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Friday, August 18, 2006

Mad Annie and other scary things

One of my favorite blogs is David Neiwert's Orcinus blog. Neiwert is a professional journalist who has done extensive reporting on the far-right militia movement in America. He blogs frequently, though not necessarily daily, and talks a lot about issues like far-right activists and the "mainstreaming" of far-right ideas into the Republican Party. He also does some political-sciency research on democracy and fascism/authoritarianism.

Okay,so it's not usually the place to go for a lot of chuckles. If you're looking for that, try the Comics Curmudgeon site. (Warning: seriously funny.)

This past week, Neiwert has had Sara Robinson doing guest-blogger duty. She's been using John Dean's new book Conservatives Without Conscience as a takeoff for a series of essays on rightwing authoritarians. RWA's, for short. She's done a sideline post or two, also, like this one on George "ah luv the coloreds" Allen: Spanking the Alpha Monkey 08/16/06.

She has an unusual background for this. She's part of a support-network-group thing for recovering Christian fundamentalists. No, I didn't know there were such things, either. She describes some things about it in this post: Listening to the Leavers 08/12/06.

She uses the metaphor of the Wall to stand for the barrier of suspicion and fear that adherents of authoritarian movements put up between themselves and the outsiders. It sounds like their support group is similar to anti-cult groups that try to assist people leaving cults. It's not exactly the same thing, although there are cults that use some sort of more-or-less fundamentalist religion as their ideology.

But there can be a lot of similarity. Some churches and Christian fundamentalist groups really do create a kind of closed community in which outsiders are simply discounted in terms of credibility or values. They can even develop distinctive meanings for words that we're seeing more and more as a factor in politics. For instance, Bush's reference to the pre-Civil War Dred Scott Supreme Court decision may have seemed just odd to much of the audience. For anti-abortionists, though it was a code phrase for Bush's opposition to abortion and identification with them. Condi-Condi's unfortunate reference to the Israel-Lebanese war as the "birth pangs" for a new Middle East similarly was a statement of identification with fundi End Times beliefs.

And some fundamentalist churches have a structure of supervision and control that can fall pretty heavily on the cult side of a continuum from normal to cult. I'm thinking in particular of things like the "shepherding movement". (If you want to differentiate between fundamentalism and Pentecostalism, the shepherding movement is more of a Pentecostal phenomenon.)

Robinson's 08/16/06 post Escape Ladders is presumably heavily based in her experience with the recovering fundamentalists' network, although it's written to apply to more secular-political forms of authoritarianism, too. As a result, much of this particular post reads like instructions on how to make a sales pitch of sorts. And in the context of helping people who want to change their lives from being dominated by fundamentalist Christianity, that makes a lot of sense. Conversion and proselytizing are major themes for fundis, as well as their flip side: avoiding being polluted by the wicked beliefs of the outsiders.

In that post, she writes:

The angry hard-core authoritarians - especially those raised in acutely authoritarian homes, and those with a long history of active participation in authoritarian movements - are not likely to be interested in reality-based thinking. And people with a long history of addiction may actually do better in the highly-structured, rule-bound culture of authoritarianism - at least, until they do the hard work of resolving their core issues. Remember the old caution about pigs and singing lessons, and be realistic about your limits.

Look, look, the evil liberal is calling Christians pigs!!! No, not really. Some of the Biblically literate would also connect that comment about pigs with Jesus' advice to his disciples to not cast their pearls before swine, in King-James-version-speak. Don't throw your pearls in front of pigs, in more modern English.

In talking to right-wing authoritarians (RWAs) -- in any situation -- the first and greatest challenge is to reduce the level of fear and increase the level of trust. ...

The liberal penchant for seeing life in infinite shades of grey annoys the hell out of conservatives in general, and authoritarians most particularly. It's the main reason they think we don't stand for anything. "It depends" is not an answer they find comfort in, and long explanations are seen as obfuscation, not clarification.

Yet there are things we do believe in - fervently, and with great passion. We should not be afraid to state our moral principles, especially the ones that can be fairly articulated in near-absolutes and with a certain amount of zeal. They're impressed by zeal, and are often surprised to find that we have our own share of it. If you can unambiguously and firmly state a principle that you share with the RWA (marriage, family, and community are great topics for this kind of commonality), you'll find them warming to you quickly. ...

When citing authorities, try wherever possible to refer to authorities they recognize as legitimate. RWAs have far more respect for established authority than liberals do; but, at the same time, they usually don't accept our reality-based authorities (and often hold them in total contempt). The only way around this is to support your points by finding and citing authorities they accept.

You need to get creative here. An RWA may not regard Al Gore as an acceptable authority on the environment; but Richard Nixon (who passed the Endangered Species Act, and founded the EPA) might well be.

She also makes an important point in the following, although her comment that authoritarians "do not think in abstracts" may be misleading in terms of her point. I would put it that although authoritarians are inclined to speak in terms of grand abstractions, it's not really possible for outsiders to communicate with them effectively at a high level of abstraction. The abstractions make a good defense mechanism, because the outsiders' abstract statements can either be discarded as wrongheaded and sinful, or simply interpreted consistently with the authoritarian view. She writes:

As I mentioned in the last post, fundies (and most other flavors of authoritarian) do not think in abstracts. While they can usually summon empathy for people in their own belief communities - people who are very much like them -- they have a very hard time imagining themselves in the shoes of people who are different. And the greater the difference, the harder this is.

This inability to empathize makes it very easy to demonize outsiders, accuse them of all manner of vile motives and outrageous actions, and eventually move toward dehumanization and eliminationism. In turn, this can come back around to feed a very active persecution complex. The fear that results from this failure of imagination is the driving force that keeps them huddled behind that Wall.

This is why it's important to keep any critiques of ideas and people as personal and literal as possible. You need to draw a clear, bright line connecting the negative personal harm that particular RWA has sustained as the direct result of a policy, and the specific leader who implemented it. As we know all too well, there's no limit to the amount or degree of abuse a determined RWA will forgive; but making people see the concrete damage their leaders are inflicting on them personally may in time re-direct their sense of persecution, and undermine the legitimacy of their accepted authorities.

Literal, personal critiques work in a wide range of situations. They're useful in getting across the effects of bad policy, the policies of bad leaders, hypocrisies and contradictions, and inaccurate information. Any time you can frame a point in terms of, "This person/policy/action has harmed you , this much and in this way," you're more likely (though still far from certain) to get your point across. If you can't say, with proof, that "Bush did this to you, you probably won't get through.

She has other quite interesting things to say in that post, like a discussion of the "enlightened witness". But I'll use one final quote here:

However: as kum-bay-yah (and stereotypically liberal) as all this talk of "understanding" individual RWAs may be, it doesn't mean that we stop holding the authoritarians in our midst accountable for the misbehavior of their public figures and the recklessness of their policies. It doesn't mean that we stop correcting the media when it misrepresents our views, or aggressively fight for solutions that will ultimate break the cycle of right-wing authoritarianism that now dominates American politics. While the work of bringing these missing Americans back into the larger fold is gentle and slow (we may well spend a decade or more bringing the bulk of them back), the work of recovering America as we knew her requires a fierce energy that draws firm boundaries, demands an honest reckoning, and requires constant and determined assertion of our own good values.

One of the minor but intriguing mysteries of modern politics to me is how the [Cheney] the old religious folk song "Kumbayah" got seemingly universally identified as some kind of hippie leftwing appeasement-loving French-sympathizing antiwar anthem. Has anyone ever heard of "Kumbayah" being sung at an antiwar rally? A civil rights march? Maybe it was, I don't know. The only time I ever recall singing it was as a kid at a church bonfire. (Don't ask.)

The lyrics aren't exactly Bolshevik fare: "Come by here, my Lord, come by here ..." Why do Republicans sneer at a traditional Christian song like that? Is it because they hate religion and want to stamp out Christianity?

Anyway, getting to Mad Annie Coulter, Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby has been taking a couple of liberal bloggers to task for suggesting that liberals shouldn't bother to pay attention to the rantings and hate-mongering and promotion of violence by Mad Annie. Ezra Klein and Kevin Drum were the targets of his verbal wrath in that regard this week. Kevin Drum had posed the question about Mad Annie, "What's the point? And why do people bother responding to her obviously contrived provocations?" The Howler's take on it:

Why would someone “bother to comment” on Coulter? Because she’s one of the most influential writers in the country? Because the landscape is crawling with people who don’t know they’re being played by her books? Because her message is getting out? We’d ask an obvious question ourselves: If we don’t bother responding to number-one New York Times best-sellers, what exactly do we respond to? What exactly are we saving our precious fluids for?

Perhaps we should cover our eyes like kids, then delight when the lady disappears! Clearly, we’re all living inside a dream when Kevin - whose work we greatly admire - asks such a puzzling question.

The Howler also made this comment, which I kind of liked:

Clearly, Homer was right from the start. The immortal gods do rock with laughter as they gaze on us from Olympus. If you’re still resisting this fact, you’ve gone into deep, deep denial.

His main point, which he has made many times in many ways, is that the Dems have to be aware of the kind of things that Republicans voters take seriously. And, sad and bizarre though it is, Mad Annie is someone they take seriously. Although, of course, her suggestions of public figures to murder as taken as "political humor". Ha, ha.

The Howler writes:

We’ve told you for years, and you all now see it. One side will fight - and the other side won’t. Their side won’t stop saying things which are false; our side refuses to say what is true. (We refuse to speak as a matter of principle!) Their side is stumping all over the country. We’re in the OC, taking in Jeopardy. Why would we bother to comment on Coulter? Because we care about things of the world? Because Coulterism is driving debate - and because Coulterism is phony?

His summary description of Mad Annie's schtick is also worthwhile: "Coulterism is tribal - and pre-historic - and it’s important that we understand how it works."

posted at 6:04:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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