to have lost track, since this summary could apply equally to each. That’s kind of the point. And this continues to apply, albeit in a softer way, to those friends of ours on the “left” with whom we discuss politics…in the office, during family reunions, over the Thanksgiving table, and so on: They love to engage in this “free and open exchange of ideas” but it isn’t too long before you hear one among their number indulging in a familiar monologue of there’s-no-point-discussing-this-with-someone-who. In the post-Reagan era, this has become almost a signature.

The policy proposal must be carried out, it must apply to everyone, involuntarily, it cannot be tested in a sandbox anywhere, it has to be deployed “in production.” There cannot be any way of getting away from it. But, those who are privileged to debate and discuss the details, must be confined to a crowd of elites. Especially when we’re talking about having some actual influence! Can’t leave those important decisions up to just anyone…just because they’ll be, y’know, impacted in their everyday lives by the new plan. Price caps. Wage controls. Health care plans. New taxes. Carbon exchanges. None of this can be opt-in…and yet…”there’s no point discussing this with someone who…’

Friend of a Facebook friend (FOAFBF?) made her opinions known because she actually works at a non-profit that “advises” ladies who are in need of family-planning services. She was adamant that she and the rest of the staff do not “pressure,” they merely advise. And she was equally adamant that pro-choice does not, repeat not, mean pro-abortion. Mkay then, nothing we could do but take her word for it…

However I could not resist a question: As long as we’re parsing out these fine and nuanced differences…since she had had some harsh words for Rep. Paul Ryan for voting against VAWA, and “pro-choice doesn’t mean pro-abortion,” it should probably be stressed that voting against the funding for a program does not necessarily indicate a desire for more of whatever social ill the program was intended to address. Would she agree with that? NO, she replied, in no uncertain terms…public servants needed to be held accountable for their votes, and the impact these votes had on people’s lives. Hmmm.

I was just talking about lefties being hyper-sensitive to the “there’s no point discussing this with someone who” situation, their way of being smaller, softer lefty tinpot dictators, their way of drawing the perimeter around the elite crowd that gets to talk out the details of the plan, to sift the wheat from the chaff. Well the right wing has problems with this — odd, since the right wing is supposed to be more eager to embrace the realities of inequality. The premise on the right seems to be, if the spiffy new policy has merely the potential of impacting you, nevermind those spiffy policies that provide solid assurance that they will impact you…then, in those cases, you should have a right to participate in what’s going on.

But, in situations where the opposition says “Our argument must be teased out down to the tiniest, ultra-nuanced details, and even then I reserve the right to pixelate it even further, during such occasions as your annoying logical thinking has exposed something ugly about it, just so I can generate some confusing noise” and then whiplashes away from this viewpoint in evaluating the argument of the opposition — “you said such-and-such, so that must be ‘dog-whistle language’ for such-and-such-some-other-thing” — then the whole discussion devolves into nothing more than an exchange of personal prejudices. Paul Ryan is pushing old ladies off cliffs in their wheelchairs but don’t you dare insinuate that I’m trying to make more abortions happen when I “counsel” these girls.

At that point, the right wing needs to play the game of “there’s no point having this conversation with someone who.” Now if the right-wing is really about embracing inequalities, that should come naturally. But, in my case, it does not, and I predict most people who identify themselves as “right wing” will have a tough time with this.

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Memo For File CLXVIIThursday, August 30th, 2012

Memo For File CLXVII
Thursday, August 30th, 2012