a demi-Rant

by James Como (October 2016)

Whether good or bad, socio-cultural entropy has neither an end nor a beginning, and for it there is always a price to pay (i.e. the Civil War brings a substantially botched Reconstruction, the fall of Communism brings the Russian plutocracy and Putin). Yet, though always with us, not all entropic events are symmetrical: some are substantially good (say, the fall of Communism) or bad (say, the imposition from above – rather than it rising from a cultural consensus – of abortion-on-demand, which has led not only to the breakdown of serious social repulsion but, effectively, to the abandonment of the practices of persuasion and of consensus-building and also to our tolerance of showing just this disgusting event – baby seals being killed, for example – but not that – babies being killed in what should be the very safest place in all creation). Each of those claims, I know, would ordinarily require argument, and were this a different sort of essay I would provide that, but my interest here is not historical but rhetorical: our entropic public discourse

Distinctions are prohibited. Black lives matter. Period.  Opposition to Islamic terrorism is an attack on Islam. Reservations respecting “belief in” climate change (not at all the same as “belief that,” which allows specific questions about particular aspects of the phenomenon) must be, according to some, forbidden and punished. Any questioning of privileges for newly-coined “communities” (e.g. LGBTQ) must be demonized. At first PC was merely codified courtesy, but now, run amok, it has invited the pre-disposed each to become an O’Brien, Orwell’s horrific torturer who will not settle for hearing that 2+2=5 but demands of poor Winston that he believe it. For those of us who do not, or will not, get it, the entire world must be Room 101. (Imagine the responses if the following were to be spoken: “What do you mean I shouldn’t smoke while I’m pregnant. You’ve already told me I can kill the mass of tissue growing inside me, so how is it not my right to decide how I do it? I ask as did Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I a woman?”)

The structure of media programming aggravates the affliction.  Sound bites, quarrel rather than argument, personality-driven stories, the need for a simple “narrative,” the decline of journalist standards (owing to the narcissistic needs of news people – as opposed to frankly-declared commentators – who crave cheers from their amen choruses), the trivialization of history (especially the history of ideas), motive-hunting, and sheer ignorance: these all now dominate public discourse. . . .

Part of the problem, I think, is creeping collectivism, a ramification of the balkanization that afflicts us. You can’t insult, say, a Serb, without insulting all Serbs. That sort of thing. Formally, it is the Fallacy of Composition, and here I am tempted merely to list the fallacies (e.g. begging the question, which has absolutely nothing to do with how the term is applied these days) rampant in public discourse. Another part of the problem – I’ll call it Faux Seriousness – is the taking of “responsibility” under false pretenses. In a nutshell, it is blameless blame. Hillary is sorry she used a private server but – other than that she’s been sorely inconvenienced by its discovery – neither says why she is sorry (in fact denying that it did any harm to anyone) nor facing any de jure consequences. Wherefore the “responsibility”? We tolerate it all. (I say “we” meaning the editorial “we,” not we the Jeremiahs in the wilderness.)

We have become impulsive rather than thoughtful. Reading, listening, conversing, thinking – with curiosity and humility – are no longer commonplace in the public square. Instead, moral exhibitionism is now on the counter next to drugs designed to make us feel good – about ourselves. I repeat (more or less): among pundits, news anchors, and political operatives there is too often an ignorance of recent (post WWII) history, impatience with ideas, and impatience with and ignorance of the ways of extended argument. In truth, the forums for such traits are rare: that sound bite, the gotcha moment, our pseudo-debates, and the sheer lack of time afforded real discussion by most formats (even those that pass as thoughtful) – all are lamentable. 

Finally, too many people are tempted by those false symmetries. We used to hear such nonsense during the Cold War, and now we’re hearing it from the president, in his case about ISIS and medieval Christianity. (That may be unfair of me: we do not know how much of his Columbia undergrad education he showed up for, unintoxicated.)

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James Como is the author, most recently, of The Tongue is Also a Fire: essays on conversation, rhetoric and the transmission of culture . . . and on C. S. Lewis (New English Review Press, 2015).

 

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