Politics and Political Language

 

Politics and Political Language

Peter Schultz

 

 

• "'Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.  One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase...into the dustbin where it belongs'" (Elkins 431).

 

Politics and its language make lies seem truthful and murder respectable. So, politicians who are killing children and other civilians speak of “collateral damage,” as if that justifies the death, the incineration of the innocent for reasons, allegedly, of national security. It is interesting and not often enough commented upon that politics turns decent, law-abiding humans into killers, as in one case that I know of, turning a Boy Scout into a Vietnamese-killing Marine. It turns out that the “distance” that separates a Boy Scout from a killer is no further than a challenge to “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” Quite a few answered that question by signing up to kill Vietnamese.

 

I am reading a book entitled A Nation Diagnosed: Trump Derangement Syndrome and the Politics of Losing Our Minds, by Wade T. Reason. Reason’s analysis of TDS leads him to conclude that “It [has] become a feature of political life – not a bug.” But what Reason fails to emphasize enough is that TDS is merely a feature of political life; it is not an anomaly, and it is not unique the era of Trump. TDS is just a way of disguising the character of normal politics, that the political arena is composed of allies and enemies, and that enemies are always seen as “deranged.”

 

As a reflection of this, the left, the resisters also engage in TDS, making Trump into an existential enemy. As a comedian said: “We didn’t want to beat Trump. We needed him.” Exactly. Both the Trumpers and the resisters need enemies, especially existential enemies, just as the US and the USSR needed existential enemies after WW II. So, the Trump Derangement Syndrome was not derangement at all. It was just a label given to what is normal politics. Or, perhaps, TDS was and is derangement, meaning that politicians are, normally, deranged, sick, or narcissistic. So, when Reason says that TDS “normalizes the abnormal,” the implication is that politics, normal politics, “normalizes the abnormal.” For example, the bombings of Nagasaki and Dresden, the Holocaust, the Vietnam war, the British repression in Kenya, 9/11, Bush’s worldwide War on Terror, 1/6.

 

As Reason points out, “Trump didn’t divide America – he reflected it.” “The culture wars didn’t begin with Trump. Neither did political polarization, racial tension, class resentment, or distrust of the media.” As Ta-Nehist Coates put it: “Donald Trump is a symptom, not the cause, A mirror, not a mastermind.” In other words, Trump is merely a reflection of politics as it exists in the United States these days. “We weren’t one country waiting for unity. We were two countries sharing a flag. [Trump] stopped pretending otherwise.”

 

Politicians and Poets

 

Politicians and Poets

Peter Schultz

 

 

Politicians seek to conquer, while poets seek to cultivate. Politicians militarize, while poets humanize. Politicians moralize, while poets philosophize. 

Politicians and poets live in different worlds or live in the world differently. The choice is yours. 

Another Crazy Thought

 

Another Crazy Thought

Peter Schultz

 

 

I recently contrasted the madhouse paradigm with the slaughterhouse paradigm. But what if they are actually joined together? Those who fail to recognize the madhouse that is politics end up creating slaughterhouses in their attempts to bring order into the madhouse. This is something the Realists, the Power Brokers, the Masters of the Universe, don’t understand. 

(And this was why Kesey disowned the movie version of his book “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest:” the movie humanized the Big Nurse. The book did not.) 

Trump’s moves in DC will become increasingly oppressive as he attempts to bring order to the madhouse of DC life. 

A significant delusion: that life is intrinsically orderly or that order is “the default” setting for humans and so it’s possible, even somewhat easy, to “restore” order. Not so much. All order is imposed, so all order(s) is/are precarious, intrinsically so.  Beware the slaughterhouses.

The Love of Fame

The Love of Fame

Peter Schultz

 

Hamilton wrote in the Federalist about “The love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds….” What if Hamilton was wrong and the love of fame is not always an indication, a characteristic of a noble mind? What if the love of fame is characteristic of narcissistic minds, of those who think of themselves as great, as visionaries, ala’ Napoleon, Churchill, T. Roosevelt, W. Wilson, George W. Bush? 

 

And then what is to ensure that those “great projects” that Hamilton tells us the lovers of fame undertake will be as concerned with the common good as with satisfying their passion, the lust for fame? Recall Lincoln: the really great ones would enslave freemen or free slaves in order to satisfy their love of fame, their desire for “immortality.” And after all, the founders reconciled themselves to slavery in order to gain their fame. And as Walter Karp reminds us, Woodrow Wilson took the US into WW I, thereby helping to destroy the republic, in order to claim the fame of waging the war to end all wars. Even President McKinley succumbed to the temptation to wage war in order to make America and himself great. 

 

Isn’t this what Franklin was warning the constitutional convention about in his remarks on not paying presidents? Ambition and avarice combined are political nitro glycerin, with the result that the presidency will not attract men of peace. And certainly, the lovers of fame seem to be attracted to war and war-like politics. Absent war can presidents achieve greatness, fame? Hence, the allure of war. 

 

In the end, we end up with Trump, who confirms that the love of fame is not only consistent with narcissism but even fortifies it. Trump’s narcissism has flourished in the presidency. And of course Trump lives amidst other narcissists, who are also seeking fame. is this what Madison meant when he wrote in the Federalist that ambition should be used to check ambition because relying on virtue is never sufficient? Narcissists checking narcissists. What could go wrong? 

 

People and Politics

 

People and Politics

Peter Schultz

 

People want answers and that’s what politicians and politics promise to provide. Regarding abortion, e.g., pro-life and pro-choice provide answers, clear, concise, easily defensible answers. 

Try an alternative: pro-love. Doesn’t provide answers but rather raises questions. And the answers to these questions aren’t clear, concise, or easily defensible. Hence, this alternative will never be viable politically.  

Questions make almost all people discontent. Almost all people want answers, clear, concise, easily defensible answers, answers they would die and even kill for. Ambivalence, however appropriate it is, is not a political or a moral virtue. Ambivalence implies that asking the right questions is more important than clear, concise, and easily defensible answers. 

[Academic postscript: This has helped me understand Aristotle’s Politics, which has the appearance of a mishmash, of parts obscure in themselves and that don’t seem to fit together. Maybe that is part of Aristotle’s teaching about politics: clear, concise, and easily defensible political answers are available, but those answers don’t reflect the character of the political, an arena where ambivalence is not only appropriate but beneficial. You may know the truth, but it won’t set you free. That’s the deal.] 

Operation Trump

 

Operation Trump

Peter Schultz

 

                  Trump is an almost perfect cover for a deeply corrupt political order, an order that exists and is arranged to benefit the few at the expense of the many. With Trump as president and as a leading political figure, that the real problem is a deeply corrupt political order disappears behind calls for Trump’s impeachment and his hyper conspiratorial view of politics and his rhetoric. In terms of hiding the thoroughly corrupted political order, the louder, the shriller the charges against Trump, the better.

 

                  For example, focusing on Trump, the fact that twice in the last few presidential elections, candidates who lost the popular vote won the presidency seems unimportant. That the people’s will was denied, in 2000 and again in 2016, is not deemed a defect in the reigning political order that needs fixing. Why should it be when Trump can be blamed for our failings and when, overall, that the few are favored over the many seems of marginal importance given the dangers created by Trump? That presidential elections favor the few, e.g., the wealthy few, over the many is obvious to pretty much everyone. But so long as Trump is center stage, such favoritism seems relatively unimportant.

 

                  As a result, the corruption, the rule of the few at the expense of the many, goes on unabated, serving and rewarding those who are profiting from this corruption. And those protesting Trump most loudly are, ironically, “co-conspirators” in helping to maintain our deeply corrupt political order.

The Problem of Civilization

 

The Problem of Civilization

Peter Schultz

 

                  In accounting for the savagery of the British Empire, Arnold Toynbee said that “There has been a ‘racialization’ of the division of those inside and those outside the civilized pale.” [Elkins, 180] While Toynbee’s assessment is not wrong, it obfuscates another, deeper problem, viz., the civilized pale itself. That problem reveals itself as hierarchy, in this case a hierarchy based on the British conviction of Britain’s superiority.

 

                  Hierarchy is civilization’s response to what is seen as chaos. In fact, politics may be described as navigating between chaos and hierarchy, with the civilized embracing hierarchy, a hierarchy that ultimately justifies imperialism, war, repression, despotism, and even inhumanity. In other words, whether racialized or not, civilization is problematic, at the very least. Hence, “the legacy of violence” of the British Empire, as Caroline Elkins calls her history of that empire. But it was not only a legacy of violence; it was also a legacy of savagery and inhumanity, both justified in the name of civilizing the Empire and the world.

 

                  However, civilization, hierarchy can be “beautified” via justice, friendship, caring, poetry, music, and love. That is, by embracing the erotic. This beautification does not, however, subvert hierarchy but it may be said to clothe it, to dress it up with grace. Because hierarchy is not subverted or overthrown, it remains strong, even predominant. Insofar as hierarchy remains unquestioned, imperialism, war, repression, despotism, and even inhumanity flourish, as happened in the British Empire. Triumphant nationalism is the soil in which imperialism, with its attendant features, takes root and thrives. Hierarchy bespeaks the onset and fortification of a military, despotic empire.

 

                  Regarding the other “extreme” of political life, the chaos can be beautified or seen as beautiful. There is beauty embedded in the chaos, the beauty of freedom, of adventure(s), of surprise, of mystery, of the magical, and of the inspirational. Again though, chaos, although containing beauty, is not subverted by the beautiful. Chaos persists, fortifying the appeal of hierarchy, of civilization, which seem necessary for survival. But “what if what you do to survive kills the things you love,” viz, the beautiful things, and you find your “God filled soul fill[ed] … with devils and dust?” [Springsteen, Devils and Dust]

 

                  Civilization is dangerous, however desirable or necessary it might seem. If you doubt that, just ask Socrates, Huck Finn, Billy Budd, Billy Pilgrim, Sheriff Bell, or the counselor.